DID THE PAPACY PERSECUTE?
What Roman Catholics Say.
IN "The Faith of Our Fathers," by Archbishop (now Cardinal) James Gibbons, the writer denounces "every species of violence, and injustice, and persecution of which the Spanish Inquisition may have been guilty. And 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. "Our Catholic ancestors, for the last three hundred years, have suffered so much for freedom of conscience that they would rise up in judgment against us, were we to become the advocates and defenders of religious persecution."—Pp. 284, 285. He afterward admits that there was persecution, but tells us:— "It must be remembered that in those days heresy, especially if outspoken, was regarded not only as an offense against religion, but also as a crime against the State, and was punished accordingly."—Id., p. 293. "It [the Inquisition] was, therefore, rather a royal and political than an ecclesiastical institution."—Id., p. 297. "I most emphatically assert that the church had no act or part in this atrocious butchery [massacre of St. Bartholomew], except to deplore the event and weep over its unhappy victims."—Id., p. 297. "Religion had nothing to do with the massacre. Coligny and his fellow Huguenots were slain, not on account of their creed, but exclusively on account of their alleged treasonable designs."—Id., p. 298. Thus much for Cardinal Gibbons on persecution. We wish that all in the church to which he belongs stood for liberty. But in an article in another column, taken from the Catholic Review, the chief organ of the Roman Catholic Church in America, the writer deprecates the course of apologetics in Cardinal Gibbons, throwing the blame on the State, and declares:— "The church claims, and has always claimed, the right of punishing heresy, as is evident from the teaching of the greatest of theologians, St. Thomas, and from her canonical legislation, such as the decrees of popes and the acts of councils, all of which prove that the church believed it her duty to repress heresy and impressed the civil authorities with the same duty, boldly holding herself responsible for whatever wrong or right was in such repression. "The church took this stand against heresy because the chief heresies of the Middle Ages were subversive of society, and, therefore, the church in destroying them saved society from anarchy and destruction." And then are mentioned the Albigenses, Cathari, Vaudois, Wycliffe, Huss, and others as examples of fostering heresies which must be crushed. He further says:— "The church in the Middle Ages did punish heresy often with extreme severity. The church saved society by repressing heresy in the Middle Ages, and she has, therefore, no apology to offer for her action beyond an occasional ill-directed zeal of her officers."