[502] Among the many good critical tributes to the genius of Jane Austen, to the fine distinction of her humor, the sympathetic intimacy of her satire, the easy exactitude of her unpretentious style, which have appeared in celebration of her centenary, there is one criticism that is naturally recurrent; the remark that she was quite untouched by the towering politics of her time. This is intrinsically true; nevertheless it may easily be used to imply the reverse of the truth. It is true that Jane Austen did not attempt to teach any history or politics; but it is not true that we cannot learn any history or politics from Jane Austen. Any work so piercingly intelligent of its own kind, and especially any work of so wise and humane a kind, is sure to tell us much more than shallower studies covering a larger surface. I will not say much of the mere formality of some of the conventions and conversational forms; for in such things it is not only not certain that change is important, but it is not even certain that it is final. The view that a thing is old-fashioned is itself a fashion; and may soon be an old fashion. We have seen this in many recurrences of female dress; but it has a deeper basis in human nature. The truth is that a phrase can be falsified by use without being false in fact; it can seem stale without being really stilted. Those who see a word as merely worn out, fail to look forward as well as back. I know of two poems by two Irish poets of two different centuries, essentially on the same theme; the lover declaring that his love will outlast the mere popularity of the beauty. One is by Mr. Yeats and begins: "Though you are in [503] your shining days." The other is by Tom Moore and begins: "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms." The latter language strikes us as ridiculously florid and over-ripe; but Moore was far from being ridiculous. Believe me (as he would say) it was no poetaster who wrote those hackneyed words about the silent harp and the heart that breaks for liberty. And if English were read some day by strangers as a classic language, I am not sure that "endearing" would not endure as a better word than "shining"; or even that (after some repetition and reaction) it might not seem as strained to say "shining" as to say "shiny." Yet Mr. Yeats also is a great poet. Similarly, when one of Jane Austen's heroines wants to say that the hero is a good fellow, she expresses confidence in what she calls "his worth." This goads her younger modern readers to madness; yet in truth the term is far more philosophic and eternal than the terms they would use themselves. They would probably say he was "nice," and Jane Austen would indeed be avenged. For the best of her heroes, Henry Tilney, himself foresaw and fulminated against the unmeaning ubiquity of that word, a prophet of the pure reason of his age, seeing in a vision of the future the fall of the human mind.
Negatively, of course, the historic lesson from Jane Austen is enormous. She is perhaps most typical of her time in being supremely irreligious. Her very virtues glitter with the cold sunlight of the great secular epoch between mediaeval and modern mysticism. In that small masterpiece, "Northanger Abbey," her unconsciousness of history is itself a piece of history. For Catherine Morland was right, as young and romantic people often are. A real crime had been committed in Northanger Abbey. It is implied in the very name of Northanger Abbey. It was the crucial crime of the sixteenth century, when all the institutions of the poor were savagely seized to be the private possessions of the rich. It is strange that the name remains; it is stranger still that it remains unrealized. We should think it odd to go to tea at a man's house and find it was still called a church. We should be surprised if a gentleman's shooting box at Claybury were referred to as Claybury Cathedral. But the irony of the eighteenth century is that Catherine was healthily interested in crimes and yet never found the real crime; and that she never really thought of it as an abbey, even when she thought of it most as an antiquity.
But there is a positive as well as a negative way in which her greatness, like Shakespeare's, illuminates history and politics, because it illuminates everything. She understood every intricacy of the upper middle class and the minor gentry, which were to make so much of the mental life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is said that she ignored the poor and disregarded their opinions. She did, but not more than all our Governments and all our Acts of Parliaments have done. And at least she did consistently ignore them; she ignored where she was ignorant. Well it would have been for the world if others had ignored the working-class until they understood it as well as she did the middle class. She was not a student of sociology; she did not study the poor. But she did study the students—or at least the social types which were to become the students of the poor. She knew her own class, and knew it without illusions; and there is much light on later problems to be found in her delicate delineation of vanities and snobberies and patronage. She had to do with the human heart; and it is that which cometh out of the heart that defileth a nation, philanthropy, [504] efficiency, organization, social reform. And if the weaker brethren still wonder why we should find in Baby Week or Welfare Work a dangerous spirit, from which its best adherents find it hard to free themselves, if they doubt how such a danger can be reconciled with the personal delicacy and idealism of many of the women who work such things, if they think that fine words or even fine feelings will guarantee a respect for the personality of the poor, I really do not know that they could do better than sit down, I trust not for the first time, to the reading of "Emma."
For all this that has happened since might well be called the Evolution of Emma. That unique and formidable institution, the English Lady, has, indeed, become much more of a public institution; that is, she has made the same mistakes on a much larger scale. The softer fastidiousness and finer pride of the more gracious eighteenth century heroine may seem to make her a shadow by comparison. It seems cruel to say that the breaking off of Harriet's humbler engagement foreshadows the indiscriminate development of Divorce for the Poor. It seems horrible to say that Emma's small matchmaking has in it the seed of the pestilence of Eugenics. But it is true. With a gentleness and justice and sympathy with good intentions, which clear her from the charge of common cynicism, the great novelist does find the spring of her heroine's errors, and of many of ours. That spring is a philanthropy, and even a generosity, secretly founded on gentility. Emma Woodhouse was a wit, she was a good woman, she was an individual with a right to her own opinion; but it was because she was a lady that she acted as she did, and thought she had a right to act as she did. She is the type in fiction of a whole race of English ladies, in fact, for whom refinement is religion. Her claim to oversee and order the social things about her consisted in being refined; she would not have admitted that being rich had anything to do with it; but as a fact it had everything to do with it. If she had been very much richer, if she had had one of the great modern fortunes, if she had had the wider modern opportunities (for the rich) she would have thought it her duty to act on the wider modern scale; she would have had public spirit and political grasp. She would have dealt with a thousand Robert Martins and a thousand Harriet Smiths, and made the same muddle about all of them. That is what we mean about things like Baby Week—and if there had been a baby in the story, Miss Woodhouse would certainly have seen all its educational needs with a brilliant clearness. And we do not mean that the work is done entirely by Mrs. Pardiggle; we mean that much of it is done by Miss Woodhouse. But it is done because she is Miss Woodhouse and not Martha Muggins or Jemima Jones; because the Lady Bountiful is a lady first, and will bestow every bounty but freedom.
It is noted that there are few traces of the French Revolution in Miss Austen's novels; but, indeed, there have been few traces of it in Miss Austen's country. The peculiarity which has produced the situation I describe is really this: that the new sentiment of humanitarianism has come, when the old sentiment of aristocracy has not gone. Social superiors have not really lost any old privileges; they have gained new privileges, including that of being superior in philosophy and philanthropy as well as in riches and refinement. No revolution has shaken their secret security or menaced them with the awful peril of becoming no more than men. Therefore their social reform is but their social refinement [505] grown restless. And in this old tea cup comedy can be found, far more clearly appreciated than in more ambitious books about problems and politics, the psychology of this mere restlessness in the rich, when it first stirred upon its cushions. Jane Austen described a narrow class, but so truthfully that she has much to teach about its after adventures, when it remained narrow as a class and broadened only as a sect.
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Source: G.K. Chesterton, "The Evolution of Emma," The Living Age 194 (August 1917): 502–505.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Friday, November 9, 2018
Repost: American Catholicity (1891)
[396] Under a name often many errors are concealed. It is not true that a name is of little consequence; for while the name may be perfectly good, and, properly understood, may embrace no error, still, improperly understood, it may encourage grave errors or lead to consequences which are seriously injurious to the best interests of mankind. We Americans are naturally proud of our country and its institutions. We are proud of its material success, and we who are Catholics have the most devoted love for our fatherland. We yield to no one in patriotism and love of country. We are thankful every day for the privileges which we enjoy in the freedom which our institutions give us in many respects. We are also thankful to God that our government does not in many things attempt to interfere with the freedom of worship or the best interests of our divine religion. Catholics are ever ready, and are among the first, to give their talents, and even their lives, in the service of their country. There is, perhaps, a boastful spirit which is contagious among us, leading many to exaggerate when comparing our own nation with the other nations of the earth. This spirit, when not carried to an undue excess, so as to violate truth or equity, is pardonable and even praiseworthy. We do not easily see defects in those we love or in institutions to which we are attached.
Nevertheless, our love for the country must not in any way blind us to errors which are serious; which, although they be widely circulated and have many adherents, are contrary to the law of God, and, therefore, to the best interests of society. Our first duty is to God and our divine religion. Our faith comes to us from God. It cannot be changed by any condition of man or by any kind of social progress. In discharging our duty faithfully towards God, in maintaining, as we are bound to do, the truths which He has revealed, and the integrity of faith, we subserve in the best possible manner the interests of our country, the preservation of true liberty and the perpetuity of our free institutions.
God is true, if every man be a liar. No one can doubt, who believes in the existence of God, that our first obligations are to Him, and no one can doubt that obedience to His law is the source, and the only source, of all true happiness.
"A nation and a kingdom that will not serve Him shall be destroyed."
[397] To revert to our first remark in regard to the use of a name, we have heard in some quarters the term American Catholicity covering a multitude of errors, and falsely representing that one true religion which we are bound to defend and profess. It has been said that in this country there is a peculiar kind of Catholicity which is in advance of the old nations of the world, which has taken to itself the wings of progress, which is more consonant with the spirit of the age, less hostile to those who differ from us in faith or morals, which puts upon itself a mantle of expediency, and loses the stern attributes of our unflinching creed. We have heard it said, as a mark of the peculiarities of American Catholicity, that we do not pretend to judge between error and falsehood as far as others are concerned; that we embrace them all, no matter what they believe or profess, as really one with us in the profession of a conservative Christianity. It is also said that our differences are not so great as has been supposed; that we are willing to meet all our fellow-citizens on an open platform of a wide Christian belief; that we are willing to yield to the majority, or even to the State, the education of our children, provided we are allowed the liberty of teaching them privately the principles of our faith. It is also maintained that the rights of the Sovereign Pontiff, especially in his temporal principality, may in this country be waived, and that those Catholics are more truly American in their sympathies who look upon the temporal power of the Supreme Pontiff as a thing of the past; who are willing to let it die, and feel no obligation to do anything in their power to restore it.
According to the prevailing doctrine in the world, "Might makes right. The Holy Father, as a matter of fact, has lost his temporal principality. Such is the providence of God, and we are not bound either to maintain its necessity or to do anything actively for its restoration. We will simply let it go as a thing that once was, and which is now dead."
Another feature of American Catholicity, as we have seen it in some quarters, is to maintain "that our form of government is the best possible, and most suited to our religion; that in respect of government we are far beyond the nations of the old world."
Undoubtedly, our own form of government is the best for us and most suited to our people. Nevertheless, it belongs to the Americanism of which we are speaking, to seek to propagate it elsewhere; to deny the rights of those who rule by the providence of God; to justify rebellion without proper cause; to forget that he who rules, rules by the ordinance of God; that God is the supreme king among the nations of the earth, and that "he who resisteth the ordinance resisteth the power of God." In other words, it is sometimes held as a principle of true Americanism that "power [398] comes from the people and ascends to the ruler; that the people make their own government and their own ruler, and therefore, without any cause except their own will, they have a right to change them or to destroy them." Now, we humbly submit that such Americanism is not the true spirit of our institutions, that it is not Catholicity in any sense of the word, and cannot usurp for a single moment, justly, the title which we have placed at the head of this article.
For the illustration of all that we have said we shall proceed to prove that the errors which we have indicated, which are sometimes classed under the term of American Catholicity, are contrary to our faith, and therefore cannot be held by Catholics.
In the first place, the doctrine that "all religions are good, and may conduce to the salvation of men, while the Catholic religion is only better and more complete," is liberalism, condemned by the Holy See.
Reason teaches us that there is one God, and as God is the Author, and the only Author, of His divine religion, creeds which contradict each other cannot all be true. While we are bound in charity to judge no man—not to enter into the supreme tribunal where each one stands alone before God, and will be judged for all his deeds and all his intelligent acts—we are bound to judge his errors, and also to condemn them, and this for the love of God and for true charity toward our neighbor. The proposition that every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, by the light of his own reason, he shall have considered to be the true one, is condemned by the Catholic Church. As far as Protestantism is concerned in all its various and contradictory forms, it cannot be a species of the true Christian religion. We quote from the syllabus of Pius IX.
"Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which by the light of reason he shall consider true."[1]
"Protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same Christian religion in which equally as in the Catholic Church one can please God."[2]
"Man in the observance of any religion can find the way of eternal salvation and also attain it."[3]
These propositions have been condemned by the supreme authority of the Church, and the doctrine contained in them cannot [399] be held by any one who calls himself a Catholic. A man is not free to follow any religion which his reason may teach him to be true. Men cannot obtain eternal salvation and find out the way of life by virtue of any false religion. If they do find salvation through invincible ignorance, or through any truths which may be taught them, mixed with many errors, they find their salvation by graces which come to them, entirely independent of the system which they follow. Their system of religion, if followed, would lead them astray. Protestantism, which, as we all know, embraces all kinds of contradictory errors, cannot be held to be a form of the true religion in which equally, as in the Catholic Church, one can please God. We are not denying here, that there are those out of the visible fold of the Church who will be saved by virtue of invincible ignorance or their obedience to the law of God, as far as they know it. But it is a very grave error, condemned by the Church, to hold that those outside of the pale of the Church are in a safe way, and still more so, that in some respects, they are better off than Catholics. We do not believe that this is true Americanism. We know it is not Catholicity. Americans love consistency. They are generally in earnest, and feel the power of sincerity. We shall never lead our erring brethren to a knowledge of the truth by making light of the differences which exist between them and ourselves, or by mitigating the doctrine that out of the Church there is no salvation. Almighty God, having instituted a way of salvation, has instituted no other.
Another grave error, which sometimes takes to itself the shield of the name of Catholicity, is what may be called the doctrine of intellectual or social progress. we make progress in many things; in material affairs; in the discoveries of science; in the application of these discoveries to the needs of mankind. But we can make no progress whatever in the faith which God has revealed to us and which comes to us perfect from His hands. We may study it and understand it better, and learn better to apply it to our daily life, and to the life of nations; but we cannot make any progress in the matter of the divine revelation. The doctrine, that we have greater light in our age; that we better understand the truths of our revelation than the ages before us; that we have theologically taken upon ourselves the wings of human progress, is not simply an empty boast, it is a serious error. By it we are led to look down upon the masters of theology, the great teachers of the Church, the doctors of the spiritual life; to think that in our age we have made such advance that we can get loose from the restraints which the great doctors of the Church, following the instincts of the faith, have placed upon the human reason. This doctrine of progress, applied to matters of faith, has been distinctly condemned by the [400] Holy See, and therefore cannot be considered to be the teaching of any kind of Catholicity.
We quote again the propositions condemned by Pius IX. in the Syllabus:
"The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregation impede the true progress of science."[4]
"The methods and the principles by which the scholastic doctors of former ages cultivated theology do not at all agree with the necessities of our time and the progress of the sciences."[5]
The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregations must be observed by every Catholic, an they do not impede any true human progress. Disobedience to them is the reverse of human progress. It is returning into the darkness, instead of going forward into the light. We can never sufficiently value the ancient doctors of the Church, and especially the schoolmen, whose teachings are adapted to all times, and especially to this rationalistic age which, following the doctrines of human pride rather than those of reason, would lead to independence in matters revealed, and therefore to liberalism and latitudinarianism.
There is always in every age a species of socialism or communism which threatens the best interests of society. It is the denial of the Catholic faith and its teachings which allows men to be blinded by such errors.
The holy Church, anxious in all things to preserve the best welfare of society, and to mitigate as far as in her power the sufferings of the poor, has often declared that socialism, while contrary to the law of God, is the enemy of the very poor whom it seeks to benefit. The following is the language of Pius IX. in his allocution to the consistory of April 20, 1849: "Evil men foment agitation among the people in order that all the principles of justice, of virtue, of honesty, of religion, may be utterly destroyed, and that the horrid and grievous system of socialism—or even of communism, as they call it—may everywhere be propagated and reign to the greatest evil and even the destruction of all human society."
We cannot, therefore, in any way countenance the principles which destroy the rights of property and which overturn the foundations of civilized society. Such errors, in any form, are too grave to be trifled with, and they are not the fruit of what may be properly so-called Americanism, while they are distinctly contrary to the Catholic faith. The Roman Pontiff cannot reconcile himself [401] nor compromise with progress, with liberalism, with socialism or with what may be called recent civilization. The doctrine that our republican form of government—good in itself, fitted to our state of society, and, in reality, having its source in the application of the principles of or religion—is the best form of government for all the nations of the earth, or the only correct form of government, cannot be held by any Catholics, whether they be Americans or of another nationality. We yield to no one in devotion to our own country; nevertheless, we cannot hold that the best form of government is that in which the Church is entirely separated from the State and the State from the Church. Such a proposition is condemned by the Holy See in the Syllabus of Pius IX., Proposition 55 declares:
"The Church should be separated from the State and the State from the Church."[6]
Undoubtedly, that form of government which does not interfere with the Church in any way is better tan the form which persecutes the Church, which deprives it of its rightful liberty, which imprisons its priests and its ministers; but this does not make it the very best form of government. The governing authorities in any nation are as much bound to obey the Catholic religion as any individual. And nations, as such, are as much under the obedience of God as are individuals. The best form of government is that where all believe in the true religion, or where the government supports the Church in the discharge of its high office, in leading men to their salvation. This, although perhaps at the present time existing nowhere, is, nevertheless the best form, and although we do not ask a government like our own to interfere in any ecclesiastical matters—while, on the contrary, we deny its right to interfere in matters purely religious—nevertheless we cannot hold, as Catholics, that a Christian or a Catholic State should not work in harmony with the Church of God, to which are committed the highest interests of man. We cannot call our own form of government religious in any sense. There is a bare recognition of God and also an implicit recognition of many precepts of the natural law; still, we cannot call it a Christian government in the true sense of the word.
And it leads to a grave error to say that the State should always be separated from the Church and the Church from the State, as if they were different bodies, each one moving in its different sphere, and the spiritual having no authority, even indirectly, over the temporal.
The State has already, not only here but in the old world, interfered [402] with the observance of the law of God, and has sanctioned that which, according to the divine law, is positively wrong. For example, the State has sanctioned divorce, thereby destroying the sacred character of Christian matrimony and allowing parties properly married to be separated, so as to annul the bond of matrimony. The Christian law teaches us, on the word of our Lord Himself, that the tie of matrimony, properly contracted, can only b severed by death. When the State undertakes in any way to favor the liberty of human passion and sin, to separate that which God has bound together, to assume the authority it has no power to assume, the very act is invalid before God. For God, at least, is the Supreme Ruler of the universe. The evils which follow, and which will follow to a much greater extent, in the disregard of Christian marriage are too great to escape the notice of any fair-minded and intelligent person. The sacredness of the family depends upon the sacredness of Christian marriage, and the perpetuity of the State depends on Christian families, of which, to a great extent, the State is composed. It is not always wise to attack the evils of society openly, although sometimes it is our duty; but it is a sin to compromise with them or to allow them to pass as if they were indifferent matters.
Another most grave error which concerns the very foundation of Christianity is that which, unfortunately, is widespread, the error that religion and education can be separated without vital injury to the Commonwealth. It is a prevalent doctrine now in our country that the State has the right to take to itself the whole question of education, to disregard the rights of parents and guardians to whom, by God's providence, children are committed. And inasmuch as the State is made up of those who hold widely diverse and contradictory beliefs, it is said to be the American system that no religion whatever must be taught in the popular schools. These popular schools, which are free to every one—in which, consistently, no principles of Christian ethics can be taught—have been called "the palladium [italics original] of our civil liberties."
To a Catholic mind, to one who believes in Christianity, and to one who has studied at all the lessons of history, it is evident that education without religion is the source of infidelity, and therefore is destructive of human liberty, properly so-called. Catholics cannot approve of any system of education which is separated from religion or from the strict teaching of the principles of their faith. We are not by any means willing to hold that Americanism is infidelity, so therefore we do not understand why any of our fellow-citizens favor the separation entirely of religion from common education.
Protestants, who are bigoted in their notions, may find that [403] such a system of education leads Catholic children to forget or deny their religion, and in this sense they may approve of such a system of popular education; but we deny that it is Americanism, or that it is in any sense a feature of our peculiar form of government. The Holy See has distinctly condemned the separation of education from religion, and no Catholic can for a moment defend or permit it.
We quote from the Syllabus, propositions 47 and 48:
"The best constitution of civil society demands that popular schools which are open to all children of whatever class, ad public institutions which are destined to more severe studies and to the education of youth, should be free from all the authority of the Church, from its moderating and governing power, and subjected wholly to the civil and political authority according to the pleasure of the rulers and the general opinions of the age."[7]
"The plan of instructing youth which is separated entirely from the Church and which primarily regards only the ends of earthly social life and the knowledge of natural things may be approved by Catholics."[8]
The teaching of our own Councils and of our own Prelates in union with the Holy See, has distinctly defined the Catholic doctrine on this subject. We are obliged, therefore, in conscience, to establish our own schools, inasmuch as we have no right to as permission to teach our doctrines in the popular schools. The right to have our own schools is permitted to us by our government; nevertheless, scarcely a year passes without some proposition in some legislature, or in the Congress of the United States, tending to abridge our rights and to deprive us of the full liberty of Christian worship which we have under the Constitution. And in all the States, so far as we know, every man is taxed for the support of the popular schools, although in conscience he can make no use of them. If this be the highest form of civil liberty, we have not the power to see it.
In almost every country of Europe, denominational schools are not only permitted, but are even maintained at the expense of the State, and the denominational system, while it satisfies the conscience of every one, is much less expensive to the State, and produces [404] harmony and peace according to the testimony of Protestants as well as Catholics. On this subject there can be surely no difference of opinion among American Catholics. No one worthy of the name of Catholic can so far compromise himself as to look with favor upon popular schools in which no principles of morals or religion can be taught.
A most important question in our day, which deeply concerns the interests of our religion, is that of the temporal principality of the Supreme Pontiff. All Catholics are bound o believe that he is the supreme pastor, teacher and infallible doctor of the universal Church; that in matters spiritual and moral there is no appeal from his decision. His temporal principality is not an open question. It cannot be looked upon as a thing of the past. Catholics, and especially American Catholics, who are free at least to think and say what they will, can never agree to look upon it as a question which has passed out of our day. They can never consent to hold that the temporal power of the popes has been taken from them by justice, or that the principality of the Supreme Pontiff has not conduced to religion and is not necessary to the free exercise of his high office. Much less can it be held that it is an open question in regard to which Catholics may differ, or that the abrogation of this principality is sanctioned by the observance of ages, or would conduce to the liberty and happiness of the Church. We have heard of some Catholics saying, that "the Pope is much better off without his temporal power; that at all events it is no question of ours, and that we are not called upon to say or to do anything in regard to it." Such views are not Catholicity, and we do not think that they are American Catholicity. Indeed we are certain that the majority of American Catholics believe in the necessity of the temporal principality of the Pope, and will always be found in the front ranks for the maintenance of his rights, both civil and spiritual. We quote the false opinions condemned in the Syllabus in regard to this matter, propositions 76 and 80.
"The abrogation of the civil power which the Apostolic See possesses would greatly conduce to the happiness and liberty of the Church."[9]
"The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, with liberalism and with modern civilization."[10]
The Supreme Pontiff, who in this, as in all other matters, is our teacher and guide, has never consented to the unjust usurpation of his temporal rights, nor has he ceased to warn the faithful by [405] his protests against the injustice which, although tolerated for a short time, can never be accepted by the Catholic Church nor regarded as just. The present Pontiff, Leo XIII., has more than once spoken to the Christian world on this subject, and in a letter of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of bishops and regulars, July 18, 1889, warned all patriarchs, archbishops and bishops, and other superiors of the Catholic people, that the injury done to the Holy See should be kept before their minds. They are directed to warn their flocks of the obligation by which they are bound to avoid the snares of secret societies and other enemies of the Holy See, to defend the faith, and by every legitimate means to maintain the rights of the Roman Pontiff, understanding that with his liberty is closely bound the liberty of all states and all peoples. In this connection we quote the words of a pastoral of the Most Rev. Archbishop of New York, addressed to the clergy and faithful of his diocese on October 2, 1889.
"Now it is the common teaching of theologians that when the Vicar of Christ and the Episcopate throughout the world unite in teaching a doctrine which regards the universal government of the Church, then they have that special assistance promised them by Jesus Christ, and their doctrine is to be received by the faithful as undoubtedly true and certain. Again and again, in Encyclicals and Allocutions, the Sovereign Pontiff has declared the temporal independence of the Holy See to be necessary for the good and free government of the Church, and this same truth is proclaimed by the whole Catholic Episcopate. As good children of the Church it is our duty to incline our ears to the teaching of Christ's Vicar, and to give it the homage of our minds and our hearts."
While, therefore, no one is allowed to attack the rights of the Holy See, or to defend the usurpation of his temporal power, every good Catholic is bound by every legitimate means to labor for its restoration. Many times during the history of the Church have the Supreme Pontiffs been placed in a worse position than that which now imprisons our Holy Father. Popular opinion has with many great weight, but we contend that such an opinion, if popular among those outside the bosom of the Catholic Church, can never be popular with sincere Catholics. They cannot even be silent in regard to the matter when time and opportunity permit them to speak plainly, and all their influence, whatever it is, must always be cast on the side of truth and right and justice.
From our knowledge of the American people we are inclined to believe that those grave errors to which we have alluded, which cannot be favored by any true Catholic, are not consistent with [406] the honesty, the sincerity and earnestness which distinguish our race.
True American Catholicity is honest, sincere and earnest. We have always been distinguished for our devotion to the Holy See. We believe the Supreme Pontiff to be the Vicar of our Lord, to represent Him to us and to speak with His voice to us in all questions of faith and morals. Therefore we are united, those of us who are sincere Catholics, in loyalty to Him, in devotion to his interests and in defence [sic] of all his rights. The rights of the Holy See are really the rights of the Church, and they are our rights. In every land devout Catholics are the best citizens, those most loyal to the government under which they live; and naturally so, because the principles which sustain the true Catholic are essentially principles of justice and equity, which are the only firm foundation of any commonwealth. When the rights of the Holy See are violated and disregarded, where shall we look for any foundation on which may rest a well-ordered civil society? "By Me," says the Holy Ghost, "kings reign and princes decree justice." Might does not make right, nor does the lapse of time make the evil a good. The points upon which we have touched so briefly seem to us of the very highest importance. They concern the true progress of our religion in this country, and therefore the perpetuity of our institutions. We maintain in their integrity the only principles upon which Christian society can rest. There is no enemy which we have to fear so much as liberalism in politics, and especially in religion. Liberalism in religion is a contradiction, inasmuch as religion depends upon a revealed faith which must be maintained in its entirety as it comes to us from God. With the divine law it is true that he who sins in one point implicitly breaks the whole law, since all precepts of the law are equally binding, and the disposition to break one precept leads directly to the transgression of all God's commandments. The same principle applies to our creed. The whole creed rests on the veracity of God, and infidelity in one point involves, implicitly at least, disbelief in the whole creed. The great danger to which our country is exposed is infidelity, which is advancing every day, denying, point by point, the precepts of the Christian religion, and even boldly advancing to the denial of the existence and government of God. Nothing can stay the tide of infidelity in our land except our divine faith. We Catholics are the best friends of our free institutions, since we are the only conservatives who maintain the principles of justice and equity on which alone they can securely rest. It is our duty always to protest against every kind of infidelity. Right is always right, and wrong is always wrong, under whatever specious appearance it may be seen. The foes of the [407] Catholic Church are really the foes of true liberty and of real progress. Knowing full well that the Catholic Church alone is able to stand against the arts of the adversary of man, they attack our religion consciously or unconsciously, knowing that thereby they advance in the surest way the denial of God, of His revelation and of His reign upon earth. Various are these attacks—sometimes under the appearance of progress in things material, sometimes under the false claims of freedom, and sometimes with an open and avowed purpose of destroying the only creed which stands on immovable foundations, because it is divine.
Well-meaning men, who would disavow atheism or infidelity, who call themselves Christians in some sense, are often the dupes of the one great enemy of religion and society. The adversary of man, who is wiser than those whom he deceives, bids them in various ways to attempt to deprive Catholics of their rights before the State, in public meetings, in the legislatures of different States, and even in the United States Congress, to propose laws which, while they deprive us of our equal liberties, strike deadly blows at the order of society. They treat us as if we were a foreign colony in the land, where, to say the least, we are their equals in the land which is our earthly home, and for which we have given our talents and our lives. Nothing could be so suicidal to our faith or to true progress as to compromise with such enemies in any point of faith or morals. The moment we compromise, the moment we yield in any particular where our divine religion and its teachings are concerned, we give up the whole ground to the enemies of society.
We sacrifice the trust reposed in our hands, and under the plea of liberty, we reatly [sic] turn traitor to God and to our country. Not for our merits did God give us the priceless treasure of Christian faith. He hsa reposed it in our hands that we may maintain it, and well discharge our duty to the good of man and to His glory. We can make no admission to what is falsely called progress. We cannot admit that there is any difference between the creed of the Catholic Church of this day and its creed in former ages. We must maintain that the laws which were binding upon the ages preceding us, which have been properly called the Ages of Faith, are binding upon us; and while the admission of any compromise in the teaching of our religion would really be the sacrifice of our whole creed, we shall gain nothing from our Protestant fellow-citizens in return for such a sacrifice. They who are sincere, respect only those whom they believe to be sincere. They will lose their regard for us, and we shall lose our influence among our fellow-men. The restrictions which Almighty God has imposed on His one way of salvation cannot be removed by man, and if in our intercourse with our fellow-citizens we allow them to think [408] that we do not fully believe that the Catholic Church is necessary for the salvation of men and of nations, they will never be drawn to embrace it, nor to make the sacrifices which are necessary for its profession. We speak feelingly on this subject, but we speak from knowledge and experience. While we are bound, according to the true spirit of our religion, to be courteous and kind and gentle in all the relations of life, while we do not approve of any unnecessarily offensive word or action, we shall best subserve the interests of those who differ from us, and surely best discharge our duty to God, by maintaining, without compromise, the precepts of our religion. There is no more dangerous disposition, if it should ever become popular, than the belief that there is an American Catholicity which is in advance of past times, which differs materially from the faith once delivered to the Church and always preserved by her, which boasts of a freedom from restrictions which bind the ages of the past. Let us, then, in our humble sphere, wherever God has placed us, be true to the faith which He has revealed to us. The perpetuity of our government depends entirely, according to our mind, on the perpetuity and the progress of the Catholic religion. If our religion fails in this country, true Americanism will fall with it; and we believe that those are the only true American Catholics who, while they maintain the rights and the liberties which our constitution guarantees to us, are obedient to the divine voice which speaks to man through the Catholic Church.
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Footnotes:
1. "Liberum cuique homini est eam amplecti ac profiteri religionem, quam rationis lumine quis ductus veram putaverit.
2. "Protestantismus non aliud est quam diversa verae eiusdem christianae religionis forma, in qua acque ac in Ecclesia Catholica Deo placere datum est.
3. "Homines in cuiusvis religionis cultu viam aeternae salutis reperire aeternamque salutem assequi possunt."
4. Apostolicae Sedis, Romanarumque Congregationum decreta liberum scientiae progressum impediunt.
5. Methodus et principia, quibus antiqui doctores scholastici theologiam excoluerunt, temporum nostrorum necessitatibus scientiarumque progressui minime congruunt.
6. "Ecclesia a Statu, Statusque ab Ecclesia sejungendus est."
7. "Postulat optima civilis societatis ratio, ut populares scholae, quae patent omnibus cuiusque e populo classis pueris, ac publica universim instituta, quae litteris severioribusque disciplinis tradendis et educationi juventutis curandae sunt destinata, eximantur ab omni Ecclesiae auctoritate, moderatrice vi et ingerentia, plenoque civilis ac politiciae auctoritatis arbitrio subiiciantur ad imperantium placita et ad communium aetatis opinionum amussim."
8. Catholicis viris probari potest ea juventutis instituendae ratio, quae sit a Catholica fide et ab Ecclesiae potestate sejuncta quaeque rerum dumtaxat naturalium scientiam ac terrenae socialis vitae fines tantummodo vel saltem primario spectet."
9. "Abrogatio civilis imperii quo Apostolica Sedes potitur, ad Ecclesiae libertatem felicitatemque vel maxime conduceret."
10. Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, cum liberalismo et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et componere."
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Source: Right Rev. Thomas S. Preston, D.D., V.G., "American Catholicity," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 16 (January–October 1891): 396–408.
Nevertheless, our love for the country must not in any way blind us to errors which are serious; which, although they be widely circulated and have many adherents, are contrary to the law of God, and, therefore, to the best interests of society. Our first duty is to God and our divine religion. Our faith comes to us from God. It cannot be changed by any condition of man or by any kind of social progress. In discharging our duty faithfully towards God, in maintaining, as we are bound to do, the truths which He has revealed, and the integrity of faith, we subserve in the best possible manner the interests of our country, the preservation of true liberty and the perpetuity of our free institutions.
God is true, if every man be a liar. No one can doubt, who believes in the existence of God, that our first obligations are to Him, and no one can doubt that obedience to His law is the source, and the only source, of all true happiness.
"A nation and a kingdom that will not serve Him shall be destroyed."
[397] To revert to our first remark in regard to the use of a name, we have heard in some quarters the term American Catholicity covering a multitude of errors, and falsely representing that one true religion which we are bound to defend and profess. It has been said that in this country there is a peculiar kind of Catholicity which is in advance of the old nations of the world, which has taken to itself the wings of progress, which is more consonant with the spirit of the age, less hostile to those who differ from us in faith or morals, which puts upon itself a mantle of expediency, and loses the stern attributes of our unflinching creed. We have heard it said, as a mark of the peculiarities of American Catholicity, that we do not pretend to judge between error and falsehood as far as others are concerned; that we embrace them all, no matter what they believe or profess, as really one with us in the profession of a conservative Christianity. It is also said that our differences are not so great as has been supposed; that we are willing to meet all our fellow-citizens on an open platform of a wide Christian belief; that we are willing to yield to the majority, or even to the State, the education of our children, provided we are allowed the liberty of teaching them privately the principles of our faith. It is also maintained that the rights of the Sovereign Pontiff, especially in his temporal principality, may in this country be waived, and that those Catholics are more truly American in their sympathies who look upon the temporal power of the Supreme Pontiff as a thing of the past; who are willing to let it die, and feel no obligation to do anything in their power to restore it.
According to the prevailing doctrine in the world, "Might makes right. The Holy Father, as a matter of fact, has lost his temporal principality. Such is the providence of God, and we are not bound either to maintain its necessity or to do anything actively for its restoration. We will simply let it go as a thing that once was, and which is now dead."
Another feature of American Catholicity, as we have seen it in some quarters, is to maintain "that our form of government is the best possible, and most suited to our religion; that in respect of government we are far beyond the nations of the old world."
Undoubtedly, our own form of government is the best for us and most suited to our people. Nevertheless, it belongs to the Americanism of which we are speaking, to seek to propagate it elsewhere; to deny the rights of those who rule by the providence of God; to justify rebellion without proper cause; to forget that he who rules, rules by the ordinance of God; that God is the supreme king among the nations of the earth, and that "he who resisteth the ordinance resisteth the power of God." In other words, it is sometimes held as a principle of true Americanism that "power [398] comes from the people and ascends to the ruler; that the people make their own government and their own ruler, and therefore, without any cause except their own will, they have a right to change them or to destroy them." Now, we humbly submit that such Americanism is not the true spirit of our institutions, that it is not Catholicity in any sense of the word, and cannot usurp for a single moment, justly, the title which we have placed at the head of this article.
For the illustration of all that we have said we shall proceed to prove that the errors which we have indicated, which are sometimes classed under the term of American Catholicity, are contrary to our faith, and therefore cannot be held by Catholics.
In the first place, the doctrine that "all religions are good, and may conduce to the salvation of men, while the Catholic religion is only better and more complete," is liberalism, condemned by the Holy See.
Reason teaches us that there is one God, and as God is the Author, and the only Author, of His divine religion, creeds which contradict each other cannot all be true. While we are bound in charity to judge no man—not to enter into the supreme tribunal where each one stands alone before God, and will be judged for all his deeds and all his intelligent acts—we are bound to judge his errors, and also to condemn them, and this for the love of God and for true charity toward our neighbor. The proposition that every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, by the light of his own reason, he shall have considered to be the true one, is condemned by the Catholic Church. As far as Protestantism is concerned in all its various and contradictory forms, it cannot be a species of the true Christian religion. We quote from the syllabus of Pius IX.
"Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which by the light of reason he shall consider true."[1]
"Protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same Christian religion in which equally as in the Catholic Church one can please God."[2]
"Man in the observance of any religion can find the way of eternal salvation and also attain it."[3]
These propositions have been condemned by the supreme authority of the Church, and the doctrine contained in them cannot [399] be held by any one who calls himself a Catholic. A man is not free to follow any religion which his reason may teach him to be true. Men cannot obtain eternal salvation and find out the way of life by virtue of any false religion. If they do find salvation through invincible ignorance, or through any truths which may be taught them, mixed with many errors, they find their salvation by graces which come to them, entirely independent of the system which they follow. Their system of religion, if followed, would lead them astray. Protestantism, which, as we all know, embraces all kinds of contradictory errors, cannot be held to be a form of the true religion in which equally, as in the Catholic Church, one can please God. We are not denying here, that there are those out of the visible fold of the Church who will be saved by virtue of invincible ignorance or their obedience to the law of God, as far as they know it. But it is a very grave error, condemned by the Church, to hold that those outside of the pale of the Church are in a safe way, and still more so, that in some respects, they are better off than Catholics. We do not believe that this is true Americanism. We know it is not Catholicity. Americans love consistency. They are generally in earnest, and feel the power of sincerity. We shall never lead our erring brethren to a knowledge of the truth by making light of the differences which exist between them and ourselves, or by mitigating the doctrine that out of the Church there is no salvation. Almighty God, having instituted a way of salvation, has instituted no other.
