FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4532, 29 September 1875, Page 2

FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. 4 Sir, —Your religious correspondent, namely. Toleration,” advocates strongly freedom of religious discussion. I would let him alone were it not that at the end of his letter he gives a touch on Popery. To mm and to his friend I will say; Gentlemen, the less you boast of freedom of religious discussion the better. I suspect the love of that liberty is an untruth under your pen and in your mouth. You sprung from men and from systems essentially despotic in religiousopinions. Those who know the ABC of the history of the sixteenth century are convinced that the religious innovators of that period were the greatest tyrants, and would tolerate no opinion but their own. Talk of the toleration of Luther and Calvin, those admirable beacons of light. Calvin committed to the flames a friend of his who happened to dissent from him on the doctrine of Holy Trinity. And Luther! " All the ancient fathers are blind," he said. “ 1 care not a rush if & thousand Augustines or a thousand Cyprians stood against _ me. X concern not myself what Ambrose, Augustine, the Councils, or practice of ages said. I know their opinions so well as to declare against them. —"L. contra Begem Anglim,” folio 347. In England the oppressors of religion were a legion. To crush the ancient Church there was made a perfect conspiracy. All became accomplices in the work of destruction. Kings, parliaments, judges, army, clergy all were leagued to uphold the newly-born Church and crush the ancient one by all possible means. They made an exceptional position for themselves. They said and did what they liked, and ~oaiu not suffer even the utterance of a single word in favor of the other side. That word could not come from abroad, it could not be spoken at home with impunity anywhere, either in school or in chapel. Aye, people were compelled by brutal force to go to the new places of worship, to hear strange arguments, derived from the Holy Scriptures as they pretended! What a singular compound of barbarism and hypocrisy In order to perpetuate oppression and stifle forever religious discussion, they enacted a system of penal laws, surpassing past legislation in cunning and cruelty. The Times correspondents will reply that they had nothing to do with the persecuting establishment, that their ancestors resisted it. and by bravery and perseverance carried on their religious emancipation. It is true you conquered, but for yourselves alone. You never made any attempt to relievo your Catholic brethren; you also maintained persecution against them everywhere, and In every possible way. But it will be objected, the Catholic Church is opposed to freedom of religious discussion. I answer. When it is question of points which have been settled after protracted controversies, the Church requires submission, and would not permit prolongation of debates, because definition has put an end to them. But as long as questions are undecided the greatest liberty of discussion is left to the members of that Church, Bead the works of hsr historians, of her divines, of her philosophers, and see what liberty they enjoy in expounding their own views. . Was there a greater evidence of freedom set forth before the world than that great assembly which, six years ago, gathered in Borne 800 or 000 Catholic Bishops under the presidency of the Pope? The discussion upon a single point of Idocrine occupied two months. A* decision ensued, and was followed with peace and harmony among pastors and people. Let other denominations try that experiment; we will see the result. la regard to absolute and never-ending discussion on religion, even on politics, it is impossible for Church and State to maintain it. There must be restrictions, otherwise religion and society are condemned to die. At all events, the Catholic Church established Itself among people by persuasion, never by violence and compulsion. If restrictive laws were enacted iu Catholic nations, it was not against Jews or heathen, but it was against citizens, members of the same civil and religious society, who would happen to insult, blaspheme a religion which they had professed—a religion freely accepted by the inhabitants of the land, and looked upon as the basis of their legislation, and the groundwork of their national grandeur and religious unity. The conduct of the innovators was quite the opposite. They, once Catholics, became apostates. They changed their name and their religion, crushed their Catholic brethren, compelled their children to imbibe their new tenets, and after having levelled to the ground the structure of religious unity, sowed broadcast among their countrymen the seed of eternal religiousstrife. I doubt the sincerity of "Toleration." He gives me a hint that he is not much disposed to tolerate Popery. Popery seems to disturb his sleep. "Popery is not dead,” he says. No; Popery or Papacy is not dead, nor will it die. Look back at the 257 Popes who have governed Borne and the Catholic world. They will have successors until Christ come and retake the commission he gave to St. Peter, the first Pope : " Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”—l am, &c. t Freedom of Discussion.