Part 7 — THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE "CARITA."

I.

So great and painful are the sufferings and terror now weighing upon the nations of Europe that, setting every other subject aside, it is toward that the mind necessarily turns, and we will accordingly lay before our readers the deeply rooted convictions we entertain, not merely in reference to the year gone by, but to that on which we are just entering. These convictions take within their scope the present most deplorable and shameful condition of Europe, and a future that cannot be very far distant. But which of these subjects shall we undertake to discuss? Or, were we to satisfy the necessity there seems for the treatment of both, should we be thereby exceeding the limit of our obligation as journalists? Nothing is easier, nothing more agreeable in our case, than to satisfy both the one and the other. For, if we place before our readers our reflections on the present and future of the Christian nations of Europe, we shall be at the same time defining and specifying the principal field of our studies.

I will then examine into the reasons of the present condition of the church and of civilization, and I will do so with a mind as free as may be from prejudice and the heat of passion. After judging of events by the great laws of history, I will endeavor to trace out the path which ideas and facts must follow at no distant period. My words will indeed be addressed in an especial manner to the true children of the church, but I do not doubt that they will indirectly reach some who are removed and even separated from us. Neither do I deny that I am animated by the hope of helping to sustain the courage of my brethren, so that each one may be able to say to himself, Modicæ fidei quare dubitasti.

II.

Towards the close of the year 1869, and the commencement of the year that followed, two solemn utterances resounded through Europe and agitated the nations of the universe. The first of these proceeded from the Roman Pontiff, the convener of the Œcumenical Council; the other was the cry of modern civilization, proclaiming its own power and its ideas of universal progress. Both utterances were of solemn import, but the one was in contradiction to the other. The first, or that of the Pontiff, with all the weight of his divine authority, laid open to view the true principles of the other, and strove to reclaim it to Christ with the new and more effulgent light of truth and the more ardent fire of charity. Such words ought indeed to have found an echo and penetrated through every fibre of the universe, for they were in substance the language of love; from love they came, and to love they tended. Had they thus been accepted by the nations, we should not have had now so many sufferings to undergo, nor been menaced by a future still more calamitous. The other utterance, that of modern civilization, inspired by the idea that it was an invincible and independent power, spurned the thought not merely of supernatural aid, but even of supernatural authority. Moreover, in proof of its power, it collected then under distinct heads all the evidences of the progress of the present age, proffering them as an infallible guarantee of new and still greater progress in the immediate future. Thousands listened with credulity to such language, and, opening their hearts to glorious dreams of the future, exulted over the hopes they had conceived with a joy whose folly was unquestionable, though it would be hard to pronounce whether it proceeded most from impiety or pride. It is, however, a satisfaction to speak with boldness and candor, calling things by their right names: such joy was foolish, because it was at once both proud and impious. The words of the Supreme Pontiff were derided, and abuse and calumnies of every description were heaped with a lavish hand on the acts of the Œcumenical Council.

Now, assuming the active opposition of these two powers, what consequences must result from it in the domain of facts? The problem is unquestionably an important one, and we must treat it by first going back and tracing it downward from first principles.

III.

The decree of the Pope when summoning an Œcumenical Council may be defined as the supreme exercise of his authority; and the council so assembled is the greatest and most universal act of the power of good with which the church has been invested; she who is the City of God, yet a pilgrim upon earth. Reasoning on these same questions, a year ago, I recollect having thus expressed myself: "Assuming that the life of the Catholic Church is charity both in its source and its organization, and that the Papacy is the central seat of charity; what, then, is the Œcumenical Council, that supreme act of the Papacy and the church? The answer is not difficult: it is the supreme act of charity peculiar to Catholicity, and is therefore that power of supernatural love which is alone strong enough to combat with and put to flight the gigantic and many-sided egotism of the times we live in."

Now, such an act of this all-powerful charity did the church initiate on the 8th day of December, 1869—a day that will live for ever in the memory of posterity, and never fail to be spoken of with blessings. To the eyes of Catholics, the Council of the Vatican appeared—and such it is—a new and living fountain of hope. It seemed as if the yearnings of three centuries and many generations were at last to be gratified by this council. It seemed, in a special manner, as if the tendencies and wants of the nineteenth century converged toward this council, like rays to a common centre. And here, the better to understand the truth of these sentiments, we trust it will not be unacceptable to our readers if we lay before them what we ourselves—partakers in and witnesses of the universal conscience—published on the very day on which the Œcumenical Council opened in the Vatican:

