The Curse of
Broadmindedness
The Catholic Church is intolerant.” That simple thought, like a
yellow-fever sign, is supposed to be the one solid reason which should frighten
away anyone who might be contemplating knocking at the portals of the Church
for entrance, or for a crumb of the Bread of Life. When proof for this
statement is asked, it is retorted that the Church is intolerant because of its
self-complacency and smug satisfaction as the unique interpreter of the
thoughts of Christ. Its narrow-mindedness is supposed to be revealed in its
unwillingness to cooperate effectively with other Christian bodies that are
working for the union of churches. Within the last ten years, two great world
conferences on religion have been held, in which every great religion except
the Catholic participated. The Catholic Church was invited to attend and
discuss the two important subjects of doctrine and ministry, but she refused
the invitation.
That is not all.
Even in our own country she has refused to lend a helping hand in the
federating of those churches which decided it was better to throw dogmatic
differences into the background, in order to serve better the religious needs
of America. The other churches would give her a royal welcome, but she will not
come. She will not cooperate! She will not conform! And she will not conform
because she is too narrow-minded and intolerant! Christ would not have acted
that way!
Such is,
practically every one will admit, a fair statement of the attitude the modern
world bears to the Church. The charge of intolerance is not new. It was once
directed against Our Blessed Lord Himself.
Immediately after
His betrayal, Our Blessed Lord was summoned before a religious body for the
first Church Conference of Christian times, held not in the city of Lausanne or
Stockholm, but in the city of Jerusalem. The meeting was presided over by one
Annas, the primate and head of one of the most aggressive families of the patriarchate,
a man wise with the deluding wisdom of three score and ten years, in a country
in which age and wisdom were synonymous. Five of his sons in succession wore
the sacred ephod of blue and purple and scarlet, the symbols of family power.
As head of his own house, Annas had charge of family revenues, and from
non-biblical sources we learn that part of the family fortune was invested in
trades connected with the Temple. The stalls for the sale of bird and beast and
material for sacrifice were known as the booths of the sons of Annas. One
expects a high tone when a priest goes into business; but Annas was a Sadducee,
and since he did not believe in a future life, he made the most of life while
he had it. There was always one incident he remembered about his Temple
business, and that was the day Our Lord flung his tables down its front steps
as if they were lumber, and with cords banished the money-handlers from the
Temple like rubbish before the wind.
That incident
flashed before his mind now, when he saw standing before him the Woodworker of
Nazareth. The eyes of Jesus and Annas met, and the first world conference on
religion opened. Annas, ironically feigning surprise at the sight of the
prisoner whom multitudes followed the week before, opened the meeting by asking
Jesus to make plain two important religious matters, the two that were
discussed later on in Lausanne and Geneva and Stockholm, namely, the question
of His doctrine and the question of His ministry. Our Lord was asked by a
religious man, a religious leader, and a religious authority, representative of
the Common faith of a nation, to enter into discussion, to sit down to a
conference on the all-important questions of religion-ministry and
discipline-and He refused! And the world’s first Church Conference was a
failure.
He refused in words
which left no doubt in the mind of Annas that the doctrine which He preached
was the one which He would now uphold in religious conference, namely, His
Divinity. With words, cut like the facets of a diamond, and sentences, as
uncompromising as a two-edged sword, He answered Annas : “I have spoken openly
to the world . . . and in secret spoke I nothing. Why asketh thou Me? Ask them
that have heard Me, what I spoke unto them: behold, these know the things which
I said.”
In so many words
Jesus said to Annas: “You imply by your questioning that I am not Divine; that
I am just the same as the other rabbis going up and down the country-side; that
I am another one of Israel’s prophets, and at the most, only a man. I know that
you would welcome Me to your heart if I would say that I am only human. But no!
I have spoken openly to the world. I have declared My Divinity; I say unto you,
I have exercised the right of Divinity, for I have forgiven sins; I have left
my Body and Blood for posterity, and rather than deny its reality I have lost
those who followed Me, who were scandalized at My words. It was only last night
that I told Philip that the Father and I are One, and that I will ask My Father
to send the Spirit of Truth to the Church I have founded on Peter, which will
endure to the end of time. Ask those who have heard Me; they will tell you what
things I have said. I have no other doctrine than that which I declared when I
drove your dove-hucksters out of the Temple, and declared it to be My Father’s
House; that which I have preached; that which angels declared at My birth; that
which I revealed on Thabor; that which I now declare before you, namely, My
Divinity. And if your first principle is that I am not Divine, but am just
human like yourself, then there is nothing in common between us. So, why asketh
thou Me to discuss doctrine and ministry with you?”
And some brute
standing near by, feeling himself the humiliation of the high priest at such an
uncompromising response, struck Our Blessed Lord across the face with a mailed
fist, drawing out of Him two things: blood, and a soft answer: “If I have
spoken evil bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou Me?” And
that soldier in the court-room of Annas has gone down in history as the
representative of that great group that bears a hatred against Divinity, the
group that never clothes that hatred in any intellectual language, but rather
in violence alone.
