Thus although we may find no constitution which abolishes slavery, no one will deny that it ceased through the influence of Christianity, which modified customs and habits, and these influenced the laws. Thus the time will come when all that is good in modern society will be assured to it; and then the influence of Christianity will be made manifest in purifying and consecrating all that came from its teachings, or from needs which it caused to be felt; so that the so-called liberals will see that it is not necessary to attack Christianity in order to defend the acquisitions of their age, nor will the faithful attack the age as an irreconcilable enemy. Does not everything happen by the will or permission of God? Are not all political changes and social transformations providential facts? If the Christian cannot praise them, he becomes resigned to them; he does not increase the evil by anger; he trusts in God, who can change the stones into children of Abraham; and we, separating ourselves from those whose patriotism consists in denouncing others as enemies of their country, say to the men of good-will of our day:
"O socii (neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum)
O passi graviora, dabit Deus hic quoque finem." [Footnote 75]
AEneid, lib. I.
[Footnote 75: "Companions! we have borne evils before this; ye who have suffered worse, remember that God will put an end even to these woes.">[
How can you who have learned the watchwords of "Progress," and "Go-ahead," expect hasty "progress" at Rome, so slow in her motions?
Napoleon boasted that he had done in three hours what men formerly took three months to execute. Yes, he ran from Alexandria to Vienna, to Madrid, to Moscow, and—to St. Helena; while Rome remained at her post. Those who do not look superficially admit that she showed splendidly her wisdom in certain circumstances by not closing the way to future wisdom. In the modern exuberance of fungous intelligence, new systems easily sprout up, die in a few years; and the heroes of to-day become the objects of hatred to-morrow. Rome, eternal guardian of truth, cannot make and unmake in haste, take up and lay down, like human societies; but she proceeds slowly and patiently, yet she advances.
Certainly the church will find a new field in which she can co-operate with the state to preserve for humanity, no longer the antique forms or the mere letter given by Catholics alone, but the Christian spirit; a new method of protecting Catholic truth in countries open to every people, and every worship; deprived of the help of force and decrees, she will have no other support but truth; and since this is greater and more secure in Catholicism, it will always succeed in propagating itself. Will not this be the object of the approaching Council? The General Council will not have to destroy what is irremovable, or what derives necessarily from eternal truth; but it will help us worldlings to separate, in principle, the substance from the form, the essence from the application.
Certainly the hate which inspires men in these times against true liberty, makes governments justify and praise every attack against the church, and deprive her of every right, even when they pretend to protect her.
Do these governments want to form national churches? This would be to go back in civilization, which progresses toward union; to deny catholicitv or the universality of the race; to give up souls as well as bodies to the power of kings, as before Christianity; to give the direction of consciences and the judgment of morals to the civil power, which should rule only bodies.
Some would tolerate Catholicity provided there be liberty of conscience and of worship; let there be no temporal power in the church; no religious corporations; and let the secular clergy be raised to the height, as they say, of the age.
What is meant by liberty of conscience has been sufficiently explained by the pamphleteers, and the popes have given solemn decisions on the subject. Conceive a society in which it would be unlawful to expel those who violate its laws or disturb its order! The church simply expels from the communion of prayers and sacrifice those who are obstinate in violating her dogmas. How! You insult our community; refuse to communicate in our rites; you will not accept the pardon which the church always offers you; and yet you pretend to force her to comfort your last moments with sacraments which you repel and deride even then; to force her to bless your corpse, and bury it in the holy ground where repose those with whom you refused to associate during life!