Kitabı oku: «The Freedom of Science», sayfa 35
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 institutions, 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.”
Even threats were made by statesmen, hinting at reprisals by the state, because its interests were being jeopardized, while, on the other hand, there were those who declared: “If the Catholic Church thinks it necessary for her ecclesiastical and religious interests to put her servants under oath, it is her own business; neither the state nor the Evangelical Church have a right to interfere” (Prime Minister Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Prussian Diet, on March 7, 1911).
The agitation of the minds will soon subside, as on former occasions of this kind; and, with calm restored, people will find, as J. G. Fichte told the impulsive F. Nicolai, one hundred and thirty years ago, that the fact has only just been discovered that the Catholics are Catholic.
Yes, indeed, the Catholics are Catholic, and desire to remain Catholic – this and nothing else is the gist of the anti-modernist oath. It does not oblige to anything else but what was believed and adhered to before. It obliges to accept the doctrines of faith; but they are the old truths of the Catholic Church, propounded and believed at all times, and the necessary inferences from them. Even the proposition that truths of faith can never be contradicted by the results of historical research, or by human science in general, is as old as faith itself. In addition, the oath avows obedient submission to Church precepts; but this has been demanded for centuries by the professio fidei Tridentina, a pledge by oath to which every professor of theology has been before obliged: Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem Ecclesiae observationes et constitutiones firmissime admitto et amplector. This was the opinion of all competent judges on this theological question. “We are convinced,” declared correctly a prominent theological institution, “that there is not assumed by this oath any obligation new in subject, and no obligation not already existing. The oath is but the affirmation of a duty already imposed by conscience” (the professors of Theology of Paderborn, December 12, 1910). The Breslau faculty said, in the same sense: “The faculty does not see in the so-called anti-modernist oath any new obligation, nor one exceeding the rule of faith ever adhered to by the faculty.” And this declaration was fully approved of by Rome.
Cardinal Kopp, at the session of the German Upper House on April 7, 1911, commented on these statements as follows: “Against the opinions of these circles (having a different opinion of the oath) I set the testimony and the statement of the most competent people, to wit, the professors of university faculties and also those at episcopal seminaries. Those who have taken the oath, as well as those who have refrained from it by the privilege granted them by the Holy See, they both declare positively that the oath does not contain any new obligations, nor does it impose new duties on them; hence that, on the contrary, they are not impeded in the pursuit of their tasks as teachers and of their scientific work of research. Now, gentlemen, I do not think it would be proper to insinuate that these earnest men, appointed by the Government, or at least in office by its consent, would make this declaration against their conviction and not in full sincerity.”
No wonder, therefore, that of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests hardly a handful have refused the oath.
Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge this oath, and the Jansenist Racine complained that this demand was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian Tournelyand others cited a number of examples of this kind from the history of the Church.
Therefore the anti-modernist oath has not created anything new. Consequently it has not changed anything in regard to the freedom of theological research. It is the same as before; nor has the oath changed anything in the quality of theological professors, they merely promise to be what they must be anyway; nor can, for instance, the oath induce the Catholic priest, in teaching profane history, to present the history of the Reformation in a different light than before, and thus render him unfit to teach history; the oath has created no new, confessional differences, hence has given no justified cause for excitement – provided one has the needed theological comprehension of the oath. If one has not this insight, and will not trust to information from a competent source, then it will be the act of prudence to leave the test to the future; and we can await this test serenely.
We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers, to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth. These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same haziness and inconsistency. “Because they have thereby expressed the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth,” namely, by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who clings to his Christian belief bound by this very fact to certain doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this “independent recognition of truth,” as we have already seen. But cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom, nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of allegiance, – all of these will have to be protected against the insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression. In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy. This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they are guided by half-thinking.
Bonds of Love, not of Servitude
People to whose mind Catholic thinking is foreign will never be able to appreciate the energetic activity of the Church authority.
On close examination, however, they will not deny that, if the Christian treasure of faith is to be preserved undiminished, if in the hopeless confusion and the unsteady vacillation of opinions in our days there is to be left anywhere a safe place for truth and unity of faith, this cannot be accomplished otherwise than in the shape of a strong authority that has the assurance of the aid of God.
The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority: its theology demands complete freedom of research and teaching, making the most extensive use of both. The result is the demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession, the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state; neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore acknowledgment of the Catholic principle – for the Catholic an incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.
Many to whom the Catholic way of thinking is foreign, look upon the duty of obedience which ties the Catholic to his Church as a sort of servitude; to the Catholic it is the tie of love, uniting free people to a sacred authority. Many look upon the Church of Rome as a tyrannical curia, where Umbrian prelates are cracking their whips over millions of servile and ignorant souls; to the Catholic the Church is the divinely appointed institution of truth, that possesses his fullest confidence. He knows that history has given the most magnificent justification to the Catholic principle of authority. Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental structure remained standing upon the rock of God-founded authority in the vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. And its ancient Credo, prayed by all nations, is the same Credo once prayed by the martyrs.
Chapter II. Theology And University
“He is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings”; thus spoke in bygone ages the children of this world. “Let us therefore lie in wait for the just… He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God and calleth himself the Son of God” (Wisdom ii, 12 seq.). Centuries later the children of the world treated in the same manner God's Son and His doctrine. And in these days, when the science of the faith is to be driven from the rooms of the school, let us recall that in olden times the children of the world planned similarly.
In the days when the private and public life of Europe's nations was permeated with the Christian faith, and their ideas were still centred in God and eternity, then the science of the faith was held to be the highest among the sciences, not only by rank but in fact.
