The Church and Tolerance

MICHEL RiaUET, S.J.
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THOUGHT

MARCH, 1929

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The Church and Tolerance

MICHEL RIQUET, S.J.

Reprinted From

THOUGHT

MARCH, 1929

THE AMERICA PRESS

New York, N.Y.



.

.



FOREWORD

Recent non-Catholic controversialists have placed the

Catholic Church on record as the enemy of civic tolerance

in religious matters. Men like Charles C. Marshall have

presented what look like official Church statements proving

that it is the enemy of liberty of conscience and, that in the

event of securing preponderance in any country, it would

immediately proceed to persecute those who are not Cath-

olics. The usual Catholic answer that these official state-

ments refer to the “ideal” state of things, and do not corre-

spond to what would be actually the practice of the Church,

is rejected by these controversialists as a sophism. They

challenge us to show any official statement showing that

the Church is liberal in theory as well as practice.

What do Catholics say in answer to this? Is there any

official proof that the Church will never force a man to

embrace its Faith against his will; that the State will al-

ways remain distinct from the Church; that the Church

will never use political means to achieve her ends? And

all this no matter what may be the numerical preponderance

of Catholics in a given country? There does exist official

proof of all this and it is given in this pamphlet, written

by a distinguished French publicist, whose writings on this

subject have won high encomiums in his native land. He

goes even further; he puts himself this last question: “Can

Catholics promise and vouch for the respect of that liberty

before the law which they vindicate for themselves today?

Can they make a promise, which is not a concession bristling

with quibbles and reticences, but a loyal engagement, free

from all mental restriction, approved by the Church and

warranted conformable to her doctrines?” To this question

he answers: “Yes; Catholics can with the utmost sincerity

and loyalty make such a pledge.” It will be seen that he

even presents this pledge as a grave obligation in con-

science.

Wilfrid Parsons, S.J.,

Editor of “America”





The Church and Tolerance

T
HE man who is not of our Faith should not criticize
Catholics for cherishing in behalf of their country an

ideal which is close to their hearts; and in fact he does not

.thus criticize them. What he expects of the Church, what

he demands of her, is that the diffusion of this “ideal” and

its practical realization in face of the contingencies of mod-

ern life shall involve neither oppression of conscience and

laws of exception against non-Catholics, nor the suppression

of that liberty before the law which the Church herself to-

day exacts as her right. It will be enough for him to know

that he is not to be duped by fleeting concessions and

promises, and that in any hypothesis those for whom his

confidence and good will shall have assured success of lib-

erty, will be faithful to their pledges; that they will

guarantee and develop, for the advantage of all, without

distinction of religious belief

,

those “material conditions” of

physical, moral and spiritual progress which represent for

the individual the just compensation for sacrifices made, and

cooperation offered, in the interest of the State.

Such a guaranty will satisfy him, but it must be certain,

unequivocal, and to that end based not on an unofficial

liberalism, but upon the very word of the Church, upon her

authentic doctrine.

This is exactly the well-grounded assurance we are pre-

pared to give him. It is derived from an ensemble of facts

and texts which are clear, public, indisputable, and the

“convergence” of which will reveal to any unprejudiced ob-

server the frank sentiment and sincere desire of those who

in the Catholic Church represent, at one and the same time,

the ecclesiastical authority and the common beliefs after

which the mass of the Faithful models its conduct.

Proof From Documents

To begin with, under any supposition, and without dis-

tinction of “ideal” and “practice,” the Church forbids her-



6 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

self and all her children to compel a man to embrace the

Catholic Faith against his will. This is a rule constantly in

force, and maintained intact in the Code of Canon Law,

which fixes authoritatively the discipline of the Church.

