Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-08-28
4 Last Word to Bishop ireland.

10 the Editor OF the GlODe:
do not well see how Bishop Ireland
could have put more misstatements into
the same space than he managed to crowd
into his "Final reply" of last Sunday
He says: "He, (Mr. Smith) affirms the
contrary of my proposition That right
reason and true history cannot contra
dict faith That is, he atfirms that right
reason and true history may and can, be
in contradiction with divinely revealed
truth"
1t would not be worth while to once
more show up the gentleman's logical
inconsistency and mentalduplicity did not
this matter touch the foundation of any
possible dispute with the Roman church.
Now / do affirm that right reason and
true history may contradict "faith. !"
But do not affirm that right reason and
true history can contradict "divinely re-
vealed truth" The "saith'' may con-
tain, and in Romanism does contain,
many things which are false. "Divinely
revealed truth" by definition, can con-
tain no error When Bishop Ireland
used the term 'sfaith" in one sentence and
substituted 'sdivinely revealed truth in
next, he either willfully misrepresented
my position, or else he has not enough
mental acuteness to warrant him in en-
gaging in any public discussion.
l affirm that "Faith' must submit to
the critique of culture, until it has estab
lished it's claims to be considered ''divine-
ly revealed truth" This position, Bishop
Ireland thinks is an alliance with Paine
and Ingersoll, Well, that depends on
what sort of a "Faith'' man has. l
can readily see how with him, it is nee
essary to give up reason or else give up
ssFaith" But beg to assure the Bish-
op that the intellectual freedom deman-
ded by professionalism is in perfect harmo-
nv with the 'ssweet reasonablness" of an
ssintelligent faith" l notice in pass
ing that Bishop Ireland has
fallen into the uncritical fashion of
stringing names together; and thus speaks
of the Statements and representations
of Renan, Gribbon, Hume land Ingersoll,"
as though these gentlemen were on COM
mon platform. One might as we'll make
climax out of Plato, Jupiter, and Tom
Thumb! 1 have so fully set forth the re-
lation of both Romanism and Protestant
ism to culture, showing that the first is
essentially antagonistic, and the second
in harmonious fellowship, that is not now
Necessary to pursue the matter further.
it is proper that review briefly, the bish-
OPS luminous setting forth of the case of
Bellarmine.
When l quoted Bellarmine to show
that the Catholic church held that the
pope was so infallible that he became a
subjective standard off morals, Bishop
Ireland attacked my translation, saying
'sHe cut up, twisted around, ard turned
upside down sentence Of the cardi-
nars.'' Two weeks ago l printed the
two translations in parallel columns,
showing that they were Identical in
meaning and almost in form. Last week,
Bishop Ireland admits the correctness of
my translation; for he quotes and atolicises
his oaon translation of the disputed sentence
and attributes at to me. This is certainly
a practical and most humili-
ating confession of the mendacity of the
statement that l had ''cut up, twisted
around, turned upside down." the SEN
tence qnoted.
The statement by the bishop that had
"never seen the Latin text of Bellarnine
until l read it in the GLoRE two weeks
ago. might have been true, but Bishop
Ireland had no means of knowing wheth-
er it was or not, which shows his reck-
lessness in making statements; but it so
happens that the statement is
| false, which increases our con-
troversialist's embarrassment The Bish-
CD grows quite merry over the supposed
fact that 1 used his citation in the
GLOBE in making my answer, and copied
it's errors He says that he quoted "vir-
tutes mala'' instead Of malas, and 1 fol-
lowed him, therefore knew no better.
Well, did he know no better when he
first quoted, and did some of the oblig-
ing priesthood call his attention to it?
and is it cause for happiness that he
finds himself in such good company in
the citation of ''mala?" He lntimates
that school boy would receive severe
castigation for a like offense. What.
for copying a citation exactly, er-
rors and all? Well, it would not
be the first time that an I'M
happy school boy has heen fogged by a
blockhead teacher! All kthe quotations
from Bishop Ireland, Latin or English
l have copied with exactness, errors and
ALL But Bishop Ireland comes down
from his lofty moods to take up the task
of proof reader. This is difficult bus
mess, but if one presents his work for
inspection it ought to stand the test
What shall be said now of the failure
on the part of Bishop Ireland
to note the expression ''rebus dubias"
which should have been s'rebus dubiis!"
Adopting the maxim, s'with what judg-
ment We Judge, We shall be judged, we
must conclude that Bishop. Ireland knew
no better, and deserves - well, let the
episcopal schoolmaster attend to his
work 2. t.sslii@ Us 0tft2s f93iI&.
We Will let "mqtutes ma1a'' offset 'sse6us
du6ios, 2 but want it understood that I
am no candidate for the difficult business
of proof reader, to which the bishop as
| pires. ''-- ~.A'a ~ ~~+
But the worst feature of the bishops
card is in his version of the cardinals
argument. l beg to assure my sympa-
thizing friend that 1 understand the
argument, "redatctio aid a6surduno'' very
well-indeed, too well for his purpose.
I The arguments toprove the supremacy
of the pope in matters of morals. The
passage is tsssecondly, because then it
would be necessary to err in faith; for the
Catholic faith teaches every virtue to be
good, every vice to be bad. But if the
pope should err by prescribing vices or
prohibiting virtues, the church would be
| ~ h@1. 10 I4