Dangers to the Faith

The principal dangers of faith are:

I. Reading of impious writings; concerning this, see the treatise on the precepts of the Church, and on Penance, where occasions of sin are discussed.

II. Marriages with non-Catholics, concerning which see the treatise on Marriage.

III. Attendance at non-Catholic schools; concerning this, see the treatise on the fourth precept of the Decalogue.

IV. Familiarity with non-Catholics; concerning this, let these words of the Apostle be noted: "Avoid a heretical man...";¹ likewise: "Their speech spreads like a cancer";² likewise: "Avoid them. For such persons do not serve Christ our Lord, but their own belly; and by sweet speeches and blessings they seduce the hearts of the innocent."³ To this also should be referred service among non-Catholics, concerning which see the treatise on states of life. Besides, the ecclesiastical laws which regarded association with Jews, and which in most regions had almost been abrogated by custom, are omitted in the new Code, and therefore, insofar as they were merely ecclesiastical, have been removed. Hence attention must be paid only to natural law.

¹ Titus 3:10.

² 2 Tim. 2:17.

³ Rom. 16:17-18.

V. Communication with non-Catholics in sacred and mixed matters. Active communication (n. 500) is prohibited not only by reason of the danger of losing the faith, but also either as cooperation in evil, as if someone asks for a sacrament from a non-Catholic, or as profession of a false religion, as if someone participates in a non-Catholic rite, for example by singing psalms with non-Catholics, receiving a heretical supper, etc. (n. 500). It is licit to pray orthodox prayers privately with them.

Concerning passive communication, see what was said in n. 500.

VI. Associations to be reproved. "The faithful are worthy of praise if they give their names to associations erected or at least commended by the Church; but let them beware of secret, condemned, seditious, suspected associations, or associations which strive to withdraw themselves from the legitimate vigilance of the Church" (can. 684).

Corollary I. It is illicit to give one's name to anti-Catholic associations, whether religious or social, of which sort are, for example:

Masonic societies;¹ Carbonari;² Fenians;³ Anarchists;⁴ Communists, Nihilists, Internationalists, and Socialists;⁵ theosophical societies;⁶ biblical societies;⁷ clerico-liberal societies;⁸ a society erected for procuring the unity of Christianity;⁹ workers' societies which are called Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, Knights of Pythias;¹⁰ the Independent Order of Good Templars (Guttempler-Orden);¹¹ and societies which promote the cremation of human corpses.¹²

Corollary II. Per se it is also illicit to give one's name to social associations, whether indeed Christian but not specifically Catholic, or neutral. The reason is that social questions too must be solved with dependence on the Catholic Church, and not, as happens in the aforesaid associations, independently of her (n. 117). There is added that dangers to faith and morals are not so rarely attached to societies of this sort.

Corollary III. By reason of dangers, other associations or parties also can be prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, as, for example, Action Française.¹³

Corollary IV. As regards the gravity of the sin committed by one who gives his name to an association to be reproved, it must be said as follows:

1. One who, as is commonly done by those of whom we are speaking, internally admits some proposition reproved by the Church sins gravely.

2. One who internally does not admit any doctrine definitively proscribed by the Church nevertheless sins gravely:

a) If he gives his name to an anti-Catholic association, whether religious or social; both because at least externally he professes errors rejected by the Church, and because there are added cooperation, scandal, and often danger to faith, arising from the fact that he has given his name to a party which professes evil principles, pursues evil ends, and uses evil means.

b) If he gives his name to an association or party named and truly prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, because a prohibition of this sort is judged to have been made under grave obligation.

c) It is not clear that the same must per se be said of one who gives his name to a social association, whether Christian but not specifically Catholic, or neutral, but nevertheless not positively prohibited. In the case, a grave cause can excuse, unless scandal to be avoided because of the circumstances stands in the way.

¹ Can. 2335.

² Cf. Constitution of Pius VII Ecclesiam, September 25, 1821, and Leo XII, Quo graviora, March 13, 1825; cited canon.

³ Cf. Holy Office, January 12, 1870; cited canon.

⁴ Cited canon.

⁵ Encyclical of Leo XIII Quod apostolici muneris, December 28, 1878; Encyclical of Pius XI Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931.

⁶ Cf. Holy Office, July 18, 1919 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1919, p. 317).

⁷ Constitution of Pius IX Qui pluribus, 1846.

⁸ Syllabus, § 178; Encyclical of Pius IX Quanta cura, December 8, 1864; Encyclical of Leo XIII Libertas, June 20, 1888.

⁹ Cf. Holy Office, September 16, 1864, November 8, 1865 (Collectanea de Propaganda Fide, nn. 1262, 1276).

¹⁰ Holy Office, August 20, 1894.

¹¹ Holy Office, August 9, 1893 (Collectanea, n. 1845).

¹² Holy Office, May 19, 1886 (Acta Sanctae Sedis, t. 19, p. 46).

¹³ Cf. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1926, pp. 382, 517, 529; 1927, pp. 5, 157.

Dangers to Faith.—One becomes guilty of heresy, infidelity, doubts against faith, etc., indirectly, by placing oneself in the danger of those sins (see 258 sqq., on the Dangers of Sin). Dangers of this kind are partly internal, partly external.

(a) Internal dangers to faith are especially the following: intellectual pride or an excessive spirit of independence, which makes one unwilling to accept authority; love of pleasure, which sets one at odds with the precepts of faith; neglect of prayer and piety, particularly in time of temptation.

(b) External dangers to faith are especially as follows: literature opposed to religion; schools where unbelief is defended; mixed marriages; association with unbelievers in religious matters; certain societies.

by which certain propositions are rejected and proscribed.

"With truly lamentable result, our age, impatient of restraint in investigating the highest reasons of things, not rarely follows new things in such a way that, having dismissed as it were the inheritance of the human race, it falls into most grave errors. These errors will be far more pernicious if there is question of sacred disciplines, if of interpreting Sacred Scripture, if of the principal mysteries of faith. But it must be deeply lamented that there are found also among Catholics not a few writers who, having passed beyond the boundaries established by the Fathers and by Holy Church itself, under the appearance of a higher understanding and in the name of historical consideration, seek that progress of dogmas which in reality is their corruption.

But lest errors of this kind, which daily are spread among the faithful, fix roots in their minds and corrupt the sincerity of the faith, it pleased our Most Holy Lord Pius, Pope X by divine providence, that through this office of the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition those which were chief among them should be noted and rejected.

Wherefore, after a most diligent examination had been instituted, and after the vote of the Reverend Consultors had been received, the Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinals, General Inquisitors in matters of faith and morals, judged that the propositions which follow are to be rejected and proscribed, as by this general Decree they are rejected and proscribed:

1. The ecclesiastical law which prescribes that books concerning the Divine Scriptures be subjected to prior censorship does not extend to cultivators of criticism or of scientific exegesis of the books of the Old and New Testament.

2. The Church's interpretation of the Sacred Books is indeed not to be despised, but nevertheless it is subject to the more accurate judgment and correction of exegetes.

3. From ecclesiastical judgments and censures brought against free and more cultivated exegesis, it can be gathered that the faith proposed by the Church contradicts history, and that Catholic dogmas cannot in reality be reconciled with the truer origins of the Christian religion.

4. The Magisterium of the Church, not even through dogmatic definitions, can determine the genuine sense of the Sacred Scriptures.

5. Since in the deposit of faith only revealed truths are contained, under no respect does it pertain to the Church to pass judgment on the assertions of human disciplines.

6. In defining truths, the learning Church and the teaching Church collaborate in such a way that nothing remains for the teaching Church except to sanction the common opinions of the learning Church.

7. When the Church proscribes errors, she cannot require from the faithful any internal assent by which they embrace the judgments issued by her.

8. They are to be considered immune from all fault who make nothing of the condemnations issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Index or by the other Sacred Roman Congregations.

9. They display excessive simplicity or ignorance who believe that God is truly the author of Sacred Scripture.

10. The inspiration of the books of the Old Testament consists in this, that the Israelite writers handed down religious doctrines under a certain peculiar aspect, little known or unknown to the Gentiles.

11. Divine inspiration is not extended to the whole of Sacred Scripture in such a way that it safeguards all and each of its parts from every error.

12. If an exegete wishes to engage usefully in biblical studies, he must first set aside any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Sacred Scripture, and interpret it no otherwise than other merely human documents.

13. The evangelic parables were artfully arranged by the Evangelists themselves and by Christians of the second and third generation, and thus they gave the reason for the slight fruit of Christ's preaching among the Jews.

14. In many narratives the Evangelists reported not so much the things which are true, as those which, although false, they judged more profitable for readers.

15. The Gospels, up to the definite and constituted canon, were augmented by continual additions and corrections; therefore there remained in them only a slender and uncertain trace of the doctrine of Christ.

16. The narratives of John are not properly history, but a mystical contemplation of the Gospel; the discourses contained in his Gospel are theological meditations concerning the mystery of salvation, destitute of historical truth.

17. The Fourth Gospel exaggerated miracles not only so that they might appear more extraordinary, but also so that they might become more apt for signifying the work and glory of the Incarnate Word.

18. John indeed claims for himself the character of a witness concerning Christ; but in reality he is only an eminent witness of the Christian life, or of the life of Christ in the Church, at the end of the first century.

19. Heterodox exegetes have expressed the true sense of the Scriptures more faithfully than Catholic exegetes.

20. Revelation could have been nothing other than the consciousness acquired by man of his relation to God.

21. Revelation, constituting the object of Catholic faith, was not completed with the Apostles.

22. The dogmas which the Church declares as revealed are not truths fallen down from heaven, but are a certain interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has acquired for itself by laborious effort.

23. There can exist, and in reality there does exist, opposition between the facts which are narrated in Sacred Scripture and the dogmas of the Church founded upon them; so that the critic can reject as false facts which the Church believes as most certain.

24. An exegete is not to be reproved who sets up premises from which it follows that dogmas are historically false or doubtful, provided he does not directly deny the dogmas themselves.

25. The assent of faith rests ultimately on a heap of probabilities.

26. Dogmas of faith are to be retained only according to a practical sense, that is, as a preceptive norm of acting, but not as a norm of believing.

27. The divinity of Jesus Christ is not proved from the Gospels; but it is a dogma which Christian consciousness deduced from the notion of Messiah.

