and freedom in civil institutions; that professes
its intention of repressing the one and destroying
the other whenever it can find the opportunity; that
denounces as most pernicious and insane the opinion
that liberty of conscience and of worship is the right
of every man; that protests against that right being
proclaimed and asserted by law in every well-governed
state; that contemptuously repudiates the principle
that the will of the people, manifested by public opinion
(as it is called) or by other means, shall constitute
law; that refuses to every man any title to opinion
in matters of religion, but holds that it is simply
his duty to believe what he is told by the Church,
and to obey her commands; that will not permit any
temporal government to define the rights and prescribe
limits to the authority of the Church; that declares
it not only may but will resort to force to discipline
disobedient individuals; that invades the sanctify
of private life, by making, at the confessional, the
wife and daughters and servants of one suspected,
spies and informers against him; that tries him without
an accuser, and by torture makes him bear witness against
himself; that denies the right of parents to educate
their children outside of its own Church, and insists
that to it alone belongs the supervision of domestic
life and the control of marriages and divorces; that
denounces “the impudence” of those who
presume to subordinate the authority of the Church
to the civil authority, or who advocate the separation
of the Church from the state; that absolutely repudiates
all toleration, and affirms that the Catholic religion
is entitled to be held as the only religion in every
country, to the exclusion of all other modes of worship;
that requires all laws standing in the way of its
interests to be repealed, and, if that be refused,
orders all its followers to disobey them?
Issue of the conflict. This
power, conscious that it can work no miracle to serve
itself, does not hesitate to disturb society by its
intrigues against governments, and seeks to accomplish
its ends by alliances with despotism.
Claims such as these mean a revolt against modern
civilization, an intention of destroying it, no matter
at what social cost. To submit to them without
resistance, men must be slaves indeed!
As to the issue of the coming conflict, can any one
doubt? Whatever is resting on fiction and fraud
will be overthrown. Institutions that organize
impostures and spread delusions must show what right
they have to exist. Faith must render an account
of herself to Reason. Mysteries must give place
to facts. Religion must relinquish that imperious,
that domineering position which she has so long maintained
against Science. There must be absolute freedom
for thought. The ecclesiastic must learn to keep
himself within the domain he has chosen, and cease
to tyrannize over the philosopher, who, conscious
of his own strength and the purity of his motives,
will bear such interference no longer. What was
written by Esdras near the willow-fringed rivers of
Babylon, more than twenty-three centuries ago, still
holds good: “As for Truth it endureth and
is always strong; it liveth and conquereth for evermore.”