Such is the weapon placed by divine power in the hands of the Church for her conflict with the world. And this being so, the inquiring Protestant, after realizing its tremendous nature and scope, will draw back perplexed, imagining that a weight like it would crush the human intellect. He does this only because he loses sight for the moment of the terrible power of the earth giant. The human intellect is no baby, weakening under every stroke; it is a tough, wild, elastic energy, struggling up in every direction, and is never more itself than when suffering beneath the blows of heaven. Moreover, its natural tendency is to explain away every dogma of religious truth, from the lowest to the highest. In that old pagan world this natural process is to be seen. Everywhere that human genius opened up a way for itself, and had a career, the last remnants of primeval truth were well-nigh banished. Look, too, at the educated intellect of the non-Catholic world to-day. Genius, talent, eloquence, and art, what are they in England, Germany and France, if we may not describe them as simply godless? Why is this?
Now turn your gaze on the Middle Ages, and observe the difference. It is scarcely necessary to say that in those times the Church was pre-eminent, not only having the spiritual power, but often also the secular. If she had wished it, she could have crushed out every form of inquiry, and firmly established herself as the one and only source of all truth. But she did not do it. Never since the world began were such daring inquiries set on foot, such subtile propositions offered, such a vast and varied display of the human intellect in all the departments of theology. The office she claimed was that of arbiter; and surely nothing was more reasonable. A man would work out some original view or deduction; he hoped it was true, but could not be certain; he would put it forth; it would be taken up by an opponent, come before some theological authority of minor note, pass on to some university, be adopted by it and opposed by some other; higher authorities would be appealed to, and at last the subject would appear before the Holy See. Then, perhaps, no decision would be made, or a dubious one, or minor details would be rectified, and so the whole matter sent back for a new discussion. Years and years would pass before anything like a final decision would be reached; and then, when every defect had been rubbed off, and every minute bearing of the matter evolved, the Church would either reject it, or adopt it, and stamp it with the seal of dogma. I say this is an epitome of doctrinal development in the Catholic Church. If there is any one thing more manifest in her ecclesiastical history than others, it is her extreme slowness and caution in final pronouncement, and the general wise treatment with which she has fostered the growth of mental development, so excellent in itself, so erratic in its courses, and so needful of her strong guiding hand.
Indeed, it has been used as a reproach against her that Rome has originated nothing. It is true. It was not her function. She was instituted as the guardian of the Apostolical depositum of faith, over which, of course, her control was supreme; and her jurisdiction was to extend over all other subjects, because they necessarily touched this. But without citing other names, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas stand forth as the formers of the western intellect. Men saintly in character they were, but they had no special relations to the central See, and were only fallible mortals like the rest of their fellows; yet, as I say, they are to be counted the very originators of modern Christian thought. Rome did nothing but stamp their teachings with the seal of her approval. So was it throughout. Her work has been to check and balance the erratic courses of the human mind, allowing it free play within certain limits, but firmly preventing its suicidal excesses. How tenderly has she dealt with schismatics; how forbearing has been her conduct in regard even to the worst heretics; patiently hearing all they had to say, allowing the force of their plea where it was possible, and only casting them out when they proved incorrigible.
Most Protestants suppose that whereas there are two religious principles at work in Christianity, private judgment, and authority, they have all the private judgment, while we are weighed down by an unmitigated authority. Nothing could be more false. This aspect of Christianity is complete without them; they represent simply a negation, and no positive force at all. Show me the doctrine that Protestantism has originated, and it will then deserve to be treated in a philosophical manner. It has had no innate life, nothing to develop from, and has simply withered down from the first, until now the advance guard of it has reached the shadowy ground of natural religion, and Mr. James Antony Froude, its special champion in its past acts, can write that it is dead. On the contrary, when I view the external aspect of Catholicism as a whole, I behold within it the active forces of life at work from the first. The human intellect is no passive instrument, merely being filled by the reception of faith, but a living organism, feeling a void in it for faith when it has it not, and eagerly receiving and digesting it when it comes. Forthwith it begins a process of development, explaining, proving, modifying, enlarging, in all the various ways that suit the multiplicity of man's nature. This process is observable in all times and places, as the inevitable outcome of civilization. Barbarous nations do not reason, but receive their religion as an outer cloak; as they stagnate in all things else, so also in their creeds. Witness the Turks. Intellectually, morally, religiously, they are the same as they were six hundred years ago; and unless overthrown from the outside, they will probably so remain to the end of time. No heresy has arisen amongst them; no progress in civilization is to be marked; no change even in decline; for power is relative, and the Moslem empire is weak now only in comparison with the vigorous young empires of the West. But the action of civilization is different. Under its influence States are in constant movement, changing from day to day. The change may be good in this detail, and bad in that; it may on the whole be for the good, or it may on the whole be for evil. But what I say is the distinct mark of civilization, as contrasted with barbarism, is emphatically and simply change; change, in the natural order, is its law. For the intellect is alive and vigorous, seizing on everything within its scope, shaping it by its individual bent, and, hemmed as it is by walls of sense, naturally rushing into error on every side. These are effects of private judgment, and they are not less to be seen in the whole Catholic world, from its beginning until, to-day, than anywhere else; but Catholics have had a safeguard against the rebellious and suicidal excesses of fallen reason, and this safeguard is the infallibility of the Church.
