I hope, however, that a good many people who have been supporting the Catholic Church by giving tithes of the wages of weariness will see, and clearly see, that Catholicism is not their friend; that the church cannot and will not support them; that, on the contrary, they must support the church. I hope they will see that all the prayers have to be paid for, although not one has ever been answered. I hope they will perceive that the church is on the side of wealth and power, that the mitre is the friend of the crown, that the altar is the sworn brother of the throne. I hope they will finally know that the church cares infinitely more for the money of the millionaire than for the souls of the poor.
Of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. I am speaking of the church as an institution, as a corporation—and when I say the church, I include all churches. It is said of corporations in general, that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that it has less than any other. It lives on alms. It gives nothing for what it gets. It has no sympathy. Beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other beggars.
Nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the Catholic Church on the side of human freedom; nothing more pleasure than to see the Catholics of the world—those who work and weep and toil— sensible enough to know that all the money paid for superstition is worse than lost. I wish they could see that the counting of beads, and the saying of prayers and celebrating of masses, and all the kneelings and censer-swingings and fastings and bell-ringing, amount to less than nothing—that all these things tend only to the degradation of mankind. It is hard, I know, to find an antidote for a poison that was mingled with a mother's milk.
The laboring masses, so far as the Catholics are concerned, are filled with awe and wonder and fear about the church. This fear began to grow while they were being rocked in their cradles, and they still imagine that the church has some mysterious power; that it is in direct communication with some infinite personality that could, if it desired, strike then dead, or damn their souls forever. Persons who have no such belief, who care nothing for popes or priests or churches or heavens or hells or devils or gods, have very little idea of the power of fear.
The old dogmas filled the brain with strange monsters. The soul of the orthodox Christian gropes and wanders and crawls in a kind of dungeon, where the strained eyes see fearful shapes, and the frightened flesh shrinks from the touch of serpents.
The good part of Christianity—that is to say, kindness, morality —will never go down. The cruel part ought to go down. And by the cruel part I mean the doctrine of eternal punishment—of allowing the good to suffer for the bad—allowing innocence to pay the debt of guilt. So the foolish part of Christianity—that is to say, the miraculous—will go down. The absurd part must perish. But there will be no war about it as there was in France. Nobody believes enough in the foolish part of Christianity now to fight for it. Nobody believes with intensity enough in miracles to shoulder a musket. There is probably not a Christian in New York willing to fight for any story, no matter if the story is so old that it is covered with moss. No mentally brave and intelligent man believes in miracles, and no intelligent man cares whether there was a miracle or not, for the reason that every intelligent man knows that the miraculous has no possible connection with the moral. "Thou shalt not steal," is just as good a commandment if it should turn out that the flood was a drouth. "Thou shalt not murder," is a good and just and righteous law, and whether any particular miracle was ever performed or not has nothing to do with the case. There is no possible relation between these things.
I am on the side not only of the physically oppressed, but of the mentally oppressed. I hate those who put lashes on the body, and I despise those who put the soul in chains. In other words, I am in favor of liberty. I do not wish that any man should be the slave of his fellow-men, or that the human race should be the slaves of any god, real or imaginary. Man has the right to think for himself, to work for himself, to take care of himself, to get bread for himself, to get a home for himself. He has a right to his own opinion about God, and heaven and hell; the right to learn any art or mystery or trade; the right to work for whom he will, for what he will, and when he will.
The world belongs to the human race. There is to be no war in this country on religious opinions, except a war of words—a conflict of thoughts, of facts; and in that conflict the hosts of superstition will go down. They may not be defeated to-day, or to-morrow, or next year, or during this century, but they are growing weaker day by day.
This priest, McGlynn, has the courage to stand up against the propaganda. What would have been his fate a few years ago? What would have happened to him in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy—in any other country that was Catholic—only a few years ago? Yet he stands here in New York, he refuses to obey God's vicegerent; he freely gives his mind to an archbishop; he holds the holy Inquisition in contempt. He has done a great thing. He is undoubtedly an honest man. He never should have been a Catholic. He has no business in that church. He has ideas of his own—theories, and seems to be governed by principles. The Catholic Church is not his place. If he remains, he must submit, he must kneel in the humility of abjectness; he must receive on the back of his independence the lashes of the church. If he remains, he must ask the forgiveness of slaves for having been a man. If he refuses to submit, the church will not have him. He will be driven to take his choice— to remain a member, humiliated, shunned, or go out into the great, free world a citizen of the Republic, with the rights, responsibilities, and duties of an American citizen.
I believe that Dr. McGlynn is an honest man, and that he really believes in the land theories of Mr. George. I have no confidence in his theories, but I have confidence that he is actuated by the best and noblest motives.