On this point there is a remarkable fact, which it is necessary to mention here, in order to signalize its beneficent influence; I mean, the regulation by which the property of hospitals was looked upon as Church property,—a regulation which was very far from being a matter of indifference, although at first sight it might appear so. Their property, thereby invested with the same privileges as that of the Church, was protected by an inviolability so much the more necessary as the times were the more difficult, and the more abounding in outrages and usurpations. The Church which, notwithstanding all the public troubles, preserved great authority and a powerful ascendency over governments and nations, had thus a simple and powerful claim to extend her protection over the property of hospitals, and to withdraw them as much as possible from the cupidity and the rapacity of the powerful. And it must not be supposed that this doctrine was introduced with any indirect design, nor that this kind of community, this assimilation between the Church and the poor, was an unheard-of novelty; on the contrary, this assimilation was so well suited to the common order of things, it was so entirely founded on the relations between the Church and the poor, that if the property of the hospitals had the privilege of being considered as the property of the Church, that of the Church, on the other hand, was called the property of the poor. It is in these terms that the holy Fathers express themselves on this point: these doctrines had so much affected the ordinary language, that when, at a later period, the canonical question with respect to the ownership of the goods of the Church had to be solved, there were found by the side of those who directly attributed this property to God, to the Pope, to the clergy, some who pointed out the poor as being the real proprietors. It is true that this opinion was not the most conformable to the principles of law; but the mere fact of its appearing on the field of controversy is a matter for grave consideration.
A few reflections, in the form of a note, on a certain maxim of toleration professed by a philosopher of the last century, Rousseau, would not be out of place here; but the analogy of the following chapter with that which we have just finished induces us to reserve them for note 25. The considerations to which the opinion of Rousseau will lead, apply to the question of toleration in religious matters, as well as to the right of coercion exercised by the civil and political power; I therefore beg my reader to reserve for the following note the attention which he might be willing to afford me now.
For the purpose of clearing up ideas on toleration as far as lay in my power, I have presented this matter in a point of view but little known; in order to throw still more light upon it, I will say a few words on religious and civil intolerance,—things which are entirely different, although Rousseau absolutely affirms the contrary. Religious or theological intolerance consists in the conviction, that the only true religion is the Catholic,—a conviction common to all Catholics. Civil intolerance consists in not allowing in society any other religions than the Catholic. These two definitions are sufficient to make every man of common sense understand that the two kinds of intolerance are not inseparable; indeed, we may very easily conceive that men firmly convinced of the truth of Catholicity may tolerate those who profess another religion, or none at all. Religious intolerance is an act of the mind, an act inseparable from faith; indeed, whoever has a firm belief that his own religion is true, must necessarily be convinced that it is the only true one; for the truth is one. Civil intolerance is an act whereby the will rejects those who do not profess the same religion; this act has different results, according as the intolerance is in the individuals or in the government. On the other hand, religious tolerance consists in believing that all religions are true; which, when rightly understood, means that none are true, since it is impossible for contradictory things to be true at the same time. Civil tolerance is, to allow men who entertain a different religion to live in peace. This tolerance, as well as the co-relative intolerance, produces different effects, according as it exists in individuals or in the government.
This distinction, which, from its clearness and simplicity, is within the reach of the most ordinary minds, has nevertheless been mistaken by Rousseau, who affirms that it is a vain fiction, a chimera, which cannot be realized, and that the two kinds of intolerance cannot be separated from each other. Rousseau might have been content with observing, that religious intolerance, that is to say, as I have explained above, the firm conviction that a religion is true, if it is general in a country, must produce, in the ordinary intercourse of life as well as in legislation, a certain tendency not to tolerate any one who thinks differently, principally when those who dissent are very limited in number; his observation would then have been well founded, and would have agreed with the opinion which I have expressed on this point, when I attempted to represent the natural course of ideas and events in this matter. But Rousseau does not consider things under this aspect: desiring to attack Catholicity, he affirms that the two kinds of intolerance are inseparable; "for," says he, "it is impossible to live in peace with those whom one believes to be damned; to love them would be to hate God, who punishes them." It is impossible to carry misrepresentation further: who told Rousseau that the Catholics believe in the damnation of any man, whoever he may be, as long as he lives; and that they think that to love a man who is in error would be to hate God? On the contrary, could he be ignorant that it is a duty, an indispensable precept, a dogma, for Catholics to love all men? Could he be ignorant that even children, in the first rudiments of Christian doctrine, learn that we are obliged to love our neighbor as ourselves, and that by this word neighbor is meant whoever has gained heaven, or may gain it; so that no man, so long as he lives, is excluded from this number? But Rousseau will say, you are at least convinced that those who die in that fatal state are condemned. Rousseau does not observe that we think exactly the same with respect to sinners, although their sin be not that of heresy; now, it has not come into the head of any body that good Catholics cannot tolerate sinners, and that they consider themselves under the obligation of hating them. What religion shows more eagerness to convert the wicked? The Catholic Church is so far from teaching that we ought to hate them, that she causes to be repeated a thousand times, in pulpits, in books, and in conversations, those words whereby God shows that it is His will that sinners shall not perish, that He wills that they shall be converted and live, that there is more joy in heaven when one of