28. When Jesus exercised his ministry, he did not speak for the purpose of teaching that he was the Messiah, nor did his miracles tend to demonstrate this.

29. It is permitted to grant that the Christ whom history exhibits is far inferior to the Christ who is the object of faith.

30. In all the Gospel texts the name Son of God is equivalent only to the name Messiah, and by no means signifies that Christ is the true and natural Son of God.

31. The doctrine about Christ which Paul, John, and the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon hand down is not that which Jesus taught, but that which Christian consciousness conceived about Jesus.

32. The natural sense of the Gospel texts cannot be reconciled with what our theologians teach concerning the consciousness and infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ.

33. It is evident to anyone who is not led by preconceived opinions that Jesus either professed an error concerning the near messianic advent, or that the greater part of his doctrine contained in the Synoptic Gospels lacks authenticity.

34. The critic cannot assert that Christ had knowledge circumscribed by no limit except by making a hypothesis which historically can hardly be conceived and which is repugnant to the moral sense, namely that Christ as man had the knowledge of God and nevertheless was unwilling to communicate knowledge of so many things with the disciples and posterity.

35. Christ did not always have consciousness of his messianic dignity.

36. The Resurrection of the Savior is not properly a fact of the historical order, but a fact of the merely supernatural order, neither demonstrated nor demonstrable, which Christian consciousness gradually derived from others.

37. Faith in the Resurrection of Christ from the beginning was not so much about the fact itself of the Resurrection, as about the immortal life of Christ with God.

38. The doctrine concerning the expiatory death of Christ is not evangelical but only Pauline.

39. The opinions concerning the origin of the sacraments with which the Tridentine Fathers were imbued, and which without doubt had influence on their dogmatic canons, are far distant from those which now rightly prevail among historical investigators of Christian matters.

40. The sacraments had their origin from this, that the Apostles and their successors, with circumstances and events urging and moving them, interpreted some idea and intention of Christ.

41. The sacraments tend only to this, that they recall to the mind of man the ever-beneficent presence of the Creator.

42. The Christian community introduced the necessity of baptism, adopting it as a necessary rite and attaching to it the obligations of Christian profession.

43. The use of conferring baptism on infants was a disciplinary evolution, which was one of the causes for the sacrament being resolved into two, namely into baptism and penance.

44. Nothing proves that the rite of the sacrament of confirmation was used by the Apostles; but the formal distinction of two sacraments, namely baptism and confirmation, does not belong to the history of primitive Christianity.

45. Not all things which Paul narrates concerning the institution of the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:23-25) are to be taken historically.

46. In the primitive Church the concept of the Christian sinner reconciled by the authority of the Church was not present, but the Church became accustomed to this kind of concept only very slowly. Indeed, even after penance was recognized as an institution of the Church, it was not called by the name of sacrament, because it was held as a shameful sacrament.

47. The words of the Lord: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you shall retain, they are retained (John 20:22-23), by no means refer to the sacrament of penance, whatever it pleased the Tridentine Fathers to assert.

48. James in his Epistle (vv. 14 and 15) does not intend to promulgate any sacrament of Christ, but to commend some pious custom; and if perhaps in this custom he sees some means of grace, he does not take it with that rigor with which theologians who established the notion and number of the sacraments took it.

49. When the Christian supper gradually assumed the character of a liturgical action, those who had been accustomed to preside over the Supper acquired a priestly character.

50. The elders who discharged the duty of overseeing in the assemblies of Christians were instituted by the Apostles as priests or bishops to provide for the necessary ordering of growing communities, not properly to perpetuate the Apostolic mission and power.

51. Marriage could not become a sacrament of the new law except later in the Church; since, in order that marriage be held as a sacrament, it was necessary that a full doctrine concerning grace and a theological explanation concerning the sacraments precede.

52. It was alien to the mind of Christ to constitute the Church as a society upon earth destined to endure through a long series of centuries; indeed, in the mind of Christ the kingdom of heaven together with the end of the world was about to come very soon.

53. The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable; but Christian society, just as human society, is subject to perpetual evolution.

54. Dogmas, sacraments, hierarchy, both as regards notion and as regards reality, are only interpretations and evolutions of Christian understanding, which by external increments increased and perfected the small germ hidden in the Gospel.

55. Simon Peter never even suspected that primacy in the Church had been entrusted to him by Christ.

56. The Roman Church became the head of all the Churches not by the ordination of divine providence, but from merely political conditions.

57. The Church shows herself hostile to the progress of the natural and theological sciences.

58. Truth is not immutable any more than man himself is, since it evolves with him, in him, and through him.

59. Christ did not teach a determinate body of doctrine applicable to all times and all men, but rather began a certain religious movement adapted or to be adapted to diverse times and places.

60. Christian doctrine in its beginnings was Judaic, but by successive evolutions became first Pauline, then Johannine, finally Hellenic and universal.

61. It can be said without paradox that no chapter of Scripture, from the first of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse, contains doctrine entirely identical with that which the Church hands down on the same matter, and therefore that no chapter of Scripture has the same sense for the critic as for the theologian.

62. The principal articles of the Apostles' Creed did not have for Christians of the first times the same signification which they have for Christians of our time.

63. The Church shows herself unequal to effectively safeguarding evangelical ethics, because she obstinately adheres to immutable doctrines which cannot be reconciled with modern progress.

64. The progress of the sciences demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, concerning Creation, concerning Revelation, concerning the Person of the Incarnate Word, and concerning Redemption be reformed.

65. Modern Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true science unless it is transformed into a certain non-dogmatic Christianity, that is, into broad and liberal Protestantism.

But on the following Thursday, the fourth day of the same month and year, after an accurate report concerning all these things had been made to our Most Holy Lord Pius, Pope X, His Holiness approved and confirmed the Decree of the Eminent Fathers, and ordered that all and each of the propositions reviewed above be held by all as rejected and proscribed."

General View. — Faith, a precious gift descending from the Father of lights, which the faithful carry in earthen vessels, the Church must fortify with safeguards, and she does not omit to do so.

Already for this end the profession of Faith, the abjuration of modern errors, is prescribed to many, so that rectors and leaders may not be devastators but upright and secure leaders and teachers of the faithful.

Then the laws concerning the censorship and prohibition of books admonish the faithful which writings they may approach safely and with an unoffending foot; which other writings are in no way, or only very cautiously, to be taken up. These laws are explained III, n. 889-906.

To this also pertains the proscription of propositions.

Then by the medicinal penalties themselves of censures, the faithful are taught to guard themselves from heresy and heretics, besides vindictive penalties which, as denounced, restrain heretical audacities.

Finally faith is protected by prohibitions which regard communication with unbelievers and non-Catholics, or disputations with heretics and exhibitions of religions.

Since the other things have already been declared, we must briefly discuss both of the latter arguments.

521. Preliminary note. Since faith is so necessary for obtaining salvation, it follows at once that man is bound with all diligence to avoid the proximate dangers of faith. Such dangers are either internal, e.g. pride, cupidity, an unregulated life; or external, of which the principal are: 1. association or communication with heretics and unbelievers, 2. attendance at non-Catholic schools, 3. reading of bad books, 4. marriages entered with heretics or unbelievers. About each we shall say a few things. By way of scholion we shall treat of the internal dangers of faith.

There are especially three things which bring danger to faith, namely: 1. liberty of worships conceded by a prince; 2. communication with heretics or unbelievers; 3. reading of depraved books.

In voluntarily incurring these dangers there is given a fault of imprudence, which nevertheless is not always mortal, nor opposed to faith; and therefore it does not necessarily expel the habit of faith (Tanquerey, I, 655-659). If the imprudence is against faith, from the fact that someone proximately exposes himself to danger, there will be present a grave sin of infidelity.

444. Note beforehand. That liberty or equality of worships lies greatly in ambush against the Catholic faith, nothing is more evident than this. For through it there is brought into Catholic kingdoms that horrible system, most repugnant even to the natural light of reason itself, "of the indifference of any religion whatsoever, which, after every distinction of truth and error has been taken away, boldly asserts that men can attain eternal salvation in the worship of any religion whatsoever," and thus it casts peoples down into the abyss of incredulity (Pius IX, Enc., November 9, 1846).

445. PRINCIPLES. I. Liberty of worships, considered as doctrine, is a false principle of liberalism, which a Catholic legislator ought to impede by all the ways in which he can. Reason: he who cannot favor lesser vices, how much more ought he to resist those things which tear out the foundations of the commonwealth (St. Alph., de Prohib. lib., c. 1, n. 4; opusc. Fedelta dei vassalli).

Liberalism is a politico-religious system which professes an independence of the State from the Church so complete that the State rules itself, no respect being had to Religion, as if this did not exist, and all religions were in reality equal in themselves.

Moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have always reprobated this liberty and equality of worships: "What more insane can be devised?" exclaims Pius VI in the Letter to Cardinal La Rochefoucauld (on March 10, 1791). Gregory XVI, in the Encyclical Mirari vos; Pius IX, in the Encyclical Quanta cura (December 8, 1864) and in the Syllabus (propositions 77, 78, and 79); Leo XIII, in the Encyclical Libertas (June 20, 1888), condemned this system by their supreme authority. The same Pontiff spoke thus concerning this doctrine in the Encyclical Immortale Dei: "If it differs from Atheism in name, in reality it differs not at all."

Note. But what kind of sin against faith he commits who professes liberalism was said above at n. 441.

II. Liberty of worships and of conscience can sometimes be tolerated where the prince cannot impede it without graver detriment to the true religion and commonwealth. Thus the Angelic Doctor teaches (2.2, q. 10, a. 11): Human rule is derived from divine rule, and ought to imitate it. But God, although he is omnipotent and supremely good, nevertheless permits some evils to be done in the universe which he could prohibit, lest, by their being removed, greater goods be taken away, or even worse evils follow. St. Alphonsus is plainly consonant with the Angelic Doctor (II, 18). Cf. Zigliara, Summa Phil., p. 247.

III. Liberty of worships, existing in fact, creates a twofold danger for the faithful, both of embracing the theoretical error concerning the equal value of religions, and of confusing political tolerance with dogmatic tolerance (Villada, Casus Consc., I, p. 59).

The matter is clear. From this twofold danger it must always be discerned whether someone in reality has fallen into a sin opposed to faith, or has only undergone the danger of falling into it, and whether the matter is one of doctrinal liberalism, or only of political parties.

