Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868]

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XXI. The Simplicity of Protestant Worship.


— Simplicity is a good thing, indeed, when kept within certain limits. However, Protestant worship cannot, by any means, be called simple; it is hollow and naked.

Have you ever entered a Protestant temple? Oftentimes, it is one of those ancient churches which have been raised to the honor of the good God, and it is harrowing to see what the cold and narrow-minded heresy of Calvin has made of them. When a king falls, his palace becomes a house of no more significance than that of any citizen, and his throne a common chair. By expelling from churches usurped from us the King of kings, who deigned to dwell therein, the Protestants have desecrated them. They have razed the altars on which the Divine Sacrifice was offered. The images of the Blessed Virgin, as well as of patron saints, have been taken away. The confessionals, wherein innocence was preserved, and peace restored to the Christian, have been burnt, and four walls, a few benches, a chair, and a desk, behold all that is necessary to pay homage to the Creator of heaven and earth!

In the words of the Protestant Clausen, "Catholics consecrate the most wonderful productions of art to the ornament of churches, while Protestants shut themselves up within a temple devoid of all sorts of ornaments. This, however, does not prevent them from lavishing immense sums to ornament with decorations of art their private residences. Church music is looked upon by Catholics as a wholesome part of their religious solemnities; in Protestant countries music is made to resound everywhere but in churches."

The fact is, Protestants know full well what comfort is. They love and procure for their houses all that is comfortable and sumptuous; but naught for the house of the Lord.* It behoves, they say, that the utmost simplicity should characterize temples and all acts of religion. But it would be even more simple to dispense with temple and worship. To sleep, to drink, to eat, to attend to one's business, to live and die without being bothered by anything whatever, would it not be the perfection of simplicity?

However, we should not be surprised at this distressing and chilling nakedness of Protestant worship. Their temples are not sacred edifices, but only places of reunion. They even assemble, when they find it more convenient, either in a Casino, as in Geneva, or in a Theatre, as in New York, or in an Academy of Music, as in Boston; it is all the same to them. Should they take off their hats in entering the building, that is only from a habit of politeness, but not from any respect for the walls or benches.

Pastors wear no kind of sacerdotal vestments, and why should they? They are no priests, nothing must distinguish them from their co-religionists, and in fact the garment some of them throw over their black frocks appears to be greatly in contradiction with their principles.

We Catholics know very well that God has no need of pomp in his worship, and that it is only a want of our own heart. We know this well. But God had no need either of the magnificence of Solomon's Temple; he did not need the gold, incense, and myrrh, which was offered to him in the grotto of Bethlehem; but who would dare to affirm that those tokens of reverence and love were displeasing to him?

The majesty of worship raises our souls to God through the means of sacred ceremonies, and rivets on prayer the imagination which is so fleet and quick in wandering away. We are composed of soul and body, and our whole being must contribute to give glory to the Lord; our soul offers reverence, adoration, and love; but our senses contribute their part by the religious employment in which we occupy them in our churches, — an employment which both purifies and sanctifies them.

Divine worship is the expression of faith. The warmer faith is, the more splendid is the worship; according as faith is poor, the worship is naked. "Thus," says the Protestant writer quoted above, "the outward nakedness of non-Catholic Churches is truly in harmony with the state of the soul of the worshippers."

Leibnitz, a Protestant philosopher, writes that "he was not one of those, who, taking in no consideration human weakness, reject from divine worship whatever teaches the senses, under pretence that adoration is to be exhibited in spirit and truth." (Systeme Theologique, p. 107.)

Pustcuchen-Glanzow, another Protestant, adds: "In our temples, by dint of continually repeating that God must be adored in spirit and in truth, truth and spirit have disappeared altogether."

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XXII. How Protestant Propagandism is neither Legitimate nor Logical.


When the Catholic Church, through her Bishops and Priests, points Protestant propagandism to Christians as an unjust and hateful aggression, non-Catholic journals, and the organs of revolution and rationalism bristle up and bitterly denounce the Church as having two weights and two measures, by despotically forbidding to others what she has not ceased to practise from her beginning. Such recriminations deserve an answer; and it is very simple.

All Protestant sects acknowledge that salvation can be attained in the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the Catholic Church has unceasingly protested that she is the only true Church, and that it is necessary to belong to her in order to be a child of God.

