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The Catholic Lawyer

Volume 7 Number 2 Volume 7, Spring 1961, Number 2 Article 8

Religious Tolerance in Catholic Tradition

Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro

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This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more , please contact [email protected]. IN CATHOLIC TRADITION t

GIACOMO CARDINAL LERCARO*

TOLERANCE IS A PARADOXICAL CONCEPT. It consists in permitting what one knows certainly to be an evil or an error. Permissio negativa mali (negative permission of evil), the theologians define it -negative, because the permission in no way implies encourage- ment of the evil. It would follow, therefore, that tolerance is not a in the strict sense of the term. But virtue sanctions and requires the practice of tolerance, for the evil or error it permits is always in the interests of a greater good that is thereby defended or promoted. Tolerance finds its basic justification in the analogy between human law and the divine law which governs the universe. St. taught:

Human government is derived from divine government which it should imitate. Though is all-powerful and sovereignly good, He permits the occurrence of evil in the universe which He could prevent. He does so in order that the suppression of evil may not entail the suppression of greater goods or even beget worse evils. Similarly in the case of human government, those who govern well will tolerate evil in order to foster good or prevent worse evil.1 Leo XIII returned to this thought in his encyclical "Libertas '' 2 when he said: With the discernment of a true Mother, the weighs the great burden of human weakness and well knows the course along which the actions of men are being borne in this our age. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice for the sake of avoiding some greater evil or preserving some

t Translated by the CATHOLIC MIND from the French version of J. Thomas- d'Hoste which appeared in DOCUMENTATION CATHOLIQUE, Paris, March 15, 1959. Reprints are available from the America Press, 920 Broadway, N .Y. * Archbishop of Bologna.

1 AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGICA, I-II, q. 10, art. 11, obj. 3.

2 ACTA LEONIS XlIl 205. 7 CATHOLIC LAWYER, SPRING 1961

greater good. God Himself in His Provi- sources of Revelation and to the practice dence, though infinitely good and power- of the Church. To omit here other scrip- ful, permits evil to exist in the world, tural texts which are adduced in support of partly that greater good may not be im- this argument, in the parable of the peded and partly that greater evil may not cockle gives the following advice: let the ensue. In the government of states it is not cockle grow in the field of the world to- forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the gether with the good seed in view of the world; and, as the authority of man is harvest.5 The duty of repressing moral powerless to prevent every evil, it has, as and religious error cannot therefore be an St. Augustine says, "to overlook and leave ultimate norm of action. It must be sub- unpunished many things which are pun- ordinate to higher and more general norms ished, and rightly, by divine Providence." 3 which in particular circumstances permit, and perhaps even seem to.indicate as the If, in certain circumstances, human law better policy, of error in order can and should tolerate evil for the sake of to promote a greater good. the common good - and for this reason But alone - this does not mean that it can ap- what is the greater good which justifies, even demands, tolerance on the prove of or wish evil for its own sake. part of Catholics in respect to other relig- Being in itself the privation of good, evil is ious confessions? opposed to the common welfare which the Prudence, in so far as it provides a man human legislator must seek out and pro- with a correct insight into how he must act, mote to the best of his ability. Human law is the virtue generally recognized as justify- should strive to imitate God who, though ing tolerance. In our case, however, should He allows evil to exist in the world, "wills this prudence amount to mere practical neither that it come to pass nor fail to come foresight? To put it graphically, are we pre- to pass. He simply permits it. And that is vented from once again condemning the good."4 This single brief formula of the heretic to the stake only because of the Angelic Doctor contains the entire Catholic peculiar historical situation of the Church doctrine on tolerance. to-day? Or should tolerance proceed from In the allocution to the Italian Catholic loftier principles, such as respect for the jurists on 3rd December, 1953, Pius XII truth or for the manner in which God acts remarked: on the human ? Hence the affirmation that religious and Religious tolerance, we maintain, should moral error must always be impeded when proceed from respect for the truth and for it is possible, because toleration of them is in itself immoral, is not valid absolutely the manner in which the human intellect and unconditionally. Moreover, God has arrives at the truth, rather than from re- not given to human authority such an ab- spect for freedom in itself. Here we are solute and universal control in matters of drawing a distinction between the Catholic and morality. Such a command is concept of tolerance and the ideas ex- unknown to the common convictions of pressed by mankind, to Christian conscience, to the in his Letter on Tolerance. Pius XI clarified the essential elements of that distinction in his encyci-