446. From these things you will resolve: A. As regards liberalism, as it is doctrine:

In order to determine what sin against faith he commits who professes this liberalism, one must carefully inspect (as Genicot says) what he understands by the sentence to which he gives assent, since among those who have not completely turned aside to atheism or rationalism and who wish to remain Catholics, this word liberalism is taken with manifold variety; then one must see how far, by reason of ignorance and good faith, each one is excused from formal sin.

Hence: 1. He is a heretic who: a) fully embraces the doctrine of liberalism, that is, the full independence of the State from the Church, or (what is worse) the subjection of the Church to the authority of the State. For some subordination of the State to the Church is manifestly contained in the full power with which Christ furnished Peter and his successors; b) the same must be said of those liberals who pertinaciously hold certain particular doctrines which are also adverse to divine faith, for example, that by force of a merely civil contract there is given among Christians a true marriage. Cf. Sarda y Salvani, Le liberalisme est un peche.

2. They are excused from heresy, but expose themselves to danger, who defend these errors on account of ignorance for the most part culpable, and yet do not bear the mind of retaining them when they shall have known them to be reprobated by the Church. Likewise, by defect of religious assent, they sin gravely against prudence or reverence owed to the Church who hold only some secondary error, but one by no means contrary to divine faith, for example the 76th proposition of the Syllabus, concerning progress going to follow for the Church from the abrogation of the civil empire. But here some good faith can easily be admitted.

B. As regards liberalism, as it denotes political parties.

Before all things one must examine whether those who adhere to such parties nevertheless otherwise seem to fulfill the offices of good Catholics. Then it must prudently be explored whether they themselves admit something evil in doctrine or manner of acting, or without sufficient reason cooperate in the evil counsels of others; and according to these things let them be judged.

Concerning cooperation of this kind a question often occurs when there is question of schools, assemblies, and other social works.

447. Communication is either RELIGIOUS or in sacred rites, or CIVIL or political. The former is prohibited by reason of itself, by divine and ecclesiastical right, on account of scandal and cooperation in sin; namely insofar as it is simulation of false faith, or approbation of false religion (see n. 432). - The latter is prohibited chiefly by reason of the danger of perversion which it induces.

PRINCIPLES. I. Civil communication with unbelievers, heretics, and apostates is forbidden by the natural and divine law, if it is dangerous to those communicating. This is established from the things said at n. 374, and from several places of Sacred Scripture, for example the Epistle to Titus (3:10): Avoid a heretical man, and Romans (16:17, 18): Decline from them. For men of this kind do not serve Christ our Lord, but their own belly: and by sweet speeches and blessings they seduce the hearts of the innocent (cf. de Prohib. lib., c. 1).

Note. 1. From civil communication a threefold danger arises: a) lest the Catholic religion suffer detriment; b) lest someone make shipwreck of his own faith; c) lest others take scandal.

2. Apostates, free-thinkers, and heretics entice more to their errors than unbelievers do; because their speech creeps like a cancer (2 Tim. 2:17), and because Satan, so that he may more easily deceive the simple and unwary, with their help and work, is transfigured into an angel of light. The danger grows in places of heretics or unbelievers where there does not exist some church with a Catholic priest to whom it is free to exercise our rites publicly.

3. Formerly a more severe prohibition, even general, was had against civilly communicating, without just cause, with heretics and others denounced by name (cf. n. 1295). It was forbidden to Christians (cf. title de Judaeis in Canon Law) to dwell with Jews in the same house, to be present at banquets, to use a common bath, to employ them as physicians ... or to serve Jews. But these things, says Tanquerey, have passed more or less into desuetude, and today attention must rather be given to the danger of perversion (II, n. 677, note). Cf. Gury-Ferreres, I, n. 210; D'Annibale, I, n. 110.

4. For ITALIANS Clement VIII, Const. Cum sicut, established: a) That under whatever title they dare not dwell in places of heretics where there does not exist a church with a Catholic priest. b) That they not depart to dwell in the aforesaid places except after opportune admonitions have been received from the Ordinaries or inquisitors for guarding against the danger of subversion. c) That they not use heretical physicians if a suitable Catholic is present (Scavini, II, n. 820).

448. II. Religious communication with unbelievers, heretics, and apostates is of itself illicit and prohibited by the Church. It is established from reason and from the decisions cited above.

Note. 1. The prohibition is absolute in those things which contain heresy, as happens in active, public, and formal communication; it is only conditioned in those things which are administered in the Catholic rite, for example in mixed marriages, provided the dangers of religion are absent and ecclesiastical prohibition does not urge (cf. D'Annibale, l. c.; Gury-Ferreres, I, n. 209). The reason is clear, for the first is the same as truly to deny the true faith, to profess and simulate a false one (cf. n. 429), which is never licit; the other contains only the appearance of adhesion to a condemned sect, although it brings danger; yet all these things can and ought sometimes to be removed.

2. It can more easily be admitted that heretics communicate with us in our rites; for this has less danger than if we communicate with them.

3. It is more strictly prohibited to communicate in sacred rites with unbelievers, because besides other inconveniences there is almost always present participation in superstitious worship (cf. D'Annibale, l. c., and above n. 432).

449. IT IS ASKED. Whether DISPUTATION with heretics is prohibited?

It must be noted beforehand. A twofold disputation is given: public, which, with day and hour fixed, has place before a multitude and judges appointed; private, which is made before a few hearers.

Resp. 1. For laymen, Alexander IV (c. 2, § 1, de Haeret., in Sexto) established thus: "We prohibit that it be licit for any lay person to dispute publicly or privately concerning the Catholic faith. But he who shall do contrary, let him be bound by the snare of excommunication" (excommunication ferendae sententiae). The law is founded on the presumption that laymen are not sufficiently taught. Therefore exception must be made if the controversy is made by learned men with the Bishop's permission, or in a case of great usefulness, or of introduced custom, as in Germany.

2. "Disputation is prohibited to clerics by no right, provided that they are suitable, and from the circumstances a happy outcome can be hoped; but public disputation with heretics cannot be made without permission" (namely, of the Supreme Pontiff). Thus the Sacred Congregation of the Council, March 6, 1625, and several times the S. C. Prop. Fide. Yet in a case of necessity, if there is danger in delay, the Ordinary of the place can grant this license (Konings, n. 255).

Disputations with socialists are subject to the same rules, the Sacred Congregation for extraordinary affairs declared, January 27, 1902 (A. S. S., 38, p. 107. Cf. Canon. Cont., XXV, p. 335; Etudes, August 20, 1905, p. 480; Ami du Clerge, 1905, p. 354).

450. From these things you will resolve: 1. Marriages with heretics and unbelievers, as being generally dangerous for the Catholic party and offspring, are, regularly speaking, gravely illicit. Yet sometimes, for a grave cause, and every danger being removed, the Church permits marriages of this kind to avoid a greater evil (II, 19). See the treatise on Matrimony (n. 1986).

2. It is not licit to serve heretics when there is danger of perversion. The same must be said if the servant is for the most part impeded from fulfillment of the precepts of the Church; but otherwise if he is only rarely impeded.

3. To send little children, young men, or girls into schools of heretics or of impious men is a great sin and a very great evil, ordinarily never repairable (cf. n. 713 seqq.). See the Instruction of the Eminent Cardinal Vicar to the pastors of the Fair City, July 12, 1878 (A. S. S., vol. 11, p. 176). Likewise, parents sin gravely who for the sake of gain send their still tender children, or allow them to go, to places of heretics, without any necessity and due cautions.

4. Also with the greatest caution must young people be permitted to frequent associations called scholastic or postscholastic, or associations of Popular Universities, because often faith runs into danger there. See the things said at n. 432.

Through the publication of books opposed to faith (or to good morals), especially in this our age, an immense slaughter of souls is made (de Prohib. lib.; ed. G., I, p. 253).

451. PRINCIPLES. I. By force of the natural law, there is given a most grave obligation of avoiding the danger of perversion which arises from the publication, retention, and reading of depraved books. For: 1. "If a pernicious word, which immediately flies away, creeps like a cancer and wounds unto death: what evil does an improper book not bring, which can become a perpetual font of subversion?" (l. c., n. 2). 2. If a continual occasion of lust must altogether be removed, so that the penitent may deserve to be absolved, how much more a pernicious book inducing danger of losing faith?

Hence it is inferred: 1. Bishops, pastors, fathers of families, princes, magistrates, teachers, etc., ought to use the greatest vigilance in this matter.

2. Although someone has been furnished with the faculty of reading prohibited books, nevertheless he cannot read them if he knows or experiences that reading of this kind is harmful to him, or proximately dangerous, for example if he does not know how to distinguish truth from error (ibid., n. 12).

3. "In this matter, it is ordinarily expedient to follow the stricter opinions" (ibid., c. V, n. 8).

452. II. By force of positive law, books prohibited by the Church, whether with censure or without censure, without legitimate license, can neither be read nor retained. The Church has received jurisdiction from the Lord himself for prohibiting to the faithful the reading of books which contain something against religion, good morals, or the discipline of the Church. If this faculty were not with the Church, and the faithful were not bound to obey it in this, neither could faith be preserved unharmed, nor would Christ have sufficiently provided for his Church. Hence the Doctors rightly teach that the judgment of the Church concerning books is altogether infallible (ibid., c. 2, n. 1).

It was said: 1. Books prohibited by the Church. Under the name book is understood a writing which consists in some bulk and unity of object, which must be judged from the judgment of prudent persons. Therefore positive prohibition is not extended to newspapers, letters, flying sheets, unless special mention is made of these. But periodical booklets, whose several fascicles are joined into one, are to be counted among books properly so called (S. Off., January 15, 1892). 2. Whether with censure, such as by the Constitution Officiorum are both books of heretics or apostates defending heresy and books of any author whatsoever prohibited by name through apostolic letters. 3. Or without censure, that is, all books which are contained in the Index of prohibited books or comprehended by the general rules. 4. Can neither be read nor retained; but it is required and suffices that you destroy books of this kind in whatever way, or hand them over to one having the faculty of retaining them, because even by acting thus you do not retain them. 5. Without legitimate license: which license is to be obtained from the Roman Pontiff, for example through the S. Congregation of the Index; for the faculty of permitting belongs to him whose office it is to prohibit. The Congregations of the Holy Office and de Propaganda Fide enjoy the same power; likewise the Master of the Sacred Palace for the City. Sometimes, however, Bishops, by force of special faculties, are able to grant this license to priests (A. S. S., 7, p. 302). Cf. Const. Officiorum, which we shall explain more fully in the Appendix.

