Part 2. The Struggle of Roman Catholicism for Freedom to Exist and the Significance of the Results It Gained for Its Further Development (Cont.) (10)

Thus only by a slow and gradual process did the idea of freedom of religious conscience and religious equality before civil law make its conquests in individual states, notwithstanding that by the federal constitution it had been adopted and proclaimed at the very dawn of American political independence. Only with the passage of time and by virtue of the constant moral pressure of the federal constitution did the sectarian intolerance of Protestantism toward Catholicism gradually weaken and retreat, and at the present time the idea of freedom of religious conscience has in fact gained full rights of citizenship. But this freedom is not equivalent to complete license. It even now finds in many states legal and indeed strict limitations which even condition the exercise of civil rights. Thus, by the Maryland constitution, for election to office a declaration of belief in the Christian religion is required, and for a Jew a declaration of his belief in a future state of reward and punishment.[1] By the Vermont constitution, no religious test is required, but nevertheless “every sect or association of Christians shall keep and observe the Lord’s Day or Christian Sabbath, and shall hold some form of divine worship or religious service on that day.”[2] By the Pennsylvania constitution, “no person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of reward and punishment shall, on account of his religious opinions, be disqualified to hold any office or place of public trust.”[3] By the Tennessee constitution, “no person who denies the being of God or a future state of reward and punishment shall hold any office in the civil department of the State.”[4] Finally, by the North Carolina constitution, “no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Christian religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testament, or shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom or safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of public trust in the civil department of the State.”[5] Other states make no legal determinations concerning religion. But this does not mean that the state in them completely ignores religion and severs all connection with it. If this connection has not been expressed in written law, as in the states named above, still it exists, is recognized by the state, and is expressed in unwritten common law. This connection constantly makes itself known in judicial proceedings concerning religion. Both the court and individual jurists are always guided by this common law and by their decisions confirm the connection of the state not only with religion in general, but even particularly with Christianity. Thus the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, whose constitution only indirectly touches on religion, positively recognizes the inseparable connection of the state with Christianity, when in one judicial proceeding it declared: Christianity is part of the common law of this State… Its foundations are broad, strong, and deep; they lie at the basis of the power, interests, and feelings of the people. Setting aside all private questions, it is the purest system of morality, the strongest helper and the only stable support of all human laws. It is impossible to administer the laws without accepting the Holy Scriptures as their basis… An oath in the usual form, before a discredited book, would be the most idle ceremony.[6] But even more remarkable in this respect is the declaration of the Supreme Court in New York, whose constitution does not at all legally determine the connection of the state with religion. “Christianity,” said Chancellor Kent on behalf of the court, “in its broad sense as the religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our jurisprudence. The statute for the prevention and prohibition of immorality sanctifies the first day of the week as holy time, and treats its violation as immoral… The Act concerning oaths recognizes the usual manner of taking an oath by laying on of hands and kissing the Gospel.” “Whatever tends to corrupt morality tends clearly to destroy civil government,” he plainly declares concerning the inseparability of the state from Christianity as a universal church.[7] And further he says: “Blasphemy, according to the most precise definition, consists in the malicious reviling of God or religion… in reviling Christianity through its Founder… Such crimes have always been treated independently of religious establishment or church rights. They are viewed as acts affecting the essential interests of civil society.” “Blasphemy against God,” he says in another place, “and the reproachful and profane derisions of Christ or the Sacred Scriptures, which are considered equally with blasphemy, are crimes punishable by common law, whether expressed orally or in writing.” “But we are not at all obliged to punish similar attacks on the religion of Mohammed or of the great Lama, and this on the simple ground that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply rooted in Christianity, not in the doctrines or worship of these impostors.”[8] Clearly, the state in New York not only recognizes its inner connection with Christianity as a church, but at the same time denies its connection with all other religions. The effect of this general, unwritten law makes itself known in all states. The general sense of these constitutions is evidently that freedom of religious conscience is granted only to the extent that it remains actually freedom of religious or even Christian conscience, and ceases where it passes over into a denial of all religious or Christian conscience. This must be firmly remembered by all advocates of freedom of conscience, and especially by those who like to appeal to America.