Protestants, therefore, are in open contradiction with their principles when they endeavor to wrest souls from the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church would act in flagrant opposition to her own principles, were she not to exert her whole power and energy in bringing back to Jesus Christ those who have unfortunately been led out of her fold.

The Catholic Church, in her efforts to enlighten a Protestant and to bring him back to the true faith, preserves to him the possession of all the truth he possesses, and bestows upon him all that in which he is found wanting. It is a poor man, only half dressed, that she is endeavoring to clothe; what she adds to the little he already possesses makes a perfect Christian.

But not so when the Protestant propagandist succeeds in seducing a Catholic. It only ends by taking away from him a part of his belief and giving him nothing at all in return. He leaves him half naked, like the unfortunate traveller whom the highwayman robs of his garments, under the heartless pretence of freeing him of all unnecessary incumbrance, and without bestowing on him so much as one rag for protection against cold.

However, it is acknowledged even by Protestants, that in point of religious truths, they cannot bestow on Catholics aught, that the latter do not already possess; and still farther, they aver that whatever they preserve of Christianity, it is all borrowed of the Catholic Church.

It is worth while to hear Luther, the ardent patriarch of the Reformation, on this subject. At the meeting of Marburg, when the famous dispute between Luther and Zwinglius took place, the former maintaining the dogma of the Holy Eucharist against all adversaries, Zwinglius objected to the dogma of the Real Presence as a remnant of Popery.

"Well, then," quoth Luther, "reject also the holy Bible, because it is from the Pope we have received it. We are forced to acknowledge, Protestants as we are, that in Popery there are truths of salvation, yes, all the truths of salvation, and that we receive them from Popery; for it is in Popery that we find the true Holy Scriptures, true Baptism, the true Sacrament of the altar, the true keys which pardon sin, true preaching, true catechism, the true articles of faith; and, moreover, I say, that in Popery true Christianity is to be found."*

To acknowledge that the Catholic Church is the true Christianity necessarily involves the consequence that the Protestant sects have not the true Christianity, because the Church affirms all that the sects deny. But at the same time we must conclude, as a self-evident truth, that propagandism becomes a duty on the part of the Church, while on the part of Protestants it is merely nonsense, injustice, and an usurpation.

XXIII. A Convenient Religion. — It is more convenient, they say, to be a Protestant, than a Catholic; and true it is, — just as true as it is a great deal easier to yield to one's passions than to restrain them. But the difference is that in point of religion we must not look for that which is the easiest, but for that which is true, and will lead to God.

A certain parson once gained over to his sect a good woman, who had allowed herself to be influenced by his assertions. She was very assiduous at the meeting-house; most regularly did she take her little siesta during the sermon on Sunday, took great care of the ponderous Bible she had received, and never opened it, lest she should spoil it, — in a word, she gave evident proofs that she had become a good Protestant. Her religious fervor urged her also to become a member of the famous Protestant Pence, and of two or three Bible societies.

The good woman spent several years in this easy piety, and she congratulated herself every day on her good luck of enjoying such sweet life, which her pastor assured her was the pure Gospel, free from the unpleasant duty of going to confession on the recurrence of great festivals, receiving communion with certain very particular preparations, abstaining on Fridays, and of being obedient to her parish priest. In the midst of all this evangelical happiness, which was enhanced by the little presents and various tracts she received from the minister and some deaconess, the poor creature was all at once taken down by sickness. A reader was appointed to visit her, and read psalms and other passages, of which she understood very little; in fact, no more than the zealous reader himself. She grew worse, and her physician let out expressions which were very far from warranting her recovery. In the presence of death, and at the approach of the judgment of God, the poor woman shuddered, and seriously thought of her chances. In that light which does not deceive, she began to feel that she had gone astray from the Faith. She begged of a neighbor to bring to her, without delay, the priest of the parish, a good and worthy clergyman whom she had known long ago, and whom her apostasy had grieved to the heart. He found her in tears, consoled her as well as he could, and made her both aware of the enormity of her sin, and confident in the infinite mercy of God. She made her confession, and was reconciled with our Saviour. Then he administered to her Extreme Unction, the Sacrament that brings so much comfort to the dying, which she had lately been taught to laugh at, but the importance and efficacy whereof she at this moment understood well. Lastly, he carried to her the holy Viaticum, that most holy and most adorable mystery, within which Jesus Christ veils himself, in order that we may approach, and he may fortify us at the end of our journey. Having made her peace with God and with her soul, the poor woman felt happy, and already looked without fear to the moment of her entering into eternity.

