THE PALMERSTON CONTROVERSY

New Zealand Tablet, 12 June 1913, Page 17

THE PALMERSTON CONTROVERSY

yr he following letter from the Rev. , Father J. Lynch appeared in the Palmerston and Waikouaiti Times of June 6:

‘ Sir, —Rev. Mr. Clarke’s statements, about the Catholic Church’s damning and denouncing of all nonCatholics, forcibly remind me of that famous saying of Josh Billings; “It is not so much the ignorance of mankind that makes them so ridiculous as the knowing so many things that are not so.” My opponent has a vast fund of information about the Catholic Church—information of the usual anti-popery type. Sixteen years ago, he tells us, he made a study of this question. There is no doubt about it. The average Presbyterian parson is a highly educated man, at least in one branch of knowledge —how to abuse the Pope and blackguard the Catholic Church. It is not strange, therefore, that Rev. Mr. Clarke knows nothing of the Catholic teaching on the axiom in discussion. From a Catholic, and, as I have shown, from an unbiassed non-Catholic standpoint also, Rev. Mr. Clarke’s knapsack of “information” must be labelled things that are not so.” Rev. Mr. Clarke, like Goliath of old in regard to God’s chosen people, has hurled defiance at the Catholic Church, taunted and insulted her. I, with my sling, Catholic theology, and a few smooth little stones, the opinions of liberal-minded Protestants, have been able without much effort, to trip up this self-chosen and appointed Presbyterian champion. Nay, I have taken from him his own sword i.e., the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, —and with it cut off (metaphorically, of course !) the warrior’s head. Thus this combat has cost Rev. Mr. Clarke a valuable asset. It has also cost him his reputation as a grammarian, and consequently no one takes him seriously when he declares that he has been “writing for educational purposes.” No doubt, if it were otherwise, the people of Palmerston would be justified in publicly protesting against this outrage on their intelligence and common sense. Just think of it: Rev. Mr, Clarke “writing for educational purposes” ! The common opinion, however, is that Rev. Mr. Clarke has been writing essays to the press (a la mode “Tot” and “Willie” in our public journals), so that I may give him hints and suggestions in English grammar and composition. I beg to publicly congratulate him on the wonderful progress he has made under my tuition. You see, he no longer writes such shocking stuff as “ denounces I.” It is very ungrateful, then, on his part to write in his last letter “that this discussion has been for him a waste of time.” Oh ! how this “ingratitude more strong than traitor’s arms” quite vanquishes me. ‘ There is no point, probably, connected with this question about which the general public is so misinformed and ignorant as the sober but boundless charity of what is called the anathematising Church.” This is how Mallock, himself a non-Catholic, but evidently a candid and conscientious man, speaks of the misinformation and ignorance that prevail in Protestant

circles about the true meaning .of the axiom: “Out of the Church there is no salvation.” For the benefit of those who wish to know, once for all, the Catholic Church’s attitude towards all non-Catholics of whatsoever creed or country, I quote here the authoritative writings-of representative Catholics on this point. The candid, fair-minded non-Catholic is asked to give the matter the attentive consideration that so important a question deserves. The Catholic authorities I quote are men of different nationalities and of widely, different times.

‘First witness: Pope Pius IX. in his allocution of December 9, 1854, thus sums up the Catholic teaching regarding the salvation of non-Catholics: —“lt is held as certain that those laboring under invincible ignorance of the true religion are not in this matter blameworthy in the eyes of God. And who is the man so presumptuous as himself to lay down, according to national, local, or personal character and a host of other circumstances, the limits of this ignorance?” (see Denzinger’ Enchiridion , p. 1504).

