III. The Church of Rome
In no other land has the Catholic Church been subjected to so many or to so great vicissitudes as in England. It has been twice swept away, and it has been twice restored. The Christianity of to-day has no continuity from the Roman and British Christianity of England. It dates from S. Augustin of Canterbury, from whose mission sprang the faith and the hierarchy of Saxon England. But the Catholic Church in Eng land at this day does not possess the dioceses or the parishes, the cathedrals or the parish churches, or the lands, or any part of the ecclesiastical order which sprang from our Saxon forefathers, and was perfected by their Norman and English successors. It has no continuity with the vast and noble material system wherewith the Catholic Church in England invested itself down to the sixteenth century of our history. From that date the Catholic and Roman faith and Church were once more all but swept away. It was for at least two generations without churches or bishops — a handful of priests ministered to a remnant of Catholics, the number of whom at the end of the last century was supposed to amount to thirty thousand. At the begin ning of the seventeenth century its chief authority was an arch-priest; after a while he was succeeded hy a single vicar-apostolic. Later on a second wras appointed; afterwards the number was increased to four, in more recent times to eight; and in the year 1850 a Hierarchy of one metropolitan and twelve suffragans was restored to England.
Although the Catholic and Koman Church in Eng land has no material continuity with the structures which it raised, and the possessions which it held, down to the sixteenth century, nevertheless its spiritual continuity is unbroken. The lineage of its Catholic laity has never been extinct; the succession of its priesthood has never ceased; the direct jurisdiction of the Head of the Church supplied its supreme pastoral authority until the ordinary jurisdiction of its Episcopate was once more restored. In its faith and doctrine, jurisdiction and discipline, in its sacraments and worship, it is identical with the Church of S. Augustine of Canterbury. It presents at this hour the living image which the Venerable Bede describes in his History of the English Nation. It celebrates at this day every year the festivals of S. Augustine, S. David, S. Chad, S. Cuthbert, S. Swithun, S. Wilfrid, S. Alphege, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, S. Edmund, King and Martyr, S. Edward, King and Confessor, S. Edmund of Canterbury, S. Richard of Chichester, S. Hugh of Lincoln, S. Thomas of Hereford, S. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr for the liberties of England; and a multitude of other saints of Saxon and royal blood, whose names, elsewhere forgotten, are commemorated in the festivals and prayers of an unbroken tradition of 1200 years. We lament, indeed, the loss of our noble inheritance of the English people, which, next after the inheritance of unity with the Church throughout the world, is dearest to our hearts.
Such vicissitudes as these have never passed over any other portion of the Church. The Church of Ireland, from S. Patrick to this day, abides in all its changeless identity and unbroken traditions of faith and jurisdiction the Church of the people. The Churches of Africa have indeed been swept away, but they have never been restored. The Church in Spain was for a time clouded by Arianism, but never ceased to exist, and was soon cleansed of its stain. Twice to the eyes of men extinct, and twice restored, the Catholic faith and Church in England exist full and complete at this day.
It is eminently and visibly the Church of the poor. Although, indeed, the lineage of a few great historic names binds the Catholic Church indissolubly to all classes of our English monarchy, nine-tenths of its flock in England are amongst the poorest of the land.
For the last forty years its churches have been open to the English people; they have habitually frequented them, they have been present at its worship, they have heard its instructions, they have become familiar with its members. The fears and the terrors of ignorance and prejudice and hostile misrepresentation have given way, not before the refutations of controversy, but before the plain dictates of honest common sense, founded on what men have seen and heard for themselves. The Catholic Church at this day has once more entered fully into the public and private life of England. It takes its place amongst the public institutions of the land. It bears its part in all public works of education, of charity, and of utility. Its beneficent action is acknowledged even by those who have least sympathy with it.
The statistics of the Catholic Church in England are as follows:
The Hierarchy, consisting of an archbishop and 12 suffragan bishops.
Thirteen cathedral chapters, consisting each of a provost and 10 canons.
Thirteen dioceses, with 1621 clergy.
Churches, chapels, and ' stations,' 1016.
Greater colleges, 6.
Lesser colleges, 10.
Schools for the middle class and poor: in London, 200; in the rest of England, about 800.
Of the convents about ten are of the contemplative life; and all others of every kind of active charity: chiefly for education in every grade, but, above all, of the poor; for nursing the sick, for penitentiaries, for reformatories, for orphanages, for asylums and homes of every sort.
The number of Catholics in England and Wales, by every test at our command, of baptisms, &c., may be put at about a million and a half.
