The writer was once sent for by a man of unusual intelligence and plain, respectable standing, who was in reduced circumstances, and dying of a slow consumption. He learned from the lips of this man that he had been for some time perfectly convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, and was satisfied that it was his duty to be received into the church. Nevertheless, it was impossible to persuade him to act on his convictions, because he was sure that the assistance of certain societies, upon which his family depended, would be withdrawn. He hoped to recover, and promised that, if he did, he would profess his faith openly; but we never heard anything more from him, and have never heard the conclusion of his sad history.
It is but a few months since a young widow lady, a convert, was turned out of house and home, not very far from our own city, after the decease of her father, with whom she had been residing, by her own brother, for the sole reason that he did not wish to live in the same house with a papist. We will not multiply instances; but they will rise up in abundance before the memories of many who will read these pages; and if a recording angel could take down what will be remembered, thought, and felt by all whose eyes will peruse these lines, they would be transformed from a brief and tame summary into a whole volume of living and pathetic interest far surpassing the most thrilling tales of fiction; Tears will be shed, sad memories will throng upon many minds, many hearts will ache, we are assured, over the words we are writing in perfect calmness and composure, and without any direct intention of awakening emotion. Some will think of trials past, some of trials present, and others will recall to mind their own weakness and timidity in the hour when they were tried and found wanting. There are many others, however, and will be many more hereafter, to whom this plea for the liberty of conscience will be, as we cordially trust, not merely a subject of personal interest, but also a practical help in surmounting their difficulties. We allude to those who are now turning or who will hereafter turn their faces wistfully toward the Catholic Church, but have first to overcome the obstacles we have described above before they can enter its portal. For this class of persons we have the most profound sentiment of pity and sympathy. The rich and independent, the able-minded and able-bodied, who can take care of themselves, men who can assert their own rights, and those generous youths to whom a glorious career is open in the priesthood, do not claim our sympathy, for they do not need it. But we pity the helpless and dependent; those who struggle with poverty and live on the bounty of others, delicate, gentle women, and all the weak, feeble children of God who would fain follow their conscience if they were let alone and not interfered with, but who shrink back appalled when it is a question of nerving themselves to meet opposition and push their way through trials. It seems to us that there is something hard and cruel beyond all other forms of tyranny in that usurped, unjust despotism which is exercised over these tender consciences. What can be a more odious or flagrant violation of all right and justice than to attempt to crush a conscience by force, to quell it by threats, to wear it out by opposition, to stifle it by fear, or to lure it by selfish, temporal interests? All will answer this question alike, and admit, at least in theory, the wrong that lies in the attempt of any person to violate the rights of any other person's conscience. The only point really open to discussion is, What constitutes a violation of just and rightful liberty of conscience? The question respecting the right or expediency of enforcing obedience to the dictates of conscience and the fulfilment of certain moral obligations is quite a different one, though closely related to the antecedent question. We cannot, in arguing with non-Catholics on these points, assume the truth of Catholic principles, or urge any consideration which necessarily presupposes the Catholic religion to be the true one. Of course, in the last analysis, we must come back upon the fundamental principle that the law of God is supreme and must be obeyed at all hazards, let come what will. No matter what human laws, what private interests, what dreadful penalties, may stand in the way, God must be obeyed, conscience must be followed, duty must be done. The authority of the state must be braved, human affections must be disregarded, life must be sacrificed, when loyalty to the truth and to the will of God requires it. Those who reject the authority of the Catholic Church, however, do not admit that the Catholic law is the law of God; and we must therefore either make our sole issue with them on this precise point of the truth of the Catholic doctrine, which is the same thing as a declaration of perpetual war, or we must find some middle term common to both, upon which the peace of social relations can be settled and the mutual rights and liberties of conscience be secured. We are obliged, therefore, to waive all claim of right and liberty to practise the Catholic religion, which is based on its positive truth, so far as this argument is concerned, and to present only such claims as a fair-minded person, whether Protestant, Jew, or infidel, may admit as just and reasonable, without changing in the least his own particular opinions. It is not to be expected that all our arguments will be equally applicable to every class of persons, whatever their religious opinions may be; but we will endeavor to furnish at least one or two for each of the principal classes into which the non-Catholic community is divided. If some of our Catholic readers are offended by our seeming to take a tone too apologetic and defensive, we beg them to remember that the early Christian apologists were not ashamed to do the like. They vindicated the Christians of their own time from such accusations as worshipping an ass's head and drinking the blood of infants. It is painful and humiliating to be obliged to vindicate ourselves from gross calumnies; but it is an act of charity toward those who are deceived by these calumnies, and still more toward these helpless and defenceless persons who must suffer from them.