And when, in the budding desire for knowledge, they erected universities, the first and largest of them, Paris University, was to be the pre-eminent home of theology, and wherever theology joined with the other sciences it received first honours. Thus it was in the days of yore, and for a long time. The secular tendency of modern thought led to the gradual emancipation of science from religion; unavoidably, its aversion for a supernatural view of the world soon turned against, and demanded the removal of, the science representing that view. Reasons for the demand were soon found. Thus the removal of theology from the university has become part and parcel of the system of ideas of the unbelieving modern man; the liberal press exploits the idea whenever occasion offers. Resolutions to this effect are introduced in parliaments and diets, meetings of young students are echoing the ideas heard elsewhere. No wonder that the Portuguese revolution of 1910 had nothing more urgent to do than to close the theological faculty at Portugal's only university.
What are the reasons advanced? Many are advanced; the main reason is usually disguised; we shall treat of it when concluding. In the first place we are again met by the old tune of free science, which has been in our ears so long; the rooms of the colleges, it is said, are destined for a research which seeks truth with an undimmed eye, and not for blindfolded science confined to a prescribed path.
No need to waste words on this. Just one more reference may be permitted us, namely, to the study of law. There is hardly another science with less latitude than the science of law. Its task is not to doubt the justification of state laws, but to look upon constitutions and statutes as established, to explain them, and by doing so to train efficient officials and administrators of the law. When explaining the civil code the teacher of law has small opportunity for pursuing “free search after truth”; neither will his pupil be tested at examinations in the maxims of a free research that accepts no tradition; he will have to prove his knowledge of the matter that had been given to him. Yet no one has ever objected to the teaching of jurisprudence at the university. Therefore the objection cannot be valid that theology is restricted to the established doctrines of its religion and has to transmit them without change to its future servants. It should be borne in mind that our universities are not intended for research only, but also, and chiefly, for training candidates for the professions.
This disposes at the same time of the objection that theology has to serve ecclesiastical purposes outside of and foreign to science. Religious science, like any other science, serves the desire that strives for truth. True, it serves also for the practical training of the clergyman for his vocation. But shall we eliminate from science the interests of practical life? Then medicine and legal science would also have to be excluded, and for these there would be planted only sterile theories, and the universities transformed into a place of abstract intellectualism.
Again it is argued that religion and faith are not really cognition and knowledge, but only the products of sentiment, and hence theology has no claim to a place among the sciences; that religion can only be a subject for psychology which lays bare its roots in the human heart, and a subject for the history of religion, to trace its historical forms and to study its laws of evolution – sciences which belong to the philosophical faculty.
Thus we come back to the principles of an erroneous theory of knowledge. No need to demonstrate again that the Christian belief is built upon the clear perception of reason, and that it is not a sentimental but a rational function.
But has not the Church her theological seminaries? Let theology seek refuge there! We answer the Church herself desires this; she does not like theological faculties, they are in her eyes a danger to the faith.
Now, if the Church would be deprived of her authoritative influence upon the appointment of professors at theological faculties and upon the subject of their teachings, consequently, if there would be jeopardized the purity of belief of the candidates for priesthood, and through them of the people, then, we admit, the Church would rather forego theological faculties at state-universities. This could not be done without considerable injury to the public prestige of the Church, to her contact with worldly sciences and their representatives and disciples, even to the scientific study of theology. In the latter particularly by the loss of the greater resources of the state, and by the absence of inducement to scientific aim, which is more urgent for theologians than for others at college. Neither would the state escape injury, because of the open slight and harm to religion, and of lessening its contact with the most influential body in Christian countries. But if the Church is assured of her proper influence on the faculties, she has no reason for an unfriendly attitude toward them. The object the Church seeks to achieve in her seminaries is the clerical education of her candidates, their ascetic training, the introduction into a life of recollection and prayer, into an order of life befitting priests; this cannot be sufficiently done in the free life at the university.
This is not a bar to scientific instruction by the theological faculty. Seminary and faculty supplement one another. We see very frequently, at Rome and outside of Rome, the theological school separated from the seminary with the approval of the Church. But all these objections do not give the real reason, the roots lie deeper.
When the Divine Founder of our Religion stood before the tribunal of Judea He said: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, servants would strive for me.” This was the whole explanation of why He stood there accused. The guardian of the doctrine of her Master may use these words to explain the fact that, in the eyes of many, she stands to-day accused and defamed. The mind of modern man has forsaken the world of the Divine and Eternal; no longer is he a servant of this kingdom. His ideals are not God and Heaven, but he himself and this world; not the service of God, but human rights and human dignity. This view of the world, which cannot grasp the wisdom of Jesus Christ, and which takes offence at the Cross, also takes offence at a science that confesses as the loftiest ideal Jesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum.
The real kernel of the question is: Does the Christian religion in its entirety still serve the purpose of to-day – or does it not? is it to remain with us, the religion wherein our fathers found the gratification of their highest mental aims, the religion that gave Europe its civilization and culture, that created its superior mental life, and still rules it to this hour? Or shall religion be expelled by a return to a heathendom which Christianity had overthrown? “We do not want Him to rule over us” – there is the real reason for the modern antipathy to Catholic theology. Else, whence the excited demand for its removal? Because it is superfluous? Even if this were the fact, there is many a category of officials, the little need of which can be demonstrated without difficulty, yet no one grows excited about it; many expenditures by the state are rather superfluous, yet there is no indignation. No, the matter at issue is not so much the scientific character of theology, nor misgivings about its progress or its freedom; the real question is this:
