A Protestant Theologian on Papal Toleration.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2, 12 January 1905, Page 29

A Protestant Theologian on Papal Toleration.

Under the head of ' Considerations of Catholicism by a Protestant 'lheologian ' in the ' Sacred Heart Review,' the Ke\\ JJr. Star buck meets the ancient and popular Protestant objection that the Catholic Church is intolerant ot religious liberty. He asks, Is any Christian a mend of unrestricted religious liberty ? He adds tor himseli, he thinks not, and then proceeds to show why. The Thugs of India were votaries of Kali, the goddess of murder. In honor of Kali every grown man of the sect was bound to strangle some one (not being a Thug) as ofte<n as he prudently could. Therefore when the British authority punished Thuggism with death, it restricted religious liberty. It does not avail to say, that here crime was punished, not religion. What we rigihtly call crime was "the heart of religion. A Thug would have gone with a despairing conscience if he had not within a certain time strangled some one in honor ot his goddess. To torbid this act of devotion was to forbid the religion, which accordingly has become extinct. Dr. Starbuck then passes to the suppression of the worship of Venus. All Christians will allow that it was a virtuous act to abolish this hideous survival of heathenism, though it involved restriction of religious liberty. Similarly the obscenities ot the Hindu temples under British rule are tolerated only because it would be suicidal to attempt to abolish them in present circumstances. Th' isame is true of other religious customs and forms of worship found in the heathenish sectrons of the K'mpirp. When these can be safely done away with they will be, though it be a palpable restriction ot religious libeity to do so. To come nearer home, it we set aside the harmless little sect ot monogamous Mormons, polygamy is of the \ery essence of Moimoni.sm. It is as vital to it as murder was to Thuggism. 1 have little doubt thai we shall yet be compelled to root it out by the sword, as slavery was- rooted out, and it is more tJhan doubtful whether we can do tins enectively without abolishing Mormomsm itselt, and punishing the maintenance of its organisation. VMiat will be the good of cutting down the poisonous shoot it we leave behind the poisonous root ? ' We all agree, then, that a religion may be so essentially evil to the Christian consciousness, that it is the duty of a Christian State lo suppress it within its bounds. So lar the Papacy and Protestantism agree. Both allow . Keli&ious iibeity .should not be unrestriced.' Dr. Starbuck explains the position of the Catholic Church against the coercion of non-Christians. The! Inquif- ltLon would never command a Jew or Saracen to be converted it declared him iree of the jurisdiction of the Church. ' The Holy could not dispute the civil right ot Ferdinand and lsiabella to otter the Jews the alternative ot baptism or exile, but il aispleased the sovereigns by its evident dissatisfaction with their act, and by opening an asylum to the banished Jews, as it had ltfhg beem accustomed to do in like cases.' Luther was for burning down the synagogues ' with pitch and hell-hre,' lor banishing the Rabbis, first plundering them of their books, eiven their Hebrew Bibles, and if the other Jews remained obstinate in refusing Baptism, for banishing them too ; but I believe he 'did not propose taking away their children. The Pope and Protestants, then, may be viewed as agreeing that nonChristians ought not to be deprived of tjheir children. So far both parties seem to concur as to the restrictions and as to the extensions of religious liberty. The ' Protestant '1 heologian ' concludes_ with these words : 'An emergetic assertion of tHe right of the Jews to practise their worship unmolested, under pain

of exconwmmijcation a&ainst their disturbers, such a s is found in the Uanou Law, is, 1 believe, not met with in any monument of Protestantism. Jn tthis profoundly and practically important question, it is Home, not Protestantism, which emphatically guarantees religidus liberty. Theretore to say that the Papacy had never guaranteed religious liberty, is a gross contradiction of CJatholic doctrine and history.'