Another grave error, which sometimes takes to itself the shield of the name of Catholicity, is what may be called the doctrine of intellectual or social progress. we make progress in many things; in material affairs; in the discoveries of science; in the application of these discoveries to the needs of mankind. But we can make no progress whatever in the faith which God has revealed to us and which comes to us perfect from His hands. We may study it and understand it better, and learn better to apply it to our daily life, and to the life of nations; but we cannot make any progress in the matter of the divine revelation. The doctrine, that we have greater light in our age; that we better understand the truths of our revelation than the ages before us; that we have theologically taken upon ourselves the wings of human progress, is not simply an empty boast, it is a serious error. By it we are led to look down upon the masters of theology, the great teachers of the Church, the doctors of the spiritual life; to think that in our age we have made such advance that we can get loose from the restraints which the great doctors of the Church, following the instincts of the faith, have placed upon the human reason. This doctrine of progress, applied to matters of faith, has been distinctly condemned by the [400] Holy See, and therefore cannot be considered to be the teaching of any kind of Catholicity.
We quote again the propositions condemned by Pius IX. in the Syllabus:
"The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregation impede the true progress of science."[4]
"The methods and the principles by which the scholastic doctors of former ages cultivated theology do not at all agree with the necessities of our time and the progress of the sciences."[5]
The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregations must be observed by every Catholic, an they do not impede any true human progress. Disobedience to them is the reverse of human progress. It is returning into the darkness, instead of going forward into the light. We can never sufficiently value the ancient doctors of the Church, and especially the schoolmen, whose teachings are adapted to all times, and especially to this rationalistic age which, following the doctrines of human pride rather than those of reason, would lead to independence in matters revealed, and therefore to liberalism and latitudinarianism.
There is always in every age a species of socialism or communism which threatens the best interests of society. It is the denial of the Catholic faith and its teachings which allows men to be blinded by such errors.
The holy Church, anxious in all things to preserve the best welfare of society, and to mitigate as far as in her power the sufferings of the poor, has often declared that socialism, while contrary to the law of God, is the enemy of the very poor whom it seeks to benefit. The following is the language of Pius IX. in his allocution to the consistory of April 20, 1849: "Evil men foment agitation among the people in order that all the principles of justice, of virtue, of honesty, of religion, may be utterly destroyed, and that the horrid and grievous system of socialism—or even of communism, as they call it—may everywhere be propagated and reign to the greatest evil and even the destruction of all human society."
We cannot, therefore, in any way countenance the principles which destroy the rights of property and which overturn the foundations of civilized society. Such errors, in any form, are too grave to be trifled with, and they are not the fruit of what may be properly so-called Americanism, while they are distinctly contrary to the Catholic faith. The Roman Pontiff cannot reconcile himself [401] nor compromise with progress, with liberalism, with socialism or with what may be called recent civilization. The doctrine that our republican form of government—good in itself, fitted to our state of society, and, in reality, having its source in the application of the principles of or religion—is the best form of government for all the nations of the earth, or the only correct form of government, cannot be held by any Catholics, whether they be Americans or of another nationality. We yield to no one in devotion to our own country; nevertheless, we cannot hold that the best form of government is that in which the Church is entirely separated from the State and the State from the Church. Such a proposition is condemned by the Holy See in the Syllabus of Pius IX., Proposition 55 declares:
"The Church should be separated from the State and the State from the Church."[6]
Undoubtedly, that form of government which does not interfere with the Church in any way is better tan the form which persecutes the Church, which deprives it of its rightful liberty, which imprisons its priests and its ministers; but this does not make it the very best form of government. The governing authorities in any nation are as much bound to obey the Catholic religion as any individual. And nations, as such, are as much under the obedience of God as are individuals. The best form of government is that where all believe in the true religion, or where the government supports the Church in the discharge of its high office, in leading men to their salvation. This, although perhaps at the present time existing nowhere, is, nevertheless the best form, and although we do not ask a government like our own to interfere in any ecclesiastical matters—while, on the contrary, we deny its right to interfere in matters purely religious—nevertheless we cannot hold, as Catholics, that a Christian or a Catholic State should not work in harmony with the Church of God, to which are committed the highest interests of man. We cannot call our own form of government religious in any sense. There is a bare recognition of God and also an implicit recognition of many precepts of the natural law; still, we cannot call it a Christian government in the true sense of the word.
And it leads to a grave error to say that the State should always be separated from the Church and the Church from the State, as if they were different bodies, each one moving in its different sphere, and the spiritual having no authority, even indirectly, over the temporal.
The State has already, not only here but in the old world, interfered [402] with the observance of the law of God, and has sanctioned that which, according to the divine law, is positively wrong. For example, the State has sanctioned divorce, thereby destroying the sacred character of Christian matrimony and allowing parties properly married to be separated, so as to annul the bond of matrimony. The Christian law teaches us, on the word of our Lord Himself, that the tie of matrimony, properly contracted, can only b severed by death. When the State undertakes in any way to favor the liberty of human passion and sin, to separate that which God has bound together, to assume the authority it has no power to assume, the very act is invalid before God. For God, at least, is the Supreme Ruler of the universe. The evils which follow, and which will follow to a much greater extent, in the disregard of Christian marriage are too great to escape the notice of any fair-minded and intelligent person. The sacredness of the family depends upon the sacredness of Christian marriage, and the perpetuity of the State depends on Christian families, of which, to a great extent, the State is composed. It is not always wise to attack the evils of society openly, although sometimes it is our duty; but it is a sin to compromise with them or to allow them to pass as if they were indifferent matters.
Another most grave error which concerns the very foundation of Christianity is that which, unfortunately, is widespread, the error that religion and education can be separated without vital injury to the Commonwealth. It is a prevalent doctrine now in our country that the State has the right to take to itself the whole question of education, to disregard the rights of parents and guardians to whom, by God's providence, children are committed. And inasmuch as the State is made up of those who hold widely diverse and contradictory beliefs, it is said to be the American system that no religion whatever must be taught in the popular schools. These popular schools, which are free to every one—in which, consistently, no principles of Christian ethics can be taught—have been called "the palladium [italics original] of our civil liberties."
To a Catholic mind, to one who believes in Christianity, and to one who has studied at all the lessons of history, it is evident that education without religion is the source of infidelity, and therefore is destructive of human liberty, properly so-called. Catholics cannot approve of any system of education which is separated from religion or from the strict teaching of the principles of their faith. We are not by any means willing to hold that Americanism is infidelity, so therefore we do not understand why any of our fellow-citizens favor the separation entirely of religion from common education.
Protestants, who are bigoted in their notions, may find that [403] such a system of education leads Catholic children to forget or deny their religion, and in this sense they may approve of such a system of popular education; but we deny that it is Americanism, or that it is in any sense a feature of our peculiar form of government. The Holy See has distinctly condemned the separation of education from religion, and no Catholic can for a moment defend or permit it.
We quote from the Syllabus, propositions 47 and 48:
"The best constitution of civil society demands that popular schools which are open to all children of whatever class, ad public institutions which are destined to more severe studies and to the education of youth, should be free from all the authority of the Church, from its moderating and governing power, and subjected wholly to the civil and political authority according to the pleasure of the rulers and the general opinions of the age."[7]
"The plan of instructing youth which is separated entirely from the Church and which primarily regards only the ends of earthly social life and the knowledge of natural things may be approved by Catholics."[8]
The teaching of our own Councils and of our own Prelates in union with the Holy See, has distinctly defined the Catholic doctrine on this subject. We are obliged, therefore, in conscience, to establish our own schools, inasmuch as we have no right to as permission to teach our doctrines in the popular schools. The right to have our own schools is permitted to us by our government; nevertheless, scarcely a year passes without some proposition in some legislature, or in the Congress of the United States, tending to abridge our rights and to deprive us of the full liberty of Christian worship which we have under the Constitution. And in all the States, so far as we know, every man is taxed for the support of the popular schools, although in conscience he can make no use of them. If this be the highest form of civil liberty, we have not the power to see it.
In almost every country of Europe, denominational schools are not only permitted, but are even maintained at the expense of the State, and the denominational system, while it satisfies the conscience of every one, is much less expensive to the State, and produces [404] harmony and peace according to the testimony of Protestants as well as Catholics. On this subject there can be surely no difference of opinion among American Catholics. No one worthy of the name of Catholic can so far compromise himself as to look with favor upon popular schools in which no principles of morals or religion can be taught.
A most important question in our day, which deeply concerns the interests of our religion, is that of the temporal principality of the Supreme Pontiff. All Catholics are bound o believe that he is the supreme pastor, teacher and infallible doctor of the universal Church; that in matters spiritual and moral there is no appeal from his decision. His temporal principality is not an open question. It cannot be looked upon as a thing of the past. Catholics, and especially American Catholics, who are free at least to think and say what they will, can never agree to look upon it as a question which has passed out of our day. They can never consent to hold that the temporal power of the popes has been taken from them by justice, or that the principality of the Supreme Pontiff has not conduced to religion and is not necessary to the free exercise of his high office. Much less can it be held that it is an open question in regard to which Catholics may differ, or that the abrogation of this principality is sanctioned by the observance of ages, or would conduce to the liberty and happiness of the Church. We have heard of some Catholics saying, that "the Pope is much better off without his temporal power; that at all events it is no question of ours, and that we are not called upon to say or to do anything in regard to it." Such views are not Catholicity, and we do not think that they are American Catholicity. Indeed we are certain that the majority of American Catholics believe in the necessity of the temporal principality of the Pope, and will always be found in the front ranks for the maintenance of his rights, both civil and spiritual. We quote the false opinions condemned in the Syllabus in regard to this matter, propositions 76 and 80.
"The abrogation of the civil power which the Apostolic See possesses would greatly conduce to the happiness and liberty of the Church."[9]
"The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, with liberalism and with modern civilization."[10]
The Supreme Pontiff, who in this, as in all other matters, is our teacher and guide, has never consented to the unjust usurpation of his temporal rights, nor has he ceased to warn the faithful by [405] his protests against the injustice which, although tolerated for a short time, can never be accepted by the Catholic Church nor regarded as just. The present Pontiff, Leo XIII., has more than once spoken to the Christian world on this subject, and in a letter of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of bishops and regulars, July 18, 1889, warned all patriarchs, archbishops and bishops, and other superiors of the Catholic people, that the injury done to the Holy See should be kept before their minds. They are directed to warn their flocks of the obligation by which they are bound to avoid the snares of secret societies and other enemies of the Holy See, to defend the faith, and by every legitimate means to maintain the rights of the Roman Pontiff, understanding that with his liberty is closely bound the liberty of all states and all peoples. In this connection we quote the words of a pastoral of the Most Rev. Archbishop of New York, addressed to the clergy and faithful of his diocese on October 2, 1889.
"Now it is the common teaching of theologians that when the Vicar of Christ and the Episcopate throughout the world unite in teaching a doctrine which regards the universal government of the Church, then they have that special assistance promised them by Jesus Christ, and their doctrine is to be received by the faithful as undoubtedly true and certain. Again and again, in Encyclicals and Allocutions, the Sovereign Pontiff has declared the temporal independence of the Holy See to be necessary for the good and free government of the Church, and this same truth is proclaimed by the whole Catholic Episcopate. As good children of the Church it is our duty to incline our ears to the teaching of Christ's Vicar, and to give it the homage of our minds and our hearts."
While, therefore, no one is allowed to attack the rights of the Holy See, or to defend the usurpation of his temporal power, every good Catholic is bound by every legitimate means to labor for its restoration. Many times during the history of the Church have the Supreme Pontiffs been placed in a worse position than that which now imprisons our Holy Father. Popular opinion has with many great weight, but we contend that such an opinion, if popular among those outside the bosom of the Catholic Church, can never be popular with sincere Catholics. They cannot even be silent in regard to the matter when time and opportunity permit them to speak plainly, and all their influence, whatever it is, must always be cast on the side of truth and right and justice.
From our knowledge of the American people we are inclined to believe that those grave errors to which we have alluded, which cannot be favored by any true Catholic, are not consistent with [406] the honesty, the sincerity and earnestness which distinguish our race.
True American Catholicity is honest, sincere and earnest. We have always been distinguished for our devotion to the Holy See. We believe the Supreme Pontiff to be the Vicar of our Lord, to represent Him to us and to speak with His voice to us in all questions of faith and morals. Therefore we are united, those of us who are sincere Catholics, in loyalty to Him, in devotion to his interests and in defence [sic] of all his rights. The rights of the Holy See are really the rights of the Church, and they are our rights. In every land devout Catholics are the best citizens, those most loyal to the government under which they live; and naturally so, because the principles which sustain the true Catholic are essentially principles of justice and equity, which are the only firm foundation of any commonwealth. When the rights of the Holy See are violated and disregarded, where shall we look for any foundation on which may rest a well-ordered civil society? "By Me," says the Holy Ghost, "kings reign and princes decree justice." Might does not make right, nor does the lapse of time make the evil a good. The points upon which we have touched so briefly seem to us of the very highest importance. They concern the true progress of our religion in this country, and therefore the perpetuity of our institutions. We maintain in their integrity the only principles upon which Christian society can rest. There is no enemy which we have to fear so much as liberalism in politics, and especially in religion. Liberalism in religion is a contradiction, inasmuch as religion depends upon a revealed faith which must be maintained in its entirety as it comes to us from God. With the divine law it is true that he who sins in one point implicitly breaks the whole law, since all precepts of the law are equally binding, and the disposition to break one precept leads directly to the transgression of all God's commandments. The same principle applies to our creed. The whole creed rests on the veracity of God, and infidelity in one point involves, implicitly at least, disbelief in the whole creed. The great danger to which our country is exposed is infidelity, which is advancing every day, denying, point by point, the precepts of the Christian religion, and even boldly advancing to the denial of the existence and government of God. Nothing can stay the tide of infidelity in our land except our divine faith. We Catholics are the best friends of our free institutions, since we are the only conservatives who maintain the principles of justice and equity on which alone they can securely rest. It is our duty always to protest against every kind of infidelity. Right is always right, and wrong is always wrong, under whatever specious appearance it may be seen. The foes of the [407] Catholic Church are really the foes of true liberty and of real progress. Knowing full well that the Catholic Church alone is able to stand against the arts of the adversary of man, they attack our religion consciously or unconsciously, knowing that thereby they advance in the surest way the denial of God, of His revelation and of His reign upon earth. Various are these attacks—sometimes under the appearance of progress in things material, sometimes under the false claims of freedom, and sometimes with an open and avowed purpose of destroying the only creed which stands on immovable foundations, because it is divine.