We begin on the lowest possible ground by affirming that a person in becoming a Catholic commits no offence against the laws of morality or against the civil and social laws commonly recognized among non-Catholics. There is no treason against society, no offence against domestic rights, no repudiation of any moral duties or obligations, nothing to make a person a bad citizen, a bad neighbor, a bad husband, wife, or child. There is no disobedience against any lawful external authority which has any right to inflict any penalties affecting a person's social or civil rights. There is no reason, therefore, why a person who embraces the Catholic religion should be treated by his acquaintances or society in general as a criminal, and made to suffer in his social and domestic relations. In our heterogeneous society, everything is tolerated which is not contra bonos mores. That which strikes at the order and peace of the natural relations binding us together in society cannot be tolerated even on the pretext of liberty of conscience or opinion. Therefore, Mormonism has no rights under our laws, and ought not to be tolerated, and Mohammedanism could not be tolerated. If the Catholic Church were really what it has been represented to be by many, it could not claim liberty or even toleration in non-Catholic states. But it is not what its enemies have represented it to be. A person who becomes a consistent Catholic will be a good citizen and respect the laws. He will be faithful to his social and domestic duties, and strictly observant of all moral obligations. It is not the spirit of the Catholic religion to introduce discord or trouble into families or societies, or to interfere with any just and lawful rights. The only annoyance which can arise will be the annoyance which persons wishing to violate the natural laws will meet with from the conscientious observance of morality by the Catholic party. Suppose a Catholic lady wishes to go to Mass, to confession, to devote a part of her time to meditation or charitable works? Does that necessarily interfere with the perfect fulfilment of all her duties toward her family and society? Is it any greater liberty than that which women generally expect to be conceded to them, and which they take at any rate, whether it is granted with a good or a bad grace? Let the question be decided by the actual conduct of those who have become Catholics in their relations with others who are not of their faith, and we are not afraid of the judgment which candid and fair judges will render. Certainly, then, they ought to enjoy the same liberty which is conceded to those who profess any other form of religion not contrary to the received standard of good morals, and to those who profess none at all. Those who profess the latitudinarian opinion that all religions are alike, and who claim unbounded liberty of opinion for all, ought to be the first to give to Catholics the full benefit of this privilege.
With those who are more strongly attached to their own form of religion and hold it to be the only true one, the case is somewhat more difficult. Such persons may say that a person brought up in what they call the true, Evangelical, reformed faith, or in the pure, apostolical, Protestant Episcopal Church, especially if he has been a communicant, and most of all if he has been a minister, is an apostate from his faith as a Christian, a renouncer of his baptism, and therefore a criminal before God and the church, if he, to use their language, becomes a Romanist. Let it be so. When argument and persuasion have been tried and have failed, let the church pronounce her spiritual censures on the disobedient member. We cannot complain of that. Let him be canonically deposed if he is a minister. We cannot complain of that, either. But is there any reason why our Evangelical or High-Church friends should think it necessary or expedient to proceed any further? Suppose they do regard the person in question as a delinquent and as an unfortunate dupe of error and delusion. Will our Evangelical friends affirm the principle that none but the elect are entitled to the rights and privileges arising out of natural and social relations? Will our High-Church friends affirm the same, substituting for the elect, consistent members of their own communion? If not, we cannot see why they may not allow Catholics the same indulgence which they concede to sinners, heretics, and infidels. We put them the plain question, whether they have any right to interfere with the conscience and the religion of another, or to use any kind of coercion or persecution against any one, whatever may be the relation in which he stands toward them. Some of them may perhaps deny that a well-instructed member of that which they deem to be the true church can become a Catholic conscientiously and sincerely. But suppose it is so. Where is the authority to compel him to fulfil his conscientious obligations of a purely spiritual nature? We are not now speaking of young children who have not attained to years of full discretion, over whom parents certainly have an authority which must be respected. But, apart from this exception, what authority can be claimed for enforcing any religious obligation by any other means than an appeal to the conscience itself? If there are any who really think there is a right of excommunication in their church which extends so far as to exclude a person from his privileges as a member of society, and to reduce him to the state of one who is vitandus, or an outcast to be shunned by all, we only desire that they will act out their doctrine impartially and universally. Is it not, at least, inexpedient to appeal to it in the present state of society, while no kind of disability is contracted by those who profess the principles of Bishop Colenso or Herbert Spencer?