‘Second witness: Cardinal Billot, S.J., who has for years in Rome lectured on Catholic theology to thousands of Catholic students from all quarters of the world, thus writes:—“ But when we say it is necessary for salvation to belong to the visible body of the true Church of Christ, this is entirely to be understood to mean that the defect of actual union in reality, as in the case of those who labor under invincible ignorance of the true religion, can be supplied by spiritual union in desire. This desire, I say, is included in that preparation of - mind and will by which one desires to worship God according to the manner pleasing and acceptable to him. . . Therefore it does not prevent salvation that one through ignorance adhere to any false sect whatever, provided he possesses that disposition of soul of which I have just spoken, and does not otherwise depart from the way of salvation which is open to all. . . Wherefore they culminate us, whoever presume to explain this our axiom, outside of the ; Church, there is no salvation, as if we declared that all those are de facto damned who actually die outside the visible communion of the body of the Church ’ (De Ecclesia Christ i, pages 224 and 225). ‘Third witness: St. Thomas of Aquin, admitted on all sides to be one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen, clearly teaches that the Catholic Church does not mercilessly damn all outside her visible fold ; on the contrary, she believes' that God will deal with everyone according to the graces and opportunities given him. He writes : “ Were a man bred in the wood or among the beasts to follow the natural instinct of his reason by desiring good and avoiding evil, God would most certainly make known to such a one what he must believe, either by immediate revelation or by sending a special messenger, as he sent Peter to Cornelius.’ Verit, Q., XIV., A. XI., AD., 1.

Fourth witness: This is what a Jesuit theologian, Busenbeaum, says on this matter: —“A heretic so long as he believes his sect to be more or equally deserving of belief has no obligation to believe in the Church. When men who have been brought up in heresy are persuaded from boyhood that we impugn and attack the Word of God, that we are idolaters, pestilent deceivers, and are, therefore, to be shunned as pestilence, they cannot, while this persuasion last, with a safe conscience hear us ’ (quoted by Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 65).

‘Fifth witness: A convert to the Catholic faith, Charles Stanton Devas, M.A. (Oxon), writes in his book, Key to the World’s Progress, p. 64;—“Thus immense populations may live in the realms of disunion and yet peacefully garner much of the harvest of the Christian faith ; and if the glorious road of supernatural sanctity is not to be trodden by their feet, they can at least walk in the commoner way that leads to salvation all the more easily if they preserve, as eighty million Russians have preserved, the Christian sacraments. Nor have unappointed judges any right to limit, according to their fancy, the uncovenanted mercies of God, or to restrict the exuberant numbers of those who bear the appearance of aliens or even of enemies to

God’s Church, but in reality are her invisible members invisible on earth, but visible from on high.” " ‘Sixth witness: ;Dr, Carr, the ;present Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, writes on this subject thus: “To assert, therefore, that the Catholic Church ’ is chargeable with intolerance on the ground that she excludes from the pale of salvation all who are not members of her own fold, is th assert what is contrary to truth. As a matter of fact, Catholic theologians maintain that every adult, even a negative infidel or a material heretic, may be saved if he will only do what lies in his power” (see Lectures and Replies, n. 397). v ‘Seventh witness: A. Boudinhon, S.T.D., D.C.L., thus sets down the practice -of the Catholic Church in praying for non-Catholic kings and princes, and this is true also of all classes of nou-Catholics ; —“ Not only is it not forbidden, but it is permissible, and one might say obligatory, to pray even publicly for infidel princes, in order that God may grant their subjects peace and prosperity; nothing is more conformable to the tradition of the Church. Thus Catholics of the different rites in the Ottoman Empire pray for the Sultan” (see Gath. Encyp., Vol. VIII., p. 4). ‘ The Catholic Church believes and teaches that all men have been redeemed by our Blessed Lord. She knows full well that it is His will that all mankind should be saved. This is why she offers the Mass, “for all people,” ‘‘for the necessities of mankind.” In the Mass and Liturgy of Good Friday she prays—(l) for heretics and schismatics; (2) for unbelieving Jews; (3) for Pagans: That God may deign to dispel their errors, give them faith and salvation (see Roman Missal, Mass for Good Friday) Would not this be very absurd and contradictory if the Church believed that all such were going to be damned? Yet, Rev. Mr. Clarke, the axiom remains in full force: ‘‘Out of the Church there is no salvation.” But every man, woman, and child who dies in the state of grace belongs to the soul of the Catholic Church, and is therefore saved through her and through her alone. This is the meaning of the axiom, and I hope “ for educational purposes,” the Rev. Mr, Clarke may never forget it. If Rev. Mr. Clarke or any other man still believes that the axiom in question means that the Catholic Church teaches that all non-Catholics will be damned, to such a one I reply in the words Dr.' Johnson addressed to Boswell: ‘‘Sir, I can give you arguments* but I cannot give you brains.”—l am, etc., f J. Lynch, P.P. ‘Catholic Presbytery, June 4.’