Well-meaning men, who would disavow atheism or infidelity, who call themselves Christians in some sense, are often the dupes of the one great enemy of religion and society. The adversary of man, who is wiser than those whom he deceives, bids them in various ways to attempt to deprive Catholics of their rights before the State, in public meetings, in the legislatures of different States, and even in the United States Congress, to propose laws which, while they deprive us of our equal liberties, strike deadly blows at the order of society. They treat us as if we were a foreign colony in the land, where, to say the least, we are their equals in the land which is our earthly home, and for which we have given our talents and our lives. Nothing could be so suicidal to our faith or to true progress as to compromise with such enemies in any point of faith or morals. The moment we compromise, the moment we yield in any particular where our divine religion and its teachings are concerned, we give up the whole ground to the enemies of society.
We sacrifice the trust reposed in our hands, and under the plea of liberty, we reatly [sic] turn traitor to God and to our country. Not for our merits did God give us the priceless treasure of Christian faith. He hsa reposed it in our hands that we may maintain it, and well discharge our duty to the good of man and to His glory. We can make no admission to what is falsely called progress. We cannot admit that there is any difference between the creed of the Catholic Church of this day and its creed in former ages. We must maintain that the laws which were binding upon the ages preceding us, which have been properly called the Ages of Faith, are binding upon us; and while the admission of any compromise in the teaching of our religion would really be the sacrifice of our whole creed, we shall gain nothing from our Protestant fellow-citizens in return for such a sacrifice. They who are sincere, respect only those whom they believe to be sincere. They will lose their regard for us, and we shall lose our influence among our fellow-men. The restrictions which Almighty God has imposed on His one way of salvation cannot be removed by man, and if in our intercourse with our fellow-citizens we allow them to think [408] that we do not fully believe that the Catholic Church is necessary for the salvation of men and of nations, they will never be drawn to embrace it, nor to make the sacrifices which are necessary for its profession. We speak feelingly on this subject, but we speak from knowledge and experience. While we are bound, according to the true spirit of our religion, to be courteous and kind and gentle in all the relations of life, while we do not approve of any unnecessarily offensive word or action, we shall best subserve the interests of those who differ from us, and surely best discharge our duty to God, by maintaining, without compromise, the precepts of our religion. There is no more dangerous disposition, if it should ever become popular, than the belief that there is an American Catholicity which is in advance of past times, which differs materially from the faith once delivered to the Church and always preserved by her, which boasts of a freedom from restrictions which bind the ages of the past. Let us, then, in our humble sphere, wherever God has placed us, be true to the faith which He has revealed to us. The perpetuity of our government depends entirely, according to our mind, on the perpetuity and the progress of the Catholic religion. If our religion fails in this country, true Americanism will fall with it; and we believe that those are the only true American Catholics who, while they maintain the rights and the liberties which our constitution guarantees to us, are obedient to the divine voice which speaks to man through the Catholic Church.
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Footnotes:
1. "Liberum cuique homini est eam amplecti ac profiteri religionem, quam rationis lumine quis ductus veram putaverit.
2. "Protestantismus non aliud est quam diversa verae eiusdem christianae religionis forma, in qua acque ac in Ecclesia Catholica Deo placere datum est.
3. "Homines in cuiusvis religionis cultu viam aeternae salutis reperire aeternamque salutem assequi possunt."
4. Apostolicae Sedis, Romanarumque Congregationum decreta liberum scientiae progressum impediunt.
5. Methodus et principia, quibus antiqui doctores scholastici theologiam excoluerunt, temporum nostrorum necessitatibus scientiarumque progressui minime congruunt.
6. "Ecclesia a Statu, Statusque ab Ecclesia sejungendus est."
7. "Postulat optima civilis societatis ratio, ut populares scholae, quae patent omnibus cuiusque e populo classis pueris, ac publica universim instituta, quae litteris severioribusque disciplinis tradendis et educationi juventutis curandae sunt destinata, eximantur ab omni Ecclesiae auctoritate, moderatrice vi et ingerentia, plenoque civilis ac politiciae auctoritatis arbitrio subiiciantur ad imperantium placita et ad communium aetatis opinionum amussim."
8. Catholicis viris probari potest ea juventutis instituendae ratio, quae sit a Catholica fide et ab Ecclesiae potestate sejuncta quaeque rerum dumtaxat naturalium scientiam ac terrenae socialis vitae fines tantummodo vel saltem primario spectet."
9. "Abrogatio civilis imperii quo Apostolica Sedes potitur, ad Ecclesiae libertatem felicitatemque vel maxime conduceret."
10. Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, cum liberalismo et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et componere."
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Source: Right Rev. Thomas S. Preston, D.D., V.G., "American Catholicity," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 16 (January–October 1891): 396–408.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
John Henry Newman on Poetical Feeling and Correct Moral Perception
[22] Originality may perhaps be defined the power of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions are commonly derived from education and society. Common minds transmit as they receive, good and bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a continual propensity to investigate subjects and strike out views for themselves;—so that even old and established truths do not escape modification and accidental change when subjected to this process of mental digestion. Even the style of original writers is stamped with the peculiarities of their minds. When originality is found apart from good sense, which more or less is frequently the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated from its good sense, or taste, as it is called; which is one of its elements. It is originality energizing in the world of beauty; the originality of grace, purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not hesitate to say that poetry is ultimately founded on correct moral perception; that where there is no sound principle in exercise there will be no poetry; and that on the whole (originality being granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's moral character will his compositions vary in poetical excellence. This position, however, requires some explanation.
Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that a poet must necessarily display virtuous and religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual material of poetry, [23] but of its sources. A right moral state of heart is the formal and scientific condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow from our position that every poet must in fact be a man of consistent and practical principle; except so far as good feeling commonly produces or results from good practice. Burns was a man of inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged poetical talent is in nowise inconsistent with the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the beauty which exists in his compositions to the remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds good, even though it be shown that a depraved man may write a poem. As motives short of the purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial and limited poetry. But even where this is instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry as the traces and shadows of holy truth still remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral feeling places the mind in the very centre [sic] of that circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey may be considered, as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral centre. The following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter Scott's centre is chivalrous honor; Shakspeare [sic] exhibits the characteristics of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the religion of nature and conscience, at times debased by polytheism. All [24] these poets are religious. The occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy. Dryden's Alexander's Feast is a magnificent composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a refined judgment there is something intrinsically unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue foundation—the one is a fallacy, the other is out of taste. Lord Byron's Manfred is in parts intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals itself, and the basis on which the drama is built. From a perusal of it we should infer, according to the above theory, that there was right and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the central and consistent character was wanting. From the history of his life we know this to be the fact. The connexion [sic] between want of the religious principle and want of poetical feeling is seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine. Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his work evinces that his miserable philosophy was rather the result of a bewildered judgment than a corrupt heart.
According to the above theory, Revealed Religion should be especially poetical—and it is so in fact. While its disclosures have an originality in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical mind delights, and with which all grace and harmony are associated. It brings us into a new world—a world of overpowering interest, of the sublimest [25] views and the tenderest and purest feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect produced upon the hearts of those who have imbibed their spirit. At present we are not concerned with the practical, but the poetical, nature of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty,—we are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even our friends around are invested with unearthly brightness—no longer imperfect men, but beings taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal, and in training for future happiness. It may be added that the virtues peculiarly Christian are especially poetical—meekness, gentleness, compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and more ordinary feelings are the instruments of rhetoric more justly than of poetry—anger, indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of independence.
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Source: John Henry Newman, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1894), 22–25.
Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that a poet must necessarily display virtuous and religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual material of poetry, [23] but of its sources. A right moral state of heart is the formal and scientific condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow from our position that every poet must in fact be a man of consistent and practical principle; except so far as good feeling commonly produces or results from good practice. Burns was a man of inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged poetical talent is in nowise inconsistent with the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the beauty which exists in his compositions to the remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds good, even though it be shown that a depraved man may write a poem. As motives short of the purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial and limited poetry. But even where this is instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry as the traces and shadows of holy truth still remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral feeling places the mind in the very centre [sic] of that circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey may be considered, as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral centre. The following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter Scott's centre is chivalrous honor; Shakspeare [sic] exhibits the characteristics of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the religion of nature and conscience, at times debased by polytheism. All [24] these poets are religious. The occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy. Dryden's Alexander's Feast is a magnificent composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a refined judgment there is something intrinsically unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue foundation—the one is a fallacy, the other is out of taste. Lord Byron's Manfred is in parts intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals itself, and the basis on which the drama is built. From a perusal of it we should infer, according to the above theory, that there was right and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the central and consistent character was wanting. From the history of his life we know this to be the fact. The connexion [sic] between want of the religious principle and want of poetical feeling is seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine. Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his work evinces that his miserable philosophy was rather the result of a bewildered judgment than a corrupt heart.
According to the above theory, Revealed Religion should be especially poetical—and it is so in fact. While its disclosures have an originality in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical mind delights, and with which all grace and harmony are associated. It brings us into a new world—a world of overpowering interest, of the sublimest [25] views and the tenderest and purest feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect produced upon the hearts of those who have imbibed their spirit. At present we are not concerned with the practical, but the poetical, nature of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty,—we are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even our friends around are invested with unearthly brightness—no longer imperfect men, but beings taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal, and in training for future happiness. It may be added that the virtues peculiarly Christian are especially poetical—meekness, gentleness, compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and more ordinary feelings are the instruments of rhetoric more justly than of poetry—anger, indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of independence.
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Source: John Henry Newman, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1894), 22–25.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Saint Gregory the Great: On the Pastoral Rule
[Originally written for a class. In light of all the recent scandals among the episcopacy, I thought posting the following would be relevant.]
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“So exalted is the view of the episcopal calling taken by the Regula Pastoralis, that it has been said that it made the bishops who made the modern nations.”[1]Saint Gregory the Great’s On the Pastoral Rule (Liber Regulae Pastoralis) immediately established itself as a classic of pastoral theology and spirituality.[2] Written in response to a criticism that St. Gregory had attempted to flee from his responsibilities upon election to the papacy,[3] the Pastoral Rule was circulated in Spain, translated into Greek and distributed among the Eastern Churches by order of the Emperor Maurice, and spread throughout Ireland and England by SS. Columban and Augustine.[4] Nor did its influence wane, for by the 9th century, Alfred the Great, desiring to reform the clergy of England, translated the work into Old English and commanded each bishop in his kingdom to read it.[5] In France around the same time, each newly consecrated bishop received a copy of the Canons along with the Pastoral Rule.[6] By the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas relied on it as the principal basis for his exposition on the episcopacy in the Summa Theologiae.[7] Finally, in the 20th century, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, commended it as contributing to a proper notion of priestly perfection.[8] The Pastoral Rule not only sets high standards but hands on the practical wisdom of a great contemplative saint who did not shirk from laboring in the world. Its enduring impact on the spirituality of the priest and bishop combined with its sheer abundance of excellent advice in navigating the delicate balance between the contemplative and active lives make the work incontestably important for the seminarian and priest. In reading the work, two points struck me most powerfully: first, the focus on balance that St. Gregory brings in explaining the work of the pastor, and second, the necessity of great sanctity in order for the pastor to conduct an effective apostolate. I will explain these points and their relevance for growth in the spiritual life.