3 ST. AUGUSTINE, DE LIB. ARBITR., Lib. 1, cap. 6, num. 14. 4 SUMMA THEOLOGICA, I, q. 19, art. 9, ad 3. 5 Matt. xiii, 24-30. RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

cal, Non abbiamo bisogno, where he de- the name of your principles of tolerance; clared: when we are a majority, we deny freedom . ..We are, as we stated above, happy to you in the name of our own principles." and proud to wage the good fight for the (Actually Veuillot never made any such of consciences, not indeed for the statement.) liberty of conscience, as someone, perhaps At this point it is most important to re- inadvertently, has quoted us as saying. This [liberty of conscience] is an equivocal ex- call the thesis which lays the foundation pression, too often distorted to mean the for the secularist perspective of history. absolute independence of conscience which The proposition that a transcendent reli- is absurd in a soul created and redeemed gion must lead to is necessary to by God. the secularist view. That is why all secular- A False View ists hold it, even the most moderate. Their Before developing the Church's position position is the result of an historical judg- on tolerance, let us first view Catholic doc- ment according to which the Church ex- trine through the eyes of non-Catholics who hausted its positive civilizing function in have been influenced by the secular press. the . To-day it is unable to According. to the viewpoint commonly provide the spiritual ferment necessary for called radical to-day the principle of reli- the development of civil life. It is con- gious tolerance is part and parcel of those cerned only with its own survival. In its philosophical systems that are known as nostalgia for the past, the secularist main- relativism and philosophical historicism. tains, the Church resists the modern world These systems teach that truth is human and finds its strength in the inevitable crises rather than divine. They can be under- which accompany historical progress. stood in a twofold sense. I would call them In this view, the Church, from the Coun- dogmatic, in so far as they have given rise ter- on, inevitably became the to a new form of religiosity called "the centre around which every type of conserv- of freedom." They may also be atism rallied. The Church found it possible called sceptical, in so far as they inspired to ally herself with the established order, the decadent interpretations of historicism. and even to take on the colouring of its Renan, for example, considered himself the strongest ally. Thus, in the nineteenth cen- embodiment of the of tolerance when tury, the secularists maintain, when the he taught that all views of the world were, ultimate victory of the ancien rdgime still in their essence, equally true. Similarly, seemed possible, the Church was anti-Lib- modern relativism claims to admit all posi- eral. To-day it is ready to borrow the tions save any which presents itself as ab- Liberal ideology proper to the bourgeoisie. solute truth. The secularist would argue, therefore, Because it is under the influence of rela- that the Church to-day is ready to accept tivism, our modern secularist culture has the principle of tolerance only because she no alternative but to define the Catholic would be otherwise incurably impotent in position on tolerance through words which the modern world. have been attributed to the Catholic apolo- Adolph Harnack, the Protestant Liberal gist, Louis Veuillot: "When we are a mi- historian, expressed most clearly the idea nority, we claim freedom for ourselves in that intolerance and transcendent truth 7 CATHOLIC- LAWYER, SPRING 1961 went hand in hand. In 1925 he wrote: "We at times to lend an air of truth to such would again see raging the religious perse- assertions as these. The realization that the cutions the Catholic churches are forced so-called "modern world" suffered from to employ when they have attained power. fundamental error weighed heavily on the Their concept of the nature of the Church mind of nineteenth-century Catholicism. and of the nature of obedience in matters The new values of this world (though im- of faith demands ." perfect in their expression and in the logic Other authors go so far as to pretend which accepted them) could not be made to that intolerance, in the eyes of the Church, conform to the potentialities of Catholic is the logical consequence of the virtue of doctrine. As a result, Catholics felt im- charity. Indeed, they argue, since the pelled, on the one hand, to turn back to the Church that membership is a nec- Middle Ages in their search for a unique, essary moral condition if man is to attain model of Christian civilization and, eternal salvation, then its transformation on the other, to confuse the concept of into an institution of power and the de- freedom with the doctrine of , velopment of an inquisitorial character be- thereby conceding far too much to their come for her a duty of mercy. As Nietzsche adversaries. put it, it is therefore not charity, but the impotence of charity which prevents Catho- 's Failure lics from once again setting fire to the But history, as far back as I, stakes. Croce, who furnished the cultural has given the lie to the Modernists. The ex- ammunition for the anticlerical Liberalism tremes of immanentism - the doctrine that made popular to-day by Il Mondo and truth is human - has to-day become his- I'Expresso, held the same point of view. toric fact in Marxism. It has given way So too did Jaspers, a secularist, but by no to what we call , to a form of means an extremist in his thinking: persecution not only of , but of The pretence to dogmatic exclusiveness reason itself. In comparison, the harshness is constantly on the point of again prepar- and cruelty of the Inquisition, painted even ing the lighted stake for the heretic. It is in their blackest aspects, pale into insig- in the nature of things, for, even though the great number of believers lack the nificance. stomach for violence or for the suppres- Moreover, it has become obvious that sion of those who, in their point of view, secularist Liberalism has proved incapable are , the pretence to exclusiveness of resolving the problem of the transition common to all forms of biblical religion to a democratic form of society in which demands it. 7 every development is considered to be the In all honesty one must admit that the end result of a purely social process. history of the nineteenth century seemed Forced by its theoreticians to hold fast to the " of the past," and to cherish its vision of the world of yesterday, secular Liberalism has forfeited its influential place 6 DIE EICHE, 13, Munich, p. 295, cited in PRIBILLA, in history. UNITE CHRETIENNE ET TOLERANCE RELIGIEUS 189 (Paris 1950). Catholics, on the contrary, have taken 7 DER PHILOSOPHISCHE 73 (Munich 1948). up the defence of their own minority rights RELIGIoUS TOLERANCE and, where