Part 34 (1/2)
But this is only the smaller part of his province. In many departments, like the one of ecclesiastical history, there are almost no restrictions to his research, except those imposed by historical facts. Canon law and similar departments dealing with the laws of the Church, coincide in method and liberty of research with the profane science of law. Of all departments of theology, the dogmatical is the one most affected by the authority of faith. Yet even here a great deal is left to unhampered work.
Many a void has to be filled, many a question solved, which the theology of the past has never taken up; even the defined truths still offer a large scope for personal work, in regard to demonstration, or to the philosophic-speculative penetration of the dogmas and their interpretation.
As a fact, the reader of theological literature, both old and new, will, in a mult.i.tude of cases, meet with unrestrained individuality.
Ecclesiastical Supervision of Teaching.
The _Encyclica_ against Modernism (September 8, 1907) gave rise to fears that any free movement would henceforth be impossible for Catholic theology. These fears referred chiefly to the disciplinary measures, prescribed by the Encyclical for the purpose of supervising theological teaching in each diocese. Then came the papal Motu Proprio, of September 1, 1910, which, among other things, required the teacher of theology to confirm by oath his confession of the Creed and his intention to repudiate modernistic errors. Since then many a complaint has been heard about espionage and coercion. Similar complaint, about an imminent debas.e.m.e.nt of the Church, has been raised whenever important measures in the discipline of the Catholic Church were published, and they emanated primarily from the camp of the enemy.
It is not to be denied, however, that such an energetic call for watchfulness and action, issued from the highest ecclesiastical watchtower, like the one referred to, may lead in some cases to anxiety and false suspicions. This is no doubt regrettable; but it is an incident common to human legislation and will surprise no one who has any experience of life. A glance at these decrees will show that they are nothing more than an urgent injunction, and the exercise of that supervision of religious life and teaching which pertains to the authority of the Catholic Church, and which has been practised by her at all times.
The language is urgent, it has a severity which is softened in the execution. Its explanation lies in the eminent danger of the modernistic movement to the continuance of Catholic life. Modernism, as described and condemned by the Encyclica, is nothing less than the absolute destruction of the Catholic faith, and of Christianity.
The Protestant theologian, Prof. _Troltsch_, wrote after the publication of the Encyclica: ”As viewed from the position of curialism and of the strict Catholic dogma, there existed a real danger. Catholicism had gotten into a state of inner fermentation, corresponding to the same condition caused by modern theology within the Protestant churches.”
The danger of Modernism is often enhanced by a deceptive semblance of the right faith, and by the pretence to urge only the righteous interests of modern progress against obsolete forms of thought and life, now and then also by its secret propaganda. Hence this intervention by a firm hand, and this only after having waited a long time. They were measures of prevention, like those taken to stave off a serious danger; the tidal wave receding, their urgency disappears automatically.
The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10, 1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in solving the problems of civilization. ”May they all recognize,”
they said, ”how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to set bars only to one kind of freedom-the freedom to err.” If the rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The truth above all. ”The Church has at no time opposed the true progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the morbid aversion against the truth that comes from G.o.d. But we Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of n.o.ble, intellectual work and genuine mental education.”
The fears of too great a pressure by the ecclesiastical authorities have been given trenchant expression in most recent times by a man who, while standing outside of the Catholic Church, has always shown himself well disposed towards it, namely, the noted pedagogue, _Fr. W. Forster_ of Zurich. _Forster_ has won merit and distinction by his manly and spirited defence of the Christian view in pedagogical science and mental culture. In the book referred to he again describes urgently the worthlessness and fatality of modern individualism, that knows a good deal about freedom but nothing of self-discipline, nor of authority or tradition, and which represents most superficial amateurism in the domain of religion and morals. Then he turns to criticize Church practice; and his criticism becomes a sharp accusation. His main charge is ”fatal restraint of the spirit of universality.” ”Some groups in the Church,” he a.s.serts, ”of mediocre learning, have established a clique rule, under which the others, the more creative and intensive souls, become the victims of intolerance, espionage, and false suspicion”; ”universality, which unites the different mental tendencies, has given way to separation”; ”everywhere a one-sided denunciatory information of the leading circles by accidentally ruling groups and factions; anxious intolerance for everything unusual, disciplinary austerity and unintelligent pedantry, individualistic and unchristian spirit of distrust and mutual espionage”; ”levelling of the mental life”; ”one is tired,” we are told, ”of the spirit of incessant disciplining”; ”of the invariable cold and disdainful forbidding and repression.” In the Middle Ages and earlier times it was different; then ”universality was the ruling spirit, the working of the many into a unit full of life; this policy was changed for no other reason than because of the struggle of the Church against Protestantism.” ”The greatest harm that Catholicism suffered by the great rupture of the sixteenth century is most likely seen in the tendency of the Church to view thenceforth religious freedom within Catholic Christianity with an anxious, even hostile eye.”