The Pastoral Rule eminently (while not consciously) embodies the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion that virtue lies in the golden mean between excess and defect.[9] St. Gregory makes use of the balance between contrasting elements in order to explain the virtues and knowledge necessary for the pastor. For example, a man may rightfully flee from the office of pastor out of humility, yet if God calls him to this duty, to deny it would reveal prideful obstinacy.[10] The pastor must exercise prudence in keeping silence but be forthright and profitable in speech, avoiding the defect of an excessive silence that would imply approval of the sinful behavior of those deserving correction and, on the other hand, the excess of careless and immoderate rebuke.[11] Similarly, the pastor must balance gentleness and rigor, gently correcting sins of weakness or ignorance, reprimanding more sternly sins of malice, yet without excessive harshness, for “when reproof blazes forth immoderately, the hearts of the sinners fall into dejection and despair.”[12] St. Gregory elaborates on the careful balance required between the contemplative and active aspects of pastoral life. The pastor’s contemplation must be exalted above all others, yet like St. Paul, who made provision for married life to faithful under his care out of concern for the concupiscence of the flesh, he must accommodate himself to the needs of the weak.[13] Like the example of our Lord, Who ascended the mountain to pray to His Father and descended to minister to sinners during the day, so “good rulers, who, though they strive after the highest things by contemplation, should nevertheless by their compassion share in the needs of the weak.”[14] St. Gregory explains beautifully that “charity rises to sublime heights, when in pity it is drawn by the lowly […] and the more kindly it stoops to infirmity, the mightier is its reach to the highest.”[15] Ultimately, St. Gregory establishes that contemplation takes priority since the faithful must receive from the spiritual abundance of the pastor, like water overflowing from an interior cistern,[16] but his contemplation must not be so prolonged that the pastor neglects his responsibilities to his flock.[17]
The other type of balance on which St. Gregory expounds regards the pastor’s knowledge so that he may adapt his manner of teaching to each class of individual, temperament, and character. Here St. Gregory reveals a profound understanding of psychology combined with the most developed prudence and breadth of experience. The saint compares the pastor’s work to the playing of a harp, where each listener is a different string, to which the harpist must apply a different stroke suited to each in order to produce a skillful and harmonious melody.[18] Gregory goes on to elucidate around 40 different classes of people, of various temperaments, characters, virtues, vices, and experiences, and how the preacher is effectively to teach them all. His discussion of encouraging the overly taciturn provides an example of the saint’s penetrating insight into the human heart that depreciates the supposed genius of Freud’s “talking cure”:
Often when the taciturn suffer injustice, they come to feel keener grief from not speaking about what they are suffering. […] Wounds that are closed are the more painful. […] People, therefore, who are more silent than is expedient, should realise [sic] that they but aggravate the vehemence of their grief in withholding speech [….][19]Clearly, to achieve this remarkable balance and depth requires profound sanctity and docility to the movements of the Holy Ghost as for example when St. Gregory states: “Humility is to be preached to the proud in a way not to increase fear in the timorous, and confidence [to the timorous] as not to encourage the unbridled impetuosity in the proud. […] The highest good is to be so praised, that the good in little things is not discarded.”[20] Gregory’s insistence on striking that balance and reaching that summit of virtue for an effective pastoral ministry brings me to my second point of interest.
One of St. Gregory’s principal points in his Pastoral Rule is the sanctity requisite for the great responsibility of pastoral ministry. As St. Thomas succinctly puts it, in a manner with which St. Gregory would undoubtedly have agreed, the bishop is the perfector of others.[21] The pastor must be holy by reason of the dignity of his office as the life of the shepherd is so far above the life of the sheep.[22] St. Gregory warns, “No one ventures to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought,” and that the government of souls is “the art of arts.”[23] The saint compares the pastor to a physician who would be rash to attempt to heal others without having first mastered the art of medicine himself, and further than the physician, in order for the pastor to heal souls, he himself must first be healed of sinfulness and even attachment to sin: “If, then, in [the physician’s] practice ailments still thrive in him, with what presumption does he hasten to heal the afflicted while he carries a sore on his own face?”[24] St. Gregory makes the vivid comparison between the sinful pastor and an untrustworthy mediator sent to intercede for a party: “For we all know full well that when a person is out of favour [sic] and sent to intercede, the mind of the incensed person is moved to greater anger,”[25] so too a pastor stuck in the mire of sin will not only fail to draw down the graces of God for his flock but will also lead to his own ruin and that of those under his care. Pastors who are still beginners in the spiritual life are like fledgling birds attempting “to fly upwards before their wings are fully developed” and therefore “fall down from where they tried to soar.”[26] With many other different analogies, St. Gregory argues that the pastor must teach what he has learned through personal experience more than abstract study,[27] must lead by the example of his own virtuous conduct,[28] must please men by the goodness of his character so as to draw men to a love of truth and holiness,[29] and in short, must
make himself heard rather by deeds than by words, and that by his righteous way of life should imprint footsteps for men to tread in [….] Let [pastors] first rouse themselves up by lofty deeds, and then make others solicitous to live good lives. […] Then, and only then, let them set in order the lives of others by their words.[30]On the other hand, St. Gregory’s overwhelming emphasis on the pastor’s personal holiness may perhaps confuse some readers: why does St. Gregory not also focus on the pastor’s sacramental ministry? With the Pastoral Rule St. Gregory intends to guide bishops in their pastoral ministry rather than priests in their sacramental ministry, and one should keep in mind that Gregory’s vision of the pastor as spiritual physician and exemplar implies that the effectiveness of the pastor’s ministry corresponds with the degree of his holiness. This difference of focus reveals why he spends so much time focusing on the personal qualifications of the pastor as well as the prudential knowledge needed to guide properly the various classes of individuals under his care. Despite this difference, the necessity of holiness applies also to priests as Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, OP, notes forcefully, for while it is true that the sacramental aspect of priestly ministry possesses an intrinsic efficacy derived ex opere operato,
one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend on the proper dispositions of the instrument, i.e. ex opere operantis (and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned yet aflame with divine love, will convert more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.[31]The importance of both points discussed should be clear for the seminarian and priest. The success of his extra-sacramental ministry hinges on the degree to which he is docile to the Holy Ghost and acts in persona Christi not only in an official manner but also a personal manner, and St. Gregory provides us with an eminently trustworthy guide to develop those virtues specific to pastoral ministry.
St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule is truly a sobering read. After enumerating the degree of exalted virtues and the vastness of necessary wisdom to pastor souls effectively, the saint closes his work with a chapter on the importance of remaining humble. He writes, “It is necessary that […] the eye of the soul should turn its gaze on its infirmities […] and as [pastors] are not able to overcome the very little [faults], they should not presume to pride themselves on the great things they accomplish.”[32] This book provides us an opportunity to reflect seriously on the maturity and the balance required for priestly ministry as well as the heavy burden of responsibility that accompanies it. It also emphasizes in another manner the fact that God is the author of all good things, that any good we possess is from Him (Jas. 1:17); as St. Paul asks, “What has thou that thou hast not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And reminiscent of our Lord’s parable of the talents, St. Gregory reminds us that those who have been given much are expected to help others, for “the gifts which they have received [are] not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.”[33] Our Lord “came forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many,” and hence the love of God must overflow into the love of neighbor for God’s sake.[34] May we learn from the example of St. Gregory the Great, who, despite his personal protests to the contrary,[35] preached through the lofty holiness of his life in addition to his words.
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Footnotes:
1. Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Part 1: 590–657 (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1925), 1:241. On the influence of the Pastoral Rule, see St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis, in Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, eds. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, no. 11 (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1950), 9–12 [hereafter Davis, Pastoral Care, page, book, and chapter].
2. Abbot Snow, St. Gregory the Great: His Work and His Spirit (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1924), 90–91.
3. Davis, Pastoral Care, 4, translator’s introduction.
4. Ibid., 10.
5. Ibid., 11.
6. Mann, The Lives of the Popes, 242.
7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 47: 2a2ae. 183–189: The Pastoral and Religious Lives, ed. Jordan Aumann (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 60–61, footnote a [hereafter ST].
8. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times, trans. Paul M. Kimball, (Camillus, NY: Dolorosa Press, 2013), ch. 1, art. 3.
9. Cf. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 1:64–65.
10. Davis, Pastoral Care, 32, I, 6. St. Thomas expands on this argument in ST 2a2ae.185.2, even quoting from the same passage of St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule.
11. Ibid., 51–55, II, 4.
12. Ibid., 85, II, 10.
13. Ibid., 56–57, II, 5.
14. Ibid., 58.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 175, III, 24. St. Gregory writes, “The preacher drinks the water of his own cistern [.…] To be sure, it is proper that he should drink first, and then give others to drink by his preaching” (ibid.). This image anticipates St. Bernard’s striking comparison between the reservoir and the canal, which forms a perfect summary of St. Gregory’s thought on those seeking too eagerly for the pastoral office: “Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us, that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled; they are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves” (“Sermon 18” in On the Song of Songs, trans. Kilian Walsh, in Cistercian Fathers Series: Number Four: The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. M. Basil Pennington [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971] 1:134, n. 3).
17. Ibid., 68–75, II, 7. St. Thomas famously perfects this line of argumentation when demonstrating that the mixed life rises above both the contemplative and active, for “just as it is better to illumine than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the things contemplated than simply to contemplate” (ST 2a2ae.188.6). Interestingly, St. Thomas also argues that this mixed life is more perfect because it more closely resembles the perfection of the episcopal state (ibid.).
18. Ibid., 89–90, III, prologue.
19. Ibid., 130–131, III, 14.
20. Ibid., 227, III, 36.
21. ST 2a2ae.184.7.
22. Davis, Pastoral Care, 45, II, 1.
23. Ibid., 21, I, 1.
24. Ibid., 38, I, 9.
25. Ibid., 39.
26. Ibid., 180, III, 25.
27. Ibid., 23–25, I, 2.
28. Ibid., 48–51, II, 3.
29. Ibid., 77, II, 8.
30. Ibid., 232–233, III, 40.
31. Antonio Royo Marin, Teología de la perfección cristiana (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autore Cristianos, 2015), 806–807, n. 669, 5 (my translation). Cf. also St. John of the Cross who writes, “As for the one who teaches, the profit is usually commensurate with his interior preparedness. […] We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez, in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, eds. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez [Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1973], 291, III, 45).
32. Davis, Pastoral Care, 237, IV.
33. Ibid., 29–30, I, 5.
34. Ibid., 31.
35. Ibid., 237, IV.
Monday, October 22, 2018
Alfred the Great and Tradition: Reflections on G.K. Chesterton's Ballad of the White Horse
[Originally written for a class.]
G.K. Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse is a beautiful and electrifying epic poem, steeped in English culture and proving its merit by how it captures the past to invigorate the present and the future. The poem was met with wide acclaim when it was first published, even being read by English soldiers during World War I.[1] Interestingly, J.R.R. Tolkien had quite a critical view of the poem, “[It] is not as good as I thought. The ending is absurd. […] G.K.C. knew nothing whatever about the ‘North’, heathen or Christian.”[2] Nevertheless, I very much like the poem, and my favorite character is certainly King Alfred, for he is the personification of the best of tradition. My interest in Alfred stems from my love of traditionalism and all of its societal implications. First, I will define tradition as it is relevant here and its relation to kingly character. Then I will discuss how Alfred personifies tradition by contrasting him with the barbarian and Christian chiefs, comparing him to two other notable symbols of tradition in the poem, namely, the White Horse and the playing child, and finally showing how his particular faults and virtues illustrate the development of tradition.
Chesterton was an eminent and excellent defender of tradition, memorably defining it as “the democracy of the dead” in his essay “The Ethics of Elfland.”[3] In the prefatory note to the Ballad, Chesterton points out the function of tradition: “It telescopes history.”[4] In a separate essay on King Alfred, Chesterton expands on this telescopic function, writing, “Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. […] We are in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic fingers to one undiscovered truth.”[5] Tradition presents us with the most noble, the best of human history. Living tradition is also necessarily popular. Chesterton chose to include certain episodes of Alfred’s life based simply on the fact that “it is a popular tale” as he says in the prefatory note. These tales reveal something of Alfred but, deeper than that, something valuable for English culture to preserve. Tradition connects us to the past in order to strengthen us in the present and prepare us for the future. We can call it “trans-historical” because while it derives from concrete history, it is not a mere restatement of dry facts but a distillation of the themes of human virtue and supernatural grace at war against selfishness and the forces of evil. Anthropologists even define tradition along the same lines:
Over the course of centuries, the actions of ancestral heroes, imitated directly and then represented in myth, become transformed, simplified, streamlined and quickened [….] Culture is therefore the “sum total” of surviving historically-determined, hierarchically-arranged behaviors […] into a single pattern of behavior—into a single system of morality [….][6]
Finally, in Western culture the figures of the father and the king have frequently embodied tradition: “‘Culture’ binds ‘nature.’ […] The protective capacity of benevolent tradition, embodied in the form of political order, constitutes a common mythological/narrative theme.”[7] We already see hinted here the profound link between Alfred and the continued existence of the White Horse, “cultivated” in the hillside of “nature” by human agency over time. Chesterton does not hesitate to paint Alfred in this archetypal manner; even the title of “the Great” brings into sharper relief the formative impact that the legends of Alfred brought to English society: “Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its long range.”[8]
It is Alfred’s personification of tradition and the content of that tradition that make him worthy of the title “the Great.” However, in order to illuminate more clearly this relationship between Alfred and his greatness, it will be useful to contrast Alfred with the barbarian and Christian chiefs in the Ballad. The Danish chiefs represent vices antithetical to tradition. Harold represents lust and gluttony, in short, hedonism and materialism: “But we, but we shall enjoy the world, / The whole huge world a toy. / Great wine like blood from Burgundy / […] And the great smooth women like ivory / That the Turks sell in the street.”[9] Elf represents pride and curiosity[10] of the sort that end in disillusionment: “There is always a forgotten thing, / And love is not secure.”[11] I note disillusionment, for the poem relates how those who listen to Elf’s music grow sad. Later in the poem, the reader learns that Elf acquired a magical spear after encountering water-maids, further revealing Elf’s curiosity into the occult and demonic (note even Elf’s own name, which suggests the mythical and forbidden, the gnostic). Ogier, like an ogre, represents wrath: “Well if [a man] find in his soul at last / Fury, that does not fail. […] And hate alone is true.”[12] Finally, Guthrum represents despair and nihilism: “And a man may still lift up his head / But never more his heart.”[13] These virtues are antithetical to tradition. Lust and gluttony consume a person with himself, but tradition and culture draw a man out of himself to consider the common and higher good. Elf’s curiosity is the seeking of the novel and strange, the “forgotten thing,” but tradition cultivates and preserves the good proper to a community, establishing barriers to prevent possibly damaging foreign intrusion. Wrath and hatred prevent any sense of tradition from developing, for whereas today we often hear in the news of growing mob mentalities and the deepening divisions of identity politics, tradition on the other hand draws men together in common bonds of mutual concern and respect. Finally, despair and nihilism overturn the very foundation of tradition, which is the firm faith in the true, good, and beautiful.
