Savonarola * . Galileo . Joan of Arc

St* Bartholomew's Day Massacre

Early Days in North America

Catholic Policy in North America

Latin America

Protestantism in Spain

Papal Pronouncements on Tolerance



If/11 the knights ill Columbus

Mortise Catholic Faith

The reason is simple. We Catho-

lics wantour non-Catholic friends

and neighbors to know us as we

really - are and not as we ate some

times mistakenly represented.

We are confident that when

our religious Faith is better un-

derstood by those who do not

share it, mutual understanding

will promote the good-will which

is so necessary in a predominant-

ly Christian country whose gov-

ernment is designed to serve all

the people—no matter how much

their religious convictions may

differ.

American Catholics are con-

vinced that as the teachings of

Christ widely and firmly take

hold of the hearts and conduct

of our people, we shall remain

free in the sense that Christ

promised (John VIII, 31-38),

and in the manner planned by

the Founding Fathers of this

republic.

Despite the plainly stated will

of the Good Shepherd that there

be "one fold and one shepherd,”

the differences in the understand-

ing of Christ’s teaching are

plainly evident. It has rightfully

been called "the scandal of a

divided Christianity.”

If there is anything which will

gather together the scattered

flock of Christ, it is the nation-

wide understanding of the

Savior, what He did and how He

intended mankind to benefit by

the Redemption.

To this end, we wish our

fellow-Americans to become ac-

quainted with the teachings of

Christ as the Catholic Church

has faithfully presented them,

since the day the apostles in-

vaded the nations of the world

in willing and courageous obedi-

ence to Christ’s command: "Go,

therefore, and make disciples of

all nations . . .” (Matt. XXVIII,

19).

SUPREME COUNCIL

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

Religious Information Bureau

4422 LINDELL BLVD. ST. LOUIS 8, MO.

© Knights of Columbus 1956



SPEAKING OF TOLERANCE

"I’m not so stupid, Jim, as to think

that Catholics don’t read the Bible.

But here’s a text I think Catholics

should learn by heart.”

"What one is that, John?”

"This passage in Luke (9:54):

It tells how, when the Samaritans

would not receive Christ, James and

John asked: 'Lord, wilt Thou that

we command fire to come down

from heaven and consume them?’

Then the Master rebuked them,

saying, 'You know not of what

spirit you are. The Son of Man

came not to destroy souls, but to

save.’ Now Jim, I’ve nothing against
you personally, and I know a lot of

fine people who are Catholics. Yet

are you not as intolerant as James

and John were? What could other

people expect if Catholics ever be-

came a majority in this country?

How do we know they wouldn’t
launch another persecution as they

so often did in the past?”

"So you believe that Catholics

are regular 'Sons of Thunder,’ such

as Christ named James and John?”

"Well, Jim, that has been true in

the past, has it not?”

"Maybe it seems so to an out-

sider at first sight, John. But that

particular text that you brought up

has a lesson for all honest and

thinking followers of Christ. James

and John were full of youthful zeal,

but a zeal too natural and self-

willed: they are more angered at

the Samaritans’ opposition to their

message than concerned about their

conversion. Now I would like to
contrast this young John with the

aged Apostle. Look how differently

he speaks in his old age: 'This is

the message that you have heard

from the beginning, that we should

love one another; not like Cain,

who was of the evil one, and killed

his brother
1

(1 John, 3:11). The

Catholic Church, like her Founder,

Christ, has ever sought men’s con-

version, not their death. There can

be no general condemnation of the

Church because some of her over-

zealous sons — like James and John
— have taken the sword into their
own hands, and cut off Malchus’

ear.”

"Oh, those are fine sentiments,

Jim, but twentieth-century Ameri-

can Catholics know they have to

behave in a predominantly Pro-

testant country. Things were quite

a bit different in other days,

though. Your Catholic forbears

would never have countenanced the

ideas of toleration which you ex-

press today.”

1



"Sorry, John, but I must differ

with you there. First, don’t get me

wrong about this business of tolera-

tion. According to Webster, to

tolerate means to suffer to be done

without opposition. It doesn’t imply

approval of what is being tolerated;

in fact, it properly connotes dis-

approval, or otherwise, what is

merely tolerated would be advo-

cated and promoted. Tolerance may

be a very reasonable and expedient

course of action, but it isn’t always

a virtue, nor is intolerance of error

and sin a vice. And second, you

may cite some real Catholic fire-

eaters in this matter of persecution,

but I will insist that they did not

necessarily speak for the Church.

Cannot Condemn

The question of the proper atti-

tude to be taken toward non-

Catholics always has been widely

discussed in the Church. For in-

stance, Origen, the early Christian

sage at Alexandria, Egypt, held:
f

Christians cannot slay their ene-

mies, nor condemn them as Moses

commanded the contemners of the

Law to be put to death by burning

or stoning’ (Against Celsus, VII,

26). And Lactantius, lay tutor of

Emperor Constantine’s sons, insist-

ed:
f

There is no justification for

violence and injury, for religion

cannot be imposed by force. It is

a matter of will, which must be

influenced by words, not by blows

.
.

( Divine Institutes, V. 20)

.

"Wait a minute there, Jim, not

so fast. You are quoting the Chris-

tians writing during the pagan per-

secutions; naturally all were against

the use of force then. But when

they came out of the catacombs,

they turned the table on the

pagans.”

"Not so, John. The emperors,

Christian and pagan, tended to be

dictators in religion as in every-

thing else. Emperor Diocletian, for

example, condemned the pagan

Manichees to be burned about 295

A.D., but also persecuted Christians

(Kirsch, Enchiridion Eontium His-

toriae Antiquae, n. 328). And

Emperor Constantine deprived the

Donatists, both rebels and heretics,

of the privileges of the Catholics”

(Ibid., n. 833). But why not listen

instead to some of the bishops who

had a better right to speak for

the Church? St. John Chrysostom,

Bishop of the eastern capital of

Constantiople, is quite emphatic:

'To put a heretic to death is an

unpardonable crime’ (Homily XLVI
on Matthew (I). And in the West,

St. Augustine could speak from the

experience of thirty years outside

the Church. In writing to his

former co-religionists, the Mani-

chees, Augustine argues: 'Let those

who have never known the trou-

bles of a mind in search of the

truth proceed against you with

vigor. It is impossible for me to do

so, since for years I was cruelly

tossed about by your false doctrines

which I advocated and defended

to the best of my ability. I ought to

bear with you now as men bore

with me when I blindly accepted

your doctrine’ (Against Letter of

Manichean Fundament, 2-3). Even

when the State took the Catholic

side against the Donatists, the same

St. Augustine was not too pleased:

'We have no intention of forcing

2



men to enter our communion

against their will. I am desirous

that the State cease its bitter per-

secution, but you in turn ought to

cease terrorizing us by your band

of Circumcelliones’ (On the Schism

of Donatists, vii).

"Now, Jim, are you trying to

tell me there were no religious per-

secutions under Catholic rule?

What about the Inquisition?

"No, I merely wish to say that

all such incidents should be viewed

against the background of the so-

cial, political and religious spirit

of the times. A careful study of
the historical circumstances will

show that misguided zeal, some-

times understandable, was respons-

ible for them; sometimes the

alleged persecution has been great-

ly exaggerated in its retelling; and

still other times the accusation

should be laid at the door of secu-

lar authority. To be absolutely fair

we must admit that persecution’ in

some form can be attributed to all

religious groups. In our effort to

be zealous we can unwittingly be-

come uncharitable Christians. The

fault is our own and not that of

the Church.’’

"If our discussion of religious

persecution may be the occasion of

my mentioning instances in which

Catholics were persecuted by non-

Catholics, I certainly do not do so

as a 'pot calling the kettle black’. But,

I almost forgot, you are asking me

about the Inquisition.”

"The Inquisition, John, arose

more from popular violence than

from ecclesiastical authority. By the

eleventh century, Christians were

becoming alarmed by an anti-social

group that was infiltrating Europe

from the East. These were the

ancient Manichees, augmented and

refurbished under the aliases of

Bogomiles, Albigenses, and Cathari.

Their conduct was quite as ex-

asperating and menacing to the

State as that of some Communists

today. There are, in fact, many

similarities between the medieval

Catharist menace and our current

Communist problem.”

"Go ahead, Jim — but you can’t
blame everything on the Com-

munists.”

"The Perfected”

"The medieval Catharist was a

very determined fellow. He be-

longed to a disciplined organiza-

tion that had two classes: 'Believers’

and the 'Perfected.’ Aside from

promising to join the 'Perfected’

some time before death, the 'Be-

lievers’ had few moral duties except

obedience to the 'Perfected’, whom

they honored by a triple prostration

in their presence. The 'Perfected’

on the other hand, were fanatics

or racketeers or both. They con-

tended, among other things, that

the souls of men’s ancestors dwelt

in animals, because of which they

forbade the eating of meat.”

"But that is hardly an excuse for

persecuting them.”

"Right, John, but that was not

the sum total of their offenses.

They considered all matter evil and

hence condemned marriage. They

refused to take oaths of allegiance

to the government, or to serve as

soldiers — except when defending
their own way of life. More than

that, they kidnapped children to

3



train for their organization, and

endorsed the 'endura’.”

"The 'endura’— what was that?”

"It didn’t last long, I assure you.

Those Catharists whose ability to

persevere in the practices of the

sect was doubted were given the

choice of being a 'martyr’ or a

'confessor’: that is, they could com-

mit suicide by suffocating or star-

vation.”

"What a choice! But suppose

they wanted neither?”

"Then they probably would be

visited by some of the 'Perfected’

to help them make a decision. For

you see the Catharists or Albigenses

got control of whole towns and dis-

tricts, especially around Albi in

southern France. They not only took

over or paralyzed the government,

but they often had a corner on em-

ployment possibilities. For instance,

in Languedoc at the opening of

the thirteenth century the entire

weaving industry was controlled by

them. Sometimes a whole region

was terrorized and fleeced by gang-

sters. Under the guise of physicians

and peddlers they forced themselves

into households. Even babies were

given the endura.’
”

"That sort of thing makes a man’s

blood boil. We would never have
stood for things like that.”

"Neither did decent Europeans

during the Middle Ages, John. The

common people became angry. But

then there was little organized

government, and no police depart-

ment at all. As a result, things went

pretty much as they did in our own

Wild West! Vigilantes got to-

gether and sometimes resorted to

'lynch law.’ I’m not spinning some

fine theory, John. Look at some

cases. In 1022 at Orleans, the peo-

ple induced King Robert 'the Pious’

to put thirteen men suspected of

Catharism to death. Then at Milan

Archbishop Ariberto (1018-45)

tried to argue with the Cathari, but

the city officials, ignoring episcopal

protests, seized the accused and

burned them. The populace at

Soissons waited until the bishop

was out of town before they exe-

cuted a suspect. At Liege, the bishop

was able to save a few Cathari

from the mob, but at Cologne the

citizens defied their archbishop and

put suspects to death without so

much as a trial.”

"Do you mean to say, Jim, that

these bishops tried to stop this mob

violence?”

Persuade Them

"I do indeed, John, Listen to

Bishop Wazo of Liege (d. 1048):

'To use the sword of civil authority

against the Manicheans is contrary

to the spirit of the Church and the

teaching of her Divine Founder . .

.

They should be allowed to live. The

only penalty we should use against

them is that of excommunication’

(Life of Wazo: Migne, Patres

Latini, CXLIII, 753). And during

the twelfth century, St. Bernard

declared: 'While I may approve of

the zeal of the people for the Faith,

I cannot at all approve their ex-

cessive cruelty, for faith is a matter

of persuasion, not of force’” (Ser-

mon LXIV on Canticles).

"Are you trying to explain away

the Inquisition as merely 'medieval

lynch law?’”

"No, John, but I do say that the

4



Inquisition was first occasioned by

the antisocial menace of Catharism,

and second by the need of checking

mob violence. For neither the

Church nor the State could permit

the people to continue to take the

law into their own hands; that

would have led to anarchy and the

end of all society. Therefore the

kings in their nervous alarm began

to go back to the stern old Roman

laws against these very Manichees

— I said before that Diocletian had
decreed death for them back in the

third century. Thus in 1160 King

Henry II of England commanded a

number of suspects to be branded

and flogged and then outlawed.