453. III. All Bishops by divine right, for their dioceses, have the power of proscribing and prohibiting, even under censure, either books, or even daily papers, of harmful reading. This belongs essentially to their office. Indeed, because knowledge of all harmful books cannot so easily and immediately come to Rome, it is often preferable that they be proscribed by their own authority without any delay interposed (VII, 290).

"Ordinaries, even as delegates of the Apostolic See, should strive to proscribe books and other harmful writings published or spread in their diocese, and to remove them from the hands of the faithful. Let them refer to Apostolic judgment works or writings which require more subtle examination, or in which, for obtaining a salutary effect, the sentence of supreme authority may seem to be required." Const. Officiorum, n. 29.

454. IT IS ASKED. Whether necessity can sometimes excuse from the law of the Index?

Resp. "That which several Doctors teach does not seem improbable, ... namely that by just epikeia a truthful, pious, and learned man reading a heretical book is excused, if he necessarily needs such reading for convincing some heretic from his own, for instance by finding contradictions, concessions, fallacies, and similar things; provided necessity urges, and besides recourse to Rome or to one's own Bishop is not open." Thus St. Alphonsus (de Prohib. lib., c. 5, n. 2). Cf. Const. Officiorum, n. 25.

Outside these cases, to the question: "Whether one who is morally certain that the reading will not harm him can read a prohibited book without license?" St. Alphonsus responds (VII, 291): "Whatever others may say, it must altogether be denied." Cf. n. 451, 452.

455. Note. The INDEX OF PROHIBITED BOOKS was first made by order of Paul IV. Pius IV and Clement VIII perfected it. - It prohibited books partly through general decrees, which are called Rules of the Index, partly by indicating in alphabetical order either the titles of books or the names of authors. But lastly Leo XIII, by the Constitution Officiorum ac munerum (January 25, 1897), after abrogating the general decrees hitherto in force, instituted new ones and approved and confirmed a new Index, through the Brief Romani Pontifices (September 17, 1900).

780. Doctrines dangerous to faith. - Besides the sin of infidelity, which is directly opposed to faith and brings with it the loss of faith itself, there are other things indirectly opposed to it. For virtue prohibits not only that by which it is destroyed, but also that anyone expose himself or others to the danger of losing it or of not obtaining it. Hence occasional causes which lead to its loss are prohibited. Therefore the virtue of faith itself prohibits under grave obligation not only the external occasions of which we have already spoken, namely, the reading of writings against faith, communication and friendship with infidels, heretics, apostates, impious persons, indifferentists, etc., attendance at their societies or schools, participation in their rites, cooperation with infidelity and heresy, if they constitute a notable danger for faith, but also:

1. internal adherence to propositions censured by the infallible authority of the Church as erroneous and false or rash, because such propositions are logically connected with the denial of faith, or at least dispose and lead to this denial; likewise the denial of facts infallibly defined by the Church which are connected with revealed truths, because this denial leads to the denial of the dogma itself. These contain a grave injury against the authority of the Church, and are a sin directly opposed to the virtue of studiousness, indirectly against faith (Vatican Council, sess. 3, c. 4; prop. 7 Mod.; can. 1324; letter of Pius IX to the bishop of Munich, December 11, 1862);

2. doctrinal assertion before others or defense of the preceding things (can. 1399, § 6), or even of propositions which are infallibly censured as savoring of heresy or error, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous (in doctrine): these are directly a sin against modesty in speaking, indirectly against confession of faith when they dispose others to sinning against faith (can. 1399, § 6). Hence the Church urges this under penalties (can. 2317);

3. indeed, per se, the denial of those things which, although not with infallible authority, nevertheless with the authority of the Roman Pontiff as head of all the Churches, or by the Roman Congregations, or by the consensus of all theologians in matters of faith and morals, are taught as certain or to be held: for per se it involves rashness because it spurns a doctrine, not infallible, but practically certain (Pius IX to the bishop of Munich, December 21, 1863; prop. 8 Mod.).

It is said: per se, because while the Church does not teach with infallible authority, the doctrine proposed is not of itself irreformable; hence, if per accidens, nevertheless in a very rare case, after an altogether diligent examination, most grave reasons against the doctrine thus proposed seemed present to someone, it would be lawful without rashness internally to suspend assent; yet externally, on account of reverence toward the Church, an obsequious silence would be required.

I. Object of the question. - The sin of infidelity is directly opposed to divine faith; in the baptized this is heresy and apostasy. Many things are indirectly opposed, namely whatever constitutes a danger or an occasion of losing or suppressing faith, such as communication with unbelievers and heretics, especially in sacred things, cooperation toward infidelity and heresy, the publication and reading of writings contrary to faith, and opinions dangerous to faith, concerning which in the Treatise on Faith.¹

¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae Moralis, I, nn. 733-780.

In the present matter there is especially treated: concerning liberalism and socialism, which for the most part constitute an indirect danger to faith from which the faithful are to be kept away; concerning heresy, which is a direct obstacle to faith, from which those who have fallen into it are to be converted; concerning doubt in faith, which can be either one or the other. Hence we shall consider penitents of three kinds:

a) those infected with liberalism or socialism, to be admonished or even dismissed,

b) heretics, to be received into the Church and to sacramental confession,

c) those doubting and wavering in the true faith.

II. Of how much importance it is to meet Liberalism and Socialism. - Not rarely does it happen that certain Catholics are imbued with the spirit of liberalism and adhere in some measure to its theories; similarly, to those of socialism. Therefore it is necessary that the confessor know those errors, and be able to bring forth a prudent judgment concerning the stain of liberalism or socialism by which perhaps penitents are infected, and to set before himself the right mode of acting with penitents of this kind.

For the matter is full of dangers. Ordinarily, indeed, someone does not become a complete liberal or socialist immediately from the beginning. He begins to read newspapers or other writings of liberals or socialists; he associates with their societies, perhaps without an evil intention, or gives them his vote in political elections. Nor for this reason does he necessarily become impious or indifferent in the matter of religion; but ordinarily his faith grows cold and religious practice is gradually diminished. In the sons of men of this kind religious indifference is wont to grow; and their sons are still baptized, make first Communion, enter marriage before the Church, and call a priest at the end of life, but besides these things there is almost no practice of religion. In the third generation there will already be complete indifference, or even hostility toward religion, so that in practical life paganism as it were prevails.

Against these dangers priests must seriously admonish and fortify the faithful, both publicly and also privately in confession.

In present times, indeed, the matter perhaps becomes less practical in our regions, because many liberals no longer frequent the church or the sacraments, nor is the struggle against them so sharp as formerly; nevertheless the principles always hold, and new circumstances could occur in which they would again serve more in practice. Indeed, because of the absence of struggle the dangers are perhaps greater, since the faithful do not so easily perceive the imminence of danger and the greatness of the evil. Hence one must never desist from opportune admonition.

III. Notions concerning Liberalism.² - In general, all those are called liberals who confuse the physical liberty of choosing with independence from God and from those sharing divine authority, which moderns call moral liberty; hence, under the false name of liberty, they pursue a certain absurd and most deadly license or independence.

² Concerning Liberalism, cf. Pius IX, const. Quanta Cura, 8 Dec. 1864, and the Syllabus; Leo XIII, const. Immortale Dei, 1 Nov. 1885, and enc. Libertas, 20 June 1888; Moulart, L'Eglise et l'Etat; Daris, L'Eglise et l'Etat; Villada, Casus Conscientiae; Aertnijs, Th. P., nn. 94-101; Bouquillon, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, n. 246 sq.; Ballerini, Opus Morale, II, tr. 4, n. 164 sq.; Theologia Mechliniensis, de Fide, nn. 44-46. Certain things are also found in Genicot, Th. M., I, n. 205, and in Lehmkuhl and Ferreres, in their respective work: Casus Conscientiae.

A. One kind is doctrinal or philosophical liberalism, which applies in the moral and civil matter the principles of rationalism or even naturalism, which place the principate of human reason, private or public, individual or universal, as the highest principle and judge of truth.

And indeed in such a way that it denies every divine power and law and follows a morality fully independent; or at least denies every revelation and positive and supernatural divine law, but admits a merely natural morality. This is not treated here, because it pertains to those who are not faithful and therefore do not confess.

B. Another kind is merely economic, which denies divine and moral law in economic matters and in the production of riches.

This is not considered in the present matter, because it is opposed more to justice than to faith and religion or to the first precept of the Decalogue.

C. Another kind is merely political, which admits divine law, even supernatural law, for private persons, but not for civil society and its laws; hence it defends liberty of conscience, of cults, of the press, of doctrine, and of association.

Namely, it proclaims the separation of the State and the Catholic Church, and the State's indifference concerning various religious confessions. But by the name of separation from the Church, they understand and signify an absolute divorce between the two powers, all mutual concord and all mutual help being taken away, so that the Church, despoiled of every influence, of all goods, and of all external prerogatives, lives in hiding, while the State governs all things as if the Church did not exist. Hence it professes the separation of marriage from the Church, and its subjection under the civil power; the separation of the school from the Church and its subordination under the direction of civil authority; the abrogation of the immunity of clerics from the burden of undergoing and exercising military service, etc. In one word: it is a political system which professes the full independence of the State from the Church or from religion.³

³ Cf. encyclical of Leo XIII, Libertas, 20 June 1888.

In this form of liberalism a threefold grade can be distinguished:

1. Radical liberalism, which so exaggerates this independence that it wishes the Church to be subject to the State. Its watchword is: the Church in the State, that is, the Church subject to the State.

2. Moderate liberalism, which professes the simple separation of the State from the Church and from every religion, using this formula: a free Church in a free State.

3. So-called Catholic liberalism, which professes that from the nature of the thing religion is not to be separated from civil society, but that each power ought to govern the human race by a concordant effort; yet in the general hypothesis of the present age, attention being paid to progress and the condition of men, that it is no longer expedient to desire and defend that conjunction, but that simple separation is to be approved and sought, together with the modern liberties flowing from it, especially those of cults and of the press. Let the words be noted well: in the general hypothesis, to be sought, to be approved; because it is not liberal but truly Catholic to profess that in special circumstances these liberties are to be tolerated in order to avoid greater evils or to obtain greater goods.