Indiscreet zealots or misguided public servants may at times

have forgotten, but theologians, councils and Popes have

reminded them incessantly, with Saint Justin in the second

century, that “nothing is more alien to religion than con-*

straint ”;
1
with the Decree of Gratian in the twelfth cen-

tury, that “the Church possesses only the spiritual sword:

she does not kill, but giveth life ”;
2
with Leo XIII in the

nineteenth century, that “a man cannot believe unless he

really wills it ”;
3 and with Cardinal Gibbons, that “conver-

sion and coercion are two terms that can never be recon-

ciled .”
4

This principle she cited for Ethelbert, the first Christian

king of England, in the sixth century, when, as a neophyte,

he wished to impose his Faith upon his pagan subjects;

while in the ninth, Alcuin defended before Charlemagne the

freedom of conscience of the conquered Saxons
;

5 and all

through the Middle Ages, in a world where the principles

and practices of “Germanic Law” still too often ruled, the

Sovereign Pontiffs from Gregory the Great (sixth century)

to Innocent IV (thirteenth century) championed energeti-

cally, for the Jewish communities scattered throughout

Christendom, their inalienable right not only to immunity

against a forced submission to the Catholic Faith, but also

to security and liberty in the external exercise of their re-

ligion .
6

The Church thrusts her Credo on none; the act of faith

neither imposes nor commands: it consists essentially in a

spontaneous adherence of the soul to a freely loved truth.

4
St. Justin, Apologia

,

II.

2Decretum Gratiani, cap. 6, causa 33, quaest. 2.
3Encyclical “Immortale Dei,” Nov. 1, 1885.
4The Faith of Our Fathers, London, 1895, p. 265.
r>Epistolae ad Carolum Magnum Patrologia Latina

,

tom. 100, col.

194-205.

GDecretales Gregorii IX, lib. V, tit. 6, c. 3, 7, 9; Registre d’Inno-

cent IV, ed. Elias Berger, n. 2838.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 7

To unbelievers over whom she possesses no jurisdiction
,

7

“the Church has only the right to preach the Gospel . . . ,

to exhort them to think of the salvation of their souls, and

to come to her bosom; she is vested with no legitimate au-

thority to compel them to come, by external means either

direct or indirect, or to urge upon others the use of such

means .” 8

Deviations Protested

It is to be regretted, of course, that a principle so clear

should have been at times forgotten, and that there should

have been Christian princes so indiscreetly zealous, so ill-

advised or so unscruplous as to cover with the cloak of re-

ligious motive police operations which deserve no other name

than that of tyranny. Nay, they even found ecclesiastics to

give them their approval and their aid.

But, regrettable as they may have been, these deviations

from the path of principle were never anything more than

exceptions, against which the Christian instinct of all times

cries out in protest; and there are assuredly few Catholics

today who are not prepared to subscribe to the vigorous

statement of Cardinal Gibbons :
9

From my heart I abhor and denounce every species of violence,
and injustice, and persecution of which the Spanish Inquisition may

have been guilty . . . and when I denounce the cruelties of the In-

quisition, I am not standing aloof from the Church, but I am tread-
ing in Her footsteps. Bloodshed and persecution form no part of

the creed of the Catholic Church.

Again, what was the watchword which Pius X gave to
the newly consecrated French Bishops, fourteen in number,

shortly after the Separation, and in the wake of the En-

cyclical “Vehementer Nos”? 10

You are lambs sent among wolves; but, since meekness is the
virtue of the lamb, be mindful of the weapons you are to use un-

ceasingly against those who despise your religion and your authority:
kindness, charity and patience.

7Council of Trent, Session XIV, ch. 2.
8Msgr. Ketteler, Liberte, Autorite

,
Eglise, Paris

,

1862, p. 136.

9The Faith of Our Fathers, pp. 284-285.
10Allocution, February 29, 1906.



8 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

And Benedict XV? 11

The cause of justice and truth is not served by violence and revo-

lution; those who make use of such arms are the first to be wounded

by them.

But may we not believe, besides, that this undying senti-

ment of the Church has become a part of the French con-

science, when a document, signed by one hundred and thir-

teen Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals of France, levels

against certain self-styled defenders of the Faith the re-

proach of having “left in the background an entire aspect

of the Catholic Faith, and that on its most benevolent side:

charity, mildness, moderation, good will, the apostolate

among the lowly”? 12

I

Distinct Objectives and Plans

The second assurance which is given to us is that in any

set of circumstances, and without distinction of “ideal” and

“practice,” the Church wishes to remain absolutely distinct

from the State as regards her objectives and her plan of

action. The important fact upon which this assurance is

based is the insistence of contemporary Popes upon dis-

tinguishing—without inducing thereby an opposition—the
spiritual from the temporal.