The penalties were inflicted with

such rigor that many died. In 1183

the German Emperor Frederick I

placed the Cathari under the ban

of the Empire. Pedro II of Aragon

decreed banishment in 1197. Final-

ly in 1224 the free-thinking, anti-

clerical Emperor Frederick II, so

often extolled for his 'modern’

views, took the final step by im-

posing the extreme penalty of burn-

ing at the stake. The first instance

reported of an execution under this

drastic law was at Brescia in 1230.”

"But where did the Church come

in?”

"In the same way she has always

come in to public life, John. She

entered the picture to support and

help the State, and not to oppose

it as some Liberals would have us

believe. Whether or not the prelates

may have liked these stern civil

penalties, they had to choose be-

tween support of the existing law

or yield to anarchy. As it turned

out, conscientious inquisitors served

as a check on the primitive and

barbarous civil courts by ensuring

a fair trial. They could even save

repentant heretics entirely from the

secular power, and even for those

who were handed over to the se-

cular arm they asked mitigation of

the penalties.”

"Not so fast there, Jim. I’ll admit

the need of punishing criminals;

but you said heretics. In the eyes

of the Catholic Church, that in-

cludes people like me. We’re not

criminals.”

Church and Society

"Of course not, John. But don’t

you think either that you can read

history through twentieth-century

glasses. Here is what Jean Guiraud,

the great authority on the medieval

inquisition, has to say: 'In the Mid-

dle Ages heresy was nearly always

connected with some anti-social

sect. In a period when the human

mind usually expressed itself in a

theological form, socialism, com-

munism, and anarchy appeared

under the form of heresy. By the

very nature of things, therefore,

the interests of both Church and

State were identical.’ (Questions

d’Archeologie et d’Histoire, 44,

cited by Vacandard, Inquisition, p.

253). Why, even the honest but

unconsciously prejudiced non-

Catholic historian, H. C. Lea de-

clared that 'we cannot but admit

that the cause of orthodoxy was in

this case the cause of progress and

civilization. Had Catharism become

dominant, or even had it been al-

lowed to exist on equal terms, its

influence could not have failed to

prove disastrous’ (History of the

5



Inquisition, I, 106, cited by Vacan-

dard, Inquisition, 233-234). Perhaps

I could sum this all up by saying

that in medieval times 'religion

was the last refuge for a scoundrel’.”

"But, Jim, according to the

Catholic Church, I’m still a heretic.

All that saves me from persecution

on this account is our guarantee of

religious freedom. How long would
this freedom last if Catholics were

in the majority?”

Ex-Catholics

"Now, John, you ought to under-

stand that the average medieval

dissenter was what we call a formal

heretic. He was an ex-Catholic once

properly instructed in the Faith,

who had personally rebelled against

the 'City of God,’ to which he had

pledged allegiance. As for you,

John, I’m sure that you are only a

material heretic.”

"And what, pray, is that?”

"A material heretic dissents in

good faith from Catholic truths.

You are non-Catholic, not because

you yourself left the Catholic

Church, but because your father

and grandfather and many before

them were non-Catholic. And what

is most important, you are probably

convinced that you are in the right.”

"Of course I’m right.”

"We’ll leave that to God, John.

The point I’m making now is that

we Catholics, even if we were in

a majority, wouldn’t challenge the

honest convictions of one who had

never been instructed in the Catho-

lic Faith and had never betrayed it

as did the medieval heretic. Unlike

the modern non-Catholic, he claimed

to be a Catholic and insisted on

expounding his own views as
Catholic teaching. As St. Thomas

says, this medieval formal heretic

was one who obstinately main-

tained his errors even after they

had been pointed out to him by

ecclesiastical authority. Against the

solid weight of public opinion,

such men insisted on subverting

all society. Therefore, as St. Thomas

somewhat bluntly, but I think truly,

says: 'It is much more wicked to

corrupt the faith on which the life

of the soul depends, than to debase

the coinage which merely provides

for temporal life; wherefore if

coiners and other malefactors are

justly doomed to death, much more

may heretics be justly slain once

they are convicted” (St. Thomas,

Summa Theologica, II-II, xi, 3).

The Natural Law

"That’s a hard saying, Jim.”

"To modern ears, yes — but those
men in the Middle Ages were not

weaklings. They were men of con-

viction, who were willing to give

up their lives for their beliefs. I

sometimes wonder if our high-

prized modern toleration does not

spring from carelessness about ques-

tions of truth and error, and right

or wrong. I think that all religious

men could profitably listen to Pope

Pius XII in his reminder of the

truths of the natural law. He has

said: 'No human authority, no state,

no community of states . . . can give

a positive command or positive

authorization to teach or to do that

which would be contrary to reli-

gious truth or moral good ... be-

cause it is contrary to nature to

6



oblige the spirit and the will of

man to error and evil or to con-

sider one or the other as indiffer-

ent’” (Address on Tolerance: Ci

Riesce, 1953 A. D.).

"I don’t think, Jim, that the

Church should always butt into

other people’s business.”

Members of Church

"Let me put my answer in the

words of the late Father Walter

Farrell: 'The Church is not a busy-

body in a neighbor’s house to spank

children who are nothing to her

but nuisances. These heretics are

her own children; by baptism they

entered the Church, and by that

sacrament the Church has over

them the same power it has over

all the rest of its subjects” {Com-

panion to the Summa, III, 2).

"Oh, it’s all right with me if

the Catholic Church disciplines

Catholics, but what right had the

Catholic Inquisition to persecute

Jews, Mohammedans, pagans, etc?”

"The Medieval Inquisition had

no jurisdiction over such people,

John — and the type of individual
against whom the Inquisition was
directed is indicated in the follow-

ing words of Father Farrell: 'No

one seriously questions the sensi-

bleness of compulsion, even physi-

cal compulsion against a man

plotting the overthrow of a legally

constituted and properly function-

ing government; against the man

who undermines the health of the

community by spreading a danger-

ous disease; or against the traitor

in war who attempts to betray his

country” (Ibid., Ill, 2).

"I’ll grant you your analogies,

Jim. If the medieval formal heretic

was such a social misfit, I can

understand that some sort of police

action may have been necessary

against him. But why all this grue-

some apparatus of the Inquisition

to keep a minority in its place?

Nowadays we don’t have to use

the electric chair on every crackpot.”

"A medieval government’s

methods are no more pleasant to

me than to you, John. But remem-

ber that the medieval state did not

have at its disposal the same means

as a modern one. Hoffman Nicker-

son has pointed this out: 'It is well

enough for a modern civilized

government, strong in the perfec-

tion of communications and of all

public powers, to safeguard elabor-

ately those accused of crime.

Medieval conditions were in many

ways like those of frontier regions

where the criminal can easily slip

away. When this is so, justice must

make herself swift and terrible by

rough and ready methods. Other-

wise she does not exist’ {Inquisition.

210).

"Medieval man was rough, John,

not because he was Catholic but

because he was medieval. He was

harsh and 'trigger-happy’ because

he was on the defensive and afraid.

As Vacandard puts it, 'The Inquisi-

tion established to judge heretics

is therefore an institution whose

severity and cruelty are explained

by the ideas and manners of the

age . . . Severe penalties, like the

stake and confiscation, were the

legacy which a pagan legislation

bequeathed to the Christian State;

they were alien to the spirit of the

7



Gospel. The Church in a measure

felt this, for to enforce these laws

she always had recourse to the

secular arm’ (Inquisition

,

254).

"Your distinction between the

secular and ecclesiastical arms looks

pretty thin, Jim. The poor victim

was railroaded by the reverend in-

quisitor and automatically handed

over to the stake by a law police-

man who did the dirty work.”

Fair Trial

"You must be under the impres-

sion that the Inquisition was some-

thing like the French Revolutionary

courts or the "off with his head”

decrees of the Duchess in Alice in

Wonderland. As a matter of fact,
it was quite possible for the ac-

cused to go scot free by producing

enough character witnesses. If con-

victed by the reverend inquisitor,

his sentence was reviewed by a

jury of lay experts who often took

special delight in picking flaws in

the clerical case. Even in the event

of a 'guilty’ verdict, the expected

thing was that the accused would

confess and then receive some ec-

clesiastical penance such as prayers,

or fasting, or going on a pilgrimage

to some shrine. For example, of

278 sentences pronounced at Car-

cassonne between 1249 and 1258

only a few were capital. At Pamiers

between 1318 and 1324 but five

of the seventy-five persons con-

demned were executed. We have
the record of the famous inquisitor

Bernard Gui. During his fifteen

year career, out of 930 sentences,

but 42 were put to death. Even the

hostile historian Lea grants that

'the stake consumed comparatively

few victims’” (History, I, 480,

cited by Vacandard, Inquisition,

207).

"That’s not quite the way I heard

it, Jim, but maybe the system of

the Inquisition was not so bad as

it has been made out to be. Suppose

that I grant you that good inquisi-

tors tried to be fair. What still

bothers me is the way the whole

thing worked out in practice. I

know a whole series of cases in

which the system was abused.”

"Abuses do not necessarily prove

a system bad, John. But all right,

let’s come to cases.”

Joan of Arc

"But, Jim — let’s hear you ex-
plain away the scandalous trial of

the Catholic Saint, Joan of Arc.”

"Scandalous is the word for it,

John, but it is a scandal of church-

men rather than of the Church, or

even of the Inquisition. For remem-

ber that I said that from the be-

ginning of the fourteenth century

the Inquisition increasingly came

under secular control. That’s why

Joan’s trial in 1431 was really a

political arraignment. Bishop Jean

Cauchon of Beauvais, an English

partisan, usurped jurisdiction over

Joan of Arc, who already had been

cited to the French Inquisition in

May, 1430. Though Cauchon in-

vited the vice-inquisitor, Friar Jean

LeMaistre, to participate in Joan’s

trial at Rouen, the inquisitorial of-

ficials played but a subordinate

role. Cauchon himself named the

personnel of the tribunal and gave

away the political intent of the

process when he told Joan: 'The

King has ordered me to try you,

8



and I will do so.’ He referred to

the English child King; the latter’s

regent in France, the Duke of

Bedford, already had declared in

January, 1431: 'It is our intention

to review and have brought before

us the said Joan, if she is not con-

victed and found guilty of the

above offences’ (Guiraud, Medieval

Inquisition, 204).

"The University of Paris, biased

toward the Anglo-Burgundian

cause, seems to have concurred in

the Rouen sentence, but not un-

animously. Two of its members, the

Archbishop of Embrun and the

Chancellor, Jean Gerson, declared

Joan innocent. The case was never

referred to Rome until after her

death. In 1455 Pope Calixtus III

authorized an investigation of the

trial, and Joan was finally vindi-

cated with her canonization by

Pope Benedict XV in 1919
”

Spanish Inquisition

"Have it your way, Jim. I can

afford to concede a point or two,

for I am about to bring up the

persecution to end all persecutions,

that Spanish Inquisition which is

a by-word for heartless tyranny.”

"Those are harsh and dogmatic

statements, John, and you will have

to come up with something better

than Llorente’s biased 'Critical His-

tory’ which is so often used to

support such criticisms. This dis-

torted history was built up in the

nineteenth century from stolen rec-

ords from the secret archives of

the tribunal. Llorente burned many

favorable documents before he pub-

lished his jaundiced indictment.

Even so conscientious an historian

as Dr. Lea has been led astray by

some of the exaggerations. But I’m

not trying to whitewash the Spanish

Inquisition, even if I do think

that it has been unduly maligned.

At its worst it was no different

than the Henrician-Elizabethan per-

secution of Catholics in England.”

"But Queen Elizabeth I executed

for treason and not at the behest

of clerical prosecutors.”

"Good Queen Bess”

"Yes, 'Good Queen Bess’ was

clever enough for that. But nick-

names aren’t necessarily true, as

we both know from school days.

Catholic Mary Tudor executed

some 200 of her political foes and

is called 'Bloody Mary’; Protestant

Elizabeth Tudor does the same and

becomes 'Good Queen Bess.’ But

I am digressing. I was going to

question your assumption that the

Spanish Inquisition was 'priest-

ridden.’ If it was, it was not man-

aged by the Catholic High Priest.