"And, in truth, what is the council in relation to the nineteenth century? It is the desire of all, a something longed and sighed for by all minds and all hearts, the ideal of the noblest and most generous aspirations that now assert their sway over the spirit of man. Nor is it that only, but it is likewise what was needed to meet the most urgent and widespread want of our age. It will doubtless appear strange to very many that the council should be styled the desire of all men, but such is nevertheless the fact; consciously or unconsciously, all longed for it: all, those who hail it and those who curse it, those who believe in it and those who despise it. Yes, all; he who exalts our age, and he who bewails its errors, he whose heart is rejoiced, and he who sheds tears over the events of our century; princes and people, the priesthood and the laity, religion and civilization, faith and science. Assuredly, were any additional proof necessary to demonstrate to conviction, by the evidence of reason and history, that the Papacy is the heart of humanity, the heart in which all the aspirations of humanity converge and unite, here would be the proof in the summons that convened this Œcumenical Council. For, from the various and opposite judgments passed upon our age, some in adulation, others in blame, one thing is evident, and all agree in admitting it, that the tendencies of our age are directed by a twofold attraction toward union and liberty. These guiding influences are in themselves most powerful, noble, and exalted, because they mirror the infinite, absolute, and supreme unity of God. Liberty is the image and proof of the Infinite Being, for he alone is truly free, and the spirit which tends by love toward him is adorned with liberty, and possesses the power of reducing its free will to act. Union is the shadow and effect of the divine union, because the one God, one Truth, one Good, one Beauty, can alone sweetly and strongly bring into accord the wills and understandings of men, and cause them to harmonize in the limitless range of space, and the vicissitude and diversity of time."

Now, two such qualities and tendencies of humanity, acting in an especial manner, or, in other words, more powerfully and universally than ever before, rule over and exalt our age. He who should say that these two tendencies, naturally common to all men, all times, and all places, had become the passions of the age, and even its most ardent passions, would express our ideas on this subject, and give an adequate description of the times in which we live.

Liberty, then, and union, are the cry from every quarter, the thought, desire, hope, strength, and occupation of all intellects, of all classes, of everything that belongs to man, from the highest to the lowest. Trades, business, and commerce cry aloud for liberty, and for union with liberty. The free co-operation of the industrial arts and workmen's societies, of societies of merchants and banking-houses, are ideas and facts so common in these days that the dominion of the two tendencies referred to above is clearly made manifest in the lower order of civilization. And this order, quickened by such ideas and making use of such aids, becomes the instrument of new liberty and still greater union. Thus, the power of steam triumphing over the obstacles of matter, and the speed of electricity overcoming the resistance of space and time, favor the free expansion of nation toward nation, and make, I might almost say, one single society out of the most distant nations.

Rising from this lower order of civilization, the industries of every kind, to what is far nobler, that of science, we observe the same aspirations, perhaps more universally diffused and more passionate in degree toward liberty and union. Freedom of thought, freedom of education, freedom of speech and of the press, seem to be the idols of the day; for, strange to say, freedom of the intellectual life is deemed by very many not as the dowry of science, but the fundamental principle of all human instruction. There exists, also, with this desire for intellectual freedom, a craving after union. Scientific congresses, either general or confined to some particular branch of knowledge, succeed each other at no distant intervals, sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, so as to unite men of intellect whom distance of space had kept asunder. The literary journals, whose number is so great as to excite amazement, have become the arena for the free diffusion of thought; they keep alive the work of the scientific congresses, and spread its knowledge—spreading it in such a manner as to complete the intellectual union of the human race, by making the speculations of the great men of science familiar to the most ordinary intellects.

Turning our gaze from the industrial and intellectual to the moral life, that is to say, to the life of society, the two aspirations appear stronger and more manifest; so strong and manifest that we might be tempted to call them insane and mischievous. To the cry of liberty, the civilized nations of earth respond with transport, and rise in rebellion against whatever can be shown to be in any way opposed to freedom. Never in previous times were such social changes witnessed, so unexpected, so general, so profound, and carried through with so much enthusiasm, as those just enacted and initiated with the cry of liberty. The political organization of nations, the administrative control of provinces and municipalities, have all been regulated by the principle of free election, freedom of vote and opinion. The slavery of man to man, a lamentable relic of paganism, has been abolished in many places by legal enactment, and is universally looked on with more repugnance than heretofore. After the hard-fought battles in North America on the question of slavery, the negroes there have been raised to the dignity of freemen.