On the evening of the same day, the Protestant minister calls on the sick woman. He had just heard of the priest's visit, and he could not believe what he called "a scandalous defection, a shame to the pure Gospel, a falling back upon the superstitions of Babylon." In fact, what vexed him most was the talk of the neighborhood, as inferences would be made in disparagement of the pure Gospel, and hurtful to the susceptibilities of the reverend pastor. Accordingly he expostulated in strong terms with the sick woman, reminding her of the courage with which she had before rejected "all such mummeries," and those errors which she ought to have never again adopted. "Ah! sir," replied the good woman, "all this was very good when I was well; your religion is a very easy one to live in, but very hard to die in!" (C'est bien commode pour vivre, mais c'est le diable pour mourir!)

She felt, the brave woman, that with that simple expression she had placed her finger on the sore spot of Protestantism.

Now, a system of religion, which only aims at being easy in practice, and discards whatever may prove irksome in the service of God, cannot be the true religion, — the religion that leads to heaven. Protestantism is very convenient to live in; hence it is so horrible to die in it. Protestantism is easy, and hence it is false, — it is not the religion of him who said: "How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life!" from which words we have to conclude that we must then struggle to enter that gate and to strike upon that way.

Protestantism, a pretended Christianity, without obedience to faith, without obedience to the authority of the Church, without confession, without eucharist, without sacrifice, without works of penance, without practices of obligation, is condemned by that Gospel whose name it so often usurps; and is it not condemned by Jesus Christ, when the divine Master adds those terrible words: "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction"?

XXIV. A Touchstone. — It is easy to distinguish the true religion from those which are pretentious of being called true.

Our Lord has solemnly declared that his disciples shall be hated by the wicked as he had been hated himself: "The disciple is not above his Master; if the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you." (John xv. 18.)

Now, history teaches us that from the days of the apostles, the hatred and the efforts of the impious have always been combined against the Catholic Church. Jews, and Pagans, and Turks, and the wicked of all ages, and of our own times, have always taken for the butt, and the only butt of their attacks, the Catholic Church, — the Catholic Church alone. During the French Revolution brigands have always aimed their first blows at her: they imprisoned and butchered her bishops and priests, and at the same time they left Jewish rabbis and Protestant ministers alone. Read the bloody proclamations of our modern revolutionists. Only the Catholic Church awakens all their fury. Nor do they only abstain from annoying Protestantism, but they moreover exalt it as highly favorable to their anti-Christian views.

This coalition of the wicked against the Catholic Church is already an evident realization of the prophecy of our Lord. An additional proof has been afforded by the heretical sects, and above all, the Protestant ones. Separated from one another, opposed to each other in views and interests, condemning one another, they will uniformly act in a most harmonious alliance when there is question of injuring or attacking St. Peter's old Church. In the face of this common enemy, they become one, and they blaspheme in unison.

Herod and Pilate, whilom enemies, became united to crucify Jesus. Heresy and impiety, separated as they may be, become united for the purpose of outraging, scourging, and annoying the holy Church of Christ.

However, if the Church, catholic, apostolic, and Roman, must needs, in imitation of her founder, endure her own passion, and thus complete that of her Chief, she possesses equally with him the promises of life eternal. Ever hated, ever blasphemed, she lives, and will live forever. Jesus is with her, unto the end of the world, and to her alone he has said: "The powers of hell shall not prevail against thee."

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PART SECOND.

I. Can the Church ever need Reformation?

— Dear reader, however strong and healthy you are, you may occasionally be subject to some derangement, which, not the least affecting the soundness of your constitution, will make it necessary that you should purify your blood, and have recourse to some medicine. That these remedies may attain their desired effect, they must be administered with knowledge and prudence. Place yourself in the hand of doctors established for this purpose, and have no recourse to charlatans or quacks, who will endanger your health and perhaps send you to the graveyard.

Thus the Church also, divine though she be, may need reforms. The Church is the society of the disciples of Jesus Christ. He has promised to be with his Church unto the end of the world, to preserve in her true faith, and true morality. By the assistance of Our Lord the Church is therefore infallible and holy.