The disinheritance of the Catholic Church in Eng land, by the cruelty of the sixteenth century, was so complete that no religious body in the land subsists more strictly upon the voluntary principle. Its churches and schools have been entirely built by the offerings of its people. Its bishops and clergy are in like manner almost altogether, and in great part are wholly, dependent on the alms of their flock. It may be said, with truth, that a very large part of the clergy subsists chiefly on the offerings of each Sunday. With the exception of the larger churches in cities and towns, the greater part of the missions or parishes have an income less than their outgoings; nevertheless the generosity of the people and the good providence of God make up the balance from year to year. No religious body in England subsists more habitually on trust in the providence of God; and this state of poverty has the best and the deepest effects both on the clergy and on the people. It binds them together in the closest confidence and charity. It makes them feel that all the works of the Church are their common duty and their common interest. The authority and the independence of the clergy are not diminished in a jot or a tittle: by reason of the instincts of their faith the people recognise the office of their priests; and the clergy are united with their people by every bond of gratitude and affection. Neither the priest nor the people would exchange this mutual service in spiritual and temporal things for the richest endowments of the State.
It is hardly necessary to say what is the faith of the Catholic Church, and upon what it rests; but the present outline would not correspond with that which was given some weeks ago in the columns of the Daily Tele graph concerning the Established Church if this topic were wholly omitted. The faith, then, of the Catholic Church is that which has been held from the beginning throughout the universal Church — namely, the whole revelation of God, as it is preserved, and proposed to our belief, by His perpetual Divine assistance through the Church of Jesus Christ. The revelation of Christianity was given whole and complete, and was both preached and believed throughout the world, before the Scriptures of the New Testament were written. It was therefore anterior to the New Testament Scriptures and independent of them. They presuppose it throughout; they reflect the greater part of it; they are a corroborative proof of its truth; but the New Testament Scrip tures themselves depend upon the same witness which guards and delivers to us the whole revelation. The Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, compacted and inhabited by the Holy Spirit of God, spread throughout the world by the Apostles, is the living witness of the Incarnation, and of the doctrines, and of the commandments of the Eedeemer of the world. The Church is the guardian and the keeper of the New Testament Scriptures; it is the ultimate and only competent witness of the authenticity, genuineness, number, and meaning of the books: and in its guardianship, both of the revelation it originally received, and of the books in which that revelation was subsequently in great part recorded, the Church is not only the highest human and historical witness, but a witness of supernatural authority, guided by a Divine assistance. To Catholics, therefore, the voice and authority of the Church are the voice and authority of its Divine Head, according to the promise of the Divine Founder, ' He that heareth you heareth Me;' which promise would be falsified if the teaching of the Church were not identical with the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is this continuous and unbroken authority which identifies the Catholic faith in England at this day with the faith which S. Augustine of Canterbury taught; and it is this which identifies the Catholic faith of England with that of the Catholic Church throughout the world. It is this immutable voice which has spoken through the nine teen successive (Ecumenical Councils. To this in the Council of Trent all Catholics rendered the obedience of faith; and to this in the Council of the Vatican the whole Church throughout the world, both pastors and people, renders the same obedience. The first eighteen Councils of the Church condemned particular errors, and defined particular doctrines of revelation; the Council of the Vatican defined the principle of Divine authority upon which the custody and announcement of the whole revelation of faith depend. The former Councils defined what we believe; the Vatican Council defined the motive why we believe it. It is to the doc trines of faith what the keystone is to the arch.
The world external to the Catholic Church was led to believe that the Vatican Council was divided, and would be followed by divisions. Every Council of the Church has been more or less divided by vivid discus sions: witness the Arians at Nicea, the Monophysites at Chalcedon, the Nationalist parties at Constance. Few Councils have had less of internal difference than the Council of the Vatican. There was but one point of difference of any moment; and that was not as to truth, but as to the opportuneness of defining it. Every Council has been followed by divisions. Witness again the Arian schism after the Council of Nicea, and above all the Protestant separations after the Council of Trent. What divisions have followed after the Council of the Vatican? A handful of persons, most of whom were already known to be of alienated minds, have since declared themselves, and have misled some hundreds of persons here and there in Germany, and drawn to themselves the encouragement and sympathy of a certain number of Protestants of various kinds. Thus much is said here because of the studious and sustained endea vours to make men believe that within the Catholic Church, abroad and in England, there are divisions like those which prevail elsewhere. Divisions in opinion there may be, for in opinion Catholics are as free as air. But divisions in faith there cannot be; because the motive of faith in all Catholics is one and the same — the Divine and immutable witness and authority of the Church. This internal unity is nowhere to be seen in more conspicuous relief than in the Catholic Church in England, in Ireland, in the colonies, and in the United States, where the most unrestrained liberty in opinion coexists with the most absolute unity of faith. It is, indeed, in these countries of unbounded religious liberty that Ultramontanism is to be found in its fullest strength.