they find themselves a majority, man religion in its anxiety to realize an the freedom of all others. As true defend- effective universality. ers of human dignity, they point the way Dogmatic intolerance, therefore, logi- toward the transition from a Liberal to a cally follows from the idea that truth is democratic form of society. eternal. To deny the objectivity of truth is For a precise notion of the Catholic to consider equally valid, even in different sense of tolerance, we must first dissociate historical circumstances, positions which, the teaching of the Church from the prin- from the religious and moral point of ciples of philosophical relativism. The view, are mutually contradictory. Church, conscious that she is the unique All the papal condemnations of rational- legitimate representative of truth, must be ism, therefore, from the of intolerant from the dogmatic point of view. Gregory XVI (1832) to the Syllabus of By that we mean that she must reject relig- Pius IX, retain their original force. It is ious indifference. The Church insists on the entirely erroneous to suppose that Leo primary importance of the problem of truth XIII indicated a new and different direc- and on the fact that religious truths cor- tion in the encyclicals Immortale Dei respond to metaphysical reality. These (1885) and Libertas. Immortale Dei be- truths are not mere symbolic attitudes. In- gins, as a matter of fact, with a rejection deed, if the Church did not profess dog- of the rationalist and naturalist concepts matic intolerance, she would in fact be of the state which have for their essential yielding to the relative concept of truth and characteristic purpose the establish- taught by historicism, even to the point of ment of the authority of man -in place of considering her own universality as a mere that of God. Libertas clarifies perfectly the historical accident dependent on the so- relationship between what the Sovereign called of freedom or of humanity. Pontiff calls Liberalism in the language of the period (what is to-day known as Moreover, the Church must continue to radicalism) and a certain . The reject all forms of Averrhoism and Spin- promoters of-Liberalism correspond in the ozaism, systems which make a distinction social and civic order to the partisans of between the religion of the savants = phil- rationalism and naturalism in philosophy, osophy, in other words - and the religion for they would introduce the philosophical of the common man, which pretends to principles of these systems into daily life. adapt for the profane those truths which It should be clearly understood that the only the philosopher can know in their ra- term naturalism signifies the rejection of tional form. the to the point of fusing those This means that the Church cannot concepts which are proper to materialism accept in any shape or form. and historicism. Were the Church to yield to Modernism, The Church then has no alternative but it would mean putting the stamp of ap- to remain dogmatically intolerant. But dog- proval on the false values of the philoso- matic intolerance should not beget an atti- phies of history and of the human relig- tude of civil or practical intolerance. This ions of the nineteenth century. Catholicism is the distinction which Pius XI implied in itself would disintegrate into a mere hu- Non abbiamo bisogno. It follows from his 7 CATHOLIC LAWYER, SPRING 1961 words that the defence of freedom has to truth. Hence in recognizing the objec- nothing in common with the tenets of the tivity of truth, the individual is, at the same so-called religion of freedom. Genuine free- time, establishing the right to personal dom is something quite distinct from the freedom. Where truth is imposed, there false elevation of freedom to the rank of arises confusion between religion and poli- religion. As Aubert has correctly observed, tics. As history has so often demonstrated, in this text of Pius XI, and in analogous truth tends to become an instrument in the texts of who succeeded Leo XIII, hands of the state. According to the Chris- one can perceive the beginnings of a tian conscience, the relationship of politics of tolerance and of freedom of to religion is one of subordination. But conscience in the sense understood to-day. where truth is imposed, religion and poli- He correctly adds that to work for a fully tics become entangled. This confusion of satisfactory elaboration of this theology, religion and politics has been typical of one liberated from the philosophical postu- every form of and reflects a situa- lates of Liberalism and rationalism, con- tion which has been carried to extremes in stitutes one of the greatest tasks of the the totalitarian regimes of to-day. modern theologian. Moreover, Christian teaching concerning It remains now to show how, from the the presence of God in the human soul and idea of the eternity and objectivity of in the absolute, transcendent value truth - in a word, of the divinity of truth in history of the human person lays the - there follows the idea of respect for foundation for the use of persuasive freedom of consciences, while from the methods in matters of religious faith and notion that truth is human there follows forbids coercion and violence. On the con- the extreme intolerance characteristic of trary, systems of thought which radically modern secularistic, totalitarian religions. deny the Christian concept of man, in so The idea of tolerance as exposed in far as they hold that the thought of man Catholic thought is extremely simple. In is always determined by his historical situa- substance it can be reduced to this: no one tion, must necessarily lead to the most should be forced against his will to accept rigid form of intolerance. Indeed, if man the Catholic faith. Respect for the truth must change as society changes, then it demands freedom of consent. A truth im- makes no sense at all to speak of methods posed is not a truth accepted as such. of persuasion. Persuasion, Rosmini rightly noted, can- If this principle is valid for metaphysical not be forced. and moral truth, it is with more reason With this in mind we can now turn to valid in the domain of grace and faith. a consideration of the greater good which No man can pretend to substitute for the justifies religious tolerance on the part of action of God in the human soul without the Catholic - namely, the need for truth exposing himself to obvious sacrilege. No to be accepted as truth. modern theologian would hesitate to stig- What we mean is this: when one affirms matize as a tyrant the political leader who that truth is objective, by that very fact he would impose a religion by force on his admits of a distinction between truth itself subjects. Indeed, how could one think of and the act by which the individual yields imposing Christianity without opening the RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