Such a distinction, founded upon the Gospel
13

and the

constant tradition of the Fathers, was recommended as a

principle to the Emperor Michael by Pope Nicholas I as

early as 865, and is presented to Catholics by Pius IX as a

dogmatic truth:
14

The Faith teaches [he says] and human reason demonstrates, that

there are two orders of reality, and that we must also distinguish in

the world two authorities, the one natural, which provides for the

tranquillity of human society and of secular affairs, the other of

11Letter to the Bishop of Bergamo, March 11, 1920: Acta Apost.

Sedis, 1920, p. 112.

1declaration of the French Episcopate on the Action Frangaise,

February 18, 1927.
13Matt. xxii, 21.
14Encyclical “Etsi Multa,” November 21, 1872.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 9

supernatural origin, which by Divine command governs the City of

God, that is, the Church of Christ, for the peace and eternal salva-

tion of souls.

Leo XIII explains further, that of these two authori-

ties
,

15

each is sovereign in its own sphere, each being circumscribed within

limits determined by its nature and immediate needs; so that there is

a field where the action of each may be exercized of its own right

{jure proprio ).

The Encyclical “Sapientiae Christianae” goes as far as to

say :
16

Church and State enjoy each its own sovereignty; consequently,

in the furthering of their respective interests, neither is subject to the

other as long as it remains within the bounds fixed by its natural

constitution.

Furthermore, when the Catholic Church criticizes or

condemns the legislation of a government, the censure does

not touch its laws
17

insofar as these laws pertain to the political order, but only because,

going beyond the limits of their competence, they encroach upon the

rights of the Church.

There is nothing here to contradict the principle affirmed

above, of the distinction between the spiritual and the tem-

poral. On the contrary, as His Holiness Pius XI energeti-

cally reminded the world’s Catholic youth :
18

We are occupying ourselves only with religion and religious inter-

ests when we do battle for religious freedom, for the sanctity of the

family, for the sanctity of the school, for the sanctification of the

Lord’s Day. This is not to play politics ; we do not, we will never,

admit that it is. It is politics which has touched religion, which

has laid its hand upon the altar.

Methods of Action in Different Order

The Church goes farther. Distinct from the State in pur-

pose, nature, origin, she would emphasize the fact that her

methods of action also are of a different order.

15Encyclical “Immortale Dei,” November 1, 1885.
16January 10, 1890.
17“Immortale Dei,” November 1, 1885.
18Allocution to Catholic Youth, September 19, 1925.



10 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

Recent events, and declarations the sincerity of which

cannot be called into question, show us that the Church is

bent upon marking the line of cleavage between politics and

what she calls “Catholic Action/’ that is, the apostolate un-

der all its social aspects. With striking and inspiring per-

sistence she denounces the alliance of religion, as such, with

any and all political enterprises. She knows well that such

confounding of interests has always retarded or sterilized the

work of salvation, and that it tends to distort, even in the

eyes of her own children, the true notion of her mission upon

earth.

All over the world Catholics are asked to unite apart

from and beyond all political parties or partisanship ,
19 They

are reminded that “politics should not be made the prime

instrument in bringing the world back to religion; prayer

and works of zeal come first .”
20

Still more specifically, the

Church declares that “she has never suggested the idea that

the defense of religion should be undertaken on any other

basis than that of existing forms of government” ;
21 and

finally, she is inexorable in her condemnation of those who,

be they radical or conservative, “dare to align Catholicism,

in principle, with any form of government ,”
22

or who “allow

party interests to take precedence over religion.”
23

In France, for example, she will draw attention to the

instructions of Leo XIII, which have never been abrogated,

to accept without mental restriction, with that perfect

loyalty which befits the Christian, the civil authority under

the form in which it exists de facto; and to strive, above

and beyond all parties, after the union of all true Christians

for the defense and conquest of religious liberty .
24

19Program of the Federation. Nationale Catholique, approved by

Cardinal Gasparri, November 23, 1926.
20Cardinal Dubois, Semaine Religieuse de Paris, January 1, 1927.
21Cardinal Gasparri, November 23, 1926.
22Pius X, Letter on Le Sillon, August 25, 1910: Acta Apost. Sedis,

1910, p. 623.

23Pius X, Consistorial Allocution, December 20, 1926: Acta Apost.

Sedis

,

1926, p. 518.