Now the errors of liberalism in every grade have been condemned by the authority of the Church;⁴ hence those who knowingly profess such errors sin gravely.

⁴ Cf. the encyclical of Pius IX, Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus; likewise the encyclical of Leo XIII, Libertas.

The word liberal is of itself equivocal; hence if in certain regions it is taken in an entirely different sense, or designates a merely political party which in no way defends condemned principles, those things which we have said would not hold concerning such liberalism. Nor do we intend to speak of it, but we speak in the theologically received sense.

IV. Whether there is invincible ignorance of liberalism. - The answer is:

1. As regards the radical form of liberalism, ordinarily this must be denied, because its errors are so open, and so opposed to the fundamental principles of morality, that even the more unlearned cannot fail to recognize its falsity and impiety.

2. As regards the other milder forms, if the unlearned are excepted, most who call themselves liberals are not in good faith, and therefore are to be treated as such by the confessor.

The reason is that the documents of the Holy See condemning Liberalism are publicly known, and have been so propagated that invincible ignorance among most people seems morally impossible: this holds especially and generally concerning those who by reason of office are bound to know the falsity and condemnation of liberalism, such as kings, ministers and counselors of the kingdom, senators, deputies, prefects of provinces and cities, judges, advocates, and similar officials who have a part in making laws or putting them into execution; and also editors of political newspapers.

3. Nevertheless, more unlearned persons and, exceptionally, certain educated persons are found who profess milder Liberalism in good faith.

This happens both because, having been preoccupied by the doctrine of their parents, teachers, and companions, they judge liberalism of this kind harmless, and because they do not know how to distinguish between thesis and hypothesis, and confuse the liberty of evil which is owed by right with the toleration of evil which is done for the sake of avoiding a greater evil or increasing or preserving good.

V. Is the confessor bound to question penitents concerning the sin of liberalism? - The answer is: Affirmatively, as concerning other sins. And indeed, if liberals everywhere are admitted to the sacraments without question or admonition, and confessors in the sacred tribunal keep deep silence concerning this matter, the faithful will think the matter is not of great importance and will not sufficiently perceive the depravity of liberalism. Hence, although the matter, as we have noted, has become less practical because of circumstances, nevertheless it is not to be consigned wholly to oblivion: otherwise concerning the evil doctrine and dangers of Liberalism the same will happen as concerning bad readings, which are no longer sufficiently held as evil, because priests have omitted sufficiently to admonish concerning their depravity. Therefore:

1. A penitent is to be questioned, whoever he may be, whether unlearned or learned, whether poor or prince, who is silent about the sin of liberalism of which he is certainly known to be guilty, for example from the confessor's own knowledge or from public knowledge. And if, when questioned, the penitent denies it and appears formally to lie, he can in no way be absolved.

2. Likewise he is to be questioned who is probably thought to be a liberal or a favorer of liberalism, for example if he is held as such by many grave men, or if he belongs to a liberal assembly or party which is opposed to religion or the Church, or if ordinarily he reads truly liberal newspapers without just cause. If a penitent of this kind seriously denies that he is a liberal, ordinarily he is to be believed: unless, because of special circumstances, a grave doubt remains, in which case the principles are to be applied which govern those doubtfully disposed, and he is to be absolved only under condition if a grave cause is present, or absolution is to be deferred if this is not feared to be harmful to the penitent.

3. Nevertheless not all penitents are to be questioned: for a mere suspicion of sin does not suffice, even from rumors of the crowd or from a reputation arising from no certain source, but true and solid probability, or a prudent and grave doubt, is required.

As to the manner of questioning, let the confessor proceed cautiously, beginning by asking generally, for example whether he feels any troublesome temptations against faith or against declarations of the Supreme Pontiffs or bishops or the doctrine of the Church; if the penitent denies this, let him ask further, for example, thus: do you not have relations with enemies of the Church, or sympathy for those who attack her? do you not frequent adversaries of the Church? are you therefore not a follower of liberalism?... From the response it will be clear what sort he is; then, if there is need, let him ask whether he reads liberal newspapers, frequents or supports an assembly of liberals; likewise concerning speaking against the doctrine, ministers, and precepts of the Church and concerning transgression of these.

VI. Must the confessor admonish penitents who seem to be in good faith concerning the malice of liberalism? - The answer is: Affirmatively, of itself, that is, unless at some time greater harm would follow from the admonition. Given opportunity, he is bound to admonish them, especially if the penitents are persons who, because of office, learning, or honor, exercise great influence upon others. The reason is both because they are rarely in invincible ignorance, and because the errors of liberalism are very harmful to the liberals themselves as to faith, to their family for the education of children, and to the common good because of public scandal and the depraved influence which they exercise upon others.⁵

⁵ Nor ought it create business for the confessor that such penitents will be deterred from the sacraments in the future; for by admonition precisely this is intended, that either they abstain from the sacraments, by the reception of which they provide scandal to the faithful, or they abandon the sin of liberalism now known to them.

But if, after the admonition has been made, someone refuses to obey and pertinaciously adheres to Liberalism, he is unworthy of absolution, and to grant it would be a great scandal for him and for other faithful.

We said: of itself, for:

1. it can happen that this penitent, not solidly pious, would be turned away more from the Church and inflict great harm upon her because of his influence: in which case it will be more prudent to abstain;

2. penitents lightly infected with liberalism can be in good faith, and, if no fruit is hoped for from admonition, be left in good faith. Then nevertheless the confessor should generally inculcate the necessity of believing the doctrine of the Church and of obeying all her precepts.

VII. Cooperation toward liberalism. - Just as liberalism itself is evil, so cooperation toward it is evil of itself and is to be avoided. This can be furnished in several ways:

1. through bad liberal newspapers, not only by writing, collaborating, printing, supporting, spreading, and selling them without a grave cause proportioned to the evil, but also by reading them; and this will be gravely evil if one very bad article is read, or if someone habitually reads them, or even rarely but with grave danger or grave scandal;

It is CERTAIN that disputation about the faith is licit, as all concede with D. Bonaventure in 4. dist. 11. dub. 1., where he says: disputation about the things of the faith is licit for their defense; for so the Holy Fathers also disputed, and Act. 6. et 7. Stephen: and Act. 9. Paul with the Jews.

But it is ILICIT to dispute so that by reasons and arguments we attain something above reason, or that the faith, already sufficiently proposed, be tested by way of argument. So also D. Thom. quaest. 10. art. 7., Bannes ibi, Sanchez lib. 2. cap. 10., Becan. cap. 15. quaest. 7., Suarez disp. 20. sect. 1., Fagundez lib. 1. cap. 8. Nevertheless it will not be illicit for him to whom the faith has not yet been sufficiently proposed. So Suarez, Sanchez, Fagundez, and Valencia disp. 1. quaest. 4. p. 1.

OBSERVE that it is forbidden to Laymen to dispute about the faith, by the decree of Alexander, cap. quicunque §. Inhibemus, etc., and it is defined there: Whoever acts against this shall be entangled in the snare of excommunication, where even learned Laymen are understood, as the Doctors commonly say, fourteen of whom are cited by Fagundez cap. 8.; although Cajetanus, and Bannes 2. 2. quaest. 10. art. 7., Petrus Ledefma 2. Tom. tract. 1. cap. 5. exclude the learned, since also Albertus Pighius Comes, and Ioannes Echius, and Henry VIII. King of England, while he was a Catholic, disputed against Luther, and were praised; Fulsensis adds lib. 3. cap. 6. that this is licit to an erudite Layman, if necessity or great utility is present.

A convert to the Catholic faith is a knight of Pythias. He was a knight for many years before he became a Catholic. He carries a few thousand dollars life insurance in the order. As he is a poor man, it would be a great hardship for him to quit the order and forfeit this insurance. What shall he do about it?

Answer.—There are two categories of so-called secret societies, forbidden to Catholics: (a) societies, like the Masons, that are forbidden under censure, i. e., under pain of excommunication; (b) societies, like the Knights of Pythias, that are forbidden under pain of sin, but not under censure.

On October 11, 1869, Pope Pius IX issued his famous Bull, Apostolicae Sedis, in which among many other censures, reserved to the Holy See, is the censure of excommunication pronounced against “those giving their names to the Masonic or Carbonari sect, or to other sects of the same kind, which plot either openly or secretly against the Church or lawful authorities; and likewise those furnishing favor of any kind to those sects and not denouncing their hidden leaders and chiefs, until they have denounced them.”

Two qualifications are required in order that a society or organization fall under the bann of excommunication: (a) its members must constitute a sect, that is, they must be united very closely together by the profession of the same principles, that the society as a body professes and advocates; (b) it must war against the Church or against the State, even though it exist for other purposes also.

The societies generally understood to possess these two qualifications and therefore to be forbidden under pain of excommunication are:

1. The Masons. Pope Clement XII, in 1738, first excommunicated the Masons. Then Benedict XIV, in 1751, reaffirmed the censure, as did Leo XII, in 1825, Pius VIII, in 1829, Pius IX, in 1869, in the Bull Apostolicae Sedis, just mentioned, and finally Leo XIII, in 1884, in the Bull “Humanum genus.”

2. The Carbonari, a secret political society organized in Italy, in the beginning of the last century, whose purpose was the overthrow of the existing government and the establishment of a republic. They were excommunicated by Pius VIII and Leo XII.

3. The Fenians. This society was prohibited under censure of excommunication, by the Holy Office, January 12, 1870.

4. Societies of Anarchists and Nihilists, in Russia especially, but wherever they may exist, since their purpose brings them under the ban of excommunication.

No Catholic, therefore, may belong to any of the above named societies, without committing mortal sin, and at the same time incurring excommunication, which excommunication is reserved to the Holy See.

In the second category of forbidden societies, namely, of those that are forbidden under pain of mortal sin, but without the censure of excommunication, are to be placed the three societies, expressly mentioned in the official papal documents, that is to say:

1. Odd Fellows; 2. Knights of Pythias; 3. Sons of Temperance.

There are other societies also forbidden under pain of mortal sin, v. g., the Good Templars, Cremation Societies, etc., but our concern is at present with the three first mentioned. On February 13, 1896, the following letter was sent to the archbishops of the United States, from the Apostolic Delegation at Washington, D. C., for the information and guidance of the Ordinaries and clergy of the United States:

‘Apostolic Delegation, United States of America.

