METHODIST REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER, 1894.

ART. I.—DOGMA AND OPINION WITHIN ROMAN

BOUNDS.

THE author once remarked to a learned and orthodox Roman Catholic clergyman of our country that the boundaries between dogma and free opinion in his Church seemed extremely uncertain, and one might suppose that even great Catholic divines. would be sometimes puzzled to fix them. He laughed, and replied: "You might have omitted the 'sometimes."" This state of things may receive some illustration from the present condition of American Presbyterianism in its principal branch. Here the great majority insist that various points are obligatory on belief, at least within their bounds, which the minority insist are not involved by any necessity of interpretation within the terms of the Confession of Faith and, therefore, ought to be left to free discussion.

The Roman Catholic Church, however, being so much older, so much vaster, and spread over so many more various regions than is a particular Protestant Church of a particular country, may be expected to be at once much broader and much more bigoted in its theology than any local denomination—much broader, as having been taught, by the experience of so many ages and of so many lands, how much that at this or that time may have appeared essential to the substance of the Christian message has turned out to be really only a part of its varying form much more bigoted, because, whenever a particular theological tendency may have gained reigning force within the Church, it can break its way with so tremendous a strength 45-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. X.

of numbers over the resistance of minorities. Two Protestant students of the Roman Catholic system, therefore, or the same student at different times, may enlarge with equal justice, now on the remarkable and benignant liberality of her theology, now on its relentless narrowness and severity. Whenever Rome has a strong and permanent interest in pressing certain interpretations of doctrines, then she may be expected to be as severe as the dread of an incurable schism will allow, if she even suffers such a dread to stay her hand. On the contrary, she may be expected to be carelessly magnanimous as to all that vast range of theological speculation, much of it of great intrinsic moment, which hangs but loosely on the central trunk. In such a case it is almost quot homines, tot sententia. The various schools or various theologians may belabor each other lustily, and may hurl mutual accusations of heterodoxy with small respect to consequences, precisely after our Protestant fashion; but Rome sits calmly by, perhaps even laughing in her sleeve at the humors of the fray, and only interposing now and then to remind the contestants not to be too free with imputations of heresy where the Church has not spoken. These exhortations are sometimes heeded, and perhaps much more frequently evaded. A theological teacher, for instance, belonging, say, to one of the two great Thomist schools (of whose distinctive tenets we may remark that we are blissfully ignorant) will sometimes observe to his pupils: "The pope has forbidden us to call the other side heretics; but if the facts call them heretics, I am not responsible for the facts." The long contest between the Dominicans and Franciscans over the Immaculate Conception affords a notable instance of these recriminations. For centu

ries, all papal prohibitions to the contrary notwithstanding, great numbers of the Franciscans, in their zeal for the honor of Mary, appear to have treated the whole Dominican order, that bulwark of orthodoxy and of the Inquisition, as itself little better than a school and synagogue of heretics. They persevered in this temper until, at last, with the help of the rising order of the Jesuits, they conquered the courage of the Dominicans to contend for the original corruption of the whole race except the Redeemer. In our own time they have harshly coerced the Ordo Prædicatorum and celebrated, in this particular, their final triumph over the doctrine and disciples of St. Thomas.

Rome, we may remark, plays in these disputes very much the part of the crown in England-in theory the ultimate authority, yet in fact rather embodying the reigning tendency than itself originating it. Yet the supremacy of Rome is so far a fact as this-that, on the whole, the Italian temper has principally determined the complexion of Roman Catholicism, and that, almost in proportion as the rights of nationality have developed themselves in a Catholic country in the civil and intellectual spheres, they have been more and more circumscribed by Italian jealousy within the religious sphere. Of this process of gradual subjugation, as we know, the Jesuits have been the main agents. Inheriting Spanish bigotry and Italian formalism, yet having a far keener instinct of the new era than the elder orders, as being themselves the children of it, they have finally brought it to pass that a papal decision of doctrine seems very commonly to be little more than an official ratification of what it pleases the all-powerful Society to decree.

In speaking of Roman Catholicism, we have to do as astronomers do about the fixed stars, whose light is so long in reaching us that when we use the present tense we really mean the past. Time was, and lasted for some six or seven generations after the Reformation, when Roman Catholic internal controversies were almost as open and virulent as Catholic controversies with Protestantism. At last, however, the decline of specific theological interest, and the guardianship assumed by the Jesuits over what remained, brought the old temper of virile courage and frankness to an end. The dying agony may be described as having lasted from 1801 till 1870. In the old times of Molinism and Jansenism, a Protestant found it about as easy as a Catholic to keep au fait of the dispute; but now that theological variance, though perhaps as deep as ever, has been so largely reduced to undertones, we may have to watch long for the outward complexion of the Church to change sufficiently to give us note of what has been going on within.

