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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 38

Arrogance of Secularism

page 6

Arrogance of Secularism.

There seems to prevail among certain writers the impression that they have a sort of prescriptive right to belie and revile us. We wrong no one, offend no one, interfere with no one; but our innocence does not save us. We claim only what is just, only what is our own, as we prove by unanswerable arguments; and we are met by unprovoked vituperation. Of course the Secularist press, so loud in its own praises, is proportionately severe upon us. Though it would not be dignified, nor even possible to notice every petty insult flung upon us Catholics, yet, as it is manifest that such assertions would never be made if no one could be found weak enough to believe them, it is well to confute them from time to time, that timid Catholics may see there is nothing in them; that honest adversaries may learn the truth, and protest against our being oppressed and insulted; that prudence may be inspired to those who might otherwise fancy that we can be assailed with impunity; and that those who in reality are perhaps not actuated by unfriendly dispositions towards us, but merely from want of consideration, allow their pens and tongues more liberty than they quite intend, may be taught to measure their words, and respect the feelings, and conscientious convictions of even a Catholic.

When we consider the falsehood and bitterness with which non-Catholic literature teams, when we remember that the life of even a young man, almost stretches back to the day, when one of the most illustrious of our race, was called upon to testify, publicly on oath, that the religion we practice is impious and idolatrous; when we recall how eagerly the two men to whom is chiefly due emancipation, endeavoured to extenuate their crime in yielding to us even that slender measure of justice, by pleading that they did it most unwillingly, and only through "fear of greater dangers;" when we look back in vain through the history of our country for hundreds of years, for even one instance of mercy or justice not prompted by the same unworthy motive; when we think of the unvarying contempt and cruelty with which we have ever been treated; when we reflect on the indecent exultation over the difficulties in which the venerable head of our Church has been placed by lawless violence; when we see even crime and dishonour hailed with acclamation, so long as they are directed against the Catholic Church; when we see the old hate following us out to these new colonies, and making laws to enable itself to perpetuate abroad the robbery and oppression from which we fled at home;—it is impossible to conceal from ourselves that the old spirit is not dead, and that it ignores our rights and tramples on our feelings precisely as of old. Still let us be just. While it would be folly to suppose that the mass of false utterances constantly hurled against us does not spring from malice, it would be unjust to hold equally guilty all those who speak foully of us. There can be no doubt that many do but thoughtlessly repeat what they have heard from childhood, without examining—is it true? I can conceive views the most unjust, oppressive, and insulting to us, being held and acted upon by non-Catholics, without a particle of unkindly feeling. They hear us called "Papists," and having heard us so called from their earliest childhood they fancy it is our name, and have no suspicion, far less intention, of insult. They call us "idolaters," but they have been carefully taught from their infancy that we "worship images." If we are guilty of so degrading a crime, why not bear the stigma justly attaching to it? They see our feelings so constantly wounded, and our rights so constantly crushed, that they grow up with a vague idea that we have neither feelings nor rights, and see us wounded and wronged with the same indifference one trained to battle from his youth, would gaze upon a bloody field.

The same journalist who is so confident of the virtues of "the free, untrammelled, unbiased education of the people," writes most flippantly of us. He deplores "the mental prostration of the Spaniards, the atheistical tendencies of the Italians, and—apparently rounding off a period—the ignorance and superstition of Roman Catholics in all countries!"

I do admire the courage of these writers! They are deterred by no absurdity. Provided what they say is anti-Catholic they are satisfied. Consistency is no consideration. * They accuse us of having corrupted our way on earth—that is, of having changed the pure doctrine of Christ—so outrageously, that a Reformation was needed; and of tolerating no "progress,"—that is, no change! They accuse us of idolatry, whereby we believe in more Gods than one, and of atheism, whereby we believe in no God at all! When I hear them declaiming about "breadth of thought, religious progress, mental prostration, superstition, &c., &c.," I cannot help thinking that they do not mean anything by these expressions; or if they do, they do not know what they

* "Many bore false witness against him, but their evidence was not agreeing."—Mark xiv. 56.

page 7 mean. Then they rarely condescend to attempt to prove anything they assert, which perhaps is not unwise, considering what unprovable things they advance.
Touching the "prostrate Spaniards," here is what an Englishman writes:—

"The Spanish standard of morals, of manners, of religion, of duty, of all the courtesies which are due from one person to another, however wide apart their ranks, is of a very different and, in most of these points a much higher standard than the English one, and if an English traveller will not at least endeavor to come up to it, he had much better stay at home.

"Cheating and extortion seem incompatible with the Spanish character. Even the poorest peasant who has shown us our way, and who has walked a considerable distance to do so, has invariably refused to receive any thing for his services; yet all are most anxious to help strangers. The same liberal spirit seems to breathe through everything, and was equally shown at our little possada at Elche—equal to a small English public house - when a number of maimed, blind, and halt collected daily to receive the broken viands from the 'table d'hote.' The temporal works of mercy, to give bread to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, to take care of the sick, to visit the captives, and to bury the dead,—these are the common duties which none shrink from." *

What of the atheistical Catholics of Italy? I take it on me to answer for the Pope, that he does believe in God. So does the "Ecclesiastical party." So do all the Catholics in Italy, and over the world. In fact, for a Catholic there is no liberty to doubt, far less to disbelieve a single dogma. To talk of Catholic "tendencies" of any sort—good or otherwise—in matters of religion, is to display an ignorance of the Catholic Church, so profound as to convict the writer of being wholly unqualified to offer an opinion on the matter of which he undertakes to treat. A "tendency," implies some inclination to change, and much more some possibility to change. Now the great crime of the Catholic Church is precisely that she will tolerate no progress,—which is merely a grand way of saying that she will tolerate no change. Her children must believe all the old truths that the Apostles taught, and nothing contrary,—or go. And if the Pope himself were to refuse his assent to a single dogma of the Catholic Faith, he would find himself at a single step outside the pale of the Catholic Church. I do not deny that there are atheists in Italy, but they are not Catholics; they belong to the "party of progress," and their first step towards atheism is the abandonment of their religion. Having attacked and persecuted the Church of God, it is not unnatural that they should endeavor to relieve themselves from the apprehension of His vengeance, by trying to persuade themselves that there is no God. What extravagance of injustice to accuse us Catholics of a tendency to give up the fundamental belief of all religion, when we we will not tolerate even doubts concerning a single dogma! But passing over the absurdity of supposing any Catholic could be an atheist; what folly to talk of the wickedness of Italy, when in the gilded saloons of England it is openly maintained that man is descended from an ape, and that there is no God! No! Catholicity is at an infinite distance from atheism, secularism, and all the other hideous "isms" that are crawling over the souls of unhappy men at the present day, befouling and blighting them.

* "Wanderings in Spain," by Augustus J. C. Hare, London, Strachan & Co., 1873.

Lord Beaconsfield.