The Christian chiefs represent foils of the barbarians, each chief focusing on some quality necessary for the promotion and preservation of tradition. Colan contrasts with Harold by representing purity and asceticism, which shift a man’s focus away from himself and refuse to see others merely in terms of his own gain or pleasure: “For Colan was hung with raiment / Tattered like autumn leaves, / And his men were all as thin as saints, / And all as poor as thieves.”[14] Mark represents humility, orderliness, and studiousness: “But Mark was come […] / Where men can number and expound, And his faith grew in a hard ground / Of doubt and reason and falsehood found, / Where no faith else could grow.”[15] As the narrator tells us, Mark’s environment so valued the truth that falsehood could not take root there, for example, the falsehood of heresy and pagan mysticism. Hence Mark later defeats Elf in battle: “But the shield [of Mark] shifted never,” that is, Mark’s humble commitment to the true was not swayed by Elf’s curious knowledge of the “forgotten things.” Eldred symbolizes humility and meekness. He is “down to earth” and focused on the concrete realities of life: “I will watch the certain things.”[16] In the midst of battle, Eldred’s heart is focused on his crops as he thanks God “for good eating / And corn and quiet times,”[17] and this focus and gratitude are the foundation of culture, the cultivation of the earth leading to the worship of God, offering Him the first-fruits. However, this simplicity, left on its own, is susceptible to manipulation, which is how Elf with his cleverness, symbolized by the enchanted spear, kills Eldred. Finally, Alfred represents hope. Although defeated, he keeps his conviction in the triumph of good over evil: “But our king Alfred, lost from fame, / […] Has still some song to sing.”[18] When combined these virtues form the bedrock of a healthy culture: mortification, consideration for others, a commitment to the truth that never becomes arrogant, and finally, to hope in the good and the true “against hope” as Saint Paul says.[19]
Only when the Christian chiefs are united can they defeat the barbarians; as individuals they fall. Alfred unites the Christian chiefs precisely for their different strengths. Similarly, tradition binds men across their individual differences and skills, tempering and directing them for the sake of the good beyond each individual. Tradition orients a man by placing him between the past and the future, and Alfred does exactly the same by seeking out his allies and organizing them to defeat the threat of the Danes, to keep the White Horse, and to preserve Christendom.
In order to draw out further how Alfred personifies tradition, I would like to focus also on two other symbols of tradition in the Ballad, namely, the White Horse itself and the child at play during the battle. The White Horse is the artifact of tradition where Alfred represents the agent who preserves tradition. The White Horse exists only because of the intention and dedication of men across time to preserve its existence. In other words, tradition is maintained to the precise degree that those who possess tradition choose to hand it on for future generations. The processes of degeneration, decay, and forgetfulness are constantly repeated throughout the Ballad: “The great White Horse was grey [sic], / […] Since the foes of settled house and creed / Had swept old works away.”[20] Alfred states frankly, “I know that weeds shall grow in it / Faster than men can burn.”[21] Hence the determination and commitment to preserve tradition must be equally insistent, patient, and renewed. The hope of Alfred is represented in the continued scouring of the White Horse; thus the Horse is an abiding sign of hope even to the extent that it is called “a live thing, / The scoured chalk.”[22] This is the hope that Our Lady speaks of to Alfred, the hope that God will triumph in the end despite every external indication to the contrary while journeying in the world. This hope of heaven is even called “a doubtful star / On the waste wind whirled and driven,”[23] reinforcing its seemingly elusive, intangible quality. The manner in which Colan defeats Harold illustrates the paradox of this hope: “Man shall not taste of victory / Till he throws his sword away,”[24] that is, precisely when one is in the condition of complete helplessness and humility can one be redeemed, modeled by Christ’s death on the cross. This hope is so efficaciously transformative that by it “men signed of the cross of Christ / Go gaily in the dark.”[25] Here we see a striking collision or coordination between circumstances that seem utterly beyond one’s control and the Christian’s free abandonment to Providence, which is sometimes so obscure to human vision that to persevere requires “joy without a cause, / Yea, faith without a hope.”[26]
Chesterton opens Book VII with a surprising divergence from the battle scene by focusing on a child playing in the grass and building a tower out of stones. In the poem, the child clearly represents Christ: “The child played on, alone, divine [….] The child whom Time can never tire.”[27] The child’s building of the tower represents both the plan of redemption and God’s invitation of salvation to men, repeatedly offered throughout history, as well as the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth, which is a necessary corollary of the spreading of the Church as individuals cooperate with that divine plan. The child has infinite patience, infinite determination, infinite hope. The child also represents Alfred as the poem explicitly states: “And this was the might of Alfred, / At the ending of the way [….] Alfred fought as gravely / As a good child at play.”[28] Because of Alfred’s complete surrender to this hope beyond hope, the poem notes that whereas the other chiefs will be forgotten, Alfred will not and hence “rules England till the doom”[29] in the figures of the White Horse and English culture. The act of building the tower is another representation of the scouring of the White Horse and therefore of the act of handing on tradition, the cultivation and raising of civilization from the chaos of untamed nature. Time can never tire the child or Alfred because of his hope; the White Horse is preserved “though skies alter and empires melt.”[30]
Lastly, an examination of Alfred’s other faults and virtues will reveal how Alfred signifies tradition. Before the battle against the Danes begins, Alfred confesses grievous sins he committed in the past, an act of humiliation reminiscent of the “nobis quoque” in the Canon at Mass. This act has a twofold significance: 1) it is a remembrance of the past in its mistakes and failures; and 2) it is a resolution to amend one’s life. By growing in self-knowledge and humility, man equips himself in the struggle to grow in virtue, and on the societal level the knowledge of one’s own history helps prevent repeating the mistakes of the past. By immortalizing Alfred’s contrition, Chesterton conveys the important notion of tradition as a light to know our fallen nature (remembrance of past sins) and to guide our future behavior (amendment of life).[31]
Alfred’s idealism is both a virtue and a fault. Originally, his idealism lacked humility: after his initial defeat by the Danes, Alfred despaired: “And naught was left King Alfred / But shameful tears of rage, / [….] He was broken to his knee.”[32] Later when Alfred is tending the fire in the peasant woman’s hut, his arrogant idealism causes him to pity the woman’s poverty and wax eloquently in his mind on lofty theological ideas of Providence. His failure to do a simple task, and the humility that follows, temper his idealism by rooting him in the concrete present: “Pride flings frail palaces at the sky, / […] But the firm feet of humility / They grip the ground like trees.”[33] All of Alfred’s daydreaming not only brought about no good but led to waste. This episode illustrates that hope must not make us ignore the realities of the present and fail in our daily responsibilities. Near the end of the poem, when asked why he does not expand his kingdom, Alfred reveals how deeply this humility has sunk in: “That a sage feels too small for life, / And a fool too large for it. […] I am not wise enough / To rule so small a thing [i.e. Athelney].”[34] Tradition is the embodiment of hope in the future, but it exists only in the present and is preserved only in the present. Alfred’s humbled idealism reflects the balance necessary for tradition to be effective.
Alfred’s self-knowledge is another important virtue. Not only is Alfred’s contentment in ruling the small isle of Athelney a reflection of this humility, but the fact that he rides a gray horse into battle further demonstrates his self-knowledge, specifically that he must die. Chesterton uses the color gray to represent old age and the apparent ends of things, from Colan’s solitary gray cave, to the old woman in the forest, to the graying White Horse that has been neglected, and the “grey [sic] twilight” when Alfred’s army despairs of victory and begins to flee from the Danes. Alfred has the humility to recognize that his time for preserving tradition will shortly pass. Additionally, although Alfred predicts that the heathens will return in the distant future in more subtle, insidious ways, he cannot see “in what wise men shall smite him [the neo-pagan].”[35] Alfred existed for his own time, for the struggles of his day; although he symbolically models how tradition and the defenders of tradition must act, he himself remains a person rooted in a particular moment in history and thus cannot give the precise solutions that we who live in the present must discern and utilize as we scour the White Horse anew.
With The Ballad of the White Horse Chesterton is at his literary best. He dresses deep paradoxes in stunning poetry by focusing the telescope of our attention on a great man of the past who yet remains ever relevant: “To study humanity in the present is like studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is like studying it through a telescope.”[36] The dead speak to us and are necessary for us, for “the only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and earth.”[37] Chesterton shows us why Alfred is great: he possessed the kind of heroism that remains in popular imagination precisely because his actions led to the preservation of present-day English society from the invading paganism of the past. The “thousand years” blazed by Guthrum’s baptism marks the 1,000 years of Christendom, in which “Christian men / Guard even heathen things.”[38] Through the inspiration and intercession of Our Lady, Alfred was fortified to become a pillar that Providence used to build up the tower of Christian society, symbolized by the keeping of the White Horse and the child at play. Tradition marks our identity, forges us in virtue, and impels us into the future. It reveals our potential while simultaneously setting our prudent limits. It requires constant vigilance, defense, and maintenance yet endures beyond any individual and even empires, from the “end of the world long ago” to the “children of some second birth.”[39] I agree with Chesterton that Alfred deserves to be called “the Great”; his poem articulates more movingly than a plain logical argument why Alfred is great. The Ballad addresses exactly my concern for tradition and my desire to care for it, to take up the duty of scouring the White Horse, and like Alfred be counted among “the kind of Christ,” who “are ignorant and brave” with “wars you hardly win / And souls you hardly save.”[40]
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Footnotes:
1. Robert Wiesner, “The Ballad of the White Horse: An Introduction and Analysis,” Seton Magazine, Oct. 11, 2013.
2. “Letter 80: From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien,” in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, eds. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 92.
3. This essay is found in Orthodoxy.
4. G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, Prefatory Note. The noted anthropologist Mircea Eliade describes the function of tradition in exactly the same way: “[…] to telescope all events in the same atemporal horizon of the mythical beginning.” Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth, trans. W.R. Trask (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1965), xi.
5. G.K. Chesterton, “Alfred the Great,” in Varied Types (New York, NY: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903), 201–202.
6. Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York, NY: Routledge, 1999), 156.
7. Ibid., 161.
8. Chesterton, “Alfred the Great,” 202.
9. Chesterton, Ballad, Book III. The Harp of Alfred.
10. Father Walter Farrell, O.P., notes that curiosity is “merely a tool of pride.” Walter Farrell, A Companion to the Summa, vol. 3, “Chapter XIX—Modesty and Miracles.”
11. Chesterton, Ballad, Book III. The Harp of Alfred.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., Book V. Ethandune: The First Stroke.
15. Ibid., Book VI. Ethandune: The Slaying of the Chiefs.
16. Ibid., Book II. The Gathering of the Chiefs.
17. Ibid., Book VI. Ethandune: The Slaying of the Chiefs.
18. Ibid., Book III. The Harp of Alfred.
19. Rom. 4:17.
20. Chesterton, Ballad, Book III. The Harp of Alfred.
21. Ibid., Book VIII. The Scouring of the Horse.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., Book IV. The Woman in the Forest.
24. Ibid., Book V. Ethandune: The First Stroke.
25. Ibid., Book I. The Vision of the King.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., Book VII. Ethandune: The Last Charge.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., Book VIII. The Scouring of the Horse.
31. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives an example of tradition acting as a warning and corrective when it states that ignorance of man’s wounded nature “gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action, and morals” (CCC §407), in a word, culture itself.