For though Pope Sixtus IV re-

luctantly allowed Ferdinand and

Isabella to revive a dormant in-

quisition in 1478, he tried to safe-

guard it from political exploitation.

"Unfortunately, though, he soon

had to write the Spanish sovereigns,

as on January 29, 1482: 'Accusa-

tion is made that hasty action and

disregard of legal procedure on

the part of these inquisitors have

brought about the unjust imprison-

ment and even severe torturing of

many innocent persons who have

been unjustly condemned as here-

tics, dispoiled of their possessions,

and made to pay the extreme

penalty’ (Walsh, Characters of the

9



Inquisition

,

154-161). When this
warning proved ineffective, the

Pope protested more sharply on

February 23, 1483: 'Your officials

having put aside the fear of God,

do not shrink from laying the

scythe to an unseemly harvest, from

breaking our provisions and the

apostolic mandates . . . without being

hindered or retarded, as is obvious,

by any regard for censures ... We
urge and demand, therefore, that

you carefully avoid censures of this

kind.’

Pope’s Rebuke

"On August 2, 1483, Sixtus IV

again rebuked Ferdinand and

Isabella because their inquisitors

'exceeded the moderation of the law’

(Walsh, Ibid., 159). So I think, John,

that if there is anything that you

don’t like about the Spanish Inqui-

sition, you will have to blame the

Spanish Crown and not the Holy

See.”

"But I heard that it was this

very Pope Sixtus IV who named

the infamous Torquemada inquisi-

tor-general.”

"Pope Sixtus did accept the

royal nomination of Torquemada

in 1483. But Torquemada proved

more loyal to the Spanish rulers

than to Rome, for he instructed

his officials that: 'since there

emanated from the Roman Court

certain orders and bulls and ex-

cessive rules for penitence against

equity to the detriment of the In-

quisition and its ministers, their

Highnesses command that letters

and provisions be read ... by which

is prevented and can justly be pre-

vented the execution of the said

orders and bulls’ (Walsh, Ibid.,

161). In other words, the papal

instructions were to be ignored and

suppressed in Spain. You may

exaggerate in calling Torquemada

infamous — he sentenced less than
10% of those tried during his term

and many of these were genuine

criminals. But, in any case, he was

not acting for the Church but was,

on the contrary, disobedient to the

Holy See.”

"I thought you said that the

Inquisition did not bother Jews.

Yet Ferdinand and Isabella exiled

160,000 Jews in 1492.”

"The medieval papal inquisition

did not prosecute Jews. The

Spanish Inquisition, I have just

proved, was not papal; it was a law

unto itself. But of the Jews exiled

from Spain in 1492, many found

refuge with Pope Alexander VI in

the Papal State.”

Alexander VI and

Savonarola

"Alexander VI! — wasn’t he the

one that used the Inquisition on

Friar Savonarola who told him off

for his enormous crimes?”

"Alexander VI may have been

providentially permitted to verify

the remark of Pope St. Leo the

Great that 'Peter’s dignity is not

diminished in his unworthy suc-

cessor.’ It’s not my aim to exonerate

Alexander VI any more than did

the Catholic historian, Ludwig von

Pastor. Pastor, whose honesty is

beyond dispute, has frankly ac-

cepted the truth of certain im-

moralities in Alexander’s career,

while disproving some mythical un-

10



natural crimes among the Borgias.

Yet Pastor has observed:
'J
ust ^

the intrinsic worth of a jewel is

not lessened by an inferior setting,

so the sins of a priest cannot es-

sentially affect his power of offer-

ing sacrifice, administering the

sacraments, or transmitting doctrine

. . . Even the supreme high priest

can in no way diminish the value

of that heavenly treasure which he

controls and dispenses, but only as

a steward. The gold remains pure

in impure hands . . . An evil life

cannot deprive the Pope or any

other ecclesiastical authority of his

lawful jurisdiction” (Pastor, History

of the Popes, VI, 14, 53).

"Now, Jim — I think you are try-
ing to dodge my question. Didn’t

Alexander VI treat Savonarola

harshly?
”

Papal Leniency

"On the contrary, John, Alex-

ander VI was exceedingly lenient

and long-suffering in regard to the

captious Friar. Though Savonarola

began to preach in Florence in

1489 and waxed politically pro-

phetic as early as 1491, Alexander

VI did not demand an accounting

of him until July 25, 1495. Even

then despite Savonarola’s unmeas-

ured, exaggerated, and highly dis-

respectful criticism of the Pope and

the Roman Curia, Alexander VI

did not make use of his powerful

weapon of excommunication until

May 12, 1497. As late as March 9,
1498 the Pope assured the Floren-

tine ambassador that he wished not

the Friar’s death but his amend-

ment: ’I do not object to his

doctrine, but only to his preaching

without having received absolution,

and to his contempt of myself and

of my censures.’
”

Savonarola

"While Alexander ordered Sa-

vonarola’s arrest as a disturber of

the peace of all Italy, the Florentine

city council ignored the Pope’s

demand for extradition to the papal

tribunal at Rome. Florence con-

ducted its own trial, fully equipped

with torture, and the evidence was

well nigh complete by the time the

papal commissioners arrived on

May 19. It was, therefore, Florence

and not Rome that burned Savona-

rola on May 23, 1498. Pastor has

remarked: No doubt Alexander VI
was urgent in his demands that the

rebel wrho had intended to call in

the help of the secular powers to

achieve his dethronement, should

be punished. Nevertheless the re-

sponsibility for the severity with

which he was treated must rest on

the rulers of Florence” (History.

VI, 48).

"So that’s what happened! Just

the same, Jim, I’m glad that we

have escaped from the murky

depths of the Dark Ages into the

clear air of modern times. And in

this matter of more tolerant behavi-

or, even you will have to grant that a

lot of good came from the Protest-

ant Reformation. The Reformers

were the champions of religious

liberty that ushered in a better

day.”

"Don’t you believe it, John. The

last thing that Luther and Calvin

and Tudor wanted was tolerance.

11



I’m surprised that you should still

think this way in twentieth-century

America. Why, over a century ago

a flat denial of this assumption was

made on the floor of the United

States House of Representatives by

Andrew Johnson, later President of

the United States. Let me quote for

you a few passages from a contem-

porary pamphlet which he incor-

porated into his speech during the

Know-Nothing persecution of

Catholics: 'I am a member of a

Protestant church and a citizen of

Greenville, where there are few

Catholics and where the citizens are

somewhat prejudiced against them

. . . The Catholics of this country

had the right secured to them by

the Constitution of worshiping the

God of their fathers in the manner

dictated by their own consciences

... Is the guillotine to be erected

in this republican form of govern-

ment and all who differ with the

Whig party brought to the block?

Is then a crusade to be commenced

against the Church to satiate dis-

appointed party vengeance?...

From whence or how obtained the

idea that Catholicism is hostile to

liberty, political and religious? Dur-

ing the Reformation did not the

demon of persecution rage as fierce-

ly among Protestants? . . . During

our colonial state when Protestants,

Puritans, and Quakers were dis-

franchising and waging a relent-

less war of persecution against each

other through Pennsylvania and the

New England colonies, did not
Catholic Maryland open her free

bosom to all, and declare in her

domain that no man should be per-

secuted for opinion’s sake? And was

she not from this fact the sanctuary

of the oppressed and persecuted,

not only of America, but of Europe?

And is Catholicism a foe to liberty?

Is Ireland’s Catholic Isle the nursery

of slaves? ... Was Catholic Poland

the birthplace of slaves? . . . Were

LaFayette, Pulaski, McNeill, De-

Kalb, and O’Brien foes to liberty?

Was Charles Carroll of Carrollton,

the last survivor of the signers of

the Declaration of Independence, a

friend of despotism?’” (Cited from

Stryker, Andrew Johnson, 17-19).

Luther Intolerant

"Quite a remarkable speech, in-

deed, Jim. But is there anything

back of all that rhetoric? Can his-

tory really convict the leaders of the

Protestant Reformation of intol-

erance?”

"Let’s look into the record, John.

Suppose that we examine Luther’s

career first. I grant you that in his

earlier days there are some expres-

sions in favor of toleration. But that

was only until he was himself con-

tradicted, until others defied his

teaching as he had rejected that of

Rome. In particular, during the

Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 Luther

at first expressed sympathy with the

peasants; in fact he addressed to

them some rather inflammatory ap-

peals. But when the revolt got

under way and the usual excesses

appeared — ( mind you, I’m not
blaming the rebellion entirely on

Luther)—why, then, Luther found

it prudent to side with those prin-

ces whose protection he needed to

establish and maintain his new re-

ligion. Then it was that he issued

his pamphlet, Against the Murder-

12



ous Peasants. In this he exhorted

as follows: 'Let all who are able

hew them down, slaughter and stab

them, openly or in secret, and re-

member that there is nothing more

poisonous, noxious, and utterly

devilish than a rebel. You must

kill him as you would a mad dog;

if you do not fall upon him, he

will fall upon you and the whole

land. They serve the devil under

the appearance of the Evangel.’

When he was requested to moder-

ate the tone of his invective, Luther,

who never did anything by halves,

flatly refused: 'I will not listen to

any talk of mercy, but will give

heed to what God’s way demands’

(Luther’s Werke, 358, cited by

Grisar, Luther, II, 2-1-203). And

for his Anabaptist opponents,

Luther retorted, 'Let the rulers of

the land do what they please with

them.’
”

"Luther, far from being a cham-

pion of political liberty, practically

delivered subjects to their rulers,

right or wrong: 'I would rather suf-

fer a prince doing wrong than a

people doing right ... It is in no

wise proper for anyone who would

be a Christian to set himself against

his government, whether it act just-

ly or unjustly’” (Luther’s Werke,

cited by Sabine, History of Political

Theory, 361).

"But, Jim, all this isn’t precisely

religious intolerance.”

"Even on that score Luther is

scarcely an improvement over your

medievalist. When he heard of
King Henry VIII’s execution of

Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More,

Luther exclaimed: 'Oh that our

right reverend cardinals, popes, and

Roman legates had more kings of

England to put them to death’

(Table Talk, II, 324, cited by

Grisar, Luther, VI 246). Another

time he complained: 'If I had all

the Franciscan friars in one house

I would set fire to it, for in the

monks the good seed is gone and

only the chaff is left; to the fire

with them’ (Table Talk, 180 cited

by Grisar, Luther, VI, 247). To be

sure, Luther often spoke in an ex-

aggerated and impulsive way, so

that we may take such explosions

with a grain of salt. But he cannot

be excused from deliberate intoler-

ance in such directives as the follow-

ing:

’'One Kind of Preaching”

"Writing to Elector John of

Saxony on February 9, 1526, Luther

said: 'A secular ruler must not

permit his underlings to be led into

strife or discord by contumacious

preaching, for this may issue in

uproar and sedition, but in each

locality there must be but one kind

of preaching’ (Cited by Grisar,

Luther, VI, 241). Again, Luther

told Margrave George of Branden-

burg on September 14, 1531: 'It

would be grand if Your Serene

Highness on the strength of your

secular authority enjoined in both

parsons and parishioners under pain

of penalties the teaching and learn-

ing of the catechism’ (Cited in

Grisar, Luther, VI, 244). Finally,

about 1533 in his 'Home Postils’,

Luther asserted that 'the worldly

authorities bear the sword with

orders to prevent all scandal so

that it may not intrude and do

harm. But the most dangerous and

13



formidable scandal is where false

doctrine and worship finds its way

in . . . They must resist it stoutly

and realize that nothing else will

do save they make use of the sword,

and of the full extent of their power

in order to preserve the doctrine

pure and the worship clean

(Cited in Grisar, Luther, VI, 253).

Calvinism

"All this is news to me, Jim.

However, my own religious leader

was not Luther but Calvin. I’m sure

that you will find in him a cham-

pion of both democracy and toler-

ance.”

"No, John, you are merely jump-

ing from the frying pan into the

fire when you bring up Calvin. For

him the secular government was

by no means free in regard to re-

ligious practices. He said: 'It is the

purpose of temporal rule, so long as

we live among men, to foster and

support the external worship of

God, to defend pure doctrine and

the standing of the church, to con-

form our lives to human society,

to mold our conduct to civil justice,

to harmonze us with each other,

and to preserve the common peace

and tranquility’ (Institutes, IV, 20-

2, cited by Sabine, History of

Political Theory, 364). There is

Calvin’s program for his 'welfare

church.’
”

"But you can’t accuse Calvin of

intolerance on that remark, Jim.”