Washington, D. C., Feb. 13, 1896.

Your Grace:

Under date of August 13, 1895, I received from the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda instructions regarding the application of the well-known decree of the Holy Office condemning the three societies, “Odd Fellows,” “Knights of Pythias,” and “Sons of Temperance.” According to these instructions which I communicated to your Grace at the time, the condemnation was to be considered absolute, and wherever peculiar circumstances seemed to merit special consideration in particular cases, the matter was to be referred by the Ordinary to Rome. In consequence, many Bishops have, since that time, sent cases to the Propaganda which have been referred to the Holy Office for consideration. The Supreme Congregation, after deliberation on such cases, has, by a decree dated January 18, 1896, determined on a course which is explained by the words which I quote from the decree itself:—

“It was asked whether, every other participation in those same sects having been removed, it is at least lawful to retain one’s own name in the membership rolls, and also to continue at the appointed time in the payment of the aforesaid assessment or debt.

“Since Our Most Holy Lord committed this very grave doubt to this Sacred Supreme Congregation for resolution, that same Sacred Congregation, after mature consideration of the matter, judged that the answer should be:—Generally speaking, it is not lawful; and according to the intention. The intention is that the matter can be tolerated when the following conditions and circumstances concur together in the case, namely: 1. If they originally gave their names to the sect in good faith, before it became known to them that the society had been condemned. 2. If scandal is absent, or is removed by an appropriate declaration that he does this lest he lose his right to the emoluments or the benefit of time in paying the debt; abstaining meanwhile, as stated above, from every communion with the sect and from every participation, even material. 3. If grave harm would come to himself or his family from renunciation. 4. Finally, provided that there is no danger whatever of perversion for that man or his family on the part of the sectaries, especially with regard to a case of illness or death; and likewise that there is no danger of a funeral being conducted with rites foreign to Catholic rites.

“When these matters were reported to Our Most Holy Lord Pope Leo XIII, they were approved and confirmed in their entirety. But since this is a most grave matter, full of dangers and difficulties, which concerns not only very many dioceses but also ecclesiastical provinces, that same Most Holy Lord ordered that, for the sake of observing a uniform rule, Your Eminence and your successors in the Apostolic Delegation may provide for particular cases.”

I beg your Grace to communicate the above disposition of the Holy See as soon as possible, to your Suffragans and through them to the Confessors. With sentiments of highest esteem and fraternal charity, I remain,

For His Eminence, Apostolic Pro-Delegate, Most faithfully yours in Xt,

D. SBARRETTI, Auditor.

From this decree of the Holy Office, it is evident that members of the three societies, or of any one of them, can not be absolved unless they absolutely renounce their adherence to the prohibited societies. This renunciation must be external, complete and made in good faith; because the aims and purposes of these societies are known to be dangerous to religion and to society, although the individual members of them may be quite ignorant of this fact.

Since, however, besides their leading aims, which are for the most part a matter of secrecy, these societies have for their secondary object mutual assistance in temporal things, the question arises whether a member, who having joined the association in good faith, has given his share toward the accumulation of a benefit fund, a proportionate part of which was to be returned to him or his family with just interest, either as savings or as relief money in case of sickness or death—whether such a member must so far renounce his connection with the society as to sustain a serious loss. To this, the Holy Office answers: As a rule, such financial loss is not a valid reason for continuing in the society, since it is impossible for a man to remain a nominal member of a society, without either furthering its main object, though unwillingly and unconsciously, or else giving scandal to those who do not know the true reasons for his remaining a nominal member, and who will naturally assume that such membership means practical co-operation in the aims and purposes of the society.

Nevertheless, there may be cases where there is no scandal given by the person continuing a nominal member, and where there exists no danger for his faith and where withdrawal would mean serious pecuniary loss. In such cases, provided the man joined the society in good faith, not knowing that it was forbidden, the pastor or confessor may make application in order to obtain permission to give the man absolution although he allows his name to remain on the rolls of the society in order to be entitled to the insurance for which he has been paying perhaps for many years. If such be the case, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington has been empowered by the Holy See, to allow a mere nominal membership to continue, according to his judgment of the case, for the sole purpose of securing for the applicant an external title to what really belongs to him, without identifying him with the dangerous or unlawful character of the forbidden society.

In summing up the case before us, we would say that:

1. Since the man in question became a Knight of Pythias in good faith, that is before his conversion to the Catholic Church,

2. Since he can not now withdraw from the order without serious pecuniary loss, being a poor man; then

3. If his nominal membership create no special danger for his spiritual interests, and

4. If such membership give no scandal, then application ought to be made to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington by the man’s confessor, or through him by the bishop, to obtain permission for the gentleman to continue a nominal member of the K. P.’s, in order to be able to claim legally the insurance that belongs to him and to his family. The confessor has no power or jurisdiction to judge whether the conditions that may permit nominal membership are verified or not; neither has the ordinary such power. The Apostolic Delegate alone is the competent authority to determine whether the circumstances of the case call for a special permission or authorization to continue a nominal member of the society.

134. Thesis V. Indifference in the matter of religion is a grievous wrong.

Proof. This indifference may be theoretical or practical Theoretical indifference is an opinion that all systems or forms of religion, though contradictory to one another, are equally pleasing to God and useful to man. This doctrine is false, and an insult to God. It is false, because all truth, and, a fortiori, revealed truth, is one and not self-contradictory. It is an insult to God, because it represents Infinite Truth as pleased with error. Practical indifference is a refusal to give God the homage which man owes Him essentially (Thesis I.). As both kinds of indifference imply a great moral disorder, they are both grievously wrong.

135. It is evident:

1. That God cannot make contradictory revelations. Therefore, there can be only one true religion in the world; for all systems of religion contradict one another on some points of doctrine.

2. That God cannot be glorified or pleased by falsehood. In this, as in other matters, He overlooks mistakes that are caused by invincible ignorance. Nevertheless, once a reasonable suspicion concerning this matter exists in the mind, a man is obliged to do his utmost in order to discover the truth about supernatural Revelation, namely, whether a Revelation has been made and where it may be found.

3. That, if God has made a Revelation to direct men to their last end, He must, in His infinite wisdom, have provided reliable means to distinguish it from all false systems usurping its place.

136. Objections.

1. One does enough, if he is an honest man. Answer. A man who does not practise religion is not an honest man, for he defrauds God of the worship which is justly His due.

2. Among so many jarring creeds, it is impossible to discover the true religion. Answer. Still, one form of religion is divinely true, which alone can be pleasing to God. Now, God's providence and goodness are doubted by thinking that the true form of religion is beyond the reach of an earnest mind seeking the truth and at the same time humbly asking God's aid to find it.

3. No one should change his religion. Answer. Certainly not, unless his religion is false.

4. Then every man on earth ought to set about inquiring into the truth of his religion. Answer. Only those need inquire who have good reason for doubting the truth of their religion.

137. History attests and Theology confirms the facts, that a Revelation was made to mankind in the very beginning; that this was subsequently amplified and developed by further revelations; that it was finally perfected by the teachings of the Son of God Himself, and that this Christian Revelation has been entrusted, in its completeness, to an infallible Church, to be preserved and expounded until the end of time. These are truths beyond the reach of Philosophy. Nevertheless, Reason leads us by the radiance of her own natural light to the portal of supernatural religion, and is there met by a Heavenly guide, with a brightness of illumination so dazzling that all natural lights in its presence must pale to dimness. In that sacred temple, across whose threshold she may pass with man, Reason finds many truths above her grasp, which she calls mysteries, yet none are opposed to her own inherent principles. There she may abide in peace under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, who rules there.

The Churchmen’s Union was inaugurated at the Church House, Westminster, on October 31st, 1898, for the advancement of Liberal religious thought. The members of the Council of this Union are well-known and representative clergymen and laymen belonging to the Church of England. They state that among the chief objects of the Union are the following: —

To maintain the right and duty of the Church to restate her belief from time to time as required by the progressive revelation of the Holy Spirit. And to give all support in their power to those who are honestly and loyally endeavoring to vindicate the truth of Christianity by the light of scholarship and research, and while paying due regard to continuity, to work for such changes in the formularies and practices in the Church of England as from time to time are made necessary by the needs and knowledge of the day.

In furtherance of these objects a Quarterly Review, The Liberal Churchman, was started in November, 1904. The brief prospectus which was issued with the Review puts the objects of the Union in still clearer light. I transcribe it in its entirety.

The Liberal Churchman has been established in order to widen and develop the religious life of the community by advocating and ventilating the claims and principles of liberal religious thought within the Church of England and among English-speaking people as a whole. The object of liberal religious thought is to emancipate the Christian religion from a rigid subservience to the literal forms and theories in which it has been historically expressed and explained; and to re-express and explain the essential facts of the Christian faith in the terms of contemporary thought. There is no dislike to the principle of doctrinal forms; but there is a dislike to the assumption that doctrinal forms which were coined in bygone ages under a totally different set of ecclesiastical, social, and mental conditions are, and must always be, the best and the only forms for commending the Christian conception of life to the mind and conscience of the present time. The religious, moral, and intellectual temper of the modern Christian community has outgrown many of these forms; it does not find itself adequately expressed in them, and it is becoming more and more impatient of the rigid subservience which it is too often asked to accord to them by the official exponents of the Christian creed. It is hoped that the objects of The Liberal Churchman will commend themselves to those who feel that the traditional presentation of Christian truth is no longer adapted to meet the intellectual, ethical, and religious needs of the modern mind.

In the opening article of the Review, Dr. Morrison, the President of the Union, explains its object at greater length, and under the title— The Task of Liberal Theology, develops what is said in the prospectus.

This clearly defined object of the Churchmen’s Union has the sympathy of many earnest and intelligent men of our time. Thus, Mr. W. A. Pickard-Cambridge begins an article in the Hibbert Journal for January, 1905, with this sentence: — Most open-minded laymen probably view with unqualified satisfaction the desire recently evinced on the part of the more progressive clergy of the Established Church to restate upon a basis of rational criticism the received dogmas of Christianity.¹

¹ Page 253.