No less vigorous and resistless has been the tendency toward social union. The principle of nationality has traversed all Europe with the rapidity of lightning, kindling as it passed the minds of men, exciting and agitating them in a wonderful manner. Even as we write, the cry for unions still more comprehensive—the union of races—strikes upon our ears.

It is, then, an indisputable fact, a fact whose evidence is clear to all and is admitted by all, that the aspirations of our age are towards union and liberty.

We shall therefore hail the council as the final goal of these aspirations of the human race. And yet, in saying this, we have not stated all that the council implies; for it serves also to satisfy an essentially human want that equals those twofold aspirations, or, to speak more correctly, is still stronger and more universal than they. What, then? Shall it be said that the aspirations and wants of the human mind are not directed to the same object? Most assuredly; the end, but not the immediate object, is the same. They proceed from different impulses: the one arises from the tendencies of the age, but without any regard to the good or evil qualities inherent in such tendencies; the other is the result of a vice that modifies and corrupts such tendencies, a vice that may prove fatal to nations, alluring them by the cry of liberty and union to slavery and desolation. The want we refer to argues a vice to be corrected, an infirmity to be healed, a danger to be shunned, express it as we will; but let us not deny the fact, a most sad and painful one, for which the council furnishes a sovereign and most efficacious remedy.

But what, it will be asked, is this vice which degrades the noble aspirations for liberty and union, and causes such misery to nations? It is the rejection of authority—a rejection absolute and unlimited, that has penetrated into every relation of human life. The better, however, to make our sentiments clear on this subject, and to bring under consideration, not the existence of such a vice, but the cause that produced it, we must trace the question back to its source.

The fundamental dogma of the Protestant Reformation gave birth at the same instant to a double negation—the rejection of liberty and of union—so that the servitude of the human will and individualism were exalted to the dignity of a principle. It seems like a contradiction that the basis of Protestantism, namely, private interpretation, which is the rejection of a supreme authority, should have led in its consequences to servitude. But the contradiction disappears when we reflect that so necessary is authority to man that he will bow to fatalism or force if he has no legitimate authority to which to turn. History bears evidence that two centuries and a half of debasing servitude and cruel separations followed. Such a long period of slumber must necessarily have had an awakening; for the innate tendencies of humanity may for a time grow faint or dormant, but they can never be extinguished. Moreover, should they, for any length of time, be checked in their natural expansion, this necessity grows to gigantic proportions, till it sweeps before it every obstacle like a torrent in its impetuous course. Such was the result to be expected, and which really took place, at the close of the eighteenth century. But the minds of men having been seduced by the sophistries of the Reformation, the new era of liberty and union must of necessity reflect its deceitful philosophy. Therefore, liberty and union, when they arose, cast aside the principle of authority, as Protestantism had done at its first appearance. Liberty rejected religion to become atheistical, and fraternity or union affiliated itself to pantheism.

And, in truth, atheism and pantheism—two systems that harmonize because they are convertible—have penetrated into and made conquests in every condition of life. Fourierism and the abuse of industrial unions, while rejecting authority, have touched materialism on the one side and communism on the other, and are the atheistic and pantheistic forms of labor. Freedom of speculation, by spurning at every authoritative principle, has ended in rationalism; the systematizing of science has fallen into pantheism or syncretism; rationalism and syncretism are the atheistic and pantheistic forms of the intellectual life. The modern code of morality and justice, by stripping liberty and the brotherhood of mankind of legitimate authority, have ended in naturalism and socialism, the atheistic and pantheistic forms of society.

Now, these two vices, atheism and pantheism, the leading errors of the day, have changed the universal movement toward liberty and union into matter for the deepest and keenest sorrow. In the midst of the immense riches that our age has been accumulating through its free and associated industries, there seems to be nothing that man touches that can cheer or console him in the solitude of his heart, and, free lord as he is of matter, yet he feels himself its slave, because he has made it the grave of his noblest aspirations. It might almost be said that matter, subjugated in so many ways by the liberty and union existing among men in these days, was secretly tyrannizing over and dividing them, denying man's authority over it because man has himself cast off the true and supreme authority raised over him. In the same manner, in the life of thought all our knowledge is felt to be, as was said of old, but vanity, and a vanity that crushes and keeps us asunder from one another. Many, yes, very many, agree in crying loudly for liberty and the union of intellect, but theirs are merely outward words—words which do not respond to the real life of man's intellectual powers. We shall proclaim openly that it is a falsehood, and a falsehood by which man strives to deceive himself, and, if possible, conceal his sorrow. Without fear of error, we can say that modern science tyrannizes in secret over the intellects of men, and divides them, because liberty and the union of intellects rejected or rather usurped the supreme control over the minds of men. Rationalists and pantheists cannot deny this; we appeal to the truthful testimony of their own consciences and of history; we appeal to the candid avowal of Frederick Schelling. Is it not true that, beneath the pompous appearances of liberty and union, the inner powers of thought are under the grievous yoke of so-called systems, and, in addition, are slaved and tormented by secret and constant doubts? Is it not true that great differences exist among men of intellect, who reject to-day what was believed yesterday, and that there is no agreement whatever in the greatest and most important principles? To sum up: the intellectual life of the nineteenth century has neither interior liberty nor union, because with Protestantism it has denied the principle which could alone give freedom and unity to the minds of men, and this denial is the only instance of that liberty and union of which it makes so great a boast.