"Right, John. The case against

Calvin must not be painted too

black. His latest (1954) defender,

John T. McNeill, also makes your

point. But even he admits: 'The

sway Calvin exercised in Geneva

was very real and at some points

unduly harsh . . . The restrictive and

disciplinary element of the theo-

cracy were by no means relaxed

when it became more secure. Rather

they were enhanced. The consistory

came to enjoy an autonomy over

against the magistracy that it had

been denied before 1555 . . . In

Calvin’s later years and under his

influence the laws of Geneva be-

came more detailed and more strin-

gent . . . Calvin imposed the death

penalty for incorrigible adulteries

and in one or two instance it was

inflicted ... A man had his tongue
pierced for 'blasphemy against the

ministry.’ A student who consigned
the ministers to the devil was

whipped at the college as an ex-

ample. The death penalty was too

frequently inflicted (eleven in-

stances in 1561), often for offenses

that are not capital in modern

civilized nations’” (John T. Mc-

Neill, History and Character of

Calvinism, 186ff )

.

"But Calvin actually imposed the

death penalty for what you call

heresy?”

"Alas, John, this is going to dis-

pel a cherished illusion. For Michael

Servetus, who denied the Trinity

of God, escaped from the Spanish

Inquisition only to be put to death

by Calvin at Geneva in 1553- Be-

tween 1546 and 1564 in a town

of 20,000, there were 58 executions,

73 sentences of exile, and 900 of

imprisonment. And Calvin’s col-

league Farel defended this policy

in a letter to Calvin: 'Some people

do not wish us to prosecute heretics.

But because the Pope condemns the

faithful (Huguenots) for the crime

14



of heresy, it is absurd to conclude

that we must not put heretics to

death, in order to strengthen the

faithful’” (Cited by Bertrand Con-

way, Question Box, 193).

St. Bartholomew’s Day

Massacre

"Calvinists may have resorted

to stern measures in their own

defense, Jim, but at least on St.

Bartholomew’s Day, 1572, they

were the victims and not the assas-

sins. Their leader Coligny and 50,000

of his followers were massacred by

murderers hired by Pope Pius V.

And Pope Gregory XIII, successor

to Pope Pius V., exulted over their

miserable triumph by having a 'Te

Deum’ sung at Rome.”

"I’m surprised, John, that you

should fall for such an old false-

hood. The number of victims did

not exceed 5000, and some histori-

ans put the figure as low as 2000.

That is 2000 too many, of course,

but the responsibility lies chiefly

with the Queen-Regent of France,

Catherine de’ Medici. Her son, King

Charles IX, was barely of age.

Catherine was a Machiavellian poli-

tician who cared little for religion

and sought merely to maintain her-

self in power by playing off Catho-

ics against the Calvinist Huguenots

in France. Most of the eight civil

wars during her reign were foment-

ed or provoked by her callous

'divide and conquer’ policy. By

1572 she felt that the Huguenots

under Coligny had become influen-

tial and she hoped to even the bal-

ance by a blood- letting, with the

possible connivance of Coligny’s

partisan rival, the Catholic Duke

of Guise. Pope St. Pius V not only
had not approved Catherine’s plot,

but was not aware of it. Indeed, he

had on another occasion expressly

denounced assassination as an in-

strument of religious war. It is in

this connection that the Protestant

scholar Kruger has remarked: 'I do

not know if it is necessary to refute

once more the accusation that the

Popes had anything to do with the

preparation for the Massacre of St.

Bartholomew’ (Cited by Pastor,

History, XVIII, 154-155).

Pope Deceived

"As for Pope Gregory XIII, he

first received a doctored report

about the massacre in which it was

intimated that the Catholics had

won a glorious victory and had

foiled a plot on the King’s life. It

was for this reason that the Pope

ordered the celebration which in-

volved the 'Te Deum.’ But when

Gregory XIII heard the gory de-

tails, the Spanish ambassador who

was present reported that 'he was

struck with horror.’ Coligny’s assas-

sin, Maureval, was designed as

'murderer.’ Brantome also reported

that the Pope had remarked to one

of the cardinals, 'I am weeping for

the conduct of the King, which is

unlawful and forbidden by God’

(Pastor, History, XIX, 508)

"Well, the Vatican may have

been misinformed about Coligny’s

fate in distant Paris, but it could

scarcely have been unaware of

Bruno’s execution in Rome itself in

1600. There perished a martyr for

conscience.”

15



That’s strange, John, for none

of his contemporaries seems to have

mourned Bruno’s passing. For them

he was nothing but a fanatic and

moral pervert. The Protestant

Brucker, moreover, has expressed

the view of many historians of phil-

osophy on the value of Bruno’s

teaching: 'I defy the most acute

genius to understand it, and the

most patient of men to read it.

Everything is wrapped in clouds

and in mysterious expressions the

meaning of which probably Bruno

himself did not know’ ( Critical

History of Philosophy, V, 12, cited

by Parsons, Studies in Church His-

tory, III, 582). On the contrary, it

would seem that the adulation of

Giordano Bruno as a 'martyr to

conscience under papal tyranny’ was

deliberately fostered by Rationalists

of the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries as anti-papal propaganda.

Giordano Bruno

"Fra Giordano, nee Filippo Bruno,

was an ex-Catholic; in 1580 he was

excommunicated at Calvinist Gen-

eva. He went to England but pres-

ently wore out his welcome at

Anglican Oxford. After a short stay

in France, he went to Lutheran

Wittenberg where he was the object

of still another excommunication in

1590. Not until 1592 was he arrest-

ed by the Inquisition at Venice, and

the following year was extradited

to Rome.

"The charges against him were

not his alleged defense of the

Copernican scientific hypotheses, as

often suggested, but definite theo-

logical errors. Among these views

were the following: 'all religions

are false’; 'Christ was a wretch and

worker of evil deeds’; 'there is no

punishment for sin’; 'the soul, work

of nature and not of God, passes

from one animal into another’. In-

deed, Bruno contended that the

souls of men, of flies, and of oysters

were all alike.

Grossly Immoral

"Turner sums up Bruno’s

philosophy as an 'incoherent ma-

terialistic pantheism’
(
Catholic En-

cyclopedia, III, 17). Besides these

speculative aberrations, Bruno was

grossly immoral in theory and prac-

tice. He publicly boasted of his

amours, avidly sought publicity, and

scoffed at religion. Despite his

braggadoccio, Bruno repeatedly

made abject recantations during his

examinations by the Inquisition. Of

these. Pastor justly observes: 'If

these attempts of the philosopher

to escape the terrible penalties

which threatened him are humanly

speaking easy to understand, they

do not show the smallest shadow of

the courage of his opinions’ (His-

tory, XXIV, 211). The Inquisition

seems to have labored over his mud-

dled subject for seven years with-

out being able to elicit a sincere

repentance. Finally his execution

was ordered in February, 1600 and

was carried out. Today Bruno

would probably have been recog-

nized as mentally unbalanced; we

can only regret that psychology had

not made enough progress by the

turn of the seventeenth century to

provide for Bruno’s confinement

in an asylum.”

16



"Your Holy Office may have

been right in Bruno’s case, Jim, but

it certainly missed the boat on

Galileo.”

"I suppose that to a degree you

are right, John. Yet this almost

unique mistake of the tribunal

rather proves its record for careful

and prudent decisions.”

"Oh, that’s perfectly all right with

me, Jim. I’m satisfied if you have

admitted just a single error in your

supposedly infallible papacy.

"Don’t jump to conclusions, John.

I said that the Holy Office may

have made a rash decision, but

that’s not the same as stating that

the Papacy erred in faith or morals.

The Holy Office is not the Pope.

And the Pope of course can make

a mistake in policy like any other

ruler. He is infallible only when he

teaches a doctrine of faith or morals

to the universal Church and in vir-

tue of his office, that is, when he

speaks 'ex cathedra’, from Peter’s

chair. Now this is quite different
from giving a more or less routine

signature to a decree by subordi-

nates. Such a disciplinary act, it is

true, is authoritative and must be

obeyed. But as Father Conway has

put it, such a decree prescribes

'what one must do and not what

one must believe.’ As a matter of

fact, the contemporary St. Robert

Bellarmine, later declared a Doctor

of the Church, did not consider the

decree of the Holy Office in Galileo’s

case as infallible. Indeed, 'off the

record’ he doubted the wisdom of

the official decision and advised a

patient awaiting of the facts.”

"Now if you’ll pardon my saying
so, Jim, all this sounds like double

talk. Could you explain more defi-

nitely how all this worked out in

Galileo’s case?”

Galileo

"Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

was a professor of science at Pisa

and Padua universities. Before 1600

he adopted the Copernican theory

that the earth, instead of being a

stationary planet as formerly be-

lieved, revolves around the sun.

Galileo was brilliant enough, though

he was more of a popularizer than

an inventor or discoverer. In any

event he would never have gotten

into trouble with the Holy Office

if he had remained within his own

field. As proof of this, he was cor-

dially received at Rome by Pope

Paul V and the papal curia in 1611,
and in 1623 he was permitted to

dedicate II Saggiatore, a veiled de-

fense of the Copernican theory, to

Pope Urban VIII.

"But like so many brilliant scien-

tists in their efforts to bring their

theories to the attention of ordinary

folk, Galileo was tempted to ponti-

ficate outside the boundaries of his

specialty. Presently he began to ex-

press himself arrogantly and fool-

ishly in regard to the supposed

effect that his scientific hypothesis

would have on Biblical theology.

Forgetting that the Scriptures do

not expressly intend to teach science,

Galileo insinuated that Biblical in-

errancy was strained by such popu-

lar expressions as 'the sun rises’,

and that no reliance could be placed

on the Scriptures save in a narrow

field of theology. In his mode of

argument, moreover, Galileo mani-

17



fested a certain supercilious con-

descension toward theologians and

Biblical scholars that quite nettled

them. Personality clashes provoked

sweeping statements on both sides

and led to Galileo’s censure in 1616.

Copernicus

"Galileo’s theories were then

pronounced 'stupid and absurd in

philosophy’ and at least 'erroneous

in faith.’ Galileo was forbidden in

the future to teach a theory which,

at least as he rashly expounded it,

seemed to contradict the teaching

of Scripture. At the same time the

works of Copernicus were put on

the Index. The more judicious

Copernican scientist, Johan Kepler

(1571-1630), attributed this action

to the 'ill-advised importunity of

some persons who propounded the

teaching of astronomy in the wrong

places and in the wrong way’; in

other words, he intimated that

Galileo was not censured for the

scientific content of his theories

but for his mode of proposing them

(Pastor, History, XXV, 298). To-

day the action of the Holy Office

might seem rash stupidity, but it

must be remembered that at the

time the position of the Holy Of-

fice was that of the majority of

contemporary scientists, including

the renowned Tycho Brahe. Neither

did the Protestant leaders think

otherwise. Luther thought Coper-

nicus somewhat foolish, while his

aide, Melancthon, feared that the

new theory would undermine all

science. During the middle of the

seventeeth century the Lutheran

theologians were still standing by

their founders’ verdict.

Mild Restrictions

"But Galileo himself was not

even required to recant in 16 16.

Pope Paul X walked up and down
with him arm in arm, explaining

to him the reason for the con-

demnation and assuring him of his

friendship (Pastor, History, XXV,

299). The scientist remained on

intimate terms with many of the

cardinals, including Barberini who

was elected Pope Urban VIII in

1623. All this deference and con-

descension by the ecclesiastical au-

thorities seems to have gone to

Galileo’s head. He presumed on his

friendship with Pope Urban VIII

to violate the 1616 decree of the

Holy Office through a public de-

fense of the Copernican theory in

his Dialogo. Besides this he ignored

the conditions on which the Roman

censor, Monsignor Riccardi, had

given approval to the publication.

