The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-09-09
CATH0uC|TY AND THE
MODERN WORLD
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND Sc
.CULAR INSTITUTIONS.
Eloquent Tribute of Mgr. Benson to
the Recuperative Powers of the
Ancient Church.

In the course of an article in the
Atlantic Monthly" Right Reverend
Mgr. r. III. Benson has the following
striking passage reminiscent of the
past glory of the Catholic Church and
suggestive of her still greater power
and prestige in the world of modern
thought and activity
AT, every crisis in the history of
Christendom-at the captivity Of
Avignon, the appearance of Luther,
and the capture of Rome in 1870-it
was declared by modern thinkers to
be absolutely certain at last that
Catholicism was discredited forever.
church is as much alive today as ever
she was; and that, in spite of the
fact that she is, in her faith, COM
mitted to the past and to doctrines
formulated centuries before modern
science was dreamed Of
rs there any other society in the
world, secular or sacred, that has
passed through such vicissitudes with
such a burden on it's shoulders, and
survived? For it is a burden which
she cannot shift. She cannot, at
least, 'recast her theology and drop
unpopular or questionable dogmas
(as can all sects which claim merely
human authority, and yet live. Yet
who can doubt that she is more of a
force today than all the most accom-
modating denominations around her?
She has lived, too, in the tumultuous
rush of western life, not in the patient
lethargy of the East. She has strug-
gled, not only with enemies in her
gate, but within her own house. She
has been betrayed over and over
again by the treachery or wickedness
or cowardice of her own rulers; she
has been exiled from nearly every
country which she had nursed into
maturity; she has been stripped in
nearly every one of her lands of all
her treasures; she has finally seen
her supreme sovereign on earth driv-
en- to take refuge in his own house
by the children of the men whom
she raised to honor. And yet on her
secular side she has seen every king
dom of Europe rise and fall and rise
again; she has seen a republic give
birth to a monarchy or an empire,
and an empire yield to republic;
she has seen every dynasty fall ex-
cept her own; she has seen, in re-
ligious affairs, every modern sect
whose one claim to efficiency lies in
its modernity- to keep pace with
herself who has the centuries on her
shoulders; and she remains today the
one single sacred and secular COM
monWealth which has faced the revo-
lutions and the whirling religions of
the West and has survived, with a
continuity SO mistaken that not one
of her enemies can dispute it, and an
authority which they can only resent;
she reigns even in this day of her dis
credit over more hearts than any
other earthly sovereign, and more
heads than any philosopher of the
schools; she arouses more love and
obedience on the one side and more
hatred or contempt on the other, than
the most romantic, the most brutal,
or the most constitutional sovereign,
sage or thinker ever seen.
Il called this characteristic of hers
Recuperation. I call it now Resurrec-
ton, for this is the sign of the Pro-
phet Jonas to which her divine Foun-
der appeared And vet our modern
religious thinkers are dreaming in
| their armchairs OF another creed Z