Neither in regard to the moral and social life of nations is the case in any way different. From the atheistical liberty of an independent morality has resulted the interior servitude of the will, which means the truly despotic empire of passions most degrading to the mass and the individual and the despotic atheism of states. And from the pantheistic union exhibited in the practice of centralization and the theory of socialism, there resulted a sanguinary war in the heart of Christendom: a war of the state with the church, of the people with monarchy, a war of everything in subjection against everything in authority. Hence we see in the most civilized countries the despair of its noblest citizens, men like the younger Brutus and Cato; hence the despondency of the higher station, blended with scorn and indignation; hence the frantic aims of the populace breaking forth into rebellion; hence the enormous standing armies; hence amidst the shouts for liberty and fraternity the nations are arming, and every citizen is enrolled a soldier.

If such, then, is the condition of the age and the ferment in the minds of men, if such is the condition of the populations, what, let us ask, is at present the great, the urgent want of mankind? To contradict the sentiment of union and liberty would be madness; to contradict the atheism of liberty and the pantheism of union is wisdom and true charity, and therein safety is to be found; for, take away pantheism from union, and atheism from liberty, there will remain union and true liberty both exteriorly and interiorly. And assuming that the deadly principles of atheism and pantheism sprang from Protestantism, which rejected the Papacy, the supreme personification of power, the return to authority, the true and only source of liberty and union, is the great and universal want of the present age.

IV.

To satisfy so great a want, the City of God, exercising the most perfect act of its power of goodness and love, convoked the Council of the Vatican. But in opposition to the City of God in its exercise of this supreme act of love and goodness, stands the City of Satan, which has always combated it, and will continue to do so to the end of time. It was, therefore, an easy matter to predict that the City of Satan would assuredly put forth its utmost powers of evil in opposition to that supreme effort of the church of Christ. Such a conclusion would be warranted both by reason and history. By reason, inasmuch as humanity may well be likened to a battle-field, wherein the powers of good and evil contend for mastery, falsehood, and truth, the old Adam and the new, Cain and Abel, Satan and Christ, so that a state of warfare may be said to be the law of this life; and as no real progress can be made but as the result of a hard-won victory, it follows logically that our own age, being subject to the same law, must pass through a terrible conflict. History bears evidence to the same effect, how at critical times the whole powers of evil rose up in terrible conflict against the great undertakings of the church. And I will add that as the work of the Vatican Council was to bring to light in a special manner the naturalism of modern civilization, which deduces its origin from atheism and pantheism, and afterwards to strengthen and exhibit in a clearer light the supreme authority of the Pope, so, on the other hand, modern civilization had to put forth all the strength it derived from naturalism to crush the Papacy.

All this might have been and was foretold. Two periods are to be distinguished in the brief existence of the Vatican Council: they are those which correspond to the two sessions which the Pope presided over in person. The first was directed specially against those monster errors from which naturalism springs; the second, after not a hasty but a long and comprehensive discussion, decreed the universal supremacy of the papal authority, the supremacy of his teaching, that is, the infallibility of the Pope, when he speaks (to use the language of the schools) ex cathedrâ. You might have said, then, that the great task of the council was ended, and time will perhaps show that you would not have judged amiss.