door to the worst sacrilege of all - that the demands of the into the against the Eucharist? Cajetan observes sphere of supernatural justice, i.e., the that sacrilege against the Eucharist is the law of the State into the law of the Church. most serious, because it directly offends the According to Arquilli~re, its most compe- humanity of Christ which is contained tent historian, this tendency characterized therein. medieval Augustinian political philosophy. Yet, in the light of the teachings of St. In modern times the possibility of treat- Augustine himself, this tendency must be ing the problem of freedom of consciences put down as an oversimplification, for it and civil tolerance from a new angle begins does not represent the integrity of his with Leo XIII, who stated in Immortale thought even though the letter of his writ- Dei: ings be pushed to the extreme. The Church indeed deems it unlawful to This principle that the positive promo- place various forms of divine on tion of the common good demands civil and the same footing as the true religion, but religious tolerance is again explicitly de- does not, on that account, condemn those rulers who, for the sake of securing some fended by Leo XIII in Libertas where the greater good, or of hindering some great Pontiff says: evil, tolerate in practice that these various Liberty may also be taken to mean that forms of religion have a place in the State. every man in the State may follow the will And in fact the Church is wont to take of God and, from a consciousness of duty earnest heed that no-one shall be forced and free from every obstacle, obey His to embrace the Catholic faith against his commands. This indeed is true liberty, a will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds liberty worthy of the sons of God, which us, "Man cannot believes otherwise than of nobly maintains free will." the dignity of man, and his own is stronger than all violence or wrong - a Thus with Leo XIII the Church begins to liberty which the Church has always de- stress, not only dogmatic intolerance, sired and held most dear. This is the kind of liberty which the Apostles claimed for which must be strictly maintained, and the themselves with intrepid constancy, which historical evils that civil tolerance can the apologists of Christianity affirmed by prevent, such as civil discord and wars of their writings, and which the martyrs in religion, but also the positive good that can vast numbers consecrated by their blood. come from religious liberty - namely, the Despite such an authoritative statement, safeguarding of the act of faith. the idea is prevalent, not only among un- There is an obvious relationship between believers, but among Catholics as well, that the of this concept of this concept of liberty and the appeal which liberty is only a concession suggested by Leo XIII makes to Thomism. As a philo- prudence and grudgingly made to the spirit sophical system, Thomism best establishes of the times. the necessary distinction that must be drawn between the domain of the Church Catholic Tradition and the domain of the State. In general, It is, therefore, important Thomism distinguishes between faith and to point out reason. It rejects the tendency to absorb that it was genuine Catholic tradition that inspired the declarations of Leo XIII, 8 TRACT XXVI IN JOHANNEM, n.2. Pius XI and Pius XII. The principles of 7 CATHOLIC LAWYER, SPRING 1961