Of the Catholic Church in Scotland it may be well to add a few words. The Hierarchy in Scotland was extinguished by the political events of the time about the year 1603; and then, for two or three generations afterwards, the Catholics of Scotland were without a succession of bishops. The first Scottish vicariate was founded in 1694. Subsequently, in 1731, Scotland was divided into two districts, the Lowland and the High land; and finally into three, in 1827, namely, Eastern, Western, and Northern, which continue to this day. A considerable number of Catholics have always main tained the succession of the faith in the Highlands and the Western Highlands. The history of their suffer ings has many a dark page for Scotland. In one of the highest flats of one of the oldest houses of the wynds of Edinburgh there was to be seen, until the other day, the name of Mr. Hay indented, but painted over, upon the outer door. Bishop Hay was one of the most energetic and learned of the Vicars-Apostolic of Scotland in the latter part of the last century. The number of Catholics in Scotland has been rapidly increased by communication with the North of Ireland, and by the immigration which the great industries of Scotland have drawn to Greenock, Glasgow, Dundee, and other parts of the country. The number of Catholics in Scotland, so far as it can be ascertained, may. be put at between 400,000 and 500,000. The number of priests is over 200, and there are about as many churches, chapels, and ' stations.' Of the colleges, schools, and educational establishments it is not easy to give a detailed statement.
To give any adequate account of the Catholic Church in Ireland at the end of such an article as this is impossible. It would be to write the history of a nation;
for no people in the world have ever been more identified with their faith and with the Church. We have already said, in contrasting the vicissitudes of England with the unbroken Christian traditions of Ireland, that no country in the world, except Home alone, presents so noble an example of imperishable faith and inflexible constancy. It is the tradition of Ireland that S. Patrick received a Divine promise that he should never lose the people whom God had given him in the ends of the earth; and the unbroken fidelity of the Irish to their faith, not in Ireland alone, but throughout the colonies of the British Empire, and in the great continent of North America, presents an example of immutable per severance in religion which fully verifies this national tradition. There was a time in the seventeenth century when the whole Catholic population of Ireland was reduced to a remnant — it has been estimated at 80,000 — and shut up in the province of Connaught, which, by the Act of 26th September 1653, was ' reserved for the habitation of the Irish nation.' They have multiplied in a ratio beyond the increase of the English and Scotch races, and at this day in Ireland, and throughout the world, they overpass twelve millions. Ireland was never wholly deprived of its bishops and pastors. Its Episcopate, after many sufferings, has been always steadily replenished. It retains to this day its archiepiscopal and episcopal sees, its provinces and dioceses, its entire hierarchical and parochial form in unbroken succession and vitality.
The statistics for the Catholic Church in Ireland are as follows:
The Hierarchy consists of 4 archbishops, of whom 2 are primates, and 24 bishops.
Twenty-eight dioceses, with 1080 parishes and 3440 priests.
The public churches and chapels are 2349.
One university, 25 colleges, 116 superior schools, and about 7000 primary schools.
The number of Catholics in Ireland, according to the census of 1871, was 4,141,933.
The condition of the Catholic Church in Ireland is so self-evident as to render all further description need less. One only remark may be added. The great act of justice whereby the British Parliament and public opinion of these kingdoms made reparation to the Catholic people of Ireland, by the disestablishment of the Protestant Church, was brought about by two distinct causes— the one, a just and generous repudiation by the non-Catholic population of these kingdoms of the religious injustice and oppression of the last centu ries; and the other, the moral power of the Catholic race of Ireland. No people have a higher appreciation of justice in their rulers, as Sir John Davies declared in the midst of their suffering in the seventeenth century; and no people are more loyal when justly dealt with, for no people more truly Christian are to be found.
The attitude of the Catholic Church in England, Scotland, and Ireland, towards all the forms of Christianity which exist around it, is not one of hostility, but of hopefulness. It believes all the Christian doctrines that the separate communions in England believe. It would fain that they all believed all the Christian doctrines which it believes. It would not diminish one jot or one tittle of the truths which they retain. Its mission is not to pull down, but to build up. Its labour is not to destroy, but to fulfil. It is, in its spirit and in its action, essentially constructive and conservative. It desires that showers of blessing may fall upon Eng land like the early and the latter rain; and that ' the land that was desolate' may rejoice, and that the wilderness may ' flourish like the lily.' Every fresh light that springs up over England is a cause of thankfulness: and a growing light has been visibly descending upon England for three generations. The Catholic Church bears the heart of Him who will not ' break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.' Its mission is one, first of truth, then of peace, of charity, order, benevolence, and beneficence; and, that these things may be handed down undiminished, it stands inflexibly for the tradition of Christian education, which, from the mission of S. Augustine to this day, has never yet been broken. Its thoughts towards England are thoughts of peace. They who mistrust it do not know the Catholic Church. They who would stir up English men against it, whatever be their intentions, are not the friends of our common country.