Sir Oliver Lodge has more than once of late tried his hand at a restatement or re-interpretation of Christian doctrine. The following is the first paragraph of an article by this distinguished scientist in the Hibbert Journal for April, 1904, entitled, Suggestions towards the re-interpretation of Christian Doctrine.

Now that religion is becoming so much more real, is being born again in the spirit of modern criticism and scientific knowledge, may it not be well to ask whether the formal statement of some of the doctrines which we have inherited from medieval and still earlier times cannot be wisely and inoffensively modified? There is usually some sort of forced sense in which almost any statement can be judged to have in it an element of truth, especially a statement which embodies the beliefs of many generations. But when the element of truth is quite other than had been supposed, and when the original statement has to be tortured in order to display it, it may be time to consider whether without harm its mode of expression can‘ be reconsidered and re-drafted—to the ultimate benefit indeed of that religion of truth and clearness which we all seek to attain.²

² Page 461.

More than one of the papers read at the Church Congress, held last autumn in Liverpool, were contributions towards the same object of restatement and re-interpretation of dogma.

This also constitutes one of the main objects which Liberal Catholics of our time have in view. Professor Mivart in the Nineteenth Century for January, 1900, attempted to prove that as a matter of fact, through the labors of Catholic theologians in the past, there had been a process of gradual restatement of Catholic doctrine; he concluded his article in these words : —

My aim has been to strengthen Catholicity, and to that end I have enumerated the most striking modifications in the belief of Catholics I could find, to show how many and great changes the Catholic body can undergo without injury to its vitality.³

³ Page 72.

Several of Mivart’s instances of change of Catholic belief in the past certainly belong to matters of faith, but he regarded them as mere preludes to still greater changes in the future. In explanation of the reasons why he wrote his article he says: —

I am convinced that the great changes herein referred to are but preludes to far greater changes in the future— changes which will be most salutary, if duly foreseen and prepared for. They will take place surely sooner or later, as a new generation of mankind is sure anyhow to succeed the present one. But just as the certainty of that fact does not make the function of the accoucheur less useful, so the sure advent of new conceptions and beliefs does not render useless the work of those who would prepare for and facilitate their safe delivery into the world of ideas.⁴

⁴ Ib., p. 71.

And so Mivart’s object was to facilitate the restatement, and re-interpretation of Catholic dogma by showing how in his view of history the process had been continually going on in the past.

Similarly the writer or writers who under the pseudonym Voces Catholicæ wrote on the Abbé Loisy and the Catholic Reform Movement in the Contemporary Review for March, 1903, claim as the chief merit of the French exegete the successful restatement by him of worn out Catholic beliefs in the terms of modern historical criticism.

On one side, they write, are the formulas, avowedly drawn up for our intellect, yet shaped by old-world men whose mental equipment, so far as it was dependent upon acquired knowledge, was utterly unlike our own; and on the other side is the modern scientific spirit pressing violently against the barriers raised by those formulas and panting for an outlet into the region of light and life. M. Loisy claims to have found an issue which leads not beyond the pale of Catholic faith, but only to its calm and salubrious heights. Placing the definitions of Councils and Popes in the full light of historic experience he virtually says: We owe to them the same degree of respect and credence which we display to the words of the Saviour; and this we can continue to pay without refusing to science what is admitted to be her due. If the course of events, against which it is folly to argue, compels us to deepen, to spiritualize the words of Jesus which the Church for ages construed literally, and if we can—because we must— carry out the process without failing in our duty to God or our neighbor, what is there to show that the dogmas fashioned by men are less plastic? It is impossible to rebut the argument—which is but one of many—and it would be suicidal arbitrarily to condemn the conclusion without first providing some other means of adapting a structure built by the ancients to the wholly different needs of a new generation.

Long before M. Loisy came forward critics had eagerly thrown themselves upon salient facts in Church history; which, turn them how one might, would not dovetail with the dangerous claim to immutability advanced by certain theologians for the dogmas of the Church. Exposed to the fierce light of science, which they were never meant to endure, many of those old-world propositions seemed to shrivel up and harden, to the grave detriment of their religious contents. The French theologian is the first to show how by reverently approaching the formulas of past ages, which were admirable presentments of Christian doctrine as reflected in the minds of Christians of those generations, we can take over the fundamental and comprehensive truths which they embodied, without vainly straining to view them from a standing point which has receded from us forever. Far from loosening our hold on the substance of Jesus’ teachings, this needful process of spiritualization imparts to them a firm cohesion and harmonizes them with ideas of a scientific order from which it is impossible to withhold our assent.⁵

⁵ Pages 401-402.

In spite of what this writer says about the claim of Loisy to be a pioneer in the field of the re-interpretation of dogma, it is well known that he took this idea with much else from the French Protestant minister, A. Sabatier. Indeed, A. Sabatier seems to have been the common source from which English Protestants and liberal Catholics alike have largely drawn. For many years Sabatier was the recognized leader of a certain school of theology in France, and the Abbé Loisy is said to have attended his lectures in Paris. A very slight acquaintance with Sabatier’s writings will convince the reader of the justice of his claim to have led the way in the restatement of Christian dogma. I need do no more here than give a short extract from an article which he contributed to the Contemporary Review for November, 1899, on Christian Dogma and the Christian Life.

Hence it becomes an incontestable truth that no theologian of our day repeats and professes the dogmas of the great councils in the same sense they had for those who saw their birth or origin. Every one accommodates them, more or less consciously, to his own use, translates them into his language, takes or leaves portions as it pleases him; in a word, re-thinks them in his mind, and in rethinking them, interprets and transforms them! Well, modern theology invites us simply to do with reflexion and truthfulness that which we all do more or less and which we cannot help doing. And do we not see that far from being the death of dogma, this faculty of transformation by a new exegesis is the only way by which dogma can be rejuvenated and revived, the only way for us to reap its internal or spiritual substance, the Christian reality by which our religious life can and ought to be nourished? Shall we hesitate resolutely to enter on this path? 6

In another passage of their article in the Contemporary Review for March, 1903, Voces Catholicæ admit that Loisy is not original.

Most of the fruitful ideas [they write] with which his little volume teems have been in the air for some years past. They cannot, therefore, be said to be original. But they have been uttered by non-Catholic critics whose writings and names have remained hitherto unknown to the bulk of our co-religionists.

Any reader of Loisy who knows how constantly he refers to Protestant theologians and rationalistic 6 Page 737.

critics will corroborate this testimony that his views are not original. In this instance, as in so many others, the views of liberal Catholics are seen to be a more or less close approximation to those of heretics and rationalists. Since the condemnation of Loisy’s works by the Holy See there has been a lull in the activity of liberal Catholics, and the present seems to be a favorable opportunity for reviewing our position. Let us try to gain a clear idea of the crisis of Liberalism through which we have been passing. The process cannot fail to be useful to us.

And first of all let us pay a tribute to the vigilance of our bishops who betimes perceived the danger and faithfully fulfilled their office. In their joint Pastoral of 29th December, 1900, they say, after quoting the teaching of Leo XIII: —

Very different from this is the theory of progress or development excogitated in recent times, and approved by certain writers on the continent, and even in England. They make the progress of Christian doctrine to consist in real change. They argue that certain truths of revelation may become obsolete and die out; that, having served their time, higher truths will supplant them, in accordance with some real or fancied progress of natural science. They even suggest that higher perceptions in natural science will reduce mysteries to the level of natural phenomena; and that the development of Christian doctrine really means the reception into the deposit of faith of a number of extraneous truths, which will in course of time bring the Church into perfect conformity with modern ideas. There are even Catholics who imagine that they can save their orthodoxy by holding the creeds and definitions of faith, not according to the Church’s constant understanding of them, but according to their own. They profess to believe that the Church’s teaching may receive new light to illuminate it, so that the traditional sense, given by the Church to her formularies, shall give way to other meanings partially or wholly different. Against errors of this kind the Church, in the Vatican Council, has launched her formal anathema: ‘‘If any one shall say that it may ever be possible, with the progress of science, for a sense to be given to the doctrines proposed by the Church, other than that which the Church has understood and understands, let him be anathema.’’

So that the task which liberal theology sets itself is heretical, and this new heresy differs fundamentally in nothing from former heresies. Men imbued with modern subjective phenomenalism and the theories of evolution wish to apply their philosophical opinions to the interpretation of the doctrines of the Christian faith. This is precisely what St. Paul warned the Colossians against (ii. 8): “ Beware, lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.”

A long catena of passages from the Fathers might be quoted to show the practice of heretics in all ages. One or two will be sufficient for my purpose. St. Athanasius writes : —

After adopting some impious principle as a canon, in accordance with this principle they proceed to corrupt all the sacred Scriptures.⁷

⁷ Orat. II., p. 176.

Faustinus in his treatise De Fide against the Arians (circ. 380) writes: — The Arian heresy when it makes its profession of faith confesses much in the same words indeed as we do but not in the same sense. For in the same words as we do, it proclaims God the Father and God the Son, and that by the Son all things were made by God the Father, and that the Son was begotten before time was. But although it agrees with us in using these words, nevertheless, by a sacrilegious interpretation of them it departs from the orthodox sense of the Catholic Church, calling God Father, but not in the sense that He begot the Son; making use of the word Son also, but meaning Son by adoption not by nature, in the sense that He was reckoned as such, not really begotten by the Father.⁸

⁸ Migne PP. Lat. xiii., p. 38.

One is tempted to wonder how Catholic priests and intelligent Catholic laymen could possibly suppose that the proposed restatement of Catholic dogma does not “lead beyond the pale of Catholic faith.” That the dogmas of the Faith are immutable, that all Catholics are bound to believe Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; that in matters of faith Nil innovetur, nisi quod traditum est; Non nova, sed nove, Explodenda novitas, retinenda antiquitas; this belongs to the very rudiments of Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church has always claimed to teach what she received from the apostles, that it is which constitutes the sacred deposit committed to her faithful keeping; if her claim is unfounded, if while professing to teach with divine authority the immutable divine truth entrusted to her keeping, she has all the while been stealthily accommodating and changing it to suit the fashions of the day, then is she indeed an impostor, her stupendous claims make her ridiculous, and the sooner she is shoveled out of the way the better.

But, say the liberal Catholics, there is no use arguing against facts, it is a fact that changes in dogma have taken place in the past, why should they not take place in the future?

