p. 11 | Untitled article by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 23, 1910

Roman Purpose and American Liberties—No. 2

By C. M. S.

CARDINAL GIBBONS, in his monograph, “The Faith of Our Fathers,” declares that he abhors and denounces “every species of violence, and injustice, and persecution of which the Spanish Inquisition may have been guilty.”—Page 284. He then sets forth the position of Catholicism in these words:—

When I denounce the cruelties of the Inquisition, I am not standing aloof from the church, but I am treading in her footprints. Bloodshed and persecution form no part of the creed of the Catholic Church. . . . In all my readings I have yet to find one decree of hers advocating torture or death for conscience’ sake. She is indeed intolerant of error; but her only weapons against error are those pointed out by St. Paul to Timothy: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, entreat; rebuke with all patience and doctrine.”

These declarations sound good; and how good it would be if the facts would substantiate them. But let us place by their side the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, the most renowned theologian of the Catholic Church:—

It is much more grievous to corrupt faith, which is the source and life of the soul, than to corrupt money, which but tends to the relief of the body. Hence, if coiners and other malefactors are justly put to death by the secular authority, much more may heretics not only be excommunicated, but even justly put to death.—St. Thomas, 2d. 9:11. Art. 3.

This is going considerably farther than St. Paul admonished Timothy to go; but it is not an isolated example. The following from “Libro Necro,” quoted by Dr. Achille in his work, “Dealings with the Inquisition,” page 82, is corroborative testimony:—

With respect to the examination, and the duty of the examiners — either the prisoner [this word “prisoner” sounds ominous when we recollect Cardinal Gibbons’s declaration that he is opposed to “every species of violence,” and raises his “voice against coercion for conscience’ sake”] confesses, and he is proved guilty on the evidence of witnesses. . . . And as the respect due to the glory of God requires that no one particular should be omitted, not even a mere attempt, so the judge is bound to put in force not only the ordinary means which the Inquisition affords, but whatever may enter into his thoughts as fitting to lead to a confession. Bodily torture has ever been found the most salutary and efficient means of leading to spiritual repentance. Therefore the choice of the most befitting mode of torture is left to the judge of the Inquisition, who determines according to the age, the sex, and the constitution of the party. He will be prudent in its use, always being mindful at the same time to procure what is required from it — the confession of the delinquent. If, notwithstanding all the means employed, the unfortunate wretch still denies his guilt, he is to be considered as a victim of the devil, and, as such, deserves no compassion from the servants of God, nor the pity or indulgence of holy mother church: he is a son of perdition. Let him perish, then, among the damned, and let his place be no longer found among the living.

That is a sentence of death upon persons brought before the Holy Office, and refusing to acknowledge error and guilt, or words are meaningless. With the cardinal’s statement still in mind, to the effect that in all his reading he had found no decree of the church “advocating torture or death for conscience’ sake,” let us read the letter of Pope Martin V to the king of Poland:—

Know that the interests of the Holy See, and those of your crown, make it a duty to exterminate the Hussites. . . . While there is still time, then, turn your forces against Bohemia; burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere; for nothing could be more agreeable to God, or more useful to the cause of kings, than the extermination of the Hussites.—Cormenin, Vol. II, pages 116, 117.

It is barely possible that the cardinal will not consider these citations as touching the question which he raised; but it would seem that such a document, prepared by an infallible Pope, ought to settle the question of the church’s attitude toward heretics. If the church of Rome is opposed to the coercion of conscience; if she is opposed to the torture of the body for the salvation of the soul; if she is opposed to the execution of the death sentence upon those who will not yield to her authority in spiritual matters; then she ought to repudiate such teachings. Instead of doing so, however, she says:—

Her [the Catholic Church’s] creed is now identical with what it was in past ages.—“Faith of Our Fathers,” page 29.

