08-20-2026, 06:57 AM
VI. Catholic Intolerance.
— We know now what to think of the vaunted tolerance of Protestants. Let us examine on what ground the hackneyed charge of intolerance is made against the Catholics. This charge contains both a truth and a falsehood.
The Church is certainly intolerant in matters of doctrine. True; and we glory in it! Truth is of itself intolerant. In religion, as in mathematics, what is true, is true, and what is false is false. No compromise between truth and error; truth cannot compromise. Such concessions, however small, would prove an immediate destruction of truth. Two and two make four: it is a truth. Hence whoever asserts the contrary, utters a falsehood. Let it be an error of a thousandth or of a millionth part, it will ever be false to assert that two and two do not make four.
The Church proclaims and maintains truths as certain as the mathematical ones. She teaches and defends truths with as much intolerance as the science of mathematics defends hers. And what more logical? The Catholic Church alone, in the midst of so many different sects, avers a possession of absolute truth, out of which there cannot be true Christianity; she alone has a right to be, she alone must be, intolerant. She alone will and must say, as she has said through all ages, in her councils: "If any one saith or believeth contrary to what I teach, which is truth, let him be anathema!"
At the same time, our Lord, intrusting her with the deposit of truth, has also left in her his spirit of charity and patience. Intolerant as regards the doctrine, the Church has mercy for the people, and never has she had recourse to lawful measures of rigor, but after all manner of kindness and persuasion have failed.
She has visited only the incorrigible, and then as a last resort. She was constrained to do so, to preserve from contagion the souls of the faithful, to put an end to scandals, and to fulfil those great duties of a justice — not less divine than mercy is.
In her patience and in her tolerance towards persons as well as in her intolerance for what concerns doctrine, the Catholic Church faithfully follows in the footsteps of her Chief and her God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth, mercy, and justice.
As for those anti-Catholic historians who write so much about the pretended barbarism of the Church in the middle ages, their misrepresentations are entirely discredited by the conscientious labors of a new generation of historians far more impartial than their predecessors. "To live, Protestantism found itself forced to build up a history of its own," said the celebrated historian Thierry, — certainly not suspected of any partiality towards the Church.
There are Protestants now, who, divesting themselves of all party spirit, protest against those old slanders, criminal exaggerations, and perfidious insinuations, with which old histories are crammed. "For the last three centuries," says de Maistre, "history has been a permanent conspiracy against truth."
— We know now what to think of the vaunted tolerance of Protestants. Let us examine on what ground the hackneyed charge of intolerance is made against the Catholics. This charge contains both a truth and a falsehood.
The Church is certainly intolerant in matters of doctrine. True; and we glory in it! Truth is of itself intolerant. In religion, as in mathematics, what is true, is true, and what is false is false. No compromise between truth and error; truth cannot compromise. Such concessions, however small, would prove an immediate destruction of truth. Two and two make four: it is a truth. Hence whoever asserts the contrary, utters a falsehood. Let it be an error of a thousandth or of a millionth part, it will ever be false to assert that two and two do not make four.
The Church proclaims and maintains truths as certain as the mathematical ones. She teaches and defends truths with as much intolerance as the science of mathematics defends hers. And what more logical? The Catholic Church alone, in the midst of so many different sects, avers a possession of absolute truth, out of which there cannot be true Christianity; she alone has a right to be, she alone must be, intolerant. She alone will and must say, as she has said through all ages, in her councils: "If any one saith or believeth contrary to what I teach, which is truth, let him be anathema!"
At the same time, our Lord, intrusting her with the deposit of truth, has also left in her his spirit of charity and patience. Intolerant as regards the doctrine, the Church has mercy for the people, and never has she had recourse to lawful measures of rigor, but after all manner of kindness and persuasion have failed.
She has visited only the incorrigible, and then as a last resort. She was constrained to do so, to preserve from contagion the souls of the faithful, to put an end to scandals, and to fulfil those great duties of a justice — not less divine than mercy is.
In her patience and in her tolerance towards persons as well as in her intolerance for what concerns doctrine, the Catholic Church faithfully follows in the footsteps of her Chief and her God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth, mercy, and justice.
As for those anti-Catholic historians who write so much about the pretended barbarism of the Church in the middle ages, their misrepresentations are entirely discredited by the conscientious labors of a new generation of historians far more impartial than their predecessors. "To live, Protestantism found itself forced to build up a history of its own," said the celebrated historian Thierry, — certainly not suspected of any partiality towards the Church.
There are Protestants now, who, divesting themselves of all party spirit, protest against those old slanders, criminal exaggerations, and perfidious insinuations, with which old histories are crammed. "For the last three centuries," says de Maistre, "history has been a permanent conspiracy against truth."
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre