[Footnote 52: Sermons in answer to the Tract, Is it Honest? By Rev. L. W. Bacon. The Brooklyn Times, March 9th, 17th, 24th, 1868.]
A brief tract, issued a short time since by The Catholic Publication Society, seems to have produced an unusual commotion among our non-Catholic brethren, and has called forth reply after reply from the sectarian press and pulpit. The tract is very brief, and consists only of a few pointed questions; but it has kindled a great fire, and compelled Protestants to come forward and attempt to defend their honesty, in uttering their false charges and gross calumnies against Catholics and the church. It has put them on their defence, made them feel that they, not the church, are now on trial before the public. This is no little gain, and they do not have so easy a time of it, in defending their libels, as they had in forging and uttering them, when Catholics had no organ through which they could speak, and were so borne down by public clamor that their voice could not have been heard in denial, even if they had raised it. Times have changed since those sad days when it was only necessary to vent a false charge against the church, to have it accredited and insisted on by a fanatical multitude as undeniable truth, however ridiculous or absurd it might be.
Since our sectarian opponents have been put upon their defence, we trust Catholics will keep them to it. We have acted on the defensive long enough, and turn about is only fair play. They must now prove their libels, or suffer judgment to go against them. They feel that it is so, and they open their defence resolutely, with apparent confidence and pluck. They have no lack of words and show no misgiving. This is well; it is as we would have it, for we wish them to have a fair trial, and to make the strongest, boldest, and best defence the nature of the case admits.
In our remarks we shall confine ourselves principally to the justification attempted by Mr. Bacon, in his sermons, as we find them in the Brooklyn Times; and we must remind him in the outset that the assumption with which he commences—that the tract, in appealing to the good sense of the public, whether it is honest to insist on certain charges against the church as true, when the slightest inquiry would show them to be false—makes an important concession, or any concession at all to the Protestant rule, is altogether unwarranted. He says: "This submitting of the questions in dispute to the public, man by man, after the Protestant, the American fashion—concedes at the outset one great and most vital principle, to wit, that the ultimate appeal in questions of personal belief, is to each man's reason and conscience in the sight of God." Quite a mistake. There is no question of personal belief in the case. The question submitted to the public by the tract is not whether what the church teaches and Catholics believe is true or false, but whether it is honest to continue to accuse the church and Catholics of holding and doing what it is well known, or may easily be known, they do not do, and declare they do not hold? This is the question, and the only question, submitted. Is it honest to continue repeating day after day, and year after year, foul calumnies against your neighbor, when the proofs that they are calumnies lie under your hand, and spread out before your eyes so plainly that he who runs may read? We think even the smallest measure of common sense is sufficient to answer that question, which is, on one side, simply a question of fact, and on the other, a question of very ordinary morals. The competency of reason to decide far more difficult questions than that, no Catholic ever disputes. We think even the reason of a pagan can go as far as that. "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?"
"But this tract," the preacher continues, "is a plain assertion that no man ought blindly to accept the religious opinions to which he is born, nor the instructions of his religious teachers; but that he is bound, in honesty and justice, to hear the other side, and decide between them by his own private judgment." If by opinions is meant faith, it does no such thing; if by opinions are meant only opinions, it may pass, though the tract neither argues nor touches the question. The Catholic always supposes man is endowed with reason and understanding, and that both are active in the act of faith as in an act of science. There is and can be no such thing as blind faith, though blind prejudices are not uncommon. Men seek or inquire for what they have not, not for what they have. They who have the faith do not seek it, and can examine what is opposed to it only for the purpose of avoiding or refuting it. Catholics have the faith; they are in possession of the truth, and have no need to make for themselves the examination supposed. Non-Catholics have not the faith; they have only opinions, often very erroneous, very absurd, and very hurtful opinions, and they are therefore bound, not by the opinions they have received from their religious teachers, or to which they were born, but to seek diligently, with open minds and open hearts, for the truth till they find it. When they find it, they will not be bound to seek it, but to adhere to it, and obey it. There is no Protestant teaching in this, and it is nothing "different from what the Church of Rome always teaches her followers."
The tract says: "Americans love fair play." The preacher says:
"I believe it is no more than the truth. If there is one thing rather than another that Americans do love, it is this very thing—absolute freedom and fairness of religious discussion. Curious, isn't it? How came Americans to 'love fair play'? Englishmen seem to have a similar taste. Catholic or Protestant in England can speak or write his thoughts, on either side, without hinderance or constraint. The same thing may be remarked, in a measure, in Northern Germany. How can you account for it? What is the reason, do you suppose, why they don't 'love fair play' in Spain? or in Austria? or in Mexico? or in Rome? This injured innocent stands in New York, at the corners of the streets, bemoaning himself that he is treated 'dishonestly, and unjustly,' because the public will not buy and read his books; and all the time, in the Holy City itself—under the direct fatherly government of the pope—a subject is not allowed to be (as this tract says) 'honest and just' toward Protestant Christians by examining both sides, except at the peril of being punished as for an infamous crime! 'Americans love fair play.' Why do all Roman Catholic nations suppress it? Why does the pope forbid it in his own dominions? And what reason have we to believe that, if these who are clamoring for 'fair play' should ever hold the power in this country, they would put it to any different use here, from that which prevails in Catholic countries generally?"
We are not aware that there is any less love of fair play in Spain, Mexico, or Rome, than in the United States, England, or North-Germany, in Catholic than in non-Catholic countries, only there is more faith and less need to seek it, or to examine both sides in order to find it. As a matter of fact, though we cannot regard it as any great merit, Catholics are generally far more ready to hear both sides, and to read Protestant books, than Protestants are to read Catholic books. We have never met with intelligent Catholics as ignorant of Protestantism as we have generally found intelligent Protestants of Catholicity. There is nothing among Catholics to correspond to the blind prejudice, deplorable ignorance, and narrow-minded bigotry of sectarians; but we are happy to believe that even these are mellowing with time, losing many of their old prejudices, and becoming more enlightened and less bigoted and intolerant; there is still room for improvement.
"Let us understand in the outset," says the preacher, "that the charges against Catholics and the Catholic Church that are complained of in this tract, are conceded by the writer to be of grave importance. The prohibiting of the Bible to the people—the belief that priestly absolution has efficacy of itself, and is not merely conditional on the sincerity of the sinner's repentance—the paying to images of such worship as the heathen do—all these are declared by this writer to be 'detestable and horrible.' So that if it should appear that any one of them is proved against Catholics or the Catholic Church, the case is closed against them. He is not at liberty to go back and apologize for the doctrine or palliate it. He has declared it to be 'false doctrine'—'detestable and horrible.'"