All that happened
in the life of Christ happens in the life of the Church. And here in the
court-room of Annas I find the reason for the Catholic Church’s refusal to take
part in movements for federation such as those inspired by present world
conferences on religion. Happy the Church is that there should be a desire for
the union of Christendom, but she cannot take part in any such conference. In
so many words the Church says to those who invited her: “Why askest thou me
about my doctrine and my ministry? Ask them that have heard me. I have spoken
openly through the centuries, declaring myself the Spouse of Christ, founded on
the Rock of Peter. Centuries before prophets of modern religions arose, I spoke
my Divinity at Nicea and Constantinople; I spoke it in the cathedrals of the
Middle Ages; I speak it today in every pulpit and church throughout the world.
I know that you will welcome me to your conferences if I say I am not Divine; I
know Ritualists throughout the world feel the need of my ceremonials, and would
grasp my hand if I would but relinquish my claim to be Divine; I know a recent
writer has argued that the great organization of the Church could be the
framework for the union of all Christendom, if I would give up my claim to be
the Truth; I know the church doors of the world would rejoice to see me pass in
; I know your welcome would be sincere; I know you desire the union of all
Christendom-but I cannot. ‘Why do you ask me?’ if your first principle is that
I am not Divine, but just a human organization like your own, that I am a human
institution like all other human institutions founded by erring men and erring
women. If your first principle is that I am human, but not divine, then there
is no common ground for conference. I must refuse.”
Call this
intolerance, yes! That is just what it is-the intolerance of Divinity. It is
the claim to uniqueness that brought the blow of the soldier against Christ,
and it is the claim to uniqueness that brings the blow of the world’s
disapproval against the Church. It is well to remember that there was one thing
in the life of Christ that brought His death, and that was the intolerance of
His claim to be Divine. He was tolerant about where He slept. and what He ate;
He was tolerant about shortcomings of His fish-smelling apostles; He was
tolerant of those who nailed Him to the Cross, but He was absolutely intolerant
about His claim to be Divine. There was not much tolerance about His statement
that those who I receive not in Him shall be condemned. There was not much
tolerance about His statement that any one who would prefer his own father or
mother to Him was not worthy of being His disciple. There was not much
tolerance of the world’s opinion in giving His blessing to those whom the world
would hate and revile. Tolerance to His Mind was not always good, nor was
intolerance always evil.
There is no other
subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of
tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance is always supposed to be desirable because
it is taken to be synonymous with broadmindedness. Intolerance is always supposed
to be undesirable, because it is taken to be synonymous with narrow-mindedness.
This is not true, for tolerance and intolerance apply to two totally different
things. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance
applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to
persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because
they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have
led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not
our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation
made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but
never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.
The Church, like
Our Blessed Lord, advocates charity to all persons who disagree with her by
word or by violence. Even those who in the strictest sense of the term-are
bigots, are to be treated with the utmost kindness. They really do not hate the
Church, they hate only what they mistakenly believe to be the Church. If I
believed all the lies that are told about the Church, if I gave credence to all
the foul stories told about her priesthood and Papacy, if I had been brought up
on falsehoods about her teachings and her sacraments, I would probably hate the
Church a thousand times more than they do.
Keeping the
distinction well in mind between persons and principles, cast a hurried glance
over the general religious conditions of our country. America, it is commonly
said, is suffering from intolerance. While there is much want of charity to our
fellow-citizens, I believe it is truer to say that America is not suffering so
much from intolerance as it is suffering from a false kind of tolerance:
tolerance of right and wrong; truth and error; virtue and vice; Christ and
chaos. The man, in our country, who can make up his mind and hold to certain
truths with all the fervor of his soul, is called narrow-minded, whereas the
man who cannot make up his mind is called broadminded. And now this false
broadmindedness or tolerance of truth and error has carried many minds so far
that they say one religion is just as good as another, or that because one
contradicts another, therefore, there is no such thing as religion. This is
just like concluding that because, in the days of Columbus, some said the world
was round and others said it was flat, therefore, there is no world at all.
Such indifference
to the oneness of truth is at the root of all the assumptions so current in
present-day thinking that religion is an open question, like the tariff,
whereas science is a closed question, like the multiplication table. It is
behind that strange kind of broadmindedness which teaches that any one may tell
us about God, though it would never admit that any one but a scientist should
tell us about an atom. It has inspired the idea that we should be broad enough
to publish our sins to any psychoanalyst living in a glass house, but never so
narrow as to tell them to a priest in a confessional box. It has created the
general impression that any individual opinion about religion is right, and it
has disposed modern minds to accept its religion dished up in the form of
articles entitled: “My Idea of Religion,” written by any nondescript from a
Hollywood movie star to the chief cook of the Ritz-Carlton.
This kind of
broadmindedness which sacrifices principles to whims, dissolves entities into
environment, and reduces truth to opinion, is an unmistakable sign of the decay
of the logical faculty.