Readers of the literature of the day will recognize here views often met with during the last years, and the same excited note, which is quite in contrast to the even temper that ordinarily characterizes _Forster's_ books. But what the reader will not find stated are the proofs for these enormous accusations.
Undeniably, things have happened in the wide range of ecclesiastical authority that cannot be approved. But where are the facts that would justify charges of such sweeping nature? A Protestant author can hardly be presumed to possess such a direct and positive insight into the ecclesiastical practice of the higher and the highest order, to give convincing strength to his bare a.s.sertion. Or is the number of dissatisfied voices that make these charges sufficient proof in itself? If the ecclesiastical authority be allowed, now and then, to emerge from its pa.s.siveness to take measures against dangerous doctrinal tendencies, is it not to be expected, as a matter of course, that some minds become disgruntled and complain about oppression and clique rule? Or must that right be denied the Church altogether? _Forster_ says himself: ”The spirit of dignity and responsibility has never ruled all parts of the hierarchy in the same measure as now, and rarely if ever were there found in its leading circles so many men leading an almost holy life as at present.” And yet we are asked to believe that it was reserved exactly for this worthy hierarchy, and for these saintly men, to forget the traditions of the Church in the most irresponsible manner. One will have to say: ”If _Forster_ would examine without bias the situation and apply consistently in respect to authority the principles that he himself defends, he would be convinced that the Church could not have acted any differently than it did in regard to the regrettable events of the last years, and that it has ever been the aim of the Church, before the sixteenth century as after, to guard carefully the purity of traditions of faith against any attack” (Prof. _G. Reinhold_ in a review of _Forster's_ book).
The Church has never known a universality that did not oppose doctrinal errors. The Middle Ages did not know it; one need only read the many condemnations from Nicholas I. to Innocent VIII.; nor was such a universality known to the great Councils of ancient Christianity up to the Nicaean, which hurled its anathema against numerous teachings that opposed no dogmas defined at that time; nor did the Holy Fathers know such a universality, nor the Apostles, with their strict admonitions of unity of faith. The reply is made, the ”Church must not yield the least of its fundamental truths,” that ”its centralizing power ought to remain within the region of the most essential”; whereas she actually exercises it in the domain of the incidental. The ecclesiastical supervision of teaching has never limited itself to the most essential, nor would this practice ever accomplish the object to preserve pure the doctrine of faith. Furthermore, what is the ”most essential” what is the ”incidental”? _Forster's_ book does not inform us about this most important question. The views against which the Church has made front in the last years, do they relate only to the incidental? Does this apply to the doctrines of a _Rosmini_ and _Lamennais_, who are referred to in pa.s.sing? No well-informed theologian will a.s.sert this.
We shall hardly be wrong in a.s.suming that the charge of overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in several other pa.s.sages of the book-on the view, namely, that in religion the intellectual moment should recede before the mystical, before antic.i.p.ation and inner experience. Hence the severe censure of ”the narrow autocracy of the intellectual interpretation” against the ”preponderance of the intellectual contemplation” in the Church, which is said to have become so prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons.
_Forster_, too, touches upon this important distinction when quoting _Saitschick_: ”The inner perception overtowers feeling and logical reason-here, too, lies the source of a light s.h.i.+ning brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of reason”; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater extent the ”inner perception.” What is felt here vaguely has long since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.
Certainly a view that fails to lay, first of all, absolute stress on the protection of the _doctrine_ of faith cannot understand the Catholic point of view; it will a.s.sume only too easily that the supervision relates to incidentals. It will also engender a criticism against which the Church may rightly protest, because it starts from presumptions that do not apply to the Church.
No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to the Protestant denominations which he may cite before the court of his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words: ”I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.”
There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries, deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.
The Oath Against Modernism.
The _Motu Proprio_ of September 1, 1910, decreed that teachers of theology, and also Catholic priests generally, had to bind themselves by oath to reject modernistic heresies, and to accept obediently the ecclesiastical precepts. Dispensed from this pledge were only the professors of theology at state inst.i.tutions, to spare them difficulties with state authorities.
This anti-modernist oath at once became the signal for a storm of indignation, than which there has been hardly a greater one since the days of the Vatican Council. A cry was raised for freedom of science, for the exclusion of theological faculties, even for another ”Kulturkampf.” The General Convention of German college professors, held at Leipzig January 7, 1911, issued a declaration to the effect that ”All those who have taken the anti-modernist oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of an independent recognition of truth and of the exercise of their scientific conviction, hence they have forfeited all claim to be considered independent scientists.” Interpellations were made in legislative bodies, it was demanded that the option of taking the oath should be taken away from university professors, because ”the dignity of the universities would be lowered if their members had the opportunity to bind themselves by such an oath.”