24Leo XIII, Letters to France, February 16 and May 3, 1892;
Pius X to Colonel Keller, June 19, 1909; Cardinal Secretary of State
to General de Castelnau, November 23, 1926; Pius X, Consistorial

Allocution, December 20, 1926.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 11

In the same strain, the Portuguese Bishops have heard

from the lips of Benedict XV that 25

the Church is bound up with no faction, and should not be made to

serve any political party; but it is her province to exhort the Faith-

ful to submission to those in authority, whatever be the political

complexion of the State.

In Italy during the last fifty years, Leo XIII, Pius X
and their successors have been constantly promoting a Cath-

olic social action which remains studiously aloof from par-

tisan politics .
26

Likewise, the Catholic League of Warsaw,

which is intended to serve as a model of Catholic activity

in Poland, must not be a political organization: it will rise

above all parties .
27 Mexican priests and Bishops, the vic-

tims of a shameless persecution, are forbidden by Pius XI28

to give their allegiance to any political faction, or to collaborate

in the publication of any political organ whatever; they belong by

profession to all the Faithful, nay, to all citizens.

His Holiness goes still farther:

In order that adversaries of the Catholic Faith may be given
no reason to confound our religion with a political party, all the

Catholics of Mexico are interdicted from establishing, as Catholics,

a formally Catholic political party.

A clear, if distant, echo of this tactic is found in a de-
cree of the Plenary Council of Latin America :

29

Let the clergy prudently abstain from the discussion of affairs

purely political or civic, on the subject of which diverse opinions

may be entertained without going beyond the bounds of the Faith
and of Christian doctrine; neither should they become implicated

with political parties, to the end that our holy religion, which should

25Letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Lisbon, December 18,
1919: Acta Apost. Sedis, 1920, p. 32.

26Pius XI to the Cardinal Secretary^ of State, January 24, 1927:
Acta Apost. Sedis, January 24, 1927, p. 45.

27Cardinal Kakowski, letter of February 11, 1927.
28Letter to Mexican Bishops, February 2, 1926: Acta Apost.

Sedis
, 1926, p. 178.

29Plenary Council of Latin America, Decree 656.



12 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

soar above all human interests and unite the hearts of all citizens

in the bonds of charity and good will, may not show itself recreant

to its mission, nor render suspect its work for souls.

And this decree is enforced. A vigorous letter recently
subscribed by the Bishops of Costa Rica may be cited in

proof :
30

For our part, making our own the instructions of the Holy See,
without detracting from our rights as citizens and as constant de-

fenders of the Christian Faith and morality, we have set for ourselves

as an absolute rule of conduct the most rigid abstention from all

participation in the political campaign. . . . Men of God and men
of the people, we must occupy such a position that the comforts of

our ministry may be at the disposal of all. . . . Whatever may be
the opinions of its members as citizens the ministry of the priest-

hood was not established to subserve the victory of any faction, nor

to inspire souls to struggle for the defense of material interests, but

on the contrary to subdue passion and raise hearts to the sublime

heights of peace and Divine love.

One could hardly express more happily a sentiment

which is obviously one of the most universal preoccupations

of the Catholic Church in our day.

Will Liberty Before the Law Be Secure?

By all these converging testimonies, these emphatic af-

firmations, the good faith of which is attested by facts, the

non-Catholic is assured that in any event, and without re-

gard to the distinction generally made between an ideal and

a real state of affairs, no violence shall be done to his con-

science; that the State shall remain always distinct from the

Church, which has condemned in advance all those who

would make use of her influence and spiritual authority to

force the triumph of their political interests.

This is a precious assurance. But perhaps the average

man will find it still too general or too comprehensive for

his concrete and limited views. He would like to be cer-

tain that the possibility of a Catholic government conceals

30Collective Letter of the Bishops of Costa Rica, January 11,

1927: El Mensajero del Clero, San Jose de Costa Rica, February,

1927.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 13

no menace to that popular liberty in which, for good or for

evil, he now shares; and which alone, as some would have

it, can guarantee the absolute neutrality of the State. In a

word, can Catholics promise and vouch for the respect of

that liberty before the law which they vindicate for them-

selves today? Can they make a promise which is not a

concession bristling with quibbles and reticences, but a loyal

engagement, free from all mental restriction, approved by

the Church and warranted conformable to her doctrine?

Yes; Catholics can with the utmost sincerity and loyalty

make such a pledge. Nay, the Church herself, in her most

highly authorized documents, assures us that fidelity to en-

gagements of this character is not only legitimate, but con-

stitutes in her eyes a grave obligation in conscience.