IV, (LESARISM AND ULTRAMONTANISM.
PEEFACE.
The following paper was not intended for publication at the time it was delivered; and would not have been published in its first rough state, but for circumstances which had been caused without my knowledge. Nevertheless I thought it better to let it go as it then stood.
Since its publication, a great many answers and objections have been made to it from various quarters. I therefore think it well briefly to reply to the more important of them; but as I wish to avoid all appearance of personal controversy, I omit the names of the public journals in which such answers and objections have appeared.
- I affirmed that wheresoever the civil and spiritual powers have been united in one temporal sovereign, civil despotism and religious persecution have followed.
In answer, it was objected that the state of this country is a refutation.
In the context of the passage objected to, I had expressly precluded this answer: first, by pointing out that civil despotism and religious persecution prevailed in this country for two hundred years; that is, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thereby excluding the present time; secondly, that the reaction against the excessive prerogatives of the Crown and its ecclesiastical supremacy had vindicated a complete religious freedom for Scotland, Ireland, and one-half of the people of England.
In the outset of the paper, I referred to a previous Essay read by me before the Academia, from which I insert the following passage as a full reply to the above objection:
' In opening our proceedings of the year before last, I made certain observations on the state and tendency of religious thought in England, and on the temper and spirit in which we ought to meet it. And now, in ad dressing you at the outset of our eighth year, I do not know that I can do better than to take up the same subject where I left off. In the conclusion of the paper I then read were these words: " The Royal supremacy has perished by the law of mortality, which consumes all earthly things." I need hardly guard my words by saying that I spoke only of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. The civil and political supremacy was never contested. The power of the Crown, if less absolute in its mode of procedure, was never more supreme and never so widely spread as now. Its indefeasible prerogatives in the order of civil Government have be come more evident and irresistible in proportion as it has disengaged itself from the monstrous pretensions of Henry VIII. The theory of established Churches demands an ecclesiastical supremacy in the civil power. The two come and go together; and when the ecclesiastical supremacy is declining, the days of establishments are numbered. In the year before last, I pointed out the fact that the Tudor statutes have almost passed away. The greater part are actually erased from the Statute-book. Those that remain are almost equally dead. The mind of the country is against them. In Ireland, all the tyranny of Tudors and Stuarts failed to impose the Eoyal supremacy upon a Catholic people. Penal laws could not accomplish it. The Established Church has not only utterly failed to conciliate the people of Ireland to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown, but it has rendered the name and thing more than ever intolerable.1 In Scotland, the whole people rose against it. In England, half the population has gradually rejected it. The remaining half of the people passively endure it; but in the Established Church itself, a large class profess to limit the jurisdiction of the Crown in ecclesiastical matters to the temporal accessories of spiritual things, denying altogether its competence to touch any matter purely spiritual, and reject all Royal acts exceeding these limits as abuses or excesses of power. Now, though this theory is manifestly not the law of the land, it is nevertheless worthy of our sympathy and respect. It is an additional evidence of the cancelling of the Tudor supremacy from many of the best and highest minds in the Established Church. They who hold this theory protest against all such judgments as that in the case of Mr. Gorham, and of the Essays and Reviews. They treat them as tyrannical acts of the State, external to the Church of England. They contend that the Church of England is persecuted, but not committed, by such acts of the
1 Since this was written the Established Church in Ireland has ceased to exist.
Crown. The facts are not so; but it is a hopeful sign that the members of the Established Church have come to reject these pretensions of the Tudor supremacy. It is equivalent to an admission that the Catholics were right in refusing it from the first; that their instincts are justified by the event. I note this, because it is an evidence of the direction in which the stream is running; and both charity and generosity require of us to for ward these tendencies with all good-will, and without a word of unkindly comment.'2
England is therefore a normal example of my meaning. We have neither despotism nor persecution, be cause the exercise of the two powers is not united in one person.
