The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-01-05
AND
DARW|N|SM
Great Changes in the
PapaI View.
.AMER|cAN|sM ONCE AGAIN
The Vatican Reverses its Attitude on
Important Questions of TheoI-
ogy and Policy.

1t is only a few months ago that
the Catholicism of American Catholics
was emphatically condemned. The
Pope Illuminated against certain tenets
comprehensive classed as American
ISM" several side gusts showed the
! way the wind had set, and the Anglo
Saxon stamp of Roman Catholicism
was rejected by the Holy See with all
the fervor and all the shortsightedness
of a Plus V. Now all this is changed
In the eyes of the eminent Italian &C.
| clesiastics who have had most to do
with the Catholic question In the Unit
ed States, what has been accomplished
is nothing less than revolution.
1t appears that the Pope has been
/ fitting at a windmill, and buffeting a
man of straw. ''Americanism," 1t Is
now declared, was the name for a thing
which did not eXist-at least in Ameri-
ca; the condemning Encyclical was, in
fact, directed against certain ideas
which have their home in France. Am
ericanism did not exist; but en- re-
vanche the modern world does exist;
| it is the appreciation of this fact
which has accomplished revolution
1t is understood that the breath of
modernita henceforth forms part of the
/ atmosphere, not of the Pope and the
Cardinals, but of certain catholics in
remote regions. The revolution has not
stopped here; the principle of nation
/ alism has been conceded More than
/ this, Catholics may hepceforth be as
scientific as they please-the world Of
science is open to them. Finally it is
recognized that the Southern races are
| in decadence, and that for the future
the aScendaney will be with lies races
du Nora OF course, there are re-
strictions in the application OF these
principles. First Catholics may be as
national as they like in their own
country, and may dabble with all mod
ern matters; but these good things
must be kept out of Italy, above all
out of Rome. Again, it must be un-
derstood that, though every field of
science is henceforth free to Catholics,
faith and dogma are not to come I'M
der such criticism, and must never be !
considered as subject to the reasoning |
faculties.
What has led to this complete
change of attitude is not it's least in
teresting feature. Two events prepared
the way. The existence of the modern !
world, of the rights of nationality, of
the worl0 of science, and of the Nor
thern races, all of which things were
abhorrent TO that Canute of the Sacred
College, Cardinal Mazzella, became
clear when he died. But his removald
would not have been sufficient impetus
for change so great; the impetus
came from a quarter whence it might
least have been expected. When the
Encyclical against "Americanism, APP
peared the Americans bowed to the
storm; if any protest was expected of
them they did not make it. But in the
English press a batch OF liberal Cath
To-
The battery of articles in the secular
press last spring, and the tone of GER
tain things in the Catholic press, caus-
ed very serious alarm The matter
was handled with startling freedom;
the writer's showed no disposition to
respect any thing. 1t was felt at the
Vatican that such language had not
since the reformation; indeed, a sec
ond reformation did not appear i'm
possible
Other indications, too, acted as the
straws which showed which way the
current flowed; the meeting convened
by the Catholic Union to consider
Cardinal Rampolla'S unsatisfactory re-
ply about the marked hostility of
Catholic and Vatican organs to the
English in the South African question
the timely act of the Duke of Norfolk
in throwing up his appointment and
SOiuS " HSHl III TIE IFdnSNddl, IN the
beau milieu of tn ePope's Holy Year,
slight as such things were, doomed
large with menace, coming as they did
from the country whose converts have
been always hitherto regarded as pin
papalini che il papa. The Jesuits also
took alarm; they judged that the at
mosphere was overcharged with cleo
tricity, that something must be done
to avert an explosion.
The extent, nevertheless of the
change at present contemplated with
by the Holy See may be
judged by the significant reversal of its
attitude toward Father Zahm's book
This American priest propounded the
DarWinian doctrines of evolution. All
might have gone well had he not been
persuaded to allow an Italian transla-
ton of the work to appear. This was
at once laid before the Congregation
Of the Index, but the decree against it,
which Cardinal Steinhuber prepared
several months ago, and which he has
held ready for publication, did not ap-
pear, the delay being due to the Pope
himself. That decree has now been
cancelled. The magnitude of this move
can best be appreciated by considering Il
that it means neither more nor less
than an overt liberation of evolution
in Rome.
The change is portentous, the causes
which led to it are very humble, the
possible results as yet very nebulous.-t
Catholic Correspondent of London
Guardian.
T,bo ToS ApgaIoc J,5o,,....7-.