Cardinal Gibbons then declares (Id., page 30) that St. Augustine preached in Hippo and in England the same doctrine as that to which the church holds now. It will, therefore, be interesting to learn just what St. Augustine taught then on this matter of compulsory conversion, in order that we may know what the Catholic Church teaches now upon the same point. He says:—

It is indeed better that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment, or by pain. But because the former means are better, the latter must not therefore be neglected. . . . Many must often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, by the rod of temporal suffering, before they attain to the highest grade of religious development.—“Schaff’s Church History,” Vol. II, Sec. 27.

It is permitted neither to think nor to teach otherwise than the court of Rome directs.—Pope Marcellus’s Decrees, “Corpus Juris Cononice,” part 2, chapter 18.

The secular powers shall swear to exterminate all heretics condemned by the church; and if they do not, they shall be anathema.—“Decretals of Gregory IX,” book 5, title 7.

A heretic merits the pains of fire. By the gospel, the canons, civil law, and custom, heretics must be burned.—“Directory for the Inquisitors,” part 2, chapter 2.

All persons may attack any rebels to the church, and despoil them of their wealth, and slay them, and burn their houses and cities.—Ib., pages 176, 177.

During a discussion in the German Parliament in the year 1902, a Protestant senator made the charge that the Catholic Church advocates the death penalty upon heretics. The charge was denied by a Catholic senator; but the Protestant

senator’s charge was substantiated by the following from a work by the Jesuit priest De Luca:—

The secular power, upon the church’s order and authority, must inflict the death penalty upon heretics, from which penalty they may not be exempted after having been handed over to the secular arm. This penalty is incurred not only by those who abandon the faith when adults, but even by those who are baptized, yet grow in heresy with their mother’s milk and persist in it. This penalty, where received, is to be extended to all the lapsed, or, if they wish to return to the faith, then to all who are pertinacious after an admonition.

The Kalnische Volkszeitung, which gives this excerpt from De Luca, declares that this Catholic authority “advocates the death penalty for heretics even in our day, as he emphatically states in another place (page 142).”

Yet Cardinal Gibbons declares, “Bloodshed and persecution form no part of the creed of the Catholic Church.” He says, further:—

In raising my voice against coercion for conscience’ sake, I am expressing not only my own sentiments, but those of every Catholic priest and layman in the land.—“Faith of Our Fathers,” page 284.

It is difficult to understand a declaration of this kind when we have such declarations before us as the foregoing. But of similar import is the following from the Shepherd of the Valley, published at St. Louis, Mo., in 1876, under the supervision of Archbishop Kendrick:—

We confess that the Roman Catholic Church is intolerant; that is to say, that it uses all the means in its power for the extirpation of error and sin; but this intolerance is the logical and necessary consequence of her infallibility. She alone has the right to be intolerant, because she alone has the truth. The church tolerates heretics where she is obliged to do so, but she hates them mortally, and employs all her force to secure their annihilation. When the Catholics shall here be in possession of a considerable majority,—which will certainly be the case by and by, although the time may be long deferred,—then religious liberty will have come to an end in the republic of the United States. Our enemies say this, and we believe with them. Our enemies know that we do not pretend to be better than our church, and in what concerns this, her history is open to all. They know, then, how the Roman Church dealt with heretics in the Middle Ages, and how she deals with them to-day wherever she has the power. We no more think of denying these historic facts than we do of blaming the saints of God and the princes of the church for what they have done or approved in these matters.

This plain statement of principle and purpose is much more in accord with the facts of history than are the statements of Cardinal Gibbons. We could earnestly wish that the cardinal had correctly represented the matter; but he is contradicted through every epoch of his church’s history.

This, then, is the institution that has set for itself the task of transforming this country into harmony with its purpose, bringing the nation into obedience to its mandates; the institution that has commanded its agents to do all in their power to shape the Constitution and legislation of the nation into “harmony with the principles of the true church,”—in short to “make America Catholic.” And it is this institution with which the great Protestant bodies of the land propose to unite in taking the first step into the quagmire of religious legislation.

C. M. S.