Louis Veuillot: The Liberal Illusion [1866]

[Stone]

The Liberal Illusion

Chapter II

Our liberal Catholic grew enthusiastic in unfolding these marvels. He contended that no exception could be taken to his stand; that reason, faith and the spirit of the times alike spoke in his behalf. As regards the spirit of the times, nobody contested his assertion. When it came to reason and faith, however, he was not let off without objections, but he shrugged his shoulders and was never at a loss for an answer. It is true that outrageous statements and outrageous contradictions cost him no qualms whatever. He always started off on the same foot, protesting that he was a Catholic, a child of the Church, an obedient child; but at the same time a man of the world, a member of the human race arrived now at maturity and of an age to govern itself. To the arguments taken from history he replied that mankind, in its present state of maturity, constituted an altogether new world, in the face of which the history of the past proved absolutely nothing. To the words of the Fathers of the Church he sometimes opposed other words of theirs, at other times he said that the Fathers spoke for their own times and that we must think and act for our times.

Confronted with texts from Scripture, he would either tear out of their context seemingly contrary texts, or devise an interpretation calculated to support his own opinion, or, finally, he would say that the texts in question applied only to the Jews and their little theocracy. Nor was he embarrassed to any greater degree by the dogmatic bulls of the “Roman Curia”: the Bull Unam Sanctam1 of Boniface VIII caused him to smile; it had been withdrawn, he claimed, or else revised. We pointed out that the Popes had inserted it into the Corpus Juris Canonici and that it has always remained there. He answered: “It is out of date and the world has changed since then!” The Bull In Coena Domini and all subsequent bulls he found equally out of date2 — they were mere disciplinary formulas, he said, made for their times, but having no reason for existence to-day. The French Revolution had buried these antiquated regulations along with the old world which they formerly oppressed. Repression had been abolished; the man of today was capable of liberty and wanted no other law!

“This new order,” he went on to say, “which so disconcerts your timidity, is for all that the very one that will save the Church and the only one that can save her. Besides, the human race is up in arms to impose this order, there is nothing for it but to submit, and this has already been done. Imagine anyone daring to resist this triumphant force! Who would even dream of doing so? Intolerant Catholics, you are more absolute than God the Father who created man for liberty; more Christian than God the Son who does not wish His law to be established otherwise than by way of liberty. On this question, you are now more Catholic than the Pope 18 ; for the Pope, by approving of modern constitutions — all of which are inspired and permeated by the spirit of liberty — has given them his blessing. I say that the Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, has approved of these constitutions, because he has done just that in permitting you to take the oath of allegiance to them, to obey them and to defend them. Now, liberty for all religions and the atheism of the State are part and parcel of said constitutions. You have to overlook that point, and you do overlook it — of that there can be no doubt.

“For the rest, why do you persist in your opposition? Your resistance is vain; your regrets are not only senseless, they are positively criminal. They cause the Church to be hated and they are the source of much embarrassment to us liberal Catholics, your saviors, in that they cause our sincerity to be suspected. Instead of drawing down on yourselves certain and probably terrible retribution, run to the arms of Liberty, welcome her, embrace her, love her. She will bestow upon you more than you can ever repay. The Faith stagnates under the yoke of a protecting authority: obliged to defend itself, it will reawaken; the heat of controversy will rekindle its spark of life. What may we not expect the Church to undertake, once she is free to take up anything? How can she fail to appeal to the hearts of the people when they see her forsaken by the mighty ones of the world — deserted by the powers that be and forced to live exclusively by her own resources, her own genius, her own virtues? Amid the confusion of doctrines and the corruption of morals, she will stand out solitary — unique in her purity and unique in her affirmation of good. She will be the last refuge, the impregnable rampart of morality, of the family, of religion, of liberty!”

1. “Urged by Faith, we are obliged to believe and to hold that the Church is one, holy, Catholic, and also Apostolic. We firmly believe in her, and we confess absolutely that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins . . . Furthermore, we declare, say, define and pronounce, that it is wholly necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

2. Pius IX.