32. Chesterton, Ballad, Book I. The Vision of the King.
33. Ibid., Book IV. The Woman in the Forest.
34. Ibid., Book VIII. The Scouring of the Horse.
35. Ibid.
36. Chesterton, “Alfred the Great,” 199–200.
37. Ibid., 199.
38. Ballad, Book III. The Harp of Alfred.
39. Ibid., Book I. The Vision of the King.
40. Ibid.
Friday, October 12, 2018
Repost: Review of Jesuit Education by Robert Schwickerath, S.J. (1905)
[539] There is no end to the discussions and laying down of doctrines and methods touching the education of our youth; and indeed there should not be. For, although the fundamental principles and broad outlines of all moral and intellectual training are given us in a sound philosophy whose efficiency is attested by its harmony with right reason, divine revelation, and an experience of centuries under varying conditions, there yet remains the ever changeable application to the growing development of individual temperament and character, under the progressive influences of racial, national, social, and religious life and environment.
Education in the ordinary acceptation of the term has a twofold scope, the moral and the intellectual. The moral scope may be said to have been ultimately defined for us by Christianity. The Divine Founder of the Church has unalterably fixed in the evangelical principles the lines that divide right and wrong and further the steps that lead unquestionably to a perfecting of the moral qualities according to the divine model. What is greatest and best in all Christian ages has attested the inherent value of the evangelical counsels, although that value has at times been obscured by what is usually termed institutionalism, a process of observance in which the letter of the Christian law is made to supplant the spirit.
The secondary scope of education is the intellectual, the training of the mind; and although I have called it secondary, it is nevertheless capable of enhancing the vital worth of moral or religious education, so as to complete thereby the type of perfect manhood destined for the attainment of its end in God's service, and of absolute happiness.
Both the training of the heart to the attainment of the highest moral sense, and the training of the mind which illuminates the right moral sense to a more perfectly balanced and conscious as well as spontaneous observance of the Divine will, require certain exercises by which, as in military drill, the faculties are directed and habituated [540] to their proper use. When St. Ignatius founded his great educational Order he provided for both these fields of moral and intellectual training a set of rules and observances, perfected in part by his disciples, and known respectively as the Spiritual Exercises and the Ratio Studiorum. The precepts and directions of these two sets of exercises are based upon the constitution, necessities, and ultimate purpose of human nature in the service of its Creator through the love of man for his neighbor; and the method is regulated by the effort of a gradual and harmonious development of all the higher faculties of man,—memory, imagination, intellect, and will. The process of development must be gradual and harmonious. This is effected by exercising the faculties upon certain phenomena and facts, as they present themselves, and the result is dependent upon the capacity of the faculties to take in the phenomena or facts, and to cover them or go out to them. Thus we have a double process of drawing out and putting in, both working simultaneously like the sunlight which draws moisture from and gives heat to the vegetation in the same act. It stands to reason that the "putting in" process is that which gives quality to the mind, and that if we put either too much or the wrong thing into it, we fail to draw out its proportionate activity by overloading or unbalancing the carrying capacity. Old things, out-of-the-way things, as well as untrue things are not as apt to stir the power of observing and comparing in a young mind, as are things present, things new and evidently true. Hence whatever the excellence of our educational principles and methods, if they are exercised upon objects that do not appeal to the young sense by their freshness and reality, the exercise is apt to frustrate the primary object of intellectual education, by failing to properly illuminate moral truth; and although the youth thus educated may be good, he is out of harmony with his environment and therefore incapable of exercising any direct influence upon his fellows.
It is this charge of ill-timed, antiquated exercises employed in their educational methods, which is made against the Jesuits and their instructors of to-day. Whatever the value of the principles and the methods of the Ratio Studiorum in the past and in the abstract, they fail, so it is argued, in an application which demands essentially new objects of illustration and experiment. Father Schwickerath contests this view by showing in an exhaustive and critical way that the Ratio Studiorum has never been employed or regarded by the Society as a system whose precepts are intended permanently to fix the programme [sic] [541] of studies; that its primary object is to maintain intact the essentials of an educational process by which the faculties of the mind are gradually and harmoniously developed. He shows how as a matter of fact the theory of adaptation to actual conditions is marked throughout the history of the educational system of the Society of Jesus from the time of its foundation, when it undertook to gather up the threads of earlier scholasticism and to bring them into contact with the nobler aspirations of the Humanists, giving due attention alike to solid thought and classic form.
It is a very interesting story, this effort to draw up plans, to test, adjust, and revise the Ratio Studiorum, and to note the effects not only of its application at different periods and in different countries, but also of the interference with it during the seasons of suppression by outside elements. Not quite one-half of the volume is taken up with this history of the great educational code, and the difficulties it had to meet in its being carried out by the teachers of the Order.
The principal and really important part of the volume, however, is devoted to an exposition of the principles themselves which constitute the Jesuit method of education. We have already indicated what the vital and pervading element of the Ratio Studiorum is in itself. But one of its characteristics is what the author calls its adaptability. It is not without reason that the Jesuits as a body are credited with a prudent conservatism as the keystone of their public activity. That same conservatism is found in the Ratio Studiorum. Hence our author is able to examine with a certain impartiality arising from his very standpoint the modern systems in which "cramming," "premature specialization," "electivism," have become a more or less distinguishing feature. He contrasts the probable and indeed proved results of a classical training insisted on by the followers of the Ratio with the colorless culture imparted by the elective systems in which the Latin and Greek authors have a subordinate place; he shows how the modern lecture system has brought a tendency to undervalue real teaching; how the neglect of philosophy as a definite system of mental training has induced an atmosphere of vague speculation and exalted personal assertiveness. And then he points the way to a restoration of the ideal teaching with its essential phases of all-sided discipline and training to the use of freedom and of all that appeals to the youth's sense of right and goodness and beauty.
It would lead us too far to discuss here separate and detailed phases of the education which Father Schwickerath advocates. His [542] book needs to be not only read, but studied in order to understand the futility of the arguments advanced against the Jesuit system of education in its fundamental outlines and principles. No doubt here and there in Jesuit colleges there is to be found an excessive and one-sided insistence on traditional details, and this because of the inherent conservatism which we have already pointed out. But neither the Order nor the Ratio Studiorum is responsible for this kind of limitation to which all institutions are liable, and the more so in proportion to their general excellence. The average religious feels as though he or she were better than the religious of other orders or than seculars, not because there is really any conviction of personal superiority, but because the institute, the army and country, so to speak, to which the individual belongs, has a greater claim upon the admiration and gratitude of its members than any other of similar kind. Thus we do what those did and commanded who preceded us in a worthy capacity, as if their acts were not only an example, but an infallible guide never to be deviated from without guile or dishonor. Our author shows that this is not the spirit of St. Ignatius, or of Aquaviva, or of the great leaders of the Order down to our own day. Let us have the Ratio in our education, and the adjustment to modern conditions may easily be accomplished without opposition or misunderstanding on the part of all true educators in or out of the Society.
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Source: Review of Jesuit Education: Its History and Principles Viewed in the Light of Modern Educational Problems, by Robert Schwickerath, SJ, American Ecclesiastical Review 32 (May 1905): 539–542.
Education in the ordinary acceptation of the term has a twofold scope, the moral and the intellectual. The moral scope may be said to have been ultimately defined for us by Christianity. The Divine Founder of the Church has unalterably fixed in the evangelical principles the lines that divide right and wrong and further the steps that lead unquestionably to a perfecting of the moral qualities according to the divine model. What is greatest and best in all Christian ages has attested the inherent value of the evangelical counsels, although that value has at times been obscured by what is usually termed institutionalism, a process of observance in which the letter of the Christian law is made to supplant the spirit.
The secondary scope of education is the intellectual, the training of the mind; and although I have called it secondary, it is nevertheless capable of enhancing the vital worth of moral or religious education, so as to complete thereby the type of perfect manhood destined for the attainment of its end in God's service, and of absolute happiness.
Both the training of the heart to the attainment of the highest moral sense, and the training of the mind which illuminates the right moral sense to a more perfectly balanced and conscious as well as spontaneous observance of the Divine will, require certain exercises by which, as in military drill, the faculties are directed and habituated [540] to their proper use. When St. Ignatius founded his great educational Order he provided for both these fields of moral and intellectual training a set of rules and observances, perfected in part by his disciples, and known respectively as the Spiritual Exercises and the Ratio Studiorum. The precepts and directions of these two sets of exercises are based upon the constitution, necessities, and ultimate purpose of human nature in the service of its Creator through the love of man for his neighbor; and the method is regulated by the effort of a gradual and harmonious development of all the higher faculties of man,—memory, imagination, intellect, and will. The process of development must be gradual and harmonious. This is effected by exercising the faculties upon certain phenomena and facts, as they present themselves, and the result is dependent upon the capacity of the faculties to take in the phenomena or facts, and to cover them or go out to them. Thus we have a double process of drawing out and putting in, both working simultaneously like the sunlight which draws moisture from and gives heat to the vegetation in the same act. It stands to reason that the "putting in" process is that which gives quality to the mind, and that if we put either too much or the wrong thing into it, we fail to draw out its proportionate activity by overloading or unbalancing the carrying capacity. Old things, out-of-the-way things, as well as untrue things are not as apt to stir the power of observing and comparing in a young mind, as are things present, things new and evidently true. Hence whatever the excellence of our educational principles and methods, if they are exercised upon objects that do not appeal to the young sense by their freshness and reality, the exercise is apt to frustrate the primary object of intellectual education, by failing to properly illuminate moral truth; and although the youth thus educated may be good, he is out of harmony with his environment and therefore incapable of exercising any direct influence upon his fellows.
It is this charge of ill-timed, antiquated exercises employed in their educational methods, which is made against the Jesuits and their instructors of to-day. Whatever the value of the principles and the methods of the Ratio Studiorum in the past and in the abstract, they fail, so it is argued, in an application which demands essentially new objects of illustration and experiment. Father Schwickerath contests this view by showing in an exhaustive and critical way that the Ratio Studiorum has never been employed or regarded by the Society as a system whose precepts are intended permanently to fix the programme [sic] [541] of studies; that its primary object is to maintain intact the essentials of an educational process by which the faculties of the mind are gradually and harmoniously developed. He shows how as a matter of fact the theory of adaptation to actual conditions is marked throughout the history of the educational system of the Society of Jesus from the time of its foundation, when it undertook to gather up the threads of earlier scholasticism and to bring them into contact with the nobler aspirations of the Humanists, giving due attention alike to solid thought and classic form.
It is a very interesting story, this effort to draw up plans, to test, adjust, and revise the Ratio Studiorum, and to note the effects not only of its application at different periods and in different countries, but also of the interference with it during the seasons of suppression by outside elements. Not quite one-half of the volume is taken up with this history of the great educational code, and the difficulties it had to meet in its being carried out by the teachers of the Order.
The principal and really important part of the volume, however, is devoted to an exposition of the principles themselves which constitute the Jesuit method of education. We have already indicated what the vital and pervading element of the Ratio Studiorum is in itself. But one of its characteristics is what the author calls its adaptability. It is not without reason that the Jesuits as a body are credited with a prudent conservatism as the keystone of their public activity. That same conservatism is found in the Ratio Studiorum. Hence our author is able to examine with a certain impartiality arising from his very standpoint the modern systems in which "cramming," "premature specialization," "electivism," have become a more or less distinguishing feature. He contrasts the probable and indeed proved results of a classical training insisted on by the followers of the Ratio with the colorless culture imparted by the elective systems in which the Latin and Greek authors have a subordinate place; he shows how the modern lecture system has brought a tendency to undervalue real teaching; how the neglect of philosophy as a definite system of mental training has induced an atmosphere of vague speculation and exalted personal assertiveness. And then he points the way to a restoration of the ideal teaching with its essential phases of all-sided discipline and training to the use of freedom and of all that appeals to the youth's sense of right and goodness and beauty.
It would lead us too far to discuss here separate and detailed phases of the education which Father Schwickerath advocates. His [542] book needs to be not only read, but studied in order to understand the futility of the arguments advanced against the Jesuit system of education in its fundamental outlines and principles. No doubt here and there in Jesuit colleges there is to be found an excessive and one-sided insistence on traditional details, and this because of the inherent conservatism which we have already pointed out. But neither the Order nor the Ratio Studiorum is responsible for this kind of limitation to which all institutions are liable, and the more so in proportion to their general excellence. The average religious feels as though he or she were better than the religious of other orders or than seculars, not because there is really any conviction of personal superiority, but because the institute, the army and country, so to speak, to which the individual belongs, has a greater claim upon the admiration and gratitude of its members than any other of similar kind. Thus we do what those did and commanded who preceded us in a worthy capacity, as if their acts were not only an example, but an infallible guide never to be deviated from without guile or dishonor. Our author shows that this is not the spirit of St. Ignatius, or of Aquaviva, or of the great leaders of the Order down to our own day. Let us have the Ratio in our education, and the adjustment to modern conditions may easily be accomplished without opposition or misunderstanding on the part of all true educators in or out of the Society.
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Source: Review of Jesuit Education: Its History and Principles Viewed in the Light of Modern Educational Problems, by Robert Schwickerath, SJ, American Ecclesiastical Review 32 (May 1905): 539–542.
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