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

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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."

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VII. The Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, and the Dragonnades of the Cevennes.

A few words more about Catholic intolerance. Protestants never tire of casting up against the Catholics certain facts, which they allege as proofs to convince them of intolerance, — the Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, and the Dragonnades of the Cevennes.

These items have furnished materials for romances and plays; but writers of novelettes and plays do not profess regard for historical accuracy, and people of common sense and seekers of truth do not generally look to them for information.

1. What is, then, this Inquisition, which frightens us so much, even in these, our days? Popular romances represent it as a terrible tribunal, raised in every Catholic land, torturing poor victims in deep dungeons, and burning them at the stake, with surrounding fires never put out.

The Protestant historians, Ranke and Guizot, honorably admit that the Spanish Inquisition was only a political institution to protect the unity of Spain. The rulers of that kingdom looked upon heresy as the enemy most dangerous to the peace of their dominions, and declared it a crime of high treason against the nation. Unable to decide by themselves, or their civil courts, questions of faith, they established an ecclesiastic tribunal, charged with the examination of prisoners and with judgment on their orthodoxy. The inquisitors then acquainted the prince with the result of their examination, and the latter pronounced sentence as he deemed best.*

That institution you may value as you choose; you are at liberty to condemn the abuses and the cruelties of which it has been guilty through the violence of political passions and the character of the Spaniard; yet one cannot but acknowledge, in the terrible part taken by the clergy in its trials, the most legitimate and most natural exercise of ecclesiastical authority. Does not the examination of questions of faith belong by right divine to the Church? but what man of good faith will ever confound these acts, exclusively religious, with the office of the executioner?

But remember that the Popes have never ceased to protest against the rigors of the Spanish Inquisition, although it received no prestige whatever from their authority, it being, as we have seen, a political institution of the Spanish kingdom.

2. But you will say, "What of the Saint Bartholomew? — that frightful massacre ordered by the Church, to the sacrifice of so many Protestant lives?"

The Saint Bartholomew, even more than the Inquisition of Spain, is a political event.* Protestants rebelled against lawful authority; they had attempted to seize the person of the king, and endeavored to establish in the midst of the nation a people turbulent and revolutionary. The youthful Charles IX. and the haughty Catharine Medici, his mother, were threatened in their lives and liberty by the conspiracy of Amboise; they had to fly for their lives before that of Meaux. The leaders of the Protestant party grew more insolent every day. The queen, thus goaded, resolved to get rid of the rebels, and called to her assistance the religious excitement fanned into frenzy by the fury of the Huguenots. Religion was the pretext, but not the cause of the Saint Bartholomew. Men well read in history know it to be so in these our days; why, then, do not Protestant historians acknowledge it in good faith?

"Very well," you urge; "but did not the Pope sing a Te Deum on the occasion of that butchery?" Yes, he did; but Gregory XIII. had been deceived as to the facts. He received a hurried despatch from the French court, that a murderous attempt had been made on the lives of the king and of his family, and that they had been delivered from the hands of the Huguenots, and the assassins had been punished; whereupon the Pope went to St. Peter's and returned public thanks to God. He did not know the lamentable truth of that night. Those excesses have, however, been greatly exaggerated by the party; for after all the Protestant martyrology could not set down the number of victims, all counted, but at seven hundred and eighty-six, for all France. Because those men, in rebellion against their sovereign, had been shot down as turbulent Calvinists, is it a reason why the Catholic Church should be held accountable for their death? The whole blame of the Saint Bartholomew is therefore laid, and solely, on the machiavellian conduct of Charles IX. and Catharine Medici.

Without any purpose of excusing that which cannot be excused, we must observe that men and institutions always bear the stamp of the times. In those ages, public manners were rude and uncouth, and their character affected men and things, good and evil. Moreover the religious sentiment had a mastery over all the rest. Accordingly, Protestant violence came into collision with an excitability of faith whereof we have no idea. To it we must refer, for the most, the extreme measures which accompanied many historical facts of those days.