Church Documents

In point of fact, it was with the explicit approval of the

Sovereign Pontiff Pius VIII that on December 2, 1804, at

Notre Dame de Paris, Napoleon I pronounced, upon the
Gospel, the oath which the Senate-Consult of the twenty-

eighth floreal, of the year XII, had decreed:
31

I swear to maintain the integrity of the territory of the Republic,

to respect and to assure respect of the laws of the Concordat and of

freedom of religion; to respect and to assure respect of equal rights,

of political and civic liberty, of the irrevocability of the sale of na-

tional property; to levy no impost, to establish no tax, except in due

process of law; to maintain the institution of the Legion of Honor;

to conduct the government solely for the interest, the happiness and

the glory of the French people.

When we realize that the Church can never authorize an

oath the clauses of which run counter to her moral teach-

ing, and that, on the other hand, she regards infidelity to an

oath taken under these conditions as perjury and sacrilege,

we may easily judge the grave significance of the Pope’s

acquiescence in an oath which was to guarantee to French-

men of all beliefs, freedom of worship, equal rights, politi-

cal and civic liberty, without regard for their religious

creed.

zlSenatus-Consulte du 28 floreal, XII, tit. 8, art. 53.



14 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

It was with the same Pontifical approbation, from 1574

on, that Catholic kings of Poland upon their election took

an oath to preserve the status quo of the religious rights of

dissidents, Protestants and Schismatic; that, in 1815, Louis

XVIII promised to maintain the Constitutional Charter

which, among other liberties, guaranteed that “all citizens

might worship God with equal liberty, and obtain for their

religion the same legal protection”;
32

and that, as early as

1817, the Bishops of the Netherlands swore fealty to the

“Fundamental Law of the Kingdom,” which declared: 33

Art. 190: Liberty of religious opinion is guaranteed to all.

Art. 191: Equal protection is accorded to all religious com-

munions existing in the kingdom.

Art. 192: All subjects of the King, without distinction of re-

ligious belief, enjoy the same political and civic rights, and are

eligible to any and all positions of trust.

In decisions as significant and unequivocal as these, some

will perhaps see only a quibbling formula, a temporary and

purely diplomatic concession, in disaccord with the doctrine

of intolerance which the Church is known to profess. We
must insist, on the contrary, that these acts are in perfect

good faith, being perfectly coherent with the principles of

Christian Faith and morals; and for that very reason they

merit our complete confidence.

Dogmatic and Civic Tolerance

Indeed, these official acts are in complete agreement

with the distinction constantly made by the Church between

the approval of error or heresy as such (what she calls

“dogmatic tolerance”) and the respect and protection of

persons (“civic or political tolerance”).

A Church which professes itself the exclusive guardian
of those truths which are necessary for the eternal salvation

of souls cannot believe that “men may seek and find eternal

salvation in the practice of any religion at all.”34 How,

32Charter of the 4th of June, 1814, art. 5.
33 Cf. Moulard, L’Eglise et L’Etat, Louvain, 1895, pp. 363-365.
34Pius IX, Syllabus, n. 16.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE IS

then, could such a Church, whose mission it is to preach and

to convert the whole world to the Gospel, and thus to bring

all men to unity of faith,—how could she, without being
inconsistent, fail to think it more desirable that “the Cath-

olic Church should be regarded as the sole religion of the

State, to the exclusion of all other cults”?
35 Who will re-

proach her for believing, and for preaching to her children,

that an infinite diversity of opinion touching truths which

are necessarily one, that the existence of dissident sects,

that the contagion of sin and error, are not an ideal nor a

good in themselves?

Tolerance of Evil

This is the essential fact: the Church does not forget,

and has never forgotten, that if the untrammeled existence

of evil and error is neither a right nor a good in itself, it

may be the inseparable condition or the inevitable conse-

quence of that well-being and that liberty which every gov-

ernment is strictly obliged to safeguard, that is to say, pub-

lic order, the public peace, the right of every man never to

be constrained to act or to believe against the dictates of

a sincere conscience and the evidence of his reason; the

right also to immunity for any exercise of his activity and

for any expression of his ideals which is consistent with the

common weal, social peace and the legitimate protection of

the rights of others.