tolerance should be explained not as though who live in pagan countries." they represent -an effort on the part of the This shows that the Sovereign Pontiffs and Church to come to a compromise with the the Doctors of the Middle Ages faced the modern world. On the contrary, they repre- problem of tolerance in regard to the sent a new development of the permanent . Basically, to-day's position is only principles of Catholicism - a development a universalization of their attitude. which is capable of assimilating and, at the Later Innocent III recalled the same same time, purifying what is worthwhile in principles to the Archbishop of Arles. "It modern thought. This development, more- is contrary to the Christian religion," he over, -is accomplished by making more pointed out, "that a man be forced to be- precise the application of permanent prin- come and to remain Christian against his ciples to new problems. will and despite his opposition." Roman Catholic tradition is filled with Some time later St. Thomas wrote in texts which support such a development. It the Summa that infidels, such as the Gen- is common that the ancient State tiles and the Jews, who have never accepted was founded on principles Which confused the faith should in no manner be forced the divine and the social, i.e., the religious to believe, because belief is an act of the and the political, and that Christianity set will. When Christians make war on the for itself the task of separating the things , the Angelic Doctor continues, "it is of Caesar from those of God. Christianity not to oblige them to accept Christianity; was far ahead of the State in proclaiming it is only to force them not to oppose the the absolute value of the human person. faith of Christ." For, as he points out, if This theme re-echoes throughout the entire Christians triumph over the infidel and re- works of Pius XII. duce him to captivity, they should leave In one of his letters, St. Gregory the him his freedom of choice in regard to Great wrote: religion. If, moved by a right intention, you de- Obvious Olijections sire to lead to the true faith those who Nevertheless, though it is possible to are outside the Christian fold, you should show that the Catholic doctrine on relig- use persuasion, not violence. Otherwise minds which are ripe for enlightenment will ious tolerance is only a development of be alienated because of your hostility. traditional principles, an objection remains: Those who act differently under the pre- How did it come to pass that the principles text of bringing men to accept their own have been so late in yielding to develop- religious traditions show that they are ments? We cannot deny that the Inquisi- seeking their own wills rather than the will tion of God. refused men their freedom of conscience. Nor can we deny that repre- In a letter to the bishops of , sentatives of the Church often praised the dated 6th April, 1233, Gregory IX laid sometimes violent methods employed by down the lines of conduct to be adopted the Counter-Reformation. It is also true in regard to the Jews. He declared: "As that many of the expressions used by for the Jews, Christians ought to conduct Gregory XVI and Pius IX are clearly con- themselves with the same charity that trary to the idea of religious liberty. We they would desire to see used toward can go further and admit that the distinc- RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

