Part 2. The Struggle of Roman Catholicism for Freedom to Exist and the Significance of the Results It Gained for Its Further Development (Cont.) (11)

The United States undoubtedly bears predominantly a Protestant character, and this is first of all evident in the very manner of its relation to religion or the church. The essence of the principle of the relation of state and church in the country, as we have seen above, consists in a strict delineation of the spheres of their relative activity, so that to the church belongs entirely the jurisdiction over the spiritual order of phenomena in human life, and to the state the jurisdiction over the material order. In determining the scope of these orders, Catholicism and Protestantism appear as two opposite and irreconcilable principles. According to the view of the former, the realm of the spiritual order essentially extends over the entire spiritual life of mankind—the religious, moral, and intellectual—and therefore the church exclusively has jurisdiction not only over religious conscience but also over the facts of marriage and family life, the education of children, and even literature.[1] Contrariwise, according to the view of Protestantism, the jurisdiction of the church extends only to religious conscience, and all other phenomena of human life, as not having essential significance for the main purpose of the church—the salvation of souls according to the principle of justification by faith alone—naturally fall under the jurisdiction of the state. According to the fundamental principle, the United States could not legally take the exclusive side of one of these opposite views, and therefore of necessity chose a middle position between them, which however the Catholics themselves recognize as most normal compared with the relation of most European states to the Catholic Church. This relation, however, from the Catholic perspective appears already Protestant because it does not realize the Catholic ideal of the relation of church and state, according to which the state should be merely a simple instrument of the church. But besides the state’s deviation from the extremes of the Catholic view, it shows a Protestant tendency in more essential matters, so that it not only stands in the middle of the two opposite views, but plainly inclines toward Protestantism. This is especially evident in its relation to the question of marriage and public education. According to the Catholic view, jurisdiction over marriage relations and public education belongs to the church,[2] but according to the Protestant view these are social facts and therefore fall within the sphere of the state. What position has the state taken on these questions? It has entirely inclined toward the Protestant view and made both marriage relations and public education purely state functions, independent of the church. It recognized marriage as a social act, allowing so-called civil marriage and broad freedom for divorce, and made public education one of its functions. Since Catholicism regards these functions as essential functions of the church, the state, by taking them under its jurisdiction, thereby deprived the Roman Catholic Church of its rightful authority and thus took the side of the opposite view—Protestantism. This naturally led to a collision between the state and Roman Catholicism, and on the question of public education the collision has developed into an open struggle, which continues vigorously to the present. Catholicism denies the state any right to educate children, regarding it as the duty of parents and the church;[3] but the bitterness of the struggle is intensified further by the fact that the state, as we shall see below,[4] to avoid the possibility of narrow denominational education in the spirit of the teaching and belief of any one church or community, has secularized the public school, which again coincides with the Protestant view and contradicts the Catholic one. Here the state commits even a positive injustice toward Catholics. Having taken public education under its jurisdiction, to maintain it the state levies a tax on all the population without distinction of religion, and consequently on Catholics. Meanwhile, Catholics cannot use this state school, since its use is forbidden them by their conscience and church, and therefore they are compelled by the state to pay for an object which for them is, at the least, useless, and from a strictly Catholic point of view—directly harmful, since a secularized school from this perspective is a denial of true education, is a product of Protestantism and therefore hostile to Catholicism. Not recognizing the state school, Catholics are compelled to establish and maintain their own parish schools, and thus bear a double tax compared with Protestants, which is already a direct state injustice.