3. Although this asperity of manners was somewhat softened in France in the days of Louis XIV., it yet was the cause of lamentable results at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. I shall not canvass here the nature of that act of Louis. But truth compels us to remember that, during the cruelties practised against the Huguenots in certain parts of the Cevennes, the king's officers went beyond the orders of their master, and they alone were guilty. Irritated at the attempt made by the Protestants to sunder the unity of the nation, to plot with strangers, to hold continued practice with England, Louis XIV. resolved upon purging France of this leaven of discord. To assert the rights of the crown, as well as those of religion, he called force to his assistance. But it is well known how Bossuet and Fenelon, however of one mind with the king, deprecated those cruel and violent measures. What, then, in the presence of these simple facts, becomes of the charges preferred by the enemies of the faith? And how can the dragonnades of the Cevennes be turned into an argument against the Church?

Here we have three facts, three political crimes, if you will, for which Protestants make the Church responsible after three hundred years. Oh! but St. Francis de Sales spoke well when, at the utterance of so many slanders against the Church by the Protestants of his own time, he compared her to the chaste Susanna, falsely accused by those men who should have been her defenders! That sainted woman, brought to the pillory, exclaimed: —

"O Eternal God, who knowest hidden things! . . . Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me; whereas, I have done none of these things which these men have maliciously forged against me."

"And the Lord raised the spirit of young Daniel, and he cried out with a loud voice: —

"'Are ye so foolish, ye children of Israel, that, without examination or knowledge of the truth, ye have condemned a daughter of Israel?'

"And the people rose and did justice to the innocence and sanctity of the chaste Susanna." (Dan. xiii.)

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VIII. Protestant Martyrs.


— Protestantism has no Martyrs. — A martyr gives his life in steadfast testimony of the faith of Jesus Christ. He dies, not for the sake of personal opinion, but for the doctrine of the Church of God. He is not obstinate but faithful. Hence every Christian put to death out of hatred to the faith is a martyr.

Are those few Protestants, who have suffered martyrdom for their religious opinions, martyrs? Not at all. They staked their lives to uphold private ideas and convictions purely human; preferring their own defiance to their lives. It is a death crowning man's pride; whereas, a veritable martyrdom is the most perfect act of humble submission and total self-abnegation. It is not enough to be killed in order to be a martyr. It must needs be a death suffered for the sake of a truth which one's honor will maintain even at the cost of life.

In the pretended martyrs of reformed sects we find fanaticism, defiance, self-glory, and madness, — all offspring of pride. On the other hand, the true martyrs — those whom Holy Church offers to Jesus Christ, from St. Stephen down to those recently killed for the faith in China and Ava — all die in the peace of God; meek and humble, like innocent victims, expressing love for their executioners, — martyrs worthy of Jesus both in life and death.

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IX. An Instance of Protestant Moderation.


— We often hear Protestants complaining of the violent style of Catholic writers. It is a clerical ruse of great and keen cunning; because, on the other hand, they vaunt great moderation and tenderness in their attitude towards the Church.

Now, we have something to say about it:

1. What they are pleased to call violence in Catholic writers is only an ardent zeal for the truth — that zeal which devoured our Saviour, Jesus Christ, when he whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, and made Pharisees and scribes writhe under his scathing anathemas.

2. Catholics attack Protestantism, but only on the defensive, against Protestants. Protestantism is a rebellion, essentially unwarrantable, against truth and the Church, and the children of the Church and of truth never take up arms against Protestantism but to ward off its attacks and save their faith.

3. Lastly, this Protestant moderation is of a kind both with their style of controversy and their tolerance. It does not exist, and we defiantly hurl back the charge they advance against us.

We shall now give a proof of a general character — a well-known proof — upheld alike by the Protestant and the socialistic press.

The journals of the principal sects of France — *Le Lien*, *L'Espérance*, *Les Archives* — have with great zeal announced and encouraged a book as one of the very best, and one which is to be found in all the Protestant publishing houses of Paris. It is an old work by the Lutheran, Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, recently re-ushered before the public, with a preface by Mr. Quinet.

No Protestant organ protests against its republication. Nay, all hail its appearance.

The preface says: "Our work is not only to refute Popery, but to root it out; not to root it out only, but to brand it with infamy; not only to brand it with infamy, but to stifle it under the mire." (p. 7.) "Catholicity must be done away with."