Certainly it should
be reasonably expected that religion should have its authoritative spokesmen,
just as well as science. If you had wounded the palm of your hand, you would
not call in a florist; if you broke the spring of your watch, you would not ask
an artesian-well expert to repair it; if your child had swallowed a nickel, you
would not call in a collector of internal revenue; if you wished to determine
idle authenticity of an alleged Rembrandt, you would not summon a house
painter. If you insist that only a plumber should mend the leaks in your pipes,
and not an organ tuner, if you demand a doctor shall take care of your body,
and not a musician, then why, in heaven’s name, should not we demand that a man
who tells about God and religion at least say his prayers?
The remedy for this
broadmindedness is intolerance, not intolerance of persons, for of them we must
be tolerant regardless of views they may hold, but intolerance of principles. A
bridge builder must be intolerant about the foundations of his bridge; the
gardener must be intolerant about weeds in his gardens; the property owner must
be intolerant about his claims to property; the soldier must be intolerant
about his country, as against that of the enemy, and he who is broadminded on
the battlefield is a coward and a traitor. The doc¬tor must be intolerant about
disease in his patients, and the professor must be intolerant about error in
his pupils. So, too, the Church, founded on the Intolerance of Divinity, must
be equally intolerant about the truths commissioned to her. There are to be no
one-fisted battles, no half-drawn swords, no divided loves, no equalizing
Christ and Buddha in a broad sweep of sophomoric tolerance or broad-mindedness,
for as Our Blessed Lord has put it: “He that is not with Me is against Me.”
There is only one
answer to the problem of the constituents of water, namely, two atoms of
hydrogen and one of oxygen. There is only one answer to the question of what is
the capital of the United States. There is only one true answer to the problem
of two and two. Suppose that certain mathematicians in various parts of this
country taught diverse kinds of multiplication tables. One taught that two
times two equaled five, another two times two equaled six, another two times
two equaled seven and one fourth, another two times two equaled nine and four
fifths. Then suppose that some one decided it would be better to be broadminded
and to work together and sacrifice their particular solutions for the sake of
economy. The result would be a Federation of Mathematicians, compromising,
possibly, of the pooled solution that two times two equaled five and seven
eighths. Outside this federation is another group which holds that two times
two equals four. They refuse to enter the federation unless the mathematicians
agree to accept this as the true and unique solution. The broadminded group in
conference taunts them, saying: “You are too intolerant and narrow-minded. You
smack of the dead past. They believed that in the dark ages.”
Now this is
precisely the attitude of the Church on the subject of the world conferences on
religion. She holds that just as the truth is one in geography, in chemistry,
and mathematics, so too there is one truth in religion, and if we are
intolerant about the truth that two times two equals four, then we should also
be intolerant about those principles on which is hinged the only really
important thing in the world, namely, the salvation of our immortal soul. If
the assumption is that there is no Divinity, no oneness about truth, but only
opinion, probability, and compromise, then the Church must refrain from
participation. Any conference on religion, therefore, which starts with the
assumption that there is no such thing as truth, and that contrary and
contradictory sects may be united in a federation of broad-mindedness, must
never expect the Church to join or cooperate.
As we grew from
childhood to adolescence, the one thing that probably did most to wreck our
faith in Santa Claus-I know it did mine -was to find a Santa Claus in every
department-store window. If there were only one Santa Claus, and he was at the
North Pole, how could there be one in every shop window and at every street
corner? That same mentality which led us to seek truth in unity should lead us
in religious matters to identically the same conclusion.
The world may
charge the Church with intolerance, and the world is right. The Church is
intolerant; intolerant about Truth, intolerant about principles, intolerant
about Divinity, just as Our Blessed Lord was intolerant about His Divinity. The
other religions may change their principles, and they do change them, because
their principles are man-made. The Church cannot change, because her principles
are God-made. Religion is not a sum of beliefs that we would like, but the sum
of beliefs God has given. The world may disagree with the Church, but the world
knows very definitely with what it is disagreeing. In the future as in the
past, the Church will be intolerant about the sanctity of marriage, for what
God has joined together no man shall put asunder; she will be intolerant about
her creed, and be ready to die for it, for she fears not those who kill the
body, but rather those who have the power to cast body and soul into hell. She
will be intolerant about her infallibility, for “Lo,” says Christ, “I am with
you all the days even unto the end of the world.” And while she is intolerant
even to blood, in adhering to the truths given her by her Divine Founder, she
will be tolerant to those who say she is intolerant, for the same Divine
Founder has taught her to say: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they
do.”
There are only two
positions to take concerning truth, and both of them had their hearing
centuries ago in the court-room of Solomon where two women claimed a babe. A
babe is like truth; it is one; it is whole; it is organic and it cannot be
divided. The real mother of ‘the babe would accept no compromise. She was
intolerant about her claim. She must have the whole babe, or nothing-the
intolerance of Motherhood. But the false mother was tolerant. She was willing
to compromise. She was willing to divide the babe-and the babe would have met
its death through broadmindedness.
Excerpt from
the book “Moods and Truths” (Published in
1932)
http://ucatholic.com/apologetics/the-curse-of-broadmindedness/
Excerpt from
the book “Moods and Truths” (Published in
1932)
Taken from ucatholic.com
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