The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1955-01-28

tnat Wnat was long accepted as valid science or
history is in fact, not true at ALL Thus does human
smugnesS receive merited rebuke; thus human pride
iS,-at least momentary,-conf0unded
A case in point is that of Voltaire This man has
been known for nearly two centuries as the bitter
enemy IF Cathoeity. To modern anticlericals Vol
tare has ever been the object of veneration and
the oracle Of authority And now the fact is discov-
cred, and incontestaby authenticated that Voltaire
was, in his last days reconciled with the Church,
and died a Catholic
A document hidden since 1778 in the archives
of Paris notary, has but recently come TO light.
This paper is the signed and attested declaration
of Voltaire that he abiures the errors of heresy
and repents the cslumnes he has uttered against
the Church.
Voltare is listed in the brief biographical index
furnished by the big dictionary listing that re-
duces to single line a half-line all the pride
and publicity and pageantry and pomp that make
the padded story of any of the worlds great
men,-as French philos. and satirist." For most
of mankind, Voltaire's philosophy is unknown, and
his satire is a matter of few somewhat weak and
nasty wise-cracks that fill out odd in
thoogy
Some have heard of Candide and regard Vol.
taire as literary man of consequence. But the novel
is as completely neglected today as Johnsons
theme and which appeared AT the very same time
as Cdndde Neither novel can, by any fair estimate,
be called great work of literature
Yet the name of Votaire has lived Why? He
was writer much oVerestimated in his day,
and still notably oyerrated in subsequent
times What is it that makes name remembered
II is usually of two things: either notable worth
and high achievement OF notable nastiness Lucifer
is name as immortal as Michael Benedict Arnold
is as lasting a name as George Washington.
voltaire's hatred of the Church, and his barbar,
ically clever datribes, have kept his name alive
among the multitude of the haf-informed who cali
themselves the intelligentsia. And now that the
terrible secret is out; now that people know that
Voltaire repudiaed the integentsia and all their
works and returned to the bosom Of Mother Church,
will his name die out2 Possibly.
For the very people who kept the name Voltdire
alive and who quoted his irreligous sayings with
delight will be the last to tell the truth about the
man. They will not advertise the fact that he be-
came Catholic at the last They will not even
rect the impression they have helped to establish.
They may be depended upon to hush the whole thing
up in so far as they Great is justice; great is
broherhood great is righteousness; great is toler-
anee; great is honor and integrity and fair play!
The name Voltaire is a pseudonym for Francois
Marie Arouet who was born in 1894 and lived full
eighyour years TO 1873 Shoals of writings, plays,
essays, ueatses letters, from the pen of this
grabbed little man with the acid tongue But the
great mass of his writing is largely forgotten.
What remains of Voltaire,-and this is tie case of
nearly all notables, famous or infamous.-is only
his name And, you may be sure in the light of the
recent unearhng of that document in Paris, this
name will be less and less frequently pronounced
in time to come
Tho aid etorv ..idelv rirctlated ahout tho daath
of Voltare was something like this The old man
lay at deaths door, but was not aware of how
critical a state he in A priest came to him,
unsolicited Voltaire asked him who had sent him.
The priest replied that God sent him. Then Vol
taire To the vast enjoyment of the worldly lads
at his bedside, inquired, Have you His credent
ias?" The priest departed. But presently Voltare,
realizing the imminence of death, sent for him
again. tie was told that nothing could be done un-
less he abiured his heretical beliefs and recanted
the calumnes of a lifetime Then, the old fictional
story goes, he chose the way of prideful refusal,
and died unreconced,
And now we know that he did not die unrecon-
ciled but as a child of the Church. fortified by
the last Sacraments This must be terrible blow
10 the rreligious who have spent so much time
Squirting ranbows" at the name of Voltare But
the thing that is really striking in the event is
NOT the willingness, nay the eager desire, of bad
Catholic TO get rid Of his sins and become good
one; the amazing thing is the mercy of God and the
tenderness of Mother Church in receiving into the
household the recreant and renegade member who,
for long lifetime had spent all his energy in bitter
and sianderous attacks upon religion
Perhaps il is not stretching simile too far to
the conversion of Voltaire comparable to
that of the good thief of Calvary. Certainly, both
instances of the boundless nature of Gods
mercy When Notaire came 10 die he must have
known that his sayings, his writings, and his ex
ample would for time continue TO do great evil
TO souls With greater justice than Dismas he might
that his evil would live after him Yet this
sad fact did not prevent The gracious God from Civ
ing efficaeious grace to the soul of this mean
little seoffer who had outraged God and decency
to win little worldly fame
And, by the way, when one comes to assey that
much lauded wit of Voltaire remembers that the
bon mot hoils Just above the freezing point. II
takes very little to get by wifi only the thing
is done in French. and by antclerieal Take out
The nastiness, and wittier things than any Of Vol
laires arc said each day BY linewriters in our