Some objectors have strangely affirmed that I make Csesarism and the civil power convertible terms. I have expressly affirmed that the civil power is a creation of God, and within its own sphere has an authority and rights sanctioned by God; and that where the civil power is exercised in conformity with Christianity, it has a consecrated authority. Ca3sarism is a disease; it is to legitimate civil power what elephantiasis is to the human frame, or mania to the human mind. I have affirmed that it does not exist in England, and for this reason we are free; and that it is rising again in Germany, and for that reason Germany is losing its freedom.
Again, it has been objected that the Prussian Government has a right to control the action of the
2 Essays on Religion and Literature, third series: Inaugural Address, Session 1868-9 (H. S. King & Co., 1874).
Church, because it is established. The answer to this is obvious. The Church in Prussia was as much ' established' before the Falck laws as it is now; but the laws then were consistent with the Divine constitution of the Church and with the conscience of Catholics. It is precisely because these laws violate both, that the Bishops and Catholics of Germany refuse to obey them. A Church that consents to be ' established,' at the cost of violating its Divine constitution and its own conscience, is not a Church, but an Apostasy; and such laws are explicit persecution. No Establishment by State laws and State support has ever been, or can ever be, accepted by the Catholic Church at the cost of its own Divine constitution. The Catholic Church can stand, and has stood for centuries, in relations of amity with the civil powers of the world; but in the sense of 'establishment,' as here understood, the Catholic Church has never been ' established' in any kingdom upon earth. In the Essay before referred to, I have pointed out that the Catholic Church in England down to the 24th and 25th of Henry VIII. was not an 'Established Church,' and that by its 'establishment' in that.reign it ceased to be Catholic. One objector has quoted the three great statutes of Mortmain, Provisors, and Pramunire, and the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., as proofs of a Royal supremacy in England at that date, equal to the Royal supremacy of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Against this I have expressly pointed out that, in all pre-re formation statutes, how ever encroaching, the ' liberties' of the Church were always recognised and guaranteed. These very words
122 oaasAFJSM AND ULTEAMONTANISM.
are to be found in no less than eighteen pre-reformation statutes, and notably in the two of Edward III. referred to by the objector, and in eight of Richard II. It is indeed true that the statutes of Prcemunire hampered the exercise of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Holy See; but they did not invest the Crown with a final jurisdiction in appeal, nor did they make it to be the fountain of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, nor did they deny the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, nor did they touch any purely spiritual or doctrinal question. But the Falcklaws have done all these things. It seems strange to me that this objector, who is manifestly learned in the law, should fail to perceive that the Tudor legislation differs from the acts of Edward III. and Richard II. precisely in the point of transferring to the Crown 'the jurisdiction hitherto exercised by the Pope.' This cuts off the Tudor statutes from all legislative precedents before the 24th of Henry VIII. The ante-reformation laws in England, like the ante-Falck laws in Prussia, carefully guarded the spiritual liberties of the Church and its union with the Holy See. The Tudor legislation and the Falck legislation alike violate the spiritual liberties of the Church and its union with the Holy See. Lord Coke's attempt to show that the acts of Henry VIII. were only declaratory of the ancient supremacy of the Crown was as transparently futile as it would now be to attempt to show that the Falck laws are merely declaratory of the former ecclesiastical laws in Prussia. The German Bishops, who had uniformly obeyed the preceding laws, a year ago unanimously re fused obedience at Fulda to the new Falck laws. It is upon this ground that the Bishop of Ermland, on the 8th of December last, refused to plead before the Court of Final Appeal in Ecclesiastical Cases. In his letter to Dr. Falck, he writes as follows:
' The old constitutional bases of the contract between the State and the Church are abolished; the Westphalian peace, which issued from a prolonged, bitter, and bloody struggle, with its principles protecting religious rights, is pushed aside; the guarantees of the rights of the Catholic Church are disregarded; a multitude of regulations, imperilling or interring ecclesiastical freedom and independence, are put forward in vindication of the modern ideas of State authority and State peril; and, to crown the whole work, the Koyal tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs has been created the new German Papal Curia, with a Protestant-Catholic corpus juris, which, to begin with, takes the place of the Head of our Church, according to Clause I. of the law of the 17th of May on ecclesiastical discipline, and in time will, by means of legally arranged usurpations in regard to other matters, appropriate to itself his whole inheritance in regard to all other powers.' The Prussian Episcopate had from the first (Dr. Kremenz proceeds) respectfully intimated its inability to cooperate with laws that assail the rights of the Church, and which are wholly inconsistent with liberty of conscience. The Bishop of Ermland can only repeat his former declarations, ' and must ascribe to want of respect for, or ignorance of the claims of, our faith and the religious feelings of our hearts, that I am asked to resort to a tribunal (to make good my complaints), the
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