This, of course, is the common Protestant and rationalistic objection against the immutability of Catholic dogma; if the liberal Catholic were as well read in the Catholic theology as in modern infidel literature, he would know how to answer the difficulty.

But, persists the liberal Catholic, in spite of the traditional answer of Catholic theologians to the difficulty — and here it is usual for him to introduce a sneer at scholasticism — it remains true that Catholic dogma has changed; LE pur si muove, as in a not dissimilar context asserted Galileo, that venerable confessor of the Faith, as Mivart called him.

One of the classical instances by which Loisy strives to show this, is the transition from the conception of the kingdom of God, as preached by the living Jesus, to that of the Catholic Church, brought about after the Resurrection of Our Lord. Loisy adopts the modern rationalistic view, according to which the Christ of history merely conceived of Himself as the Messias whom the Jews were expecting, whose office it was to preach repentance and thereby the forgiveness of sin, as the preparation for the immediate advent of His earthly but glorious kingdom. In the mind of Jesus there was no place and no need for the Christian Church, and He can only be said to be its founder inasmuch as He unwittingly sowed the seed from which the Church grew by the thought, labor, and adaptation of St. Paul and other great thinkers of the first two centuries of the Christian era. Then, of course, follows the conclusion — if there could be such restatement and re-interpretation of dogma in the first ages of Christianity, why should the process not continue on similar lines?

In answer to this I will quote the recent utterances of two non-Catholic writers. Mr. W. H. Mallock wrote in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1904: —

I will not pause to ask why that subjective experience, which was of no value in attesting the superhuman nature of Buddha, should be accepted as indubitable evidence of the superhuman nature of Christ. ... Nor does what I am going to say apply to neo-Anglicans only. It applies equally to men like Professors Harnack and Sabatier, and to liberal Catholics, such as the Abbé Loisy and Baron F. von Hügel. All these thinkers have come to the same conclusion, that if principles like the Bishop of Worcester’s are to be applied to the interpretation of the Gospels, our conception of the divine character of Christ must, in one respect at all events, undergo a profound change. We can no longer regard His incarnation of the Godhead as complete. We must regard Him, says the Bishop of Worcester, as ‘‘having refrained from the divine mode of consciousness’’ to such an extent that His knowledge, in many respects, was no better than an ignorant man’s. I do not know how far the Bishop may realize the scope of this admission; but, as other thinkers have shown, who are no less devout than he, it compels us to recognize that Christ was not only ignorant of many things, but was actually subject to very serious delusions—chief amongst these being the delusion that His own second coming would be immediate. Such being the case, as Baron F. von Hügel observes, the question has to be faced of how, under these conditions, Christ could have had any intention of founding an earthly Church.⁹

⁹ Page 920.

The Rev. Professor James Denney, of Glasgow, writes in the February number of the Expositor, 1905:—

He (Loisy) holds with that recent school of New Testament scholarship which lays the whole stress in the Gospels on the eschatological representation of the Kingdom. He rejects, unceremoniously, the idea that not what Jesus inherited is of value in Christianity, but only what is His own; nothing was more truly His own, nothing had greater value to Him than what He had inherited—the ancient revelation and the hopes it had inspired. He gets rid of the texts on which Harnack bases his spiritual conception of Christianity by methods which some will describe as exegetical and critical, others as the unscrupulous use of the rack and the knife. Perhaps it is enough to say that they are quite unconvincing.¹⁰

¹⁰ Page 115.

In other words this crucial instance of the apostolic restatement of Christian dogma, this undoubted result of modern criticism, this certain conclusion arrived at by the scientific historical method, is at best the opinion of a particular school of rationalistic scholars, arrived at by denying the authenticity of some texts in our authorities, by torturing others out of their obvious meaning, and by putting aside as unhistorical all supernatural phenomena like prophecies and miracles.

Again; in this question of the development of doctrine, it is all important to distinguish between what is of faith and what is merely theological speculation about the faith. And yet Mivart, in the article from which I quoted above, rides roughshod over this all important distinction.

WE are told that modern thought grows more and more secularist and less and less religious. There is a strong tendency to exclude religion from public life altogether. If religion is to be tolerated at all, it must be kept to its proper sphere of private life and the individual conscience. Into those sacred precincts nobody else has any right to intrude. In the privacy of that inner shrine a man may cultivate religion if he pleases and if he finds it of any help to him. But there is no place for religion in public life. Education, business, social, political, and international questions should be kept free from it. That is the doctrine which finds favour in many quarters to-day. Sometimes the modern attitude is contrasted with that of the ages of faith. The ages of faith looked upon pestilence as a scourge sent by God in punishment for sin, and prayed to be delivered from it. The modern seeks to destroy the germs of disease by sanitation and strives by prophylactics to protect the human subject from any germs that escape his vigilance. In such contrasts there is not unfrequently an element of misrepresentation. Whatever may be the teaching of other religions, the Christian religion has never taught that human effort may be dispensed with. St. Ignatius' rule was—Work as if everything depended on yourself, trust in God as if everything depended on Him. Our Lord's own rule was—Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. He did not say—Seek only—but—Seek first. Other duties and cares come after the first. The blessing of God on the work is necessary if it is to prosper, but God has given us energies and talents to use ourselves, and He expects and commands us to use them. God helps those who help themselves. The Christian is encouraged to use all the means which modern science or anything else puts at his disposal, but he still finds room for putting his ultimate trust in God. I never heard of anyone who wanted a house built falling on his knees in prayer and expecting the house to rise like an exhalation from the ground, though all true Christians acknowledge and profess that —"Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Sometimes secularists express hostility against religion because, they say, it distracts man's attention from his material interests, the only interests which matter. Questions of fact are involved in this accusation against religion. If God exists, if man has an immortal soul, if man's will is free so that it is in his power to save or lose his soul, then man's material interests are not the only things that matter, nor are they man's chief interests. I touched upon those questions of fact in the first chapter and I cannot go back and again discuss them here. If man has higher than mere material interests, sound common sense tells us that we should give due attention to what is higher even if the lower interests suffer somewhat thereby. But here I wish to insist on a consideration to which sound common sense also leads us. It is well that man should have something to distract him from being absorbed in his material interests alone. After all, life is more than the meat, life is more than the material means by which it is supported.

If a man becomes too much absorbed in his material interests, he subordinates the higher to the lower, and he degrades himself in the process. He becomes materialised, too much of a piece with the inorganic, senseless, and irrational elements to which he prostitutes the wonderful cosmos that man is. Any large town will afford us plenty of examples of what the process leads to. Even if religion did not rest on realities, even if its doctrines were nothing better than poetic fancies, and its worship nothing more than harmless indulgence of the aesthetic faculties, there would still be room for it. It would help to prevent people from becoming materialised and degraded below the level of the brute beasts. Besides, men who care for nothing but their material interests cannot be formed into peaceful, prosperous, and progressive societies. They inevitably become too fond of money and of the indulgences and pleasures which money can buy. Their cupidity grows by what it feeds on, and it leads them to fight for what they cannot get otherwise. That is the real source and origin of the social unrest which is one of the worst and most widespread of modern maladies. That too is the real cause of modern wars, not excluding the last and the greatest of them all. Modern States do not go to war merely for the sake of conquest, or for some religious idea. Modern wars are brought about by economic causes; they are struggles for the markets of the world; they are fights for wealth. It is quite useless to attack militarism, to assert that it is the enemy, and to propose to destroy it and so prepare the way for universal peace. Militarism is only a means to an end, and that end in modern times is access to, and command of, the markets of the world. A nation that is shut out from the sea and surrounded by economic rivals is severely handicapped in the struggle for wealth. If it wants to have a good share of the commerce of the world it must break through the ring fence that surrounds it and somehow get a seaboard. If material interests are the only things that matter rival nations will bar the way by force; there will inevitably be war, and the war will be a life and death struggle. Do we not all of us recognise that that is the position that confronts us? If material interests are the only things that matter, if religion is relegated to the inner world of the private conscience, then might is right, and the place in the sun with all its advantages belongs to the strongest. If we want permanent peace we must go deeper and attack the roots of militarism. The Prince of Peace taught us what to do. He taught us that avarice, pride, lust of power must be attacked and that their overthrow and permanent subjection is the only way to secure peace. In other words, religion must be restored to its rightful position in public life. I use the words advisedly. Religion has just as good a right to its position in public life as it has to its position in private life. Religion is nothing more than giving God the worship which is His due. Worship is due to Him because He created us and gave us all that we have. Just as we owe reverence, obedience, and love to our parents because under God we owe our being to them, so we owe reverence, obedience, and love to God because in a far truer sense we owe our being to Him. A child does not satisfy its obligations to its parents by merely internal reverence, submission, and love. Merely internal dispositions would be mistrusted unless they sometimes showed themselves outwardly. Even if they existed they could not be lasting unless they were sometimes exercised. Merely internal obedience will not satisfy our obligations in cases where external acts are needed and commanded. Just in the same way merely interior religion will not satisfy our obligations towards God. Both body and soul came from Him, and both should take part in worshipping their Creator and Lord. As man is not a solitary but a social animal, and cannot live a decent life such as his nature requires except in the society of his fellows, and all this is God's ordinance and comes from Him, so man owes God not only private and external worship but social and public worship as well. As long as God is publicly acknowledged and worshipped there is some guarantee that His laws will be respected and obeyed by all. Isolated instances of atrocious crimes may occur, but they will meet with universal reprobation, nor will they be defended by anyone. But if God and religion are banished from public life the State and its temporal interests become the sole arbiter of right and wrong. The universal standard applicable to all nations and individuals is destroyed. Atrocities hitherto universally condemned are hailed with rapturous applause by those to whom they bring temporal advantage. Solemn treaties are regarded as mere scraps of paper, Lusitanias filled with helpless women and children are sunk, wells are poisoned, asphyxiating gases and other horrible means of destruction are used, Hague conventions are laughed at, diabolical hatred of the foe is fostered and encouraged. The justification of these things is that they succeed at any rate for the time being. They bring some temporal advantage, they serve material interests which are the only things that matter, says the secularist. The conclusion is the refutation of the secularist's position. It shows that even if God and religion were not the supreme realities that they are, the best interests of mankind would demand that they should be treated in public and in private with honour, respect and reverence.