V.—THE SYLLABUS.
One of the principal offices of the Catholic Church is to witness, guard, and interpret the revealed truths, written and unwritten, which was imposed upon her by Christ when he said: “Go and teach all nations whatsoever I have commanded you.” This duty she has fulfilled from age to age, in spite of every hindrance and in face of all dangers, with uncompromising firmness and unswerving fidelity, principally by the action of her chief bishop, whom Christ charged to “feed his sheep and lambs” and “to confirm his brethren.” This Supreme Pastor, in watching over the sheep of Christ’s flock, has never failed to feed them with the truths of Christ, and, lest they should be led astray, he has pointed out and condemned the errors against these truths one by one as they arose.
Whatever some critics may have to say as to the form in which the Syllabus has been cast, or as to the technical language employed in its composition, this document nevertheless is all that it purports to be,—an authoritative and explicit condemnation of the most dangerous and subversive errors of our epoch.
“That last,
Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills,
Was no uncertain blast!”
Were the Syllabus the product of the private cogitations of an Italian citizen named John Mary Mastai Ferretti, promulgated and imposed upon the unwilling consciences of Catholics by his personal authority, Catholics would indeed have reason to resist and complain. But the violent opposition, the hostility and hatred, that the Syllabus has excited among so many non-Catholics and leading minds is a cause of no little surprise.
“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?”
Suppose things were as they dream them to be, the attitude of that venerable Pontiff in the Vatican, powerless to do physical harm to any one, even if he would, standing up in the sole strength of his convictions, and, in spite of the clamors of fanatics, the rage of conspirators, and the threats of the prime ministers of powerful empires, proclaiming to them and the world that what they hold to be truth is a lie, what they maintain to be right is wrong, and what they desire as good is evil—this presents the most august and sublime figure the nineteenth century has witnessed. O noble old man! well dost thou merit to be placed among the great men of the holy church, and as chief pastor to be ranked on the pages of her history in the list of her heroic and saintly pontiffs, with her Leos and Gregories.
But read the Syllabus—and few of its opponents have done this; take the trouble to understand rightly what you have read—and fewer still have taken this pains—and if you have not lost sight of the prime truths of reason, and have any faith left in the revealed truths of Christianity, you must at least assent to its principal decisions and approve of its censures. For its condemnations are chiefly aimed against pantheism, atheism, materialism, internationalism, communism—these and similar errors subversive of man’s dignity, society, civilization, Christianity, and all religion. What boots it that these distinctive errors are cloaked with the high-sounding and popular catch-words, “intellectual culture,” “liberty of thought,” “modern civilization,” etc., etc.? They are none the less errors, and all the more dangerous on account of their attractive disguise.
The opposition of those who are not internationalists and atheists to the condemnation and censures contained in the Syllabus, can be explained, putting it in the mildest form, on the ground of their lack of the sense of the divine authority of the church and its office, and the misapprehension or misinterpretation in great part of its language. For at bottom the Syllabus is nothing else than the Christian thesis of the nineteenth century, as against its antithesis set up by modern sophists and conspirators, who openly put forth their programme as in religion atheism, in morals free-love, in philosophy materialism, in the state absolute democracy, in society common property.
This, then, is the significance and the cause of the rage which it has called forth: the Supreme Pastor of Christ’s flock, with his vigilant eye, has detected the plots of those who would overthrow the family, society, and all religion, and, conscious of the high obligations of his charge, would not in silence take his repose, but dared, in protection of his fold, to cry aloud and use his teeth upon these human wolves, and thus warn the faithful and the whole world of their impending danger. This is the secret of the outcry against the Syllabus and Pius IX. Herein is the Quare fremuerunt gentes. But does not the Syllabus declare that there can be no reconciliation between the Catholic Church and modern civilization? O blind and slow of heart! do you not know that modern civilization is the outcome of the Catholic Church? What was the answer of Christ to Satan when he offered to him “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them”? “Begone, Satan!” Which means, What you offer is already mine, and not yours to give; away, hypocrite and deceiver! So to-day, when the declared enemies of Christian civilization come in disguise to the Catholic Church and insist upon her reconciliation with modern civilization, she replies with Christ: Begone, Satan; modern civilization is the product of the Catholic Church, and not yours, and not under your protection or jurisdiction; away, hypocrites and conspirators!
Reconciliation with what these conspirators call “modern civilization”? Do men who have their wits about them know what this means? This means the overthrow of the great institutions of society, which have cost nineteen centuries of toil and struggle of the noblest men and women of the race. And for what? Only for the tyranny of a commune of declared atheists, the emancipation of the flesh, and the reign of Antichrist. Thank God! there is one man who cannot be bought by bribes, or won by flattery, or made to stoop by fear; who dares meet face to face the foes of Christ and the enemies of mankind, open his mouth and lift up his voice, and, in answer to these hypocritical invitations, speak out in tones that ring in the ears of the whole world and can never be forgotten: “Non possumus.”
The question is not whether the church will be reconciled with modern civilization. The real question is whether modern society will follow the principles of eternal justice and right, and reject these false teachers; whether it will legislate in accordance with the rules of right reason and the divine truths of Christianity, and turn its back upon revolution, anarchy, and atheism; whether it will act in harmony with God’s church in upholding modern civilization and in spreading God’s kingdom upon earth, or return to paganism, barbarism, and savagery. The question, the real question which in the course of human events has become at the present moment among the Latin race a national question, and particularly so in Italy, is this: “Christ or Barabbas?” “Now, Barabbas was a robber.”
It is because the Syllabus has placed this alternative in so clear and unmistakable a light that Satan has stirred up so spiteful and so wide-spread an opposition to it among his followers and those they can influence. Here is where the shoe pinches.