The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-28

no doubt a great evil to make on sci
entttic questions the appeal from the
scientific to the unscientific, but rs il
has been made, we cannot now with
draw it and confine the discussion again
to the schools and scholars. The evil
has been done and we must submit 20
It. We cannot help ourselves. The
printing press, the journals. and thc
common school system will Terpetudte
1t and render abortive any attempts we
may make to restore the Oh medilcvai
order. The discipline arcani is hence
forth impracticable and we must &C
cept publicity as one of tire conditions
of our existence. Such being the fact,
we can overcome the evil done by
Luther's movement only by thoroughly
educating and instructing the laity. In
deed it is remarkable how important
part Catholic laymen in late years have
played in the defense of Catholic doc
trines and Catholic interests. The first
effective blow struck in literature
against the infidelity and revolutiOnism
of the last century was struck by lay
men. The clergy could hardly gain a
hearing till De MaiStre, De BOnald and
CORES had spoken and turned the cur
rent of public thought. At the present
moment in Germany, France, Great
Britain and the United States some of
IllS dDleSl anu UlOSL effective ueLeuQtIS
of Catholicity and Catholic interests
are laymen. 1 find nothing gratifying
to my Catholic feelings in the fact that
it is so, but the fact, however we may
deplore it, indicates clearly enough the
conditions that must henCeforth be
complied with. The laity must be in
structed and rendered able to defend
by their own knowledge and under
standing, in subordinatiOn to the HE
archy assuredly, Catholic doctrines and
Catholic interests when assailed. The
reliance must now be placed on the in
telligenCe of the many, not alone on
the intelligence of the few. We cannot
war successfully against the democratic
spirit of modern society, and true wis
dom requires us in some sense to accept
it and to turn it to the advantage of
religion. La Mennais had a glimpse of
the truth, although he coupled the truth
he saw and asserted with gross errors,
which made it necessary for the church
to condemn him.
The fault 1 find with a portion of
the clergy is that they either do not see
the new order that has sprung up since
Luther, and has been rapidly developed
in the last century and the present or
they fancy that they can successfully
resist it. But successfully resist it they
cannot without a miraculous interview
ton of our Lord, on which we have no
right to count. God, in his providence,
has suffered the order to spring up and
it is not likely that he will intervene by
a miracle to suppress that The clergy,
then, it seems to me, must accept 1T and
make the best of it.
ITO make the best of it they must
train the laity to understand the ques-
tons at issue. and to feeling of deep
responsibility in regard to them. They
must educate the laity in a strong and
masculine Cathohcity, and instead of
contenting themselves in making them
parrots, they must study to make them
thinking, reasoning men, to quicken
their understanding, to develop their
reason, and bind them to their faith by
intellectual conviction as we'll as by
routine, or even grace divinely vouch
safed them. A larger amount of re-
Iigious instruction must be given the
Iaity, a higher and more liberal intel
lectual culture in relation to faith and
morals must be given them than has
hitherto been deemed necessary. A
more generous confidence must be
placed in the common mind, and more
reliance placed on individual reason
and conscience. They must rely more
on interior light and conviction, and
less on mere exterior authority than
a. .
Rationalism will never be suppressed
by the suppression of reason. or the
race of sciologists extinguished by neg
lecting real scientific culture"
Individual reason and conscience"
interposed Father John, must be as
serted in face of the civil authority, for
that has no right to bind either; but
for that very reason we must be all the
more careful to assert the supremacy
of the church over both. The indepen-
dence of individual reason and con-
science in face of the temporal prince
is the principle of anarchy, and would
lead to all manner of disorders, unless
there were at the same time a full and
practical recognition of the plenary
authority of the church. But the au-
thoTfty of the church, unlike that of
the state, is spiritual, not material or
physical, and enlightens as well as
commands. 1t does not suppress indt-
Vidual reason and conscience, it en-
lightens them, and directs them to the
true and the good. Hence the more abb
solute the authority of the church over
them, the more free they are; and the
more truly enlightened they are, the
more unreServed will be their submits
sion to her authority. This shows that
the church must always seek, and can /
never fear the intelligence of her chill
dren. The great enemy she has al /
ways and everywhere to combat is ig-
norance. She has not always, indeed |
but seldom, been able to give to her |
children the full and thorough instruc-
ton, now so necessary. for she has |
been frequently thwarted by a harbar- |
ism not to be removed in single gen |
Grafton, and almost always by the !
temporal prince jealous of her influ |
ence, and afraid of the intelligence of !
his subjects. The defects in the edu |
cation of the faithful hitherto given |
cannot be denied, but they are not |
ehargeable to the church, though to a l
certain extent churchmen are answer |
able for them, inaSmuch as they have, |
like Cardinal Wolsey, been more intent |
on serving their king than on serving |
their God, and have been more ready |
to take their cue from the court than |
from the vicar of Jesus Christ. AS the |
line between Caesar and Peter is more !
clearly drawn in our day, and as the |
incompetency of Caesar in spirituals |
is more generally understood and more |
frankly admitted even by Caesar him |
self, the necessity and the practicability /
of a more full and adequate instruc- /
ton of the great body of the laity in {
their religion, especially in its relations I
with the temporal order, must be more |
generally seen and admitted by those |
whose special duty it is to carry out |
the precepts and wishes even of the |
church of God. The press honestly con- |
Quoted, under a proper sense of re-
sponsibility. by men who are above the /
petty ambitions and petty jealousies |
of little men, by men who are up to 1
the level of their position, and equally |
free from a tendency to false LIBERAL /
ism and from a slavish servility to |