Certainly this is not owing to the inaptitude of Catholics as such; for, through all the ages from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, Catholics were the governing class, and in no period of human history have civilization and the progress of society so rapidly advanced as during this period, which Digby calls the Ages of Faith. It is not, again, owing to any loss of life or vigor in the church herself, as is evinced by the success of her missions in Protestant nations and among savage and barbarous tribes. It is only in old Catholic nations that the church loses ground, and this proves that the cause is not in her. It can be traced to no Catholic cause, but must be traced to some defect in the Catholic administration in these old Catholic nations themselves. Catholics protect Catholic interests better, and have more influence in public affairs in Prussia, in Great Britain and Ireland, in Holland, and the United States, than in Austria, France, Spain, or Italy. Why is this?
One reason we may perhaps find in the failure of pious and devout Catholics to consider the difference between their duties in a Catholic state and what were their duties in the early ages under the pagan emperors. Under the pagan emperors, power was in the hands of their enemies, as it is in infidel, heretical, and
schismatical nations now, and they had no political responsibility. All that was incumbent on them was to cultivate the private virtues, to do their best to sanctify their souls, to obey the constituted authorities in all things not contrary to the law of God, and, when the laws of the empire or the edicts of the emperors commanded them to do what the Christian law forbids, to refuse obedience and submit cheerfully to the penalty of disobedience, which in most cases we know was martyrdom. But when the empire became Christian, and especially when Christendom was reconstituted by the conversion of the barbarian nations that succeeded to the empire, the position and duties of Catholics or Christians in some respects changed. Power passed to their hands, and they became responsible for its exercise, and it was their duty to keep it in their own hands, and conform the national legislation and administration to the law of Christ. Catholics then incurred as Catholics a political responsibility which they had not under the pagan emperor, and which they were not free to throw off. The popes always understood this, and acted accordingly; but the ascetic discipline which enjoined detachment from the world was by many devout and earnest souls construed to mean detachment from all part or interest in the political order or the government of Christendom. In consequence, the affairs of state fell, as under the pagan empire, into the hands of Cæsar, or of those who were more ambitious to acquire honors and power than to protect and promote the interests of religion.
This has been more especially the case since the opening of modern history or the rise of Protestantism; and we find among devout Catholics intent on saving their own souls a feeling that there is an incompatibility
between politics and religion, and that he who would serve God must leave the affairs of state to men of the world; which is, in effect, to deliver them over to the control of men who are servants of Satan rather than servants of God. The state has, therefore, been given over to the Enemy of souls, because Catholics were led, through a one-sided asceticism, to neglect to keep it in their own hands, and the church has been suffered to be despoiled, her pontiffs, priests, and religious have been suffered to be massacred, for the lack of a little resolution and energy on the part of Catholics to defend their religion and the sacred rights of their church and of society entrusted to their courage and fidelity. Thus a handful of Jansenists, Protestants, Jews, and infidels in France were permitted to establish a reign of terror over twenty-five millions of Catholics, exile their bishops, massacre or banish their priests and religious, suppress religious houses, close the churches, prohibit Catholic worship, abolish religion itself, decree that death is an eternal sleep, and substitute for the worship of the living God the idolatry of an infamous woman, placed upon the altar and adored as the goddess of Reason. All this time, while all these horrors were enacted in the name of the nation, the twenty-five millions of Catholics, except in Brittany and La Vendée, made hardly a show of resistance, and suffered themselves to be led as sheep to the slaughter, forgetful that they owed it to France and to Christendom to sustain and govern their country as a Christian or Catholic nation. It is a duty to pray, and to pray always, but sometimes it is a duty for Christians to fight, and to have not only the courage to die in the battle for a holy cause, but to generous souls the far more difficult courage, the courage
to kill. We have observed among French Catholics no lack of courage against a foreign foe, even in a war of more than doubtful necessity or justice, but a fearful lack of courage against the domestic foe, as in the late communist insurrection of Paris. They seem restrained by scruples of conscience.
Another reason may probably be found in the fact already hinted, that the mass of Catholics have been trained and accustomed to rely on external authority; to look for protection and support not to God and themselves, but to the secular government. They have not been accustomed to rely on spiritual authority alone, but on the secular sovereign as a sort of episcopus externus. This had no evil consequences so long as the secular sovereign was faithful, and acted only under the direction and authority of, and in concert with, the Supreme Pontiff; but it had a most disastrous effect when the sovereign acted in ecclesiastical matters in his own name, and when he turned against the Pope, and sought to subject the church in his dominions to his own control or supervision, which was not seldom the case. But the clergy and people, accustomed to look to the secular authority to guard the fold against the entrance of the wolves, became slack in their vigilance and remiss in acquiring habits of self-reliance, and, with the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, of self-defence. Consequently, when kings and princes ceased to keep guard, or when they turned wolves themselves, as in the Protestant revolt, the flock was powerless, knew not to whom to look for support, and had no resource but to yield themselves to be devoured by schism, heresy, or apostasy. This is now the case with the great body of the Catholic people in all old Catholic countries. With the vain hope
of conciliating the revolution and preserving their thrones, the sovereigns of Europe, without a single exception, have abandoned or turned against the church, and there is not one on whom the Holy Father can count. He is alone, with the kings and princes of the earth either hostile or indifferent to him, while the old habit of relying on the secular authority for support, for the moment at least, paralyzes nearly the whole body of Catholics in all old Catholic nations.
Another reason, growing out of the last, may be found in the habit that has grown up since the rise of Protestantism, of relying on the external almost to the exclusion of the internal authority of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost dwells in the church, and teaches and governs through her as his external organ; he dwells also in the souls of the faithful, and inspires and directs them, and gives vigor, robustness, and self-reliance to their piety. Protestantism assailed the external authority of the church, and made it necessary for Catholics to turn their attention to its defence, and to show that no spirit that disregards it, or that does not assert it and conform to it, can be the spirit of truth, but is the spirit of error, in reality anti-Christ, who, the blessed Apostle John tells, was already in his time in the world; yet it may be that the defence of what we call the external authority of the Holy Ghost, or authority of the church as a teaching and governing body, has caused some neglect in the great body of the faithful of the interior inspirations and guidance of the Holy Ghost in the individual soul. No Catholic will misunderstand us. We appreciate as much as any one can the external authority of the church, her supremacy, her infallibility; we accept ex animo the supremacy and infallibility
of the successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome, as defined in the recent Council of the Vatican, and should be no better than a Protestant if we did not; but that external authority is not alone, or alone sufficient, as every Catholic knows, for the soul, and its acceptance is not sufficient for salvation. The Holy Ghost must dwell in the individual soul, forming “Christ within, the hope of glory.” We do not mean to imply that any of our ascetic writers or spiritual directors overlook the need of the interior inspirations and guidance of the Holy Spirit, or fail to give it due prominence, but that its authority has not had due prominence given it in our controversial literature and in our expositions of Catholic faith intended for the public at large.