The case may be supposed of persons, influenced by no ill feeling at all, who would desire to withdraw from all intimacy with relatives or acquaintances who have joined the Catholic Church, on the ground that their conversation and influence may be dangerous to young persons in the family. Such a motive as this we can respect, for we can and must respect fidelity to conscience, even when it is an erroneous conscience which is followed. Moreover, no one is bound to keep up any intimate relations which transcend the bounds of ordinary courtesy with any persons outside the immediate family circle, unless it is agreeable to himself to do so. But what is to be said of those who, on a plea of conscience, sunder the closest bonds of nature, or threaten to do so? We can easily understand that a Jew, a Puritan, an old-fashioned Lutheran, a Presbyterian, or an English Churchman might be so thoroughly absorbed in his religion, and so intense in his attachment to it, that the conversion of a wife or child to the Catholic Church would be a far worse blow to his affections, and a more blighting disappointment to his hopes, than would be the sudden death of either one, however tenderly loved. An intelligent Jewish gentleman once told the writer of this article that he was deterred from receiving Christian baptism by the fear of causing the death of his aged father; and this is not an unusual instance either among the descendants of the ancient Pharisees or the adherents of the "straitest sects" of Protestant Christians. In such cases, where no softening of the temper and no modification of the mental condition takes place, there is no room for argument. The word of our Lord must be fulfilled—that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. One who has to choose between submission to the will of another and the disruption of the most sacred human ties, must choose the latter when the former involves the violation of a certain and known law of God. There is, therefore, no other course open to a Catholic in such a case except the one of professing and practising the Catholic religion openly, without regard to consequences. If they are excluded from their homes and abandoned by their friends, they must try to bear it patiently. We would scorn to appeal to the mere sentiment of human pity or to the maxims of indifferentism, in arguing with any man who should say that his religious principles require him to banish a wife, a son, or a daughter out of his house. It is our opinion, however, that in most instances, after persons have had time for cool reflection, they will not deliberately affirm that their religious principles do require these harsh measures. No one will pretend that they require or authorize any kind of tyrannical or vexatious persecution, or an abandonment of those who have a natural claim to protection to poverty and suffering. We are disposed to think that prejudice, passion, wounded pride, and similar causes have a great deal to do with the line of conduct alluded to. And one good reason for thinking so is the fact that so many firm and consistent Protestants, and even bishops or other clergymen of standing, have acted differently, and have treated Catholic converts even of their own families with kindness and courtesy. We have supposed hitherto that we were arguing with a person who would not admit that a convert from the religion he himself professes can be sincere and conscientious. It is impossible, however, to sustain such a position on any ground which the majority of intelligent non-Catholics will admit to be reasonable; for it can be sustained only by one of three arguments. First, that the illumination of the Holy Spirit gives to the individual reason an infallible certainty of the truth of some one form of anticatholic belief. Or, second, that some such form is at least made morally certain by rational evidence of such a kind as to exclude all probability that the Catholic religion may be true. Or, third, that some certain and unerring authority, to which one is bound to submit his private judgment, exists in one of the several communions calling itself the true church of God. The first argument cannot be brought into the forum of discussion, because there is no certain, external test by which it can be proved that such an illumination exists, or by whom among various claimants it is possessed. The second is refuted by the simple fact that so many intelligent and learned persons are convinced by the Catholic arguments. The third is refuted by the fact that no one of the churches claims infallibility. High-Churchmen claim a teaching authority for their communion, but it is not claimed by their church itself in any such sense as to exclude the right and duty of testing its claims and doctrines by private judgment on the Scriptures. Those who make the claim of authority in behalf of this church do not pretend that it is more than a portion of the universal church, and therefore, by the very claim they put forth, directly suggest and provoke an examination of the question what the universal church really teaches. The most learned and eminent theologians among them distinctly assert that the doctrines of the Church of England must be interpreted in conformity with the teaching of the Catholic Church. Will any reasonable person, then, pretend that one may not examine all the evidence that can be adduced to prove what that teaching is; or that he may not conscientiously and sincerely adopt the conclusion that this teaching is really identical with the doctrine of the Roman Church? We may cite here the judgment of Dr. Johnson, who was a staunch Episcopalian, upon this point. Boswell relates it in these words: "Sir William Scott informs me that he heard Johnson say, 'A man who is converted from Protestantism to popery may be sincere. He parts with nothing: he is only superadding to what he already had. But a convert from popery to Protestantism gives up so much of what he has held as sacred as anything he retains; there is so much laceration of mind in such a conversion that it can hardly be sincere and lasting.'" [Footnote 100]
[Footnote 100: Boswell's Johnson. Edit, Bait., Bond, 1856, p. 168]