The meaning and scope of that infallibility has been given in words fitter than mine. Viewing the nature of things on the whole, and then taking it for granted that God has made a revelation, and intended it to be set up and maintained alongside of and within a civilization anxious to get rid of it, what more reasonable to be expected than that an infallible abiding authority should be His human instrument. It is a thing we should be led to expect if it did not exist; as is fully proved by Paine's saying about its being written on the sun. How convincingly, then, is the truth forced home on us, when we do learn that there is an institution that exactly fulfils our foregone conclusion!
So far as theory goes, the infallibility of the Church can be a burden to none; so far as actual facts go, it has not demonstrably, to my knowledge, acted as a damper on intellectual effort, but merely as the restrainer of its excesses.
I shall be quite candid in giving my views on this inexhaustible subject, merely letting them stand for what they are worth, and knowing full well that there are depths in it, as in all things else, not to be sounded by me. And I shall now go on to state what are the real difficulties and burdens to me, as to many other Catholics perhaps, in this doctrine of infallibility; always premising that ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt. And here some may be inclined to say that, as touching the papal headship of it, the evil deeds of many Popes and their apparently immoral lives, do inevitably tend to throw discredit on it as being lodged in them. But let all that can be said be admitted; what then? Why, I answer, David was a man after God's own heart, and stood nearer to Him as being inspired than any Pope as being infallible; yet one of God's Prophets could say to him, "Thou art the man!" The lesson of which is not to judge men's inner lives entirely by outward facts, as the young and inexperienced are too apt to do. Our Blessed Lord foretold scandals to come in the very sanctuary of His dwelling, and we know the doom pronounced upon those by whom they come. And if we view the action of these individuals in relation to the Apostolical depositum, we can actually draw thence an argument awful as it is startling. These Popes, so frail as men, were yet wise as the Vicars of Christ; never have they dared lay hands on the faith committed to their care.
The difficulty lies in another direction. As has already been explained, the Church claims infallibility only in matters of faith; but a little reflection will show us that there are many things not coming directly under this head yet appertaining to it. In these latter she claims unquestioning outward obedience at least. Thus she has the right to determine when any scientific theory or other controversy bears upon matters of faith, or has a dangerous tendency to do so; also to check the usurpation of State, when they begin to reach in this direction; and in the exercise of this prerogative she is not guarded from error. I have already shown how slow, cautious and gentle, has been her dealing on the whole with controversies that do relate to faith; much more so has she been in the kindred but outer domain. Still, to our fallible reason, it may sometimes appear that she acts hastily and wrongly in forbidding certain things. She forbids at one epoch what she allows in another; tacitly withdrawing the former condemnation. This, I repeat, is a difficulty, and, stated baldly thus, must often perplex even Catholics.
But let our opponents be as candid as I have been. Let them admit—what is no more than a fact—that this prerogative of the Church has been exercised very seldom; and that even on the most of these occasions, the Church has in the end proved to be in the right, and the supposed martyr in the wrong. Things are not to be judged simply in themselves, but a course of events prove them; and there is a season for all matters, and a season when they are not in order. This right or power is a necessity to every constituted body of whatever kind. A State, for instance, may wrongly condemn a man for some offence; but that is no argument against the State having the right of judging in such matters, even if it must incur the danger of wrong judgment once more. If this prerogative were taken from the Church, all outside the simple domain of faith would fall into a mere chaos. Now, let the man who holds that this would be as it should be, let him consistently carry out his doctrine into all the concerns of life, and a hideous chaos would be the result. Has not such been the result in religious matters outside the Catholic Church? And as chaos has resulted there from revolt against the constituted authority, so would it be in society at large, were the theory consistently carried out. To say that non-infallible exercise of authority should, on account of occasional error, be resisted and overthrown, is simply suicidal; and an objection founded on it is no more than an objection founded on the fact of evil in man's nature, of which it is a necessary part. And into this bottomless pit of doubt I for one do not purpose to fall.
Let the problem, then, be fully grasped. It is to secure sufficient liberty and a stable authority. Freedom in itself is a good; but such is man's fallen nature, that it cannot be enjoyed without a partial sacrifice of itself, which it yields up to authority. This becomes the domain of authority, and the two interact on each other. So much is clear; but conflicts arise, and the precise issue is, not exactly between the two, but as to where their boundaries meet. We Catholics believe that we hold the solution in our hands, and I shall now merely state how I look at it, admitting, of course, that I may be in incidental error.