Year: 1879

clauses at once!


Religion and science-The PoPe's


EncyclicaI.


''For it is not in vain," says the Pope,
''that God has caused the light of reason
to shine in the mind; and that light super
added to the faith, SO far from decreasing
the vigor of the intelligence or extinguish-
ing it, on the contrary renders it perfect
adds to its power and makes 1t capable OF
attaining higher objects" This is good
word for reason and human intelligence on
the part of the Pope. This does not re-
gard reason as the necessary opposite Of
faith; and this seems to imply that the
Pope does not sympathize with the ecclesi-
astical crusade against the progress OF
science.


The most illustrious fathers of the
Church shave in fact assigned to the
reason part not less active than impor-
tant, as is summarized by the great st.
Augustine when he designates human
science as being the thing by which salu-
tary faith is engendered, nourished, de-
Tended and fortified" Plus TX. declared
that human science-the use of reason in
all sorts Of philosophical inquiries-was
the great abomination, and he made
catalogue of modern scientific truths in
order to denounce them in mass as dan
gerous errors. He applied to science the
process that Caligula wished he could
apply to the Roman people. But Leo
Kill takes different view


But not only is the Church, as the Pope
now speaks for it, disposed to discontinue
the war which has been made in its name
upon the propagation Of scientific inquiry;
not only is it disposed to regard that prog
ress without hostility, but it is ready to
ally itself with reason and even adopt as its
own the great conquests of modern science.
'sThose venerable guardians and witnesses
Of religious traditions" the Holy Father
says, "have recognized as q similitude, and
almost as figure of this proceeding, tho
fact that the Hebrews, when they were
about to leave Egypt, received the order to
carry with them the vases Of gold and silver
and the precious vestments Of the Egyp-
tians, so that these spoils, which had up to
that time been used for ignominious rites
and for the purposes Of superstition, should,
by sudden change, be consccrated to the
religion of the true God" Science is the
Egyptian whom the Church thus proposes
to plumber of her accumulated treasures.
How different is this appreciation of tho
value of these treasures from that which
was favored in the Vatican ten years ago
These treasures all figure in the catalogue
of dangerous errors as prepared under the
eye of Plus TX.


The encyclical is statement on pom
titical authority Of the relations Of reason
to faith, of science to religion, of the mod
ern intellectual progress of the world to
the Roman Church. 1t does not say in SO.
many words that Plus TX. committed q
monstrous blunder when he placed the
Church on the platform of his syllabus of
the principal errors of our time;" for how
can one infallible declare this of another
infallible? Yet, though the declaration is
not explicitly put in terms, the purport of
this document is q Specification to the whole
Church that change of base on that point
must certainly be made. It is q retraction.


But the world will not quarrel with one
Pope if upon point like this he saves the
memory of another. and still less will it
quarrel with Leo Kill when it observes
the adroitness with which he saves the Dig
nifty Of his sacred Office while he effectually
performs the duty demanded of him by a
present view Of the welfare of the Church.
His proposed revival of Thomas Aquinas is
stroke OF pontifcal strategy, for by
recommending the study Of this resolute
liberal of the ancient days, this hardy radi-
cal of the Church, he says of reason in him
all that he could say of it in the abstract;
and yet what is more simple or proper
than to praise one Of the fathers?


And yet it is q quaint way for the Church
to declare for progress, for the cultivation
of science, for the reconciliation of the
modern spirit with its dogmas. To dig
progress out of the thirteenth century is
not the happiest way to get it, but if in the
nineteenth century the advocacy and adop-
ton Of tho thoughts and theories Of man
of the thirteenth century puts the doctrines
of the Church more in harmony with the
minds OF its contemporaries than they would
be if the Church were left to itself it is not
science that Is to blame.


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