them has done penance, than upon the ninety-nine just who need not penance. And let it not be imagined that the man who thus expresses himself against the intolerance of Catholics was the partizan of complete toleration; on the contrary, in society, such as he imagined it, he did not desire toleration for those who did not belong to the religion which the civil power thought proper to establish. It is true that he is not at all anxious that the citizens should belong to the true religion. "Laying aside," he says, "political considerations, let us return to the right, and let us lay down principles on this important point. The right which the social pact gives to the sovereign over his subject does not exceed, as I have said, the bounds of public utility. Subjects, therefore, are accountable to their sovereign for their opinions, inasmuch as those opinions are of importance to the community. Now, it is of great importance to the state, that every citizen should have a religion which shall make him love his duties; but the dogmas of that religion interest the state and its members only inasmuch as those dogmas affect morality and the duties which those who profess it are bound to perform towards others. As for the rest, each one may have what opinions he pleases, without being subject to the cognizance of the sovereign, for he has no power in the other world; it is not his affair what may be the lot of his subjects in the life to come, provided they be good citizens in this. There is, therefore, a profession of faith purely civil, the articles whereof it belongs to the sovereign to fix, not exactly as dogmas of religion, but as social sentiments, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or a faithful subject. Without being able to compel any one to believe them, it can banish from the state him who does not believe them; it can banish him, not as wicked, but as anti-social, as incapable of sincerely loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing his life to his duty. If any one, after having publicly acknowledged these dogmas, conducts himself as if he did not believe them, let him be punished with death; he has committed the greatest of crimes, he has lied against the laws." (Du Contrat Social, l. iv. c. 8.)
Such, then, is the final result of the toleration of Rousseau, viz. to give to the sovereign the power of fixing articles of faith, to grant to him the right of punishing with banishment, or even death, those who will not conform to the decisions of this new Pope, or who shall violate after having embraced them. However strange the doctrine of Rousseau may appear, it is not excluded from the general system of those who do not acknowledge the supremacy of authority in religious matters. When this supremacy is to be attributed to the Catholic Church, or its head, it is rejected; and, by the most striking contradiction, it is granted to the civil power. It is very singular that Rousseau, when banishing or putting to death the man who quits the religion fashioned by the sovereign, does not wish him to be punished as impious, but as anti-social. Rousseau, following an impulse very natural in him, did not wish that impiety should be at all taken into account when punishments were to be inflicted; but of what consequence is the name given to his crime to the man who is banished or put to death? In the same chapter, he allows an expression to escape him, which reveals at once the object which he had in view in all this show of philosophy: "Whoever dares to affirm that out of the Church there is no salvation, ought to be driven from the state." Which means, in other words, that toleration ought to be given to all except Catholics. It has been said, that the Contrat Social was the code of the French revolution; and, indeed, the latter did not forget what the tolerant legislator has prescribed with respect to Catholics. Few persons now venture to declare themselves the disciples of the philosopher of Geneva, although some of his timid partisans still lavish on him unmeasured eulogies. Let us have sufficient confidence in the good sense of the human race, to hope that all posterity, with a unanimous voice, will confirm the stamp of ignominy with which all men of sense have already marked that turbulent sophist, the impudent author of the Confessions.
When comparing Protestantism with Catholicity, I was obliged to treat of intolerance, as it is one of the reproaches which are most frequently made against the Catholic religion; but my respect for truth compels me to state, that all Protestants have not preached universal toleration; and that many of them have acknowledged the right of checking and punishing certain errors. Grotius, Puffendorf, and some more of the wisest men that Protestantism can boast of, are agreed on this point; therein they have followed the example of all antiquity, which, in theory as well as in practice, has constantly conformed to these principles. A cry has been raised against the intolerance of Catholics, as if they had been the first to teach it to the world; as if intolerance was a cursed monster, which was engendered only where the Catholic Church prevailed. In default of any other reason, good faith at least required that it should not be forgotten that the principle of universal toleration was never acknowledged in any part of the world; the books of philosophers, and the codes of legislators, contain the principle of intolerance with more or less rigor. Whether it were desired to condemn this principle as false, or to limit it, or to leave it without application, it is clear that an accusation ought not to have been made against the Catholic Church in particular, on account of a doctrine and conduct, wherein she only conformed to the example of the whole human race. Refined as well as barbarous nations would be culpable therein, if there were any crime; and the stigma, far from deserving to fall upon governments directed by Catholicity, or on Catholic writers, ought to be inflicted on all the governments of antiquity, including those of Greece and Rome; on all the ancient sages, including Plato, Cicero, and Seneca; on modern governments and sages, including Protestants. If men had had this present to their minds, the doctrine would not have appeared so erroneous, nor the facts so black; they would have seen that intolerance, as old as the world, was not the invention of Catholics, and that the whole world, ought to bear the responsibility of it.
Assuredly the toleration which, in our days, has become so general, from causes previously pointed out, will not be affected by the doctrines, more or less severe, more or less indulgent, which shall be proclaimed in this matter; but for the very reason, that intolerance, such as it was practised in other times, has at last become a mere historical fact, whereof no one can fear the reappearance, it is proper to enter into an attentive examination of questions of this kind, in order to remove the reproach which her enemies have attempted to cast upon the Catholic Church.