Galileo’s disobedience this time

was flagrant and could not be over-

looked. Yet during his subsequent

trial in 1633 he was kept in easy

detention at the Villa Medici. He

was not tortured and accepted his

condemnation by the Inquisition

for 'suspicion of heresy.’ As a pen-

ance he was assigned the recitation

of the seven penitential psalms once

a week for three years. He was, in-

deed, sentenced to imprisonment,

but this sentence was practically

suspended by designating as his

places of detention the villas of

friends, and later even his own

18



home. Under these comparatively

mild restrictions he continued faith-

ful to the performance of his re-

ligious duties until his death in

1642. Pope Urban granted him a

pension of 100 crowns and sent

him the papal blessing at his death”

(Conway, Studies in Church His-

tory )

.

The Index

"Maybe Galileo was not perse-

cuted, Jim, but his views were

suppressed. And isn’t the same kind

of suppression going on today

through the Catholic Index of For-

bidden Books? Is it not a form of

persecution to suppress the truth?”

"John, the Index has no intention

of suppressing truth; it aims only to

destroy errors which can poison the

mind.”

"I’m of age, Jim. Let me take care

of my own mind. Let me be the

judge of what’s going to poison it.

How can error hurt an alert and
well-instructed person?

"Not every mind is properly in-

structed, John. That goes for us all

—not merely for uneducated and

ignorant people. Nowadays there

is such a vast fund of knowledge

that no . one can learn it all in a

lifetime. The best we can do is

to be experts in our own profession

or trade; if we wander out of it,

we may reveal our inexperience and

ignorance quite as badly as Galileo.

The science of theology which treats

of the vital matters of religious

doctrine and morals is profound and

extensive and few of us have the

time, aptitude or training to be

experts in it. That’s why the Catho-

lic Church provides her faithful

with guides whom they can trust
and handy check-lists like the Index

which they can consult.”

"But why not let me and fellows

like me experiment for ourselves?

Why cramp our style?”

"Pure Faith Act”

"For the same reason that the

Government doesn’t let everybody

choose between good and bad foods

by bitter experiment. Even if most

of us had the time and skill to de-

tect all the possible merits and de-

fects of food products, we would

soon become tired of turning our

kitchens into research laboratories

three times a day to find out. The

United States Pure Food Laws and

Federal certificates of inspection

relieve us of a lot of anxiety and

trouble. Similarly, the Catholic In-

dex of Prohibited Books is not try-

ing to keep any man from the

truth; it merely ensures him the

protection of a 'Pure Faith Act’ in

his reading. And a Catholic is fur-

nished with certificates of expert

clerical inspection when he sees

a 'nihil obstat’ or an ’imprimatur’

on a book pertaining to faith or

morals.”

"Nihil obstat and imprimatur

sound nice, Jim—but just what do

they mean?”
"
'Nihil obstat’ merely means that

there is nothing objectionable to

faith or morals in the book. It is

not a guarantee that you are going

to like what is said in the book or

that you will find it useful. 'Im-

primatur’ is the bishop’s permission

to have the book printed. This

doesn’t make the book official, nor

19



does it oblige Catholics to read it.

This supervision merely protects

the faithful from error and harm in

their reading without taking away

their own judgment as to what is

good and useful; and it leaves them

freedom to follow their own tastes.”

"Suppose your censors make a

mistake about a book as they did

about that Copernican theory?”

Good Books Available

"So what, John? It’s better to err

on the side of caution about once

every three hundred years than to

be exposed daily to bad books.

There is even less reason to take a

chance on the life of the soul than

that of the body. Besides, there are

so many good books coming out

nowadays that no one can read

them all. To have an occasional one

put out of bounds necessarily will

be no great loss.”

"Well, you are welcome to your

'Pure Faith Laws’, but I’m glad that

our Government isn’t enacting any.”

"Of course, John, we have always

had regulations barring obscene

literature from the mails. And re-

cent investigations have shown that

sometimes Communist and crimi-

nal forces are back of the flood of

'comic’— it would be better to call

them 'tragic’—books that are pois-

oning young minds and contribut-

ing to juvenile delinquency. Not

only Catholics but all decent Ameri-

can citizens are worried about this

problem, and are trying to do some-

thing about it. Only the other day,

Attorney-General Barber of Ver-

mont saw fit to ask a law banning

literature or pictures which 'by

over-emphasis of improper and il-

legal conduct or of an unnatural

situation would have a tendency

to corrupt the morals, standards of

conduct, or stability of character in

youth.’
”

"Oh, we are all agreed on such

basic moral issues, but all too often

what the Catholic Church wants is

restraint of religious liberty. The

Spanish Inquisition shows what

happens to dissenters when the

Catholic Church has influence in

the government.”

"Monita Secreta”

"Did you know, John, that the

Spanish Inquisition arrested St.

Ignatius Loyola? That sort of con-

tradicts your argument, does it

not?”

"Well, Jim, if the Inquisition

arrested the founder of the Jesuits,

I’ll say that is one thing to its

credit. And I’ll tell you why I think

so.

"Let me quote for you from the

'Monita Secreta’, the confidential

directives of the Jesuits: 'How to

win and keep the friendship of

princes and important persons . .

.

How to act with people who wield
political influence, or those who,

if not rich, may be serviceable . .

.

How to win over wealthy widows
... To achieve all this Jesuits are

to wear outwardly an appearance of

poverty . . . Vices of prominent per-

sonages are to be indulged; quarrels

are to be entered so as to get the

credit of reconciliation; servants of

the rich are to be bribed . . .’ But

why go on? Even you can’t defend

that sort of thing.”

20



"Of course not, John—nor would

any Jesuit. Someone has palmed off

on you a hoary old forgery by the

ex-Jesuit Zahrowski. Early in the

seventeenth century he calumniated

the Society by a clever imitation of

the external appearance of the au-

thentic Monita Generalia of the

Jesuits. The work first appeared

about 1612 at Notabirga (that

means, 'no-town’), Poland. Blaise

Pascal made use of the thing in his

attacks on Jesuits. But Zahrowski

eventually confessed the forgery

and non-Catholic scholars have long

since conceded that the Monita

Secreta were a fraud.”

"Well, if you ask me, Jim, the

reason why so many fell for the

Monita Secreta hoax probably is

because it hit so close to the mark.

In the seventeenth century when

the Monita were circulating, more

than 50,000 Huguenots were forced

into exile and those that remained

had troops quartered on them—the

notorious 'dragonnates’. This perse-

cution was the result of the revoca-

tion of the Edict of Toleration by

King Louis XIV, in which the King

acted upon the advice of his Jesuit

Confessor, Pere La Chaise.”

Revocation of Edict

of Nantes

"Far be it from me to defend

King Louis XIV, John. As for Pere

LaChaise, Father Harney has ex-

amined the charge of Jesuit re-

sponsibility for the revocation of

the Edict of Nantes and concludes

that you can prove nothing against

the Society. But he is generous

enough to say of Pere LaChaise

that 'no doubt he approved of it

as did most Frenchmen of his day’

( Jesuits in History, 279). Pere

LaChaise was not a bad man, but

his fault lay not in 'Jesuit master-

fulness’ but rather in weak acquies-

cence in the ideas of the opinionated

monarch. But even if Pere LaChaise

was guilty, which is doubtful, it is

unreasonable to blame the Jesuits

for the conduct of one man and

much more so to blame the Catholic

Church.”

"Didn’t Louis XIV get his in-

structions about the Nantes Edict

from Catholic headquarters in

Rome?”

Not Pope’s Instructions

"If you mean from Pope Inno-

cent XI, he certainly did not. At

the time the Pope and King were

barely on speaking terms, and not

long afterward the Pope excommu-

nicated Louis XIV for tending

toward a national French church,

a move in which all too many

French bishops supported the King

rather than the Holy See. Two years

before the Revocation, in 1683,

Cardinal Sacchetti had told the

Pope of the conversion of some

Huguenots by the royal measures.

Innocent XI rejoined: 'What is the

good of it, if all the bishops are

schismatics?’ So cool was the Pope

toward the King’s designs that the

latter circulated the story that In-

nocent favored the Huguenots. Aft-

er the Revocation actually took

place, the Pope bluntly con-

demned Louis’ tactics. The Venetian

ambassador, Girolamo Venier, re-

ports that Innocent XI 'explicitly

condemned Louis XIV’s despotism

21



and his use of brute force. Conver-

sions, he observed, were not made

by armed apostles; this was a new

missionary method of which Christ

our Lord had made no use. More-

over, the moment for combating

Calvinism had been badly chosen

by Louis since he was at the same

time fighting against the Holy See’

( Pastor, History of the Popes,

XXXII, 331, 341). Bertrand con-

curs in this' estimate of Louis’

motives, for he says of the French

King: 'He judged religious ques-

tions from a purely political point

of view—as King of France, not as

a theologian ... If he considered

Protestants enemies of the State it

was because, under cover of reli-

gion, they were sowing dissension

throughout the nation, and weak-

ening it in the face of the enemy”

(Louis XIV, 346, cited by Conway,

Question Box, 202)

Anglican Repression

"Once again you seem to have a

reasonable explanation for a mighty

suspicious incident, Jim. But where

there is smoke, there is usually fire.

Even if Rome was not back of

these outbursts of fanaticism and

persecution, they always seem to

take place in Catholic countries.”

"Aside from Holy Ireland, I’d be

hard put to find a truly Catholic

country in modern times, John. But

you seem to think that these so-

called Catholic countries have had

a monopoly on religious persecu-

tion. Let’s see if that is true. What

about King Henry VIII who broke

with Rome? His 'Six Articles’ of

1 539 were called by Protestants the

'whip with six cords.’ Often the

King hanged Catholics and Luther-

ans from the same gallows: the

former for loyalty to Rome, the

latter for not accepting Canterbury.

And were Queen Elizabeth’s

'Thirty-Nine Articles’ of 1563

much better? In 1593 her 'Act

Against Puritans’ forbade them 'to

deny, withstand, and impugn her

majesty’s power and authority in

causes ecclesiastical’, and this 'by

printing, writing, or express words

or speeches’ (35 Elizabeth, cap. 1,

cited by Bettenson, Documents of

Christian Church, 343). But if a

Catholic were arrested, he was

forced to 'humbly confess and

acknowledge that I have grievously

offended God in condemning her

Majesty’s godly and lawful govern-

ment and authority, by absenting

myself from church, and from

hearing divine service, contrary to

the godly laws and statutes of this

realm...’ (35 Elizabeth, cap. 2, in

Bettenson, Documents, 346).

"Where is your vaunted Protest-

ant tolerance there, John? And do

you suppose that a Catholic could

run for office to change these laws?

He could not, for before he could

hold 'any office or offices, civil or

military’, he would have to do

violence to his Catholic conscience

by subscribing to the 'Test Act’:

'I, A.B., do declare that I do believe

that there is not any transubstanta-

tion in the Sacrament of the Lord’s

Supper, or in the elements of bread

and wine, at or after the consecra-

tion thereof by any person what-

soever’ (25 Charles II, cap. 2, in

Bettenson, Documents, 408). Right

down to August 3, 1910, every

22



British monarch had to say that in

his or her 'Protestant Declaration’,

plus the following tolerant adden-

dum: 'The invocation of the virgin

Mary, or any Saint and the Sacrifice

of the Mass, as they are now used

in the Church of Rome are super-

stitious and idolatrous .
.

(30

Charles II, cap. 2, cf. Taswell-

Langmead, English Constitutional

History

,

627-628).

"You’re right, Jim — but all that
was in another age and another

world. It was to escape such reli-

gious oppression that the first

colonists came to the new world.”

"Oath of Supremacy"

"But they didn’t escape, John.

Intolerance and even persecution

were prepared for them even be-

fore they sailed. Take the Second

Charter issued for Virginia in May-

June, 1609. Its closing warning is:

'We should be loath that any per-

son should be permitted to pass that

we suspected to affect the super-

stitions of the Church of Rome;

we do hereby declare that it is our

will and pleasure that none be per-

mitted to pass in any voyage, from

time to time to be made into the

said country, but such, as first shall

have taken the Oath of Supremacy.

For which purpose we do by these

presents give full power and au-

thority to the treasurer for the time

being and any three of the council

to tender and exhibit the said Oath

to all such persons as shall at any

time be sent and employed in the

said voyage ... ( Second Virginia

Charter, xxix, cited by MacDonald,

Documentary Source Book of

American History

,

n. 2, p. 14).

"What was the 'Oath of Su-

premacy?”

