The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-02-21

r CONVERSATION I.-(Continued.)
5 Il think l understand Father John!
doctrine, and 1 freely accept it for The
United States, replied De Bonneville
hut | am not prepared to accept il
for old Europe. Here your state leaves
religion, as such to itself, and takes
no care of it. 1t is in. accordance with
Your order that it should do so. Your
federal constitution contains no recog-
milton even of God, except by impliCa-
alon in the instances in which it de-
mands an oath, and with that exception
would be as suitable to a nation Of
atheists as to a nation of Christians
Here, | grant. the church rests for it's
support on the individual conscience,
and can claim or receive protection
only as being the conscience of the cit
lzen. But this order can never be adj
mitted in Europe. There the sovereigns
are more or less affected by tradition,
and they will never consent to surren-
der their surveillance of ecclesiastics
and ecclesiastical affairs. Moreover,
the Catholic population, accustomed to
governmental control, assistance and
protection in religious matters. if ,aban-
! doned by the state and thrown upon
their own resources, would soon cease
to be Catholic and lapse into heathen-
| ism. If the government should with
hold its salary from the clergy, and
leave them for their support to the
voluntary offerings Of the faithful, more
than half the churches in France would
be closed in six months. The union of
church and state is a political and a
religious necessity in every Catholic
country in Europe, and if in fact dis
solved, the mass of the people would
live and die as heather"
Every transition from one order to
another" interposed Diefenbach, sis
always attended by more or less of
evil, and there can be no doubt that
the introduction of the American order
into the old Catholic states in Europe
would be at first very injurious to re-
ligion. But we must recOllect that re-
1tgion is already at low ebb in all
Catholic Europe, and that the majority
of educated men, not priests or re-
ligious, are little better than nominal
Catholics. They may not wholly break
with the church, but they are governed
neither by her teachings nor by her |
spirit while the mass of the peasantry |
in France never dream of so absurd a |
thing as going to confession. What is |
needed is to recover the mass of the |
population to a living, energetic faith, /
and that you will never do so long as
they associate Catholicity with the au-
thority that visits them in the shape |
OF the tax collector. Neither ecclesias-
teal nor civil authority can restore
them to living faith External !
In matters of religion
does not and will not weigh |
with them. 1t is only through freedom,
and the free development of the inner
life, that they will once more become
hearty believers. Without disturbing
the present order, I would, as Father
John recommends begin to train them
in reference to the new order which
soon or late must come as Sardinia
proves to US, and which no earthly
power can prevent. You must educate
he people as you never yet have done;
YOU must enable them to understand
heir own deeper wants, and lead them
back to the church through science
md high educational and moral Gull
ure." ava