But the Church is composed of men. Popes, bishops, and priests are men. In spite of the intrinsic sanctity of their ministry, they are subject to the imperfections and weakness of human nature. We can then well understand in what sense the Church has needed and will always need reforms. There will never be any need of rectifying the teachings of her faith, divine as it is and infallible. She will never need to reform her morality, which is holy, nor change her sacraments, through which she sanctifies man. But she constantly needs to recall to a sense of their duty those among her children, and even her ministers, who, being but fallible, may prevaricate or disregard the observance of her laws.

For eighteen hundred years Popes and Councils and Synods have indefatigably labored to reform what may become relaxed from time to time in matters of discipline. Such was eminently the work of the Council of Trent, which has definitively reformed the Church.

It was a great mistake of Luther and his associates to mix up, in this question, the essence with the form, what is divine and unchangeable with what is human and susceptible of changes. They have taken into their heads to reform the dogma, the rule of faith, and the principles of morality. Instead of a true reformation they have only begotten a disastrous rebellion, which has deformed and upset everything.

They were quacks, no physicians. Under pretext of drawing a decayed tooth they have broken the jaw. Instead of purging the system they have poisoned it.

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PART SECOND.


II. Can God have chosen Luther and Calvin to reform Religion?

— God is holy. Accordingly he could never have chosen Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII., or the like of them, for the purpose of reforming the Church.

The Protestant historian Cobbett remarks, that "Luther, Zwinglius, Calvin, etc., agreed on only one point of doctrine, and that was that all good works are useless, and certainly their lives prove that they followed the principle in earnest." (Hist. Ref. Prot., vii. 200.)

What was Luther, in spite of his popular eloquence and the powerful temper of his mind, but a bad priest? and can there be anything more disgraceful?

Calvin was also an ecclesiastic. Convicted of infamous crimes against nature, he was publicly branded by the executioner.*

Zwinglius, a curate of Einsiedlen, publicly avowed, in the presence of his bishop, that he had for many years yielded to his lust, and would now marry a woman in order to render his position lawful before the people.

All the saints of the reformation are of this stamp. The spotless purity and evangelical meekness of Henry VIII. is well known; and he is the reformer of England! That sensualist, a veritable Bluebeard, had six wives whose heads he cut off accordingly as he became tired of them. His daughter, Elizabeth, the virgin queen, carried out the work commenced by Henry VIII., and was no less renowned for the same fine qualities. The same block could receive the heads of the mistresses of the father as well as those of the paramours of the daughter.

But Calvin deserves a little more notice. It is he who introduced Protestantism into France. Galiffe, a Protestant Calvinist, has portrayed him, better than any one else, in his Notices Genealogiques (t. iii. pp. 21 etc.), published in the very heart of Geneva in 1836: "That name, famous for its criminality, raised the standard of the most ferocious intolerance, of the grossest superstitions, and most impious tenets. A terrible apostle, from whose inquisition nothing escaped. During 1558 and 1559 he caused one hundred and fourteen judgments to be given in criminal matters," etc. Mr. Galiffe styles him a drinker of blood, and supports all his assertions by the writings of Calvin himself, and by proofs drawn from the public and authentic archives of Geneva.

As for Luther, he was an apostate monk, living in concubinage with an unfrocked nun, and he has been judged by Protestant writers with merited severity. His life, after his apostasy, was that of a libertine entirely taken with the pleasures of the table, and animal pleasures, so much so that it had become a proverb, in occasions of self-indulgence, to say: To-day we shall live à la Luther. Benedict Morgenstern, a Protestant writer, records this fact.* The Table Talk of Luther can be still found in some libraries shelved among obscene books; it breathes such a cynicism, that it is impossible to quote from them. Every one knows that ignoble prayer, written in Luther's own hand, the authenticity whereof has never been disputed, and whose conclusion runs thus: "Good drinking and good eating; behold the surest means of being happy."

And they would make us believe, that men of this stamp were messengers sent by Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Christians charged with the mission of bringing the Church back to its primitive purity! — Nonsense! You might then as well believe, with the Turks, that "God is God and Mahommed is his prophet!" Good sense ought to prevail over the historical falsehoods by which they have endeavored to rehabilitate those pretended reformers.

The founder of the Catholic Church is our Lord Jesus Christ, and her apostles are Saint Peter, and Saint Paul, Saint John, and the other messengers of Faith appointed by the Founder.

The founder of Protestantism is Luther, and its apostles Calvin, Zwinglius, & Co.

There's a choice for you.