And so only toward the end of the century of American political independence did the Roman Catholic Church come to be legally and practically equal in its rights with all other confessions in America. At the present time, it has, equal with all other confessions and communities, recognized as inalienable those rights which were proclaimed a hundred years ago in the historical declaration of American freedom, in the “Declaration of Independence,” namely the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and has gained full significance the provision of that same declaration that government is instituted to secure these rights and guard their free exercise. “The right of freedom,” explains a Catholic author in reference to the Declaration of Independence in its application to the Roman Catholic Church,[9] “includes freedom to keep the commandments of God, to observe the law of His Church, to use all the means given to us for obtaining mercy, acquiring virtue, and fulfilling the purpose of our existence. The right to happiness includes unobstructed enjoyment of all the advantages of our religion, which alone can make us truly happy in this world and enable us to attain eternal beatitude. The right of freedom and happiness gives full opportunity for all who wish to dedicate themselves to the sacred duties of the altar and monastery. It gives freedom to perform all the rites and ceremonies of religious worship, to dedicate our wealth to the service of God and our neighbors, to organize and govern our churches according to our canonical law, to establish and hold colleges, seminaries, monasteries, and charitable institutions, to educate our children, to profess and practice the Catholic religion fully and wholly. The purpose of government is to secure these rights, so that if it does not provide actual protection for the free and peaceful enjoyment of them, it is negligent in the performance of its duty; and if it invades these rights or violates them through tyrannical legislation, it commits a positive act of injustice and usurpation. The government, the supreme power in the state, from which the government derives its authority, is equally responsible before eternal law as are individual citizens, and it can violate it through neglect of securing and protecting, or through direct violation of the rights of conscience granted by the Creator. Therefore, it is necessary strictly to guard these rights, to declare and defend them loudly when they are in danger of violation, and by all lawful means to prevent any attempt to interfere with their exercise through unjust legislation or tyrannical use of power by the government and its official agents. The supreme power in the state has a general and constant tendency to seize unjust power and violate the rights of subjects. The freedom of the individual or class under government is always in danger, and therefore eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. This is equally true whether the supreme power is entrusted to a monarch or aristocracy, or where the people retain it for themselves. It would be a great error to suppose that popular government and republican institutions constitute a perfect and complete guarantee of freedom in general or freedom of conscience in particular. The political majority or ruling party may tyrannically dominate the minority or weaker party and private citizens. Magistrates elected by popular vote may abuse their power and oppress those whom they should protect. Legislative assemblies elected by the people may enact the most unjust and despotic laws. Athenian democracy exiled Aristides the Just and poisoned Socrates, the wisest man of pagan antiquity, the father and founder of philosophy. In our own time we have witnessed the most treacherous violation of guaranteed rights and the most tyrannical oppression of religious freedom of Catholics committed by the Swiss Republic. Catholics are always subjected to oppression where they constitute the weaker party, and never have sufficient guarantee for acquiring and preserving their religious freedom except in their own numbers and strength, gained significance through energetic activity in behalf of their cause.”[9] “In accordance with the principles and spirit of our laws and political institutions,” continues the same author, “the Catholic Church possesses in the United States a greater degree of freedom belonging to it by divine right than in most other countries. And in practice this freedom has been largely secured to it, thanks to the justice of the people in general and the fidelity of those entrusted with the administration of the law. Nevertheless, we cannot and should not be satisfied with anything less than the full and perfect freedom and equality that by right belong to us, and which do not in the slightest degree violate the same rights of those who profess a different religion. There are matters in regard to which we are obligated both by duty and by right to demand a greater degree of justice than has so far been shown us, and to endeavor to prevent further diminution of our rights as Catholic citizens.”[10]

From the passage quoted above, which by general and official recognition is the best expression of Roman Catholicism in America, it is clear that Catholics recognize their equality before civil law with all other confessions and communities as legally and practically established, but that in the state there is nonetheless a tendency toward curtailment of these rights, against which tendency Catholics are called upon to guard. This tendency finds justification in actual facts and flows from the very conditions of the position of Roman Catholicism in the state. The United States, by its history and composition of population, is in essence a Protestant state. The Catholic population constitutes a weak minority, one-seventh of the total population. In republican states, where the composition and character of government are determined by popular vote, governmental power necessarily rests in the hands of the majority. Since this majority in the United States is on the side of the Protestant population, naturally the composition of government appears predominantly Protestant. A “Protestant government” is in essence a logical and internal contradiction in a state where government and church, state and religion, are legally separated from each other. But such is the organic nature of man that he cannot extract and remove the soul from his being even when the question concerns only his body. So also Protestant representatives of the people entrusted with the government of the country, inevitably and of necessity bring with them in the governance their Protestant views. This is an inevitable fact and it is confirmed by reality.