“IT is worthy of remark that in the war which Protestants** and infidels have hitherto waged against the Church neither has nor pretends to have any truth or principle to oppose to her. They do not fight for the truth, nor for any affirmative or Catholic principle that she denies or neglects; but for what they call the rights of the mind, which, translated into plain English, means the emancipation of the human mind from the authority of truth, and therefore from God who is truth, or, in simpler terms still, the liberty to treat truth and falsehood as of equal value, as equally indifferent, or to deny all real distinction between them, and therefore between right and wrong. Neither reason nor revelation can tolerate this sort of liberty – intellectual and moral license rather; and the very existence and presence of the Church condemns it. Hence the irreconcilable antagonism between the Church and the sects. Yet is there a notable difference between the temper and motives of the two parties. The Church is always calm and collected, for she knows that she has the truth; she indulges in no passion, resorts to no violence, to no cruelty or harshness against her enemies, for she knows that they are only harming themselves, not her; and hence she is moved in her resistance to their blind rage only by that divine charity which seeks to save souls, not to destroy them. She is moved by love for her enemies, and seeks at all times, by all the means in her power, to do them good, – good for time and for eternity. Her temper towards them is that of infinite tenderness and compassion. But the temper of her enemies towards her is that of hatred, and hatred without cause; they are not moved by charity, by love of souls; for, if they believe in salvation at all, they believe that souls can be saved in the Church at least as well as out of it, and hence, the dupes of their own hateful passions, there is no extreme of violence or cruelty to which, where they have the power, they will not go, if they judge it necessary or useful to their cause. We see the proofs of it in the anti-Catholic legislation and measures of Prussia, of Switzerland, of protestantized Italy, revolutionary Spain, and the miserable republics south of us on this continent, where the influence of our own republic has been most hostile to religion and the peace and order of society.
“All these things prove, first, that the Protestant** party do not, as they pretend, oppose the Church for purely political reasons, for she has no political power or connection; and, second, that they really, here and everywhere, oppose her because she is Catholic in her teaching, asserts truth as binding on the intellect and the conscience, in direct contradiction to their doctrine of the indifference of truth and falsehood, or that every man has the natural right to be of any religion, if not Catholic, or of no religion, as he pleases.
“There are, no doubt, Protestants ** in large numbers who hold the principal Christian mysteries as taught by the Church and handed down by tradition; but they, as we have said, hold them, not as Catholic truth, but as opinions, which do not bind the intellect or conscience, and which they are free to hold or reject as suits their pleasure, their convenience, or their caprice. In the popular language of the day, they are called simply religious opinions, not dogmas, and rarely articles of faith. Some may hold them to be essential doctrines of Christianity, but Christianity itself is held to be an opinion, or an interior sentiment, not a law which no one has the right to dispute, and which everyone is bound to obey. It is only one among many religions, none of which are wholly false or wholly true.” [emphasis added]
— Orestes A. Brownson, (Review, Oct. 1873)
** Editor: The same can be said of modernists, with their constant appeals to “religious liberty” and the “dignity of man.”
