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reject a repellent taste or smell. But the doctrines of Calvinism were not
vague ideas slowly distilled from such a society in long process of years.
They were formulated before the concrete Puritan came into existence and
they were the cause of him. They were laid down in black and white--the
denial of Free-will, the consequent valuelessness of works, the foundation
of Church government in popular election, the denial of sacerdotal powers,
the contempt for holy poverty and the laudable pursuit of wealth, etc.
With each section of the Main Opposition today it is the other way about.
You may by prolonged analysis extract from its moods its ultimate
principles, but the moods do not start from those principles. Their victims
are not conscious of any such principles. When presented with them, they
will often, and honestly, deny them to be held.
The Main Opposition to Catholicism in our time, then, is not of like kind
with ourselves. We need it as an obstacle rather than as enemy fire. It is
not an armed body, recognizable by its uniform and having for its direct
object our destruction. It is rather a difficulty of terrain. It is a
number of mental states, affections, policies, ignorances under which
Catholicism is indirectly menaced, or stifled, or deflected or weakened in
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SURVIVALS AND NEW ARRIVALS 51
its action on human society.
Even Anti-Clericalism is not a doctrinal attack. It is a political thing
and does not of itself challenge any dogma. It professes--and in such of
its adherents as are sincere, sincerely professes--to do no more than
delimit the line beyond which the Catholic hierarchy exceeds its functions
and invades a civil field where it has no right to act.
So with Nationalism. The ardent patriot does not challenge any doctrine of
the Church, nor, qua patriot, feel opposed to Her. On the contrary, when
the Faith is the national religion--particularly of an opposed nationality-
-it is most ardently supported and even treated sometimes as a test of
civic devotion. While as for the poor "Modern Mind," though anti-Catholic
in essence, it has not the intellectual power to frame the simplest creed.
It does but meander on, often quite ignorant of the Church's whereabouts,
and when it blunders into us its first feelings are a mixture of grievance
at our having bumped it and of apology for having got in the way.
Individuals attached to one or more of these three moods, Nationalism,
Anti-Clericalism and the Modern Mind, are often led into direct and
personal hatred of the Catholic Church because that organization has
clashed with the object of their devotion. Such often end with a special
preoccupation of hatred which takes the place of their older allegiance,
and they become more concerned with the destruction of Catholicism than
with the preservation of their country or the defense of lay rights or
their delight in that repose of not-thinking, which is the Modern Mind's
especial lure and value for weary man. But the three moods themselves are
not specifically and consciously anti-Catholic; they are not so by
definition nor to their own knowledge. They appear so only indirectly and
usually by reaction against Catholic effort or advance.
Lastly let it be noted that our Main Opposition today powerfully affects
Catholics themselves. Coloring all our time, it cannot but tinge the
Catholic body therein present.
It has always been so. If in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when
that doctrine of devotion to one's Prince (now forgotten) was of the Main
Opposition, you challenged a Catholic and said, "Yes or No--Do you
repudiate your sovereign's authority because it is in such and such a point
opposed to the Church?" that man, though holy and even zealous, would shift
uneasily. He was often at a loss to reply. He would do all in his power to
reconcile the two opposing powers of Crown and Church. Prelates as
admirable as Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, soldiers as admirable as
Bayard, the noblest Catholic knight of his time,[5] came down on the wrong
side of the hedge. So also Jansenism, though working within the Church, was
a wave from the mighty tide set flowing by the dark genius of Calvin.
This affecting of Catholics today by the spirits of Nationalism, yes, and
of Anti-Clericalism itself, even (to their shame!) by something so much
beneath their level as the "Modern Mind," I shall deal with under each of
these heads. It is a principal cause of weakness in our position throughout
the world.
(i) Nationalism
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