It is, in fact, a precept of public government that co-

ercion should preserve always the character of an exception,

and that its use should, therefore, be restricted to cases

where, in a given set of circumstances, it is required to

maintain an essential minimum of order and social justice.
This is also the teaching of the great Catholic Doctor,

St. Thomas of Aquin:

Human law does not forbid—need not forbid all those vices from
which virtuous people abstain, but only the most flagrant, those which
are shunned by the average man, those especially which prejudice
the rights of others, and the repression of which is essential to the
preservation of human society.36

^Ibid., n. 77.
36 Summa Theologica, I, II, q. 96, a. 2.



16 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

It is perfectly just [he says elsewhere] that in human govern-

ments the authorities allow certain reprehensible practices to exist

unchecked, for fear of impeding other good, or of provoking evils

which are worse.37

St. Thomas himself then applies these principles to the

freedom before the law of dissident religions, justifying

them by the “duty” incumbent upon governments38

to avoid the scandals and dissensions which suppression of these

liberties and guaranties would entail;

the duty, also,

to avoid compromising the eternal salvation of the dissidents who,

thus given their freedom, may freely be converted to the truth.

Suarez is not less emphatic:
39

The temporal power of the prince does not extend to the prohibi-

tion of the religious rites [of dissidents]
;
no reason for such prohibi-

tion can be advanced, save their contrariety to the true Faith, and

this reason is not sufficient with respect to those who are not sub-

ject to the spiritual power of the Church.

According to this doctrine, which has been consecrated

by the Encyclical of Leo XIII, “Libertas” (June 20, 1888),

the extension of civic tolerance or of “liberty before the

law” is not regulated by the private or arbitrary interest of

the “power” by which it is guaranteed, but by the objective

requirements of public order, peace and social justice. It

is not a diplomatic or timorous “concession,” but the object

of a duty, a duty of political discretion, a duty of fidelity

to engagements undertaken, a duty of justice, which ex-

cludes none from such legal guaranties and protection as

constitute a reasonable return for the service rendered by

each individual to the community.

No Dogmatic Tolerance

It is quite evident that the accomplishment of this duty

neither demands nor implies any adherence to, or approval

37Ibid., II, II, q. 10, a. 11.

38 Ibid. We may remark here that both St. Thomas and Suarez
refer to tolerance of infidels.

39De Fide
,
Disp. 18, sect. 4, n. 10.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 17

of, the dogmatic religious beliefs of those to whom, ex-

teriorly, civil liberty is assured. This has been the under-

standing of all the authorities who on different occasions

have authorized the taking of oaths which guaranteed this

liberty in the interest of all citizens, without distinction of

belief. Bossuet, for example, replies very clearly, when con-

sulted by James II:
40

A considerable difference must be remarked between the protec-
tion accorded to a Church by adherence to the mischievous ideas it

professes, and that which it is accorded to the end that public peace

may be preserved exteriorly. The first kind of protection is wrong,

because it rests upon a wrong principle, namely, approbation of what

is false; but the second is a real good, because it has as its princi-

ple the love of peace, and for object something laudable and neces-

sary, namely, public tranquillity. . . . The Anglican faith asks of

the King of England only such royal protection as is proper in a

king who exercises no control over consciences. . . . The sole promise

he makes is not to permit the Anglican faith to be molested.

In 1804, no other argument was invoked to justify the

oath imposed upon the Emperor by the Senate-Consult of

floreal. On both sides, the Consultors of the Holy Office,

the Pope, Talleyrand, Consalvi and Cardinal Fesch stated

specifically that “the oath to respect and have respected the

freedom of worship embodied only civic tolerance, and a

guaranty to individuals”
41

in the external practice of their

religion; and that42

this respect has no bearing on the substance of the various religions,

but solely upon the liberty of their public exercise.

Likewise, on the subject of the oath taken by the

Bishops to the Fundamental Law of the Netherlands in

1817, the Prince de Mean, Archbishop of Malines, de-

clared:
43

40Letter and Memorandum addressed by Bossuet to Cardinal de

Janson, French Ambassador at Rome, May 22, 1693.
41Consalvi to Cardinal Fesch, August 30, 1804.
42Report of a Consultor of the Holy Office. All the documents

relating to this discussion may be found in Theiner, Histoire des

Deux Concordats, Paris, 1869, tom. II, pp. 68-198.
43Recueil des Lettres Pastorales de Malines, pp. 348, 353, 400;

Moulard, UEglise et UEtat, p. 365.