"It required every English sub-

ject to accept that 'the queen’s

highness is the only supreme gover-

nor of this realm, and of all other

her highness’s dominions and

countries, as well in all spiritual or

ecclesiastical things or causes, as

temporal’ ( 1 Elizabeth, cap 1, cited

by Bettenson, Documents, 333).

"But we’ve been through all that;

we’re talking of America now.”

"Papish Recusants"

"Old England had echoes in

America, for the Virginian colonists

reenacted on their own authority

all of the English penal laws against

Catholics. In 1699 all 'papish re-

cusants’ were deprived of the right

to vote under penalty of five hun-

dred pounds of tobacco. In 1705

Catholics were declared incompe-

tent as witnesses. The same act was

repeated in 1753 for all cases

whatsoever. And in 1756 the Oath

of Supremacy and the Test Act

were again required. According to

this penal code, no Catholic could

own arms under penalty of three

months in jail, confiscation of the

arms, and a fine of three times their

value. All Protestants who failed to

denounce such Catholics were sub-

ject to the same penalties. A Catho-
lic owning a horse worth more than

five pounds sterling received three

months in jail and a fine of three

times its value” (Hening, Statutes

at Large I, 268; II, 48; III, 172,

238, 299; VI, 338; VII, 39).

23



"Didn’t Virginia also adopt the

English Toleration Act of 1689?”

"Yes, she did, John, in 1699. But

you should recall that that Act

excluded not only Catholics, but

also Unitarians, Jews, and others

from the limited toleration accord-

ed. Both the English and the Vir-

ginian statutes left Angelicanism

the established religion, to be sup-

ported by the contributions of all

citizens without exception. Besides

outlawing Catholics and 'religious

radicals’, they placed all dissenting

denominations in a position of

tutelage and supervision. Every-

body had to attend church on Sun-

days and all meetings and ministers

of the dissenting sects had to be

licensed.”

"Perhaps the Virginians smiled

when they said that.”

Virginia Intolerant

"I didn’t catch their facial ex-

pression, John, but they were in

earnest, I assure you. For instance,

in 1629 Lord Baltimore, the Catho-

lic Proprietor of Maryland, was ex-

pelled from Virginia for not taking

the Oath of Supremacy even during

a short visit. In 1632 settlers from

Maryland were ordered to take the

same Oath under penalty of prison.

In 1641 Sir William Berkely re-

ceived and enforced instructions to

compel religious uniformity at the

expense of the Puritans. As late as

1745 Lieutenant-governor Gooch

issued the following: 'Several

Roman Catholic priests are lately

come from Maryland to Fairfax

County in this Colony ... I have

therefore thought fit . . . to issue this

proclamation requiring all magis-

trates, sheriffs, constables, and other

His Majesty’s liege people within

this Colony to be diligent in ap-

prehending and bringing to justice

the said Romish priests or any of

them so that they may be prose-

cuted according to the law’ ” ( Shea,

History of Catholic Church, I, 408).

"Do you notice, Jim, how Catho-

lics were persistently singled out?

Maybe the American Colonies

couldn’t admit them to equal rights

because the Catholics themselves

refused to tolerate others when they

had the whip hand.”

Maryland Toleration

"In Maryland, John, they did

have control. And it was precisely

in this Catholic colony that the first

Act of Toleration in America was

passed. This was in 1649, a half

century before the Virginian so-

called Toleration Statute. The Mary-

land Act said: 'Whereas the inforc-

ing of the conscience in matter of

religion hath frequently fallen out

to be of dangerous consequence in

these commonwealthes where it

hath been practised, and for the

more quiet and peaceable govern-

ment of this province, and the bet-

ter to preserve mutual love and

amity amongst the inhabitants

thereof, be it therefore . . . enacted

that noe person or persons whatso-

ever within this province or the

islands, ports, harbors, creekes, or

havens thereunto belonging profes-

sing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall

from henceforth bee any waies

troubled, molested or discounten-

anced for or in respect of his or

24



her religion nor in the free exercise

thereof within this province or the

islands thereunto belonging nor any

way compelled to the beleife or

exercise of any other religion

against his or her consent, soe as

they be not unfaithful to the Lord

Proprietary, or molest or conspire

against the Civil Government

established or to bee established in

this province under him or his

heirs’ ” ( Browne’s Archives of

Maryland, I, 244-247 cited by Mac-

Donald, Documentary History, no.

H p. 54).

Jews in Maryland

"I don’t see how a Jew could get

into Maryland under that statute.”

"According to the letter of the

law, you are right, John. Most

legislators in those days almost

automatically took 'Christian be-

lief’ as synonymous with religion

itself. But fortunately we have

information that in practice there

was no anti-Semitism. For the rec-

ords of the Colony show that the

Jew, Jacob Lombrozo, served as

juryman without challenge. In

1658, indeed, he was indicted by

certain bigots, but the Catholic

governor, Philip Calvert, dismissed

the case.”

"I’ll bet that behind that high-

sounding Toleration Act Catholics

usually winked at persecution.”

"I can cite cases to the contrary,

John. First of all, I should say that

toleration existed in practice from

the beginning of the Colony of

Maryland in 1633. It was only in

1649 when the Puritans were be-

ginning to question that unwritten

law, that it was thought necessary

to enact it formally. Now in 1638
the Catholic, William Lewis, was

fined 500 pounds of tobacco for

using offensive speech toward two

of his Protestant indentured ser-

vants. Again in 1642 the Catholic

Thomas Gerard was given similar

punishment for taking away the key

and books from the Protestant

chapel. Thus there was genuine re-

ligious toleration in Maryland until

1654 when the Puritan rump as-

sembly took control and excluded

from it popery, prelacy, or licenti-

ouness of opinion.’ After that date

the usual anti-Catholic laws multi-

plied: in 1704 priests were forbid-

den to exercise their functions; in

1716 a twenty-shilling tax was

placed on 'Irish papist’ servants; in

July 1746 a gubernatorial proclaima-

tion in the Virginian style raised

the hue and cry against 'Jesuits and

other popish priests.’ In 1758

Catholics who failed to take the

Test Oath were subjected to double

taxation—and so it went down to

the eve of the American Revolution”

(Ives, Ark and Dove).

"The Catholics seem to be in the

clear in Maryland, all right, but

heroic New England refugees for

conscience’ sake anticipated them

in this business of religious liberty,

and sort of shamed them into it.”

"You may have heard that, John

—but it is not true. The first Mas-

sachusetts Charter of 1629 would

seem to imply that in the phrase:

’that the Christian faith ... in our

royall intention and the adven-

turers’ free profession is the prin-

cipall ende of this plantation’

(Cited by MacDonald, History,

25



26). But in 1631 the General Court

enacted that 'no man shall be ad-

mitted to the freedom of his body

politic but such as are members

of some of the churches within the

limits of the same.’ Now in prac-
tise this meant the Congregational

Church established by law and sup-

ported by taxes collected from all

the inhabitants. And don’t think

that they did not carefully watch

over church njembership, John. Just

listen to what you would call the

'medieval overtones’ of the excom-

munication of Mrs. Hutchinson in

Massachusetts in 1637: 'Forasmuch

as you, Mrs. Hutchinson, have high-

ly transgressed and offended, and

forasmuch as you have so many

ways troubled the church with your

errors and have drawn away many

a poor soul, and have upheld your

revelations and forasmuch as you

have made a lie, etc. Therefore in

the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

and in the name of the Church I do

not only pronounce you worthy to

be cast out, but I do cast you out

and in the name of Christ I do

deliver you up to Satan . . .’ ( Cited

by William Sweet, Story of Reli-

gions in America

,

106). We may
owe Thanksgiving Day to your

New England founding fathers, but

in 1659 the celebration of Christ-

mas was abolished as savoring of

popery.’ Priests were to be ban-

ished on first detection, and exe-

cuted on their return.”

''Oh, those early Yankees were

just trying to scare your priests

away; such laws were never en-

forced.”

''Fortunately they didn’t catch

many priests, but in 1724 the Jesuit

Father Sebastian Rale was killed

and his scalp was exhibited in

Boston. His church was burnt to

the ground after the Blessed Sac-

rament had been desecrated.”

''Well, Catholics certainly found

asylum in Rhode Island. Its 1663

charter declared that 'no person

within the said colony, at any time

hereafter, shall be any wise molest-

ed, punished, disquieted, or called

in question for any differences of

opinion in matters of religion’

(MacDonald, History, 69). That

looks pretty tolerant to me.”

*'

'Catholics Accepted”

"Right, John. Now if I wanted
to be real mean I might bring up

the 1719 Rhode Island statute

which qualifies that concession

with the phrase, 'Roman Catholics

alone excepted’ (Phelan, Catholics

in Colonial Days, 133). But his-

torians are not entirely certain on

the matter, and I won’t press the

point. At least Pennsylvania’s

Quakers always treated their fellow

outcasts, the Catholics, well so long

as they were able to control their

legislation. Only in the absence of

William Penn and under English

pressure did their assembly intro-

duce the Test Act in the beginning

of the eighteenth century. As for

the rest of the Colonies, their rec-

ord is consistently anti-Catholic.

The one exception may embarrass

your fixed idea about Catholic per-

secution.”

"Go ahead, I can take it.”

"It’s this. New York under the

Dutch banned all religions but the

Reformed Calvinist; under the Eng-

26



lish, the Anglican body was given

a privileged tax-supported position.

The exception is found in the en-

actment by the Catholic Duke of

York that 'none should be molested,

fined, or imprisoned for differing

in judgment in matters of religion,

who professes Christianity.’ His

Catholic governor, Dongan ( 1682-

88) in 1683 passed a 'Charter of

Libertys and Privileges’ which

granted 'freedom to all persons

which profess faith in God through

Jesus Christ.’ This was not com-

plete religious liberty, but it was

better than that conceded under the

English Toleration Act of 1689, the

provisions of which were applied to

New York in 1693 after the exile

of the duke of York, later King

James II, and the removal of his

governor, Dongan.”

Narrow Views

"I guess I’ll have to agree that

the English Colonies in America

were generally 'chips off the old

block’ when it comes to religious

tolerance. It must have taken those

pioneers a longer time than I had

thought to shake off those narrow

views your inquisitors had instilled

into them for generations. Now
don’t rush to the defense, Jim—

I

was just joking. Judging from the

record as we have examined it to-

gether, we can both be glad that

the 'spirit of 1776’ at last ushered

in complete religious toleration.”

"Sorry to disagree again, John,

but neither 1776 nor the Federal

Constitution of 1787 nor the Bill

of Rights in 1791 quite saw the

end of religious discrimination in

the United States.”

"What do you mean?”

"What the recognized historian

Charles Beard points out in his

Republic, on page 170: 'Before the

Fourteenth Amendment was adopt-

ed in 1868, any State was constitu-

tionally free to establish a church,

impose religious tests on voters and

office-holders, turn education over

to parsons and priests, require

everybody to attend church, and in

fact to set up a religious monopoly

about as strict as that which ob-

tained in Western Europe during

the Middle Ages. That is, as far

as the Federal Constitution was con-

cerned a State could do all this.”

"That’s all right on paper, but

what state would think of acting

on such legal loopholes?”

State Churches

"As a matter of fact, John, Mas-

sachusetts retained her established

Congregationalism until 1833. Un-

til 1821 an objectionable oath

barred Catholics from office. Con-

necticut had established Congrega-

tionalism until 1818 and Vermont

required taxes for the same body

until 1807. New Hampshire by its
Constitution to this day may legis-

late for 'adequate provision ... for

the support and maintenance of

public Protestant teachers of piety,

religion, and morality . . .’ The pres-

ently existing Constitutions of

Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi,

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South

Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas still

require the acknowledgment or lack

of denial of the existence of God

27



or of the Supreme Being as a test

for some offices. Pennsylvania and

Tennessee also require a belief in

a future state of rewards and pun-

ishments. Of course, since the

Cantwell case (1940), when the

Fourteenth Amendment was de-

clared by the Supreme Court to

have extended to the States the

same prohibitions concerning legis-

lation restricting religious liberty

that exist in the Federal Constitu-

tion, these provisions would un-

doubtedly be declared unconstitu-

tional if challenged ... It was not,

then, a doctrine or 'principle’ of

separation of church and state that

motivated those who proposed the

First Amendment. It was a policy

to be adopted’ ” (Wilfrid Parsons,

First Freedom, 23-28).