tion we make to-day between the "thesis" plurality of religious beliefs. One did not and the "hypothesis" tends to leave the inherit . The heretic was persecuted, modern mind perplexed. In seeming to not so much for his heresy, as for the delib- distinguish between the ideal of tolerance erate separation of himself from the unity and the concrete historical situations in of faith and love which constituted the which she has found herself, the Church religious . The fundamental rea- appears to have sanctioned a policy which ,son why the heretic was persecuted lay not is based on compromise. so much in his error as in his grave per- The Answer sonal culpability, his evil moral disposition. In answering these objections it is most It should not be astonishing then that the important to realize that the problem of problem of freedom of consciences was religious liberty is essentially a modern one. either not at all or rarely posed during this We must distinguish between the doctrine period. What is important is to discover if, of the Church and the impact given his- in contradistinction to the religious posi- torical situations have made on the Church. tions taken by the Church during the Furthermore, it is particularly important Middle Ages, there are not doctrinal ele- to stress that the Inquisition was never an ments in the teaching of the Roman Church essential factor in Church discipline. As an which would enable her to confront the historical phenomenon, it must be ex- problem of religious liberty as we know plained in the light of the spiritual situa- that problem to-day. The answer, as we tion of the Middle Ages. That period was have already seen, is Yes. characterized by a unity of faith which It is only fair to consider the condem- was lived. There was then no question of nations of Gregory XVI and Pius IX in the justifying the freedom of the act of faith, light of the adversaries against whom they but rather of finding a religious justification were pronounced. They were not concerned for current cultural values. with the distinction between dogmatic and With this in mind it is easy to under- civil tolerance which we have been stress- stand why, in the Middle Ages, theologians ing. They did insist on total intransigence directed their attention to objective truth, on the theoretical plane even to the point leaving in the shadows the subjective aspect of expecting Catholics to deny all spon- of human adherence to truth. By contrast, taneous recognition of religious freedom to the modern era is called the age of reflec- dissenters. But in analysing their state- tion, because reflection on the subjective ments, we must insist on certain principles attitudes of the mind is its dominant char- of historical criticism which demand that acteristic. any statement be judged in its historical It was, therefore, natural that the context - in this case, in relation to the Middle Ages should have insisted on dog- anti-Catholicism of the time. Much matic intolerance, all the while ignoring of what in the nineteenth century the notion of civil tolerance. Granted the was called Liberalism we to-day would call unity of faith characteristic of the Middle radicalism. The Liberalism of the nine- Ages, whoever separated himself from the teenth century very often associated its Church was a heretic in the formal sense political tenets with a view of life which of the word. One could not then speak of a was distinctly anti-Catholic. The so-called 7 CATHOLIC LAWYER, SPRING 1961

"declarations of the modern conscience" We have already pointed out that the were meant to oppose what remained of reason for dogmatic intolerance is such the "dark ages." Moreover, the Liberalism that the Church cannot renounce it in any of the nineteenth century was associated way. Certainly there were Catholic Liberals with Freemasonry. This was the age which in the nineteenth century -among whom not only idolized the figure of Julian the we may list Cavour who sought during the Apostate, but sought to resume his type last months of his life to reconcile Liber- of persecution. (I refer, for example, to alism and Catholicism-but it must be the anticlericalism of the Third Republic of observed that they, while hazily perceiving France and the Laws of Combes.) what was legitimate and Christian in the Hence the freedom to all cults and to claims of the modern conscience, were all opinions preached by Liberalism was, wrong in not seeing the complexity of the in the mind of those who promoted it, problem and in general in formulating their practically equivalent to a denial of the position in terms of compromise. Catholic cult. The Liberals sought to estab- The adversaries have changed to-day. lish those political and cultural conditions The notion that there is an essential con- which would result in the disappearance nection between anti-supernatural ration- from the modern conscience of what they alism and the affirmation of freedom, in called "a residue of intolerance." Catholi- both the theoretical and practical sense of cism, they taught, was no longer adaptable the word, is admittedly false. Conditions to progress. In reality they were only estab- are, therefore, ripe for the explanation of lishing an Inquisition in reverse, in which the traditional principles of the Church in ridicule rather than the stake became the regard to religious tolerance as we have penalty. The Catholic was excluded from enunciated them. dialogue on the grounds that he repre- To-day, the cause of civilization and the sented a pre-scientific mentality which had cause of personal freedom are one and long since been left behind by the irrever- the same, while the cause of barbarism is sible forward march of history. synonymous with an extreme intolerance This exclusion from dialogue represented which has nothing in common with any a new type of inquisitorial punishment, at Catholic doctrine. least as serious as those associated with We have written these lines to demon- tradition. But radicalism, in linking free- strate that, if the Church to-day leaps to dom with anti-supernatural rationalism, was the defence of human freedom, it is not not denying dogmatism, as it wished the because she has been forced by historical world to believe. It was rather marking a necessity to submit. Nor does her defence transition to a new type of dogmatism - of human freedom mean that she has the dogmatism of the modern conscience. entered into a compromise with principles Thus it was Liberalism itself, at least in its that are alien to her teaching. In the pres- radical expression, which in the nineteenth ence of a new historical situation the century made the issue one of dogmatism. Church merely affirms the dignity of the It is this fact which explains why the human person and its essential relationship Sovereign Pontiffs were especially con- to the primacy of truth which has. always cerned with dogmatic intolerance. been the norm of her teaching and action.