Will the present doctrinal predominance of Jesuitism in the Roman Catholic Church be permanent? That is something which no one, above all, no Protestant, can decide. The current of Jesuit influence is strong; but we do not know what deeper currents may be flowing beneath, soon to come to the surface, reversing it or absorbing it. The most encouraging

symptom is the unquestionable and perhaps permanent discomfiture of Jesuitism in the conduct of the apostolic delegation in our country; in the marked papal favor shown to the Archbishop of St. Paul; in the energy with which the inauguration of the Washington University, so distasteful to the Jesuits, has been accomplished; and in the vehemence and, we may say, virulence with which we sometimes see the Jesuits attacked in some of those Catholic papers which have been most graciously complimented by authority-as, for instance, in the Western Watchman. These symptoms of revolt, it is true, are local; but, should they find a succession of popes to encourage them, they might soon overthrow the Jesuit control in Catholicism at large. American contagion is beginning to spread even to the center of the Church; though it is true that the bondage of thought seems rather to deepen than remit.

Assuming, therefore, that it is possible and, perhaps, probable that the Roman Catholicism of the future, without losing its continuity of doctrine or administration, may be keyed on a very different note from that of the present, it is interesting to inquire how large a range of doctrine is left as yet undecided. Examination, I think, will surprise us. The flippant confidence with which so many popular lecturers undertake to determine what is essential to Roman Catholic doctrine is discreditable to them and misleading to the public. It is reflected, indeed, from the similar and less excusable behavior of many Roman Catholic divines, who, as the learned Recollet Franciscan Chrismann scornfully remarks, have a perfect mania for fettering the consciences of the faithful by making out all sorts of opinions to be essential to the faith which, whether true or false, are established neither by Scripture, nor early tradition, nor universal consent of the fathers, and therefore lack every criterion to be applied to articles of faith. This book of Chrismann, printed at Würzburg in 1854 and entitled, Regula Fidei et Collectio Dogmatum Credendorum, is at the foundation of this paper, although he is not to be understood as responsible for all that we may say.

The ultimate theorem, assumed by all Roman Catholics without dispute, evaded by the Vatican Council, but not contradicted even by that, is this: Nothing can be established as a part of the Catholic faith which is not included in the apostolic

message as a fact or truth divinely revealed. Many positions are universally accepted among Roman Catholics-and many of these as of great theological importance, so that the whole present system of the Church would be sadly shaken if they were discredited-which, nevertheless, are confessed to be incapable of definition as articles of faith. For instance, says Chrismann, all Catholics believe that St. Peter was for a number of years bishop of Rome, and left the primacy of the Church to his successors in the bishopric. Yet neither fact is any part of the apostolic message, whether written or oral. It is known only by human historical report, and therefore can never be an article of faith. That Peter had the primacy, and that this is permanent in the Church, are positions deduced, in some way or other, from the Scriptures, and are at present enforced as of faith; but that the Roman bishop must always be the primate is not of faith.

It is not denied by many Roman Catholics, if by any, that revelations may have been repeatedly made by God to holy men and women, living long after the apostles, concerning spiritual truths of high importance-as, for instance, the nature or degree of celestial or infernal awards, or of purgatorial pains, or concerning certain courses of conduct, or perhaps certain devout observances, as being peculiarly helpful to salvation, or concerning various points of ecclesiastical policy, or the future fortunes of the Church. Some of these supposed visions or revelations may have been officially sanctioned by Rome or assumed as true in the acts of great councils, and may have regulated belief and practice during many ages. We speak hypothetically, yet not without considerable support of fact. Think how powerful the Virgin of Lourdes now is in the Church! Yet it is allowed that these revelations can never be defined as of faith, nor those who reject them excommunicated as heretics. The pressure of public opinion might make the lives of such skeptics a burden to them, but could not well drive them out of the Church. We cannot answer for what extravagant superstition may yet accomplish; but so far it has not accomplished this. Should such beliefs decline, or finally be given up universally, Catholic opinion and practice in various regions would be greatly modified; yet the essence of the faith would not have been touched, nor the doctrinal infallibility of