The "'Kluxers”

"But all this wasn’t actually per-

secution, Jim.”

"Just because the discrimination

was 'legal’ didn’t make it any easier

to bear, John. But there has been

real persecution of Catholics since

1776—even after you have deducted

the Know-Nothing, A.P.A., and Ku

Klux Klan terrorism and propa-

ganda. In July, 1834 a convent in

Boston was burned about the time

that a series of bogus nun stories

appeared. This spate of absolutely

fictitious 'convent horrors’ included

Sherwood’s Nun, Rebecca Reed’s

Six Months in a Convent, and that

all-time hit, Awful Disclosures of

Maria Monk. Of this last the New

York editor, William L. Stone,

made this statement: 'Maria Monk

is an out-and-out impostor and her

book in all its essential features a

tissue of calumies. However guilty

the Catholics may be in other re-

spects, or in other countries, as a

man of honor and professor of the

Protestant faith, I most solemnly

believe that the priests and nuns

are innocent in this matter’” (Gus-

tavus Myers, History of Bigotry in

the United States, 158).

"There always will be crackpots,

of course, and those are not fair

samples of Protestant bigotry in

America.”

Samuel Morse, Bigot

"Perhaps not, John. But some

rather respectable citizens who

should have known better joined

in the Catholic-baiting. One of

them was the famous Samuel

Morse, inventor of the telegraph

In 1835 he issued his Foreign Con-

spiracy Against the Liberties of the

United States. This book, widely

circulated in public, school, and

catechetical libraries, falsely charged

that Austria had 'her Jesuit mis-

sionaries traveling through the

land; she has supplied them with

money, and has furnished a foun-

tain for a regular supply.’
” Though

as Myers says, (op. cit., 1 63 ) in

all of these assertions Morse drew

heavily on conjecture or imagina-

tion’, Representative Levin retailed

these charges in the U. S. House of

Representatives on March 2, 1848.

There he denounced the priest-

politician’ Pope Pius IX who sup-

posedly 'was not bound to keep

faith with heretics,’ and viewed*the

future with alarm, for 'how many

Jesuit Senators shall we have in the

28



course of the next twenty years!”

"That’s good, Jim, the House

must have had a hearty laugh over

that.”

Catholics Persecuted

"Well, Levin was convicted to

his face of error by Representative

Maclay of New York on the floor
of the House, March 8, 1848. But

Levin and his type of alarmist,

honest or otherwise, were not al-

ways so funny. In 1844 a Nativist

riot traceable to such inflammable

accusations had claimed the lives

of thirteen. Fifty were wounded,

two churches and a seminary

burned, ard the houses of Catholics

looted. And this bloody Philadel-

phia Story was but one of such in-

cidents. Please understand, John,

that I’m not raking up these old

injuries received by Catholics to

accuse you or any other decent law-

abiding Protestant. I’m merely try-

ing to show you that you are mis-

taken when you make persecution a

failing peculiar to Catholics. Per-

haps you would agree with the

Catholic Bishop England of Charles-

ton in his address to the U. S.

Congress on January 8, 1826. He

then said: 'My friends in this coun-

try .. . labor under those mistakes

not through their own fault in sev-

eral instances and if the Roman

Catholic Church were, in her doc-

trine and practices, what they have

been taught she is, I would not be

a Roman Catholic. They imagine

her to be what she is not; and when

they oppose what they believe her

to be, it is not to her their opposi-

tion is really given. To God and to

Him alone belongs ultimately to

discriminate between those who are

criminal and those who are inno-

cent in their error ... It is no doc-

trine of any church calling itself

Christian; but unfortunately, I

know it has been practised by some

Roman Catholics and it has been

practised in every church which

accuses her of having had recourse

thereto. It has been taught by no

church; it has been practised in all.

One great temptation to its exercise

is the union of any church with the

state; and religion has more fre-

quently been but a pretext with

statesmen for a political purpose

than the cause of persecution from

zeal on its own behalf’” (Guilday,

Life of John England, II, 62-63).

Catholic Policy in America

"I do like that summary of

the case very much, Jim, and it

seems that I must agree that the

fetters of persecution fit Protestant

as well as Catholic feet. But I’m

afraid that your Bishop England

was exceptionally broad-minded.

Let Catholics once get in power in

this country and you’ll see such

conciliatory types over-borne by

zealots.”

"On that point, John, you ought

to accept the repeated, explicit, and

solemn statements of representa-

tives of the American Catholic

hierarchy. In 1916 Cardinal Gib-

bons, dean of the American bishops,

and beloved by Catholics and non-

Catholics alike, emphatically assert-

ed from the wealth of his long

experience: 'Separation of church

and state in this country seems to

29



Catholics the natural, the inevit-

able, the best conceivable plan, the

one that would work best among

us, both for the good of religion

and of the state . . . American Catho-

lics rejoice in our separation of

church and state and I can conceive

of no combination of circumstances

likely to arise which would make

a union desirable either to church

or state’ (Retrospect, I, 211). And

when another generation of Ameri-

cans had been alarmed by the same

accusations against Catholics, Arch-

bishop McNicholas, chairman of

the Administrative Board of the

NCWC stated emphatically in Jan-
uary, 1948: 'No group in America

is seeking union of church and

state, and least of all are Catholics.

We deny absolutely and without any
qualification that the Catholic Bis-

hops of the United States are seek-

ing a union of church and state by

any endeavors whatsoever, either

proximate or remote. If tomorrow

Catholics constituted a majority in

our country, they would not seek

a union of church and state. They

would then, as now, uphold the Con-

stitution and all its Amendments,

recognizing the moral obligation

imposed on all Catholics to observe

and defend the Constitution and its

Amendments’ ” ( Cited by Parsons,

First Freedom, 83).

Latin America

"But, Jim—how about those Cath-

olics south of the Rio Grande in

Latin America? You’ve read about

their intolerance toward Protestant

missionaries from the United States.

And in Latin America, you must

admit, the Catholic Church is in a

position to dictate.”

"As, for instance, in Mexico,

where Catholic churches have been

burned or closed, Catholic priests

executed or exiled, ecclesiastical

property nationalized, religious

ceremonies banned from the streets,

all in our life time?”

"Well, Mexico is an exception.

But you can’t deny that other Latin

American Catholics have not been

over-friendly toward the Protestant

missionaries.”

Troublemakers

"Sometimes you can’t blame

them, John. Consider the case set

forth by John W. White in his

Good Neighbor Hurdle: 'I am not

a Catholic, nor do I hold any brief

for the Catholic Church as organ-

ized and operated South of the Rio

Grande ... I am siding only with

the United States of America. The

one most serious obstacle to closer

friendship and understanding be-

tween the people of the United

States and those to the South of us

is the proselytizing activity of the

army of North American Protestant

missionaries who have been sent

to the southern republics 'to bring

Christianity to them.’ This conclu-

sion is the result of more than 25

years spent as a traveling news-

paper correspondent in the southern

Americas, attempting to study ob-

jectively the problems and diffi-

culties of our relationships with the

countries and people South of the

Rio Grande. It also is the convic-

tion of thousands of non-Catholic

business men and other North

30



Americans who have had the op-

portunity, as I have, of knowing

our southern neighbors. The first

and most important step in win-

ning that friendship would be to

call home our missionaries and

show the people to the South of

us that we recognize them, not as

infidels and heathen, but as educat-

ed, civilized, and cultured people.’
”

War Against Church

"What are the reasons for White’s

attitude?”

"He himself gives some of them:

'These missionaries personify better

than any other North American

activity that smug superiority and

holier-than-thou attitude which al-

ways has exasperated the people of

the southern Americas . . . Our

foreign mission boards further in-

sult the people whom we want and

need as good neighbors by count-

ing only the Protestant 'converts’

as Christians and treating the huge

Catholic population as non-Chris-

tian . . . One of the most debasing

features of the proselytizing cam-

paign of the United States mission-

aries is the eagerness with which

they grab up these expelled priests

whenever they can find one and

use them as heavy artillery in their

war against the Catholic Church.’
”

(White, Good Neighbor Hurdle,

xi, xiii, 49-50; 51-52; 57; 174).

"It seems to me that these Latin

American Catholics are simply

afraid of competition.”

"It’s as much a matter of nation-

al politics as of religion, John. Most

Latin American politicians would

endorse the statement of Dr.

Laureano Gomez, leader of the

Conservative party in Colombia:

'The fundamental pillar of our

culture is religion.’ By traditions

older than our own in the United

States, Latin Americans have come

to identify Catholicity with nation-

al patriotism. Hence they are likely

to consider Anglo-Saxon Protestant

missionaries as alien political agents

as well as differing in religion. Be-

sides, you must not identify the

people with the governments.

These latter may — while granting
freedom of worship to non-Catho-

lics — tend to endorse the Catholic
Church officially, but with many

of them the Vatican cannot be

entirely satisfied. For these govern-

ments have retained from Spanish

colonial days some of the features

of the 'royal patronage’ with its

excessive secular control of ecclesi-

astical persons and institutions. For

example, Venezuela in both its

1931 and 1936 Constitutions

claimed 'ecclesiastical patronage.’ In

Bolivia, according to the 1931

Constitution the President named

'dignitaries, canons, and prebends;

granted or refused 'conciliar decrees,

bulls, briefs, and rescripts.’ Similarly

in Argentina the 1926 Constitution

claimed for the President the right

of patronage in the choice of

bishops and the right to grant or

withhold papal communications

( Edwin Ryan, Church in South

American Republics).

"Your own reading of the news-

papers will tell you that the Peron

regime in Argentina had scarcely

been 100% Catholic. During 1954

the President-Dictator publicly de-

nounced Bishops Fasolino, Lafitte,

31



and Reinafe, charging that Catholic

Action was interfering with his

one-party government. After rail-

roading an easy divorce law

through the legislature, Peron

criticized the clergy: as 'oligarchs

hiding behind cassocks.’ To him

they are 'open enemies of the Gov-

ernment’; hence 'the time has come

to lop off the heads of the papist

priests.’ Nor is this all talk, for

all this past year, you read of

clerical arrests.”

Protestantism in Spain

"All right, but in Spain not a

hair’s breadth separates the Catho-

lic hierarchy and the Franco dic-

tatorship, and in this ideal Catholic

regime Protestants are having a

rough time indeed.”

"Judging by your complaint, one

might conclude that there is noth-

ing more miserable than a Spanish

Protestant. Why, if we Catholics

only got as much publicity for our

sufferings under Communist per-

secution the newspapers would be

all screaming headlines. The

NCWC Catholic News Service has
just tabulated the number of the

Catholic prelates dead, in prison,

or in exile behind the Iron Curtain.

They include four cardinals, thirty-

three archbishops, 116 bishops,

thirty-one other prelates. And who

can number the priests and lay folk

who have suffered? Our Catholic

papers print this, but does the

secular press play it up? Do your

own religious propaganda services

give us whole-hearted cooperation

in denouncing this bleeding sore

on humanity’s back, this daily crime

against all religion at the hands of

a godless regime?”

"There may be truth in what you

say, but you needn’t look at me.

I’m against Communism in every

respect. But let’s get back to the

question of Spain.

"The Spaniards have the right to

run their country the way they see

fit, so long as they let us alone.

And I think that we must admit

that the Red menace in the thirties

gave the Spanish people plenty of

provocation for dictatorship. But

in any event, John, the Catholic

Church doesn’t endorse the Spanish

dictatorship nor any other form

of secular government. The Church

can get along with any type of

government that the people wish to

set up or permit to function.”

"That still doesn’t explain the

fate of Protestants in Spain.”

Free to Worship

"They are in no danger, John.

According to a decree of the Na-

tionalist Government, November

12
, 1945 , 'non-Catholic religious

groups may worship freely any-

where in Spanish territory, provided

this worship is conducted inside

their respective churches, with no

public manifestation. The directors

of these denominations or the per-

sons in charge of the worship are

free to organize religious cere-

monies on condition that any ulter-

ior purpose or end is avoided, that

is, political violations with illegal

groups, or anything that is not

purely pious or liturgical.’ By

Article 28 of the Elementary Edu-

cation Act of July 17, 1945,

32



Education is provided "at least for

non-Catholic foreigners — the na-
tives are after all a negligible

minority. And civil marriage is

available to non-Catholics in ac-

cord with the regulation of March

12, 1938” (Richard Pattee, This

is Spain, 386-395).