18 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

In swearing to protect all the religious communions of the State,

that is to say, all the members therein comprised, I propose to accord

them this protection only in what concerns their civic status, without

intending thereby to approve either directly or indirectly the maxims

which they profess and which the Catholic religion proscribes.

Church's Support

To insist once more, a form of government which places

upon the same footing religions which are dissident or op-

posed, represents a situation of fact very distant from the

ideal pursued by the Church, namely perfect unity of faith

and worship: ut sint unum. This division of hearts upon

matters which involve the whole man is really, in her eyes,

an evil. She cannot desire its prolongation. Every effort

of her apostolate tends, on the contrary, to put an end to

it. But the government itself, which, in spite of these un-

fortunate dissensions, assures and maintains a minimum of

order and social peace, is in her opinion serving the con-

crete exigencies of the common weal, and as such she ap-

proves it, she supports it. For example, she believes with

Leo XIII that the Belgian Constitution, which embodies

such an attitude
,

44

is appropriate to the character of the nation, and that Catholics are

bound, not only to abstain from attacking their institutions, but also

to defend them. It would be to go counter to the views of the Holy

See to attack or to criticize the fundamental pact of Belgium. Cath-

olics should submit to it without mental reservation. It is an agree-

ment; it must be loyally observed. And since it has brought to the

Belgian people a half-century of peace, I see no reason why a change

should even be desired.

Declarations of Great Churchmen

It was surely “without mental reservation” that Cardinal

Gibbons, the great American prelate wrote not many years

ago :
45

If Catholics should gain the majority in a community where

freedom of conscience is already secured to all by law, their very

religion obliges them to respect the rights thus acquired by their

fellow citizens.

44Moulard, ibid., p. 382.
45The Faith of Our Fathers, p. 268.



THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE 19

And he adds : 46

I heartily pray that religious intolerance may never take root in

our favored land. May the only king to force our conscience be
the King of kings; may the only prison erected among us for the sin

of unbelief or misbelief be the prison of a troubled conscience; and

may our only motive for embracing truth be not the fear of man,

but the love of truth and of God.

With the same sincerity the Catholic Archbishop of

Westminster, Cardinal Manning, assured Gladstone :
47

If Catholics were in power tomorrow, not only would there be

no penal laws of constraint, but no penal laws of privation. ... If

the Catholics were tomorrow the “Imperial race” in these Kingdoms,

they would not use political power to molest the divided and heredi-

tary religious state of our people. We should not shut one of their
Churches, or Colleges, or Schools. They would have the same liber-

ties we enjoy as a minority.

A faithful echo of these straightforward declarations is
that made recently by Pere Yves de la Briere, in a French

Catholic review known for the solidity and orthodoxy of its

opinions :
48

If we vindicate a regime of common liberty for all, within the
limits of public order, we intend to respect, with the loyalty which

becomes men of honor and Christians, its normal consequences, to

the advantage of others, even should the Catholics of our country

possess some day the force necessary to suppress, or merely to harass,

the religious liberty of their heretical or infidel compatriots.

Doctrine Rooted in Tradition

Facts which speak as plainly as these, and the conclu-

sions they support, may surprise some, perhaps, with an im-

pression of novelty. Yet nothing could be more consonant

with tradition; we have contented ourselves simply with

pointing out in authentic documents the mind of the Church

constantly manifested on our subject. The novelty is not

*6Ibid., p. 296.

47The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, Lon-
don, 1875, pp. 93-94. A reply to Gladstone’s brochure of the same
title.

48Etudes

,

June 5, 1926.



20 THE CHURCH AND TOLERANCE

to be found in the eternal truths here recalled; but rather,

possibly, in a method which, passing over the sham argu-

ments of the press (even the Catholic press of France) and

of so-called current and authorized opinion, consults im-

partially the official acts of those whose mission it is to

speak and to teach with authority in the Church: the Sover-

eign Pontiffs, the Councils, the Bishops.

For having listened to them themselves, without inter-

mediary, we may discover perchance the true countenance

of the Church of yesterday and that of today: the Church

which has for Her visible head His Holiness Pius XI, the

Pope of “The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ.”



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