"Whoever undertakes to root out that sickly and mischievous superstition (Catholicity), provided he feels able to do it, should, first of all, remove such superstition out of sight of the people, and render its practice absolutely and physically impossible. At the same time no hope should be held out for its reappearance." (p. 81.)

"This religious despotism (the Catholic Church) cannot be rooted out unless we get rid of all legality. . . . Blind as it is, it dooms itself to be the victim of blind force." (p. 37.)

"No; no truce with The Unjust." (p. 42.)

"The principle that all religions are equal is at variance with all philosophy, all science, and all history. . . . There exists a religion which glories in its being incompatible with modern liberties. Had the French Revolution seen this difference plainly, it might, by a concentration of its powers, enmities, and decisions, have exterminated a worship which denies existence to modern civilization. But . . . that revolution was wanting in audacity, . . . and the (Catholic) worship, which it was its mission to break, came out of its hands stronger, healthier, and bolder than ever. Let us not be guilty of the same again." (pp. 57 and fol.)

This is a plain talk. We know where we should find ourselves were Protestantism to triumph over the Christian Church! In the face of such open violence, thus openly exciting people to hatred against, and to the destruction of, religion, who will dare find fault with us Christians because we rise to defend our faith and our life?

However, we should not much wonder at this incredible challenge to persecute and annihilate the Church with fire and sword. Mr. Quinet only repeats, with a faint echo, the sanguinary declamations of the founders of Protestantism. He only writes to-day what Luther and Calvin wrote three hundred years ago, and wrote in terms so exaggerated and with a fury so deep, that the revolutionists of our times could not hold the candle to them.

In his fine work *On Protestantism*, Augustus Nicolas says: "No language did ever lend itself to express the sanguinary violence of Luther's writings. His *The Papacy of Rome Founded by the Devil* is a blot that will disgrace forever not only the literature of Germany, but even the annals of mankind. The Pope" (truly the pen almost refuses to copy the words) "is the devil. Were I able to kill the devil, should I not do it at the peril of my life? The Pope is an enraged wolf, against which the whole world should rise without waiting for a magistrate's warrant. In such matters there can never be cause for regret, unless it were for not having been able to plunge the dagger deeper in his breast. . . . No sooner were the Pope convicted by the Gospel, than the whole world should rush and fall upon him, slaughtering him, and with him his emperors and kings and princes and lords, without mercy. Yea, we should fall upon them with all kinds of weapons, and wash our hands in their blood. . . . Monarchs and princes and lords who belong to the crew of the Roman Sodom should be attacked with all kinds of arms, and we should wash our hands in their blood. . . ." (T. xii. f. 233, seq. — T. i. f. 51, a. — T. ix. f. 24, b. ed. Wittenb.)

"Shall I mention Calvin, from or on whose pen perpetually flourished the epithets of rascal, drunken sot, raving madman, beast, hog, donkey, dog, etc.? Hear him: 'As for the Jesuits, who are our greatest opponents, they should be put to death; or, if that could not be easily done, they should be expelled, or certainly crushed out with lies and calumnies.'" (pp. 469, 70.)

Just what Quinet advises — the papacy must be rooted out; it must be dishonored, choked in the mire. After such violent declarations by Luther and Calvin, it is easily understood why the revolutionists of our days have so much sympathy for Protestantism. But it is passing all understanding how such Protestant journals as are called moderate, and Protestant publishers, should have advertised and offered for sale the work of Marnix and its preface!

Marnix's book is a tissue of obscenities, of infamies so revolting that respect for my readers and for myself will not allow me to make any quotation from it. I made an attempt, but gave it up in disgust. He utters blasphemies which no Christian should dare repeat, not even for the purpose of inspiring a salutary horror of them. And yet, there you have a Protestant work, republished, after three centuries, in Belgium with the aid of a national subscription of Protestants, infidels, and free masons; and it is sold in noonday light in Paris — a Catholic city!

Yes, let Protestants wonder at the generous indignation of Catholics! Let them complain because the children of the Church resent and repel the insults heaped on their mother! Let them boast, forsooth, of their meekness and of their moderation.

"Questi moderati sono gente di rabbia infinita," said to me once an Italian priest. They call themselves moderate, but their fury is infinite.