"But those regulations fail to

give Protestants equal rights with

Catholics.”

Small Minorities

"That I cannot deny, John, but

neither does Switzerland give Cath-

olics equal rights in every instance.

Article 50 of the Constitution for-

bids the erection of a diocese

without the consent of the Con-

federation; Article 51 reads: 'the

Jesuit order and groups affiliated

with it cannot exist in any part of

Switzerland.’ In Scandinavia Catho-

lics, if treated fairly, are not con-

sidered equals since they form such

a small minority of the population.

There is an analogous situation for

Protestants in Spain. There you are

faced with the same link between

religion and culture as in Latin

America, only the mother country

has an additional thousand years of

tradition behind it. Today Protes-

tants remain a tiny, utterly alien

force in Spanish national life.

Stanley Stuber, writing in the

Christian Advocate for June 30,

1949, recognized this fact: 'It was

impressed upon me strongly, espe-

cially as I viewed the famous cathe-

drals in comparison with our little

Protestant chapels, that in Spain,

the Protestant faith is an alien re-

ligion, living at the very mercy of

the Roman Catholic hierarchy and

the Franco dictatorship/” (cited by

Pattee, This is Spain, 372).

"I’ll wager that Spanish Protes-

tants get as much mercy as a mouse

from a cat.”

"Cats usually kill mice, John,

while Protestants in Spain live on

to distribute over 6000 of their

own Bibles annually. They have

offices at the Editorial Espanola at

2 Calle Zurbaran in Madrid. Be-

sides, nearly 5000 other volumes of

Protestant literature have been

distributed within a single year.”

"What about those attacks on

Protestant institutions?”

*

'Greatly Exaggerated”

"Say rather political demonstra-

tions, John. These were really a

sort of protest against alleged

discrimination by Anglo-Saxon

governments against Spain in the

international field. Knoblaugh,

head of the Madrid bureau of the

International News Service, report-

ed in the Peoria Register on April

11, 1949: 'All recent stories from

Spain tending to give the impres-

sion that non-Catholics are perse-

cuted are greatly exaggerated. There

have been some fanatic outbursts

against Protestant chapels, but they

were more political than religious/

(Cited by Pattee, op. cit., 380).

And as for the Jews, the Hed Ha-

Mizrah of Jerusalem reports on

March 17, 1944: 'There is no anti-

Semitic legislation in Spain. Con-

trary to the idea that the

government of that country is not

favorable to Jews ... for the first

time in my life I was received with

33



the greatest cordiality precisely be-

cause I was a Jew, and in this

country which is supposedly anti-

Semitic.’ This experience is in

keeping with the sentiments ex-

pressed by the Spanish hierarchy

in a joint pastoral of June, 1948:

'Faith must never be forced upon

people through violence; charity

paves the way and always requires

the efficacy of divine grace’ ” (Cited

by Pattee, op. cit., 395).

What About Spain?

"That all may be very fine — for
Spanish Catholics. I suppose we will

have to leave them alone. But I

wish they would leave us alone.

There is this new atrocity about

requiring foreign military and civil

personnel in Spain to have re-

course to Spanish civil and religious

bureaucrats in order to contract

marriage. Incidents like these keep

multiplying and we Protestants

have got to make a stand some

time. For as Dr. Newton has said,

'We dare not surrender our con-

stitutional birthright of religious

freedom for any mess of pottage.’
”

''Don’t make much ado about

nothing, John. Those regulations to

which you refer are in keeping

with customary procedure for our

military personnel in foreign lands.

You hear no complaints from

Catholics who find themselves in

similar conditions in countries

where the state religion is non-

Catholic. But let the government of

a Catholic country enact such laws

and the cry 'religious persecution’

immediately goes up.”

"Maybe so, but I’ll always feel

safer when dealing with the

American type of Catholic, rather

than the Spanish.”

Papal Pronouncements

on Tolerance

"Suit yourself, John, but remem-

ber that there aren’t different 'types’

of Catholics. Catholic means uni-

versal, and all true Catholics who

heed the teaching of their Church

and practice what they believe

should think and act alike in es-

sentials. Now in our question of
tolerance the official attitude of

the Catholic Church can’t be sought

either from Spain or America, but

is properly to be found in the pro-

nouncements of the Holy Father,

Christ’s Vicar, and Peter’s Suc-

cessor.”

"Well, what did the Pope say?”

"First, while the Papacy still had

temporal rule over Rome and sur-

rounding territory, Pope Pius IX

declared: 'Jews have their Synago-

gue in the Ghetto, and the Pro-

testants their Temple at the Porta

del Populo’ (Cited by Dom Butler
in Eyre, European Civilization, VI,

1403). Next, Pope Leo XIII care-

fully distinguished the respective

spheres of Church and State:

'Church and State alike both pos-

sess individual sovereignty; hence

in the conduct of public affairs

neither is subject to the other

within the limits to which each is

restricted by its constitution. It does

not follow from this, however, that

Church and State are in any manner

severed, and still less antagonistic’

(Sapientiae Christianae, cited by

34



Powers, Papal Pronouncements on

the Political Order, 167).

"Finally, our present Pope Pius

XII had made some clear statements

on tolerance. On October 6, 1946

he told the Roman Rota: 'Increas-

ingly frequent contacts between

different religious professions, min-

gled indiscriminately within the

same nation have caused civil

authorities to follow the principles

of tolerance and liberty of con-

science. In fact, there is a political

tolerance, a civil tolerance, a social

tolerance in regard to adherents of

other religious beliefs which, in

circumstances such as these is a

moral duty for Catholics’ (Allocu-

tion cited by Powers, 181).

Cockle and Good Seed

"On December 6, 1953 the Pope

told a national convention of Italian

jurists: 'Reality shows that error

and sin are in the world in great

measure. God reprobates them, but

He permits them to exist. Hence

the affirmation: religious and moral

error must always be impeded when

it is possible because toleration of

them is in itself immoral, is not

valid absolutely and uncondition-

ally. Moreover, God has not given

even to human authority such an

absolute and universal command in

matters of faith and morality. Such

a command is unknown to the com-

mon convictions of mankind, to

Christian conscience, to the sources

of revelation and to the practice

of the Church. To omit here other

Scriptural texts which are adduced

in support of this argument, Christ

in the parable of the cockle gives

the following advice: let the cockle

grow in the field of the world

together with the good seed in

view of the harvest . . . The Church

— out of regard for those who in
good conscience, though erroneous

but invincibly so, are of different

opinion — has been led to act and
has acted with that tolerance after

she became the State Church under

Constantine the Great and other

Christian emperors, always for

higher and more cogent motives.

So she acts today, and also in the

future she will be faced with the

same necessity’ ” (Allocution, 'Ci

Riesce’ in The Pope Speaks, 1st

Quarter, 1954).

Cause of Conflict

"Well, Jim, if I have learned

anything from our conversation, it

has been this: in religious discus-

sion it is easy to oversimplify in-

cidents in the history of the historic

Mother Church of Christianity.

Perhaps that is the principal cause

of so much misunderstanding.”

"I think you are right, John, and

too much time has been wasted in

negative thinking about the human

errors made by the human beings

that made that history.”

35



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alzog, John—Church History, II.

Billington, Ray—

P

rotestant Crusade.

Blatzer, Joseph— Inquisition: Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 26.

Conway, Bertrand— Studies in Church History.

—Question Box.

Grisar, Hartmann—

L

uther.

Guiraud, Jean— Medieval Inquisition.

Haskins, Charles— Medieval Culture.

MacDonald, William— Documentary Source Book of American History.

McNeill, John— History and Character of Calvinism.

Myer, Gustavus— History of Bigotry in the U. S.

Nicherson, Hoffman—

I

nquisition.

O’Neill, James— Religion and Education under the Constitution.

Parsons, Reuben— Studies in Church History.

Parsons, Wilfrid—

F

irst Freedom.

Pattee, Richard—

T

his is Spain.

Phelan, Thomas— Catholics in Colonial Days.

Powers, Francis— Papal Pronouncements on the Political Order.

Rumble, Dr.— Radio Replies.

Ryan-Boland— Catholic Principles of Politics.

Sabine, George— History of Political Theory.

Shea, Gilmary—

C

atholic Church in U. S., I.

Thorning, Joseph— Religious Liberty in Transition.

Vacandard, Elphege—The Inquisition.

Walsh, William— Characters of the Inquisition.

White, John W.—Our Good Neighbor Hurdle.

William, Michael—Shadow of the Pope.

36



233 523 '

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List of pamphlets available at the above address. One title may be requested at a time free

of charge. Several titles, complete sets, and quantities of individual pamphlets may be ordered

at 7$ for each pamphlet, plus postage.

3. The Bible is a Catholic Book

5. Christ’s Seven Sacraments

6. The Holy Sacrifice — the Catholic
Mass

7. Why the Catholic Church says "Inves-
tigate” — Masons, Inquisition, Nuns

8. Speaking of Tolerance — Controver-
sial periods in history

9. These Men They Call "Knights”

10. Why Catholics Believe As They Do
— Existence of God, Immortality

11. A Short Story of the Popes

12. Let’s Stick to Moses — Ten Com-
mandments explained

13. But Can It Be Found in the Bible? —

Bible not sole rule of faith

14. What Happens After Death?

15. Yes ... I Condemned The Catholic

Church

16. What Do You Mean "Only One True
Church”?

17. But How Can Educated People Be
Catholics?

18. No . . . Belief in God is not Enough!

19. The Real Secret of Successful Mar-

riage

20. The Way to Everlasting Life . . . The
Catholic Church

21. Is the Catholic Church a Menace to

Democracy?

22. But Do You Really Understand the
Bible? — Rules for understanding

23. A Letter to Our Non-Catholic Neigh-
bors — Aspects of Catholic faith

24. Yes, the Mother of God Will Help
You!

25. What Makes a Woman Choose Such
a Life? — Life of a Catholic Nun

26. I’ll Tell You Why I Am a Catholic
27. Why So Many Decide to Become

Catholics — Convert stories
28. Let Us Judge Catholics by the Bible

— Prayer to Saints, unmarried priests
29. But Would Christ Call You A Chris-

tian?

30. But Do You Understand What God
Told Us? — Apostles’ Creed

31. Should Children Learn About God-
in School?

32. The Bible Is Not Our Sole Guide

33. This Was the Faith of Our Fathers

34. These Are Our Seven Deadly Enemies
— Seven capital sins explained

35. Let’s Test Catholic Loyalty — A Good
Catholic is a good citizen

36. Remember the Sabbath . . . Keep It

Holy — The "Sabbath Question”
37. I Am a Catholic Priest
38. But Why the Candles, Holy Water

and Beads ? — Sacramentals
39- The Reformation. Was It Reform or

Revolt?

40. Why I Had to Embrace the Catholic
Faith — Convert stories

41. Yes, Miracles Happened at Fatima

42. Does the Bible Contradict Itself? —

Peter the Rock, Faith and/or Works

43. I Was Warned About the Catholic
Church ! — Religious Liberty

44. Why a Woman Needs the Catholic
Faith!

45. The Early Years of the Catholic

Church — First three centuries

46. Yes ... A Priest Can Forgive Your
Sins — Sacrament of Penance

47. But Why Don’t You Pray to the
Saints? — Communion of Saints

48. God’s Story of Creation — Genesis

49. Is the Catholic Church Out of Place

Here? — Catholicism and Loyalty

50. This Is the Catholic Church — Creed,
Sacraments, Mass, Commandments

51. Revelation ... A Divine Message of
Hope — Revelations or Apocalypse

52. Does It Pay to be a Catholic? — How
to be a Catholic

53. Think About Death and Start to Live

— Catholic attitude toward death

54. What Do You Find Wrong With
the Catholic Church?

55. His Name Shall Be Called God With
Us — Divinity of Christ

56. The Infallible Church, Truth or Trick-

ery? — Church of the Scriptures

57. Tell Us About God . . . Who Is He?
Existence and nature of God

58. The Word Was Made Flesh-
Humanity of Christ

59. Let Us Pray—Prayer

60. Gift of the Holy Spirit—Confirmation



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