In truth, every form of dogmatic and positive Protestantism presents its lines of fracture from the great mass of Christendom so conspicuously to the eye, that it is absurd to pretend that its relation to that mass is not a thing to be examined and judged of by every one who is capable of judging for himself, that is, by every one who is responsible to his conscience and to God for his belief upon those doctrines affirmed by the Catholic Church and denied by his own detached body. An old-fashioned, strict Israelite can make a far more plausible claim for authority over the conscience in behalf of the synagogue, than any Protestant can make for his church. The Jewish hierarchy had once authority from God, and has only been superseded by the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ. We cannot argue with him, therefore, that a Jew who renounces Judaism violates no obligation of conscience toward a lawful authority, except by adducing the evidence that Jesus is the Messias foretold by the prophets. Upon his own premises he must regard such a person as an apostate and a rebel. The only reason which could have any weight with him, why he should continue to show the same kindness to a member of his family who had been baptized as before, would be, that it is better to leave such a case to the judgment of God, and refrain from an exercise of severity which could do no good, but rather aggravate the difficulty. The majority of Jews at present are, however, rationalists. They place the essence of religion in mere Theism and natural morality, regarding the peculiarities of Judaism as accidentals. On their own ground, therefore, they can have no excuse for obtruding any claim of Judaism over the reason, conscience, or private judgment of any of their number. Take away a divinely appointed, infallible authority, and in all matters of purely religious belief and practice each individual is in possession of full liberty, for the right use of which he is responsible only to God. Moreover, in matters of positive, dogmatic doctrine, the majority of non-Catholics acknowledge that only probability is attainable. Logic and good sense have brought them to this conclusion as contained in the premises with which they started. But in questions of probability and matters of opinion, persons of equal sincerity and conscientiousness may differ. We are certain that this will be admitted as an axiom by our non-Catholic readers. But if this be so, those who profess to be convinced of the truth of Catholic doctrines ought to be regarded as sincere and conscientious, which we think most of our non-Catholic friends will also admit. Every one must see, then, how contrary to every right and honorable principle it is to attempt to act on the minds of those who desire to become Catholics by any other means than argument and persuasion. How dangerous, how unjust, how mean it is to strive to terrify or wheedle them into a forced acquiescence in the will of others through human and worldly motives! It would be almost an insult to our readers to argue this point gravely. Those who follow the principles of Demas in the Pilgrim's Progress, and are in favor of religion only when she walks in silver slippers, will not publicly avow and defend any such base maxims, or maintain seriously that their great objection to the Catholic religion is, that it is not sufficiently genteel. Even the New York Herald flouts scornfully the religion of velvet cushions, which makes the elect to consist solely of the élite of society.
But at last we come at what is the real gravamen of the complaint against Catholics on the part of those who are disposed to be fair and kindly. It is not that we hold certain doctrines as opinions, or adopt certain modes of worship as suited to our taste. This could be allowed without difficulty as our undoubted right, provided we would admit that the Catholic Church is only the best and most perfect among several forms of religion. But we maintain its exclusive truth and legitimacy, and proclaim it to be the only way of salvation. It is unpleasant for one to have his wife, or children, or near friends, look upon him as a person excluded from communion with them in spiritual things and out of the way of salvation. Very true! But what does this prove? It proves that the ideal of society is only actualized in religious unity. It makes no difference what your ideal is, whether it is something purely natural, or, under some form, supernatural. There must be unity either in some negative or some positive form. That is, there must be something to give those who are closely connected on the earth the same idea of the tendency and end of this earthly life, and of the future life which is to succeed it. Yet we find that society is not in this ideal state among us. It is impossible for Catholics to sacrifice their convictions and violate the dictates of their conscience, for the sake of a unity which they believe to be chimerical. We believe that it is only the Catholic religion which can bring society to its ideal perfection, and therefore we shall, for this reason, as well as for higher ones, do all in our power to make it universal. Probably our Evangelical friends await the millennium, and other classes of the religious community await the universal triumph of some kind of church of the future, while the sceptics look for a millennium of science and common sense. Meanwhile, it is probable that some time must elapse before any such epoch shall arrive, and we must live together in all manner of political and social relations. It is only by a jealous regard for the personal religious liberty of every individual that we can live together in peace and harmony. Is it not, then, better that, if we cannot immediately heal all the wounds of society, we should at least alleviate them as much as possible, awaiting a more radical cure at a future time?
We have already, in a former article, expressed our views upon this point sufficiently, so that we need not dwell upon it any longer at present. Happily, these are the views which are practically carried out in a great number of cases, and are gaining ground more and more. The state of things we have described is becoming ameliorated even in England, but much more in our own country. If the just, honorable, and rational temper of the best class of non-Catholic Americans toward the Catholic religion and its members were universal, and all persons disposed to become Catholics were treated with the same delicate respect for their liberty of conscience which some have experienced, there would be no occasion for this reclamation in behalf of that liberty. Those of our readers who can class themselves under this category may understand, therefore, that with them we have no controversy; but are combating an enemy as hostile to their own domestic and social peace and well-being as to our own.