However, the City of Satan was meanwhile no idle spectator, but exerted its powers in many and various ways, yet so that it may be said with truth that two of these corresponded singularly to the two important periods of the council. In the first place, there was witnessed a great and portentous gathering of free-thinkers from all countries of the earth, and to this was assigned the title of Anticouncil, to signify in the most open way possible the war which the naturalism of the day is waging against the church and the Papacy. But this gathering failed to accomplish anything, so that, as was justly said, the infant cries of the new-born Anticouncil were also the last gasp of its mortal agony. In vain, besides, were all the efforts of the irreligious press, its sarcasms and calumnies; in vain the intrigues of anti-christian diplomacy. In vain, too, was that last effort, those appeals of discord flung into the camp of the assembled bishops. Nor do I say all when I affirm that such guilty efforts accomplished nothing against the council. I might have added, and I do so without hesitation, that they shed additional lustre on it. For, if they prove nothing else, they prove at least these two truths: first, that all the efforts of the world and hell shall not prevail against the church; et portæ inferi non prevalebunt adversus eam; secondly, that the freedom and fulness of discussion that took place in the council before defining dogmatically was greater than its adversaries expected or even desired. A new proof, were any such needed, that the church of Christ is neither an opponent nor a weakener of the powers of human reason, but is the harmonizer of the human element with the divine, of science with faith, of liberty with supernatural authority.

This was the first great effort of the adversaries of the council, but there soon followed a second. Peaceful opposition having failed, it was easy to foresee that modern civilization would change its mode of warfare, and instead of moral force would call to its aid physical force and violence. But for this it was necessary that some opportunity be given, and the invasion of Rome by ruffian bands as contemplated was too hazardous an undertaking, so long as the French eagle cast the shadow of its protection over the Vatican. The opportunity wanted was not long in presenting itself. Strange coincidence! At the very time when papal infallibility was added to the dogmas of faith, and almost on the very day, war broke out unexpected between France and Prussia. How Satan must have exulted with ferocious joy at that terrible hour! Such a war seemed to supply his city with the means of renewing its assaults on the City of God.

The Prussian minister Bismarck, the chief representative of modern civilization, had been for a long time in closest alliance with the double atheism of authority and modern liberty, that is to say, with the autocracy of Russia and modern revolution, which both desired the triumph of the German arms. In consequence of this alliance, France came single-handed into the contest, while Prussia drew with her all Germany. The Northern armies won astonishing victories, and their allies shared in the advantages of them. Preponderance in the East was again made practicable to the atheism of authority, and the atheism of liberty took possession of Rome—Rome from whose walls, through a blunder or a crime, the French government had withdrawn its troops. As a consequence, the Pope was stripped of his temporal power, and the council suspended.

This was the result of the war against the Papacy; this was the crowning effort of the City of Satan against the City of God—an effort in relation to which modern civilization showed more clearly than before both its character and the end at which it aimed. All the organs of the press that have sold themselves to the false spirit of the age—and their number is very great—all with unanimity of sentiment and in one chorus extolled the shameful outrage to the skies, and made it the subject of a senseless triumph. And what deserves notice, in as far as it goes to show the truth of our opinions, is that all pronounced this exploit as the greatest victory of modern civilization against Catholic superstition and the theocracy of the middle ages.

Was it a real victory? And will it be lasting? Will it be in our power, reverentially and with due timidity, to withdraw a little the veil that covers the designs of Providence in reference to these facts, and predict the future? The answer to these questions cannot be briefly given, and must therefore form the subject of a future article. Nevertheless, to close this article and prepare the minds of our readers for what is to follow, I think it necessary to draw a conclusion from the matters discussed, and it is this: that our brethren in the faith have no reason in the world to be astonished at the painful events happening in these times. Such things were necessary—so necessary were they that we ourselves, a year ago, ventured to predict this contest, when the political atmosphere was still unclouded, and all around breathed an air of peace. "This new year," said we on the first day of January, 1870, "will be doubtless one of the most memorable of all recorded in history. In it, not two ages, but two great eras meet and trace broadly their distinction one from the other—an era that is closing, and one that is about to begin. And in this same year, a momentous struggle will correspond to the meeting of the two eras—the struggle of two contrary principles which aim at the conquest of the human race. The two eras are, that of Protestantism religious and civil, and that of Christian revival in all the orders and relations of the Catholic Church. The two principles are egotism and charity—egotism, which begot and animates Protestantism, and charity, which is the life of Catholicity." The conflict, fierce, terrible, and waged under different forms, was a necessity; why, then, be astonished that what was to take place has really happened? Is not the spouse of him who espoused her with his sacred blood sent forth to combat? Had this conflict not taken place, we should have been tempted to say that it would be necessary to call in question the great law of human history—progress through suffering.

Away, then, with astonishment, which would be folly! Away with vain fears! The church has combated and overcome all the moral force brought to bear against the Papacy and the council, and shall it tremble before brute force? Is not the first victory a most certain pledge of the second?