Beyond the sphere of public education, the state—voluntarily or involuntarily—takes the side of Protestantism in many other respects. It controls a multitude of different institutions whose existence is caused by and conditioned upon social necessity, yet whose purpose cannot be achieved without religion, as the state itself acknowledges. Such are prisons, reformatories, and homes for delinquent children, asylums for homeless children, and similar institutions. They contain persons of various faiths—both Protestants and Catholics. The state, not only refraining from denying them the right to freely practice their religious duties, but even considering religion an essential element for achieving the very purpose of these institutions, has taken care to furnish them with religious fixtures and priests, whom it maintains on public salary. To avoid preferring any one denomination at the expense of others, the state everywhere follows what is called the nonsectarian system, in which religion is recognized and practiced only in its general Christian traits, without denominational distinctions. The state applies this same system when introducing religion into its institutions, and therefore employs priests who in fact belong to no particular denomination but are preachers of general Christianity. Catholic priests, as representatives of a strict, concrete denominational system requiring strict and unwavering observance of all its parts and details, naturally do not fit the state’s perspective; hence Protestant priests are placed in these institutions, where they preach general Christianity in prisons and teach it in reformatory schools. For Catholicism this situation is already disadvantageous in that Protestant priests are admitted to these institutions; but moreover, the general Christianity they preach is, in the Catholic view, nothing other than pure Protestantism. Catholicism recognizes no other Christianity except that embodied in a concrete historical form, and considers any departure from it as Protestantism—all the more so a detachment from any concrete church form such as general Christianity, which a Catholic publicist openly calls humbug,[5] meaning a deception obscuring the true nature of the matter. To force Catholic inmates of state institutions to attend the services of this general Christianity, in the Catholic view, violates their conscience. Yet this is exactly what happens in most institutions. In New York State, for example, there are three state prisons, and in not one of them is there any state provision for meeting the spiritual needs of Catholic prisoners.[6] The state has seven penitentiaries, and only three of them hold Catholic Mass; it also boasts four reformatory institutions, but only one of them provides Mass and the sacraments.[7] In the rest, all prisoners without exception are required to attend services according to the general Christianity system, which is, in the Catholic publicist’s view, beyond all question the cruelest violence to conscience—for even the worst Catholic in this world would never willingly participate in any service other than his own.[8]Recently a Catholic priest was allowed to visit one of the state prisons, to hear confessions and preach on Sunday afternoons; but the Catholic prisoners were also required to attend Protestant services.[9]Throughout the country, according to a Catholic publicist, only in Minnesota is freedom of conscience and equal rights in religious matters for those in state institutions fully secured, and that only by the recent act of March 5, 1874.[10] Thus the state acts not only toward criminals, who though needing religious consolation more than others have through their own conduct brought themselves to deprivation and restriction of freedom, but also toward those unfortunates who come under state care because no one else looks after them—abandoned, homeless, destitute children. To them the state appears not as a punisher of evil deeds but as guardian, taking the place as it were of parents. It also takes care to furnish these institutions with religious fixtures; but here again it introduces its favorite general Christianity, which, as we have seen, is entirely rejected by Catholicism. One of the oldest and most notable such institutions in New York State is the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, which has an educational and charitable character. According to its 1875 report, over the past fifty years it had housed 15,791 persons, at least half of whom were children of Catholic parents. Yet the institution had always employed a Protestant chaplain who preached general Christianity, and never a Catholic one. The average age of these children, according to statistics, was thirteen years and eight months. Therefore, explains the Catholic publicist, the children were of an age when they could already distinguish one denomination from another, and were six years older than the average age set by the Catholic Church for receiving Confession and Communion, for preparation for Confirmation and attending Mass on Sundays and holy days, under pain of mortal sin.[11] The natural consequence of such exclusion of Catholic children from the rites and beliefs of their Church could only be a complete weakening, if not elimination, of the Catholic spirit in them; and thus these institutions become directly proselytizing agencies for Protestantism. In light of this, the following tirade of the Catholic publicist does not seem exaggerated: In our public institutions, there is constant violation of the state constitution regarding freedom of religious profession and worship.[12]In these institutions there is a stereotyped system of religious profession and worship that all inmates are required to accept and follow, regardless of their faith. They have no freedom of choice in this matter. They cannot have contact with the pastors of their church except in impossible circumstances according to that stereotyped plan. Practically they cannot have such contact at all. Once they become members of these institutions, the freedom of religious profession and worship they enjoyed or could have enjoyed before entering is completely destroyed, and replaced by a new form of religious profession that they are required to accept and follow as their religion until leaving the institution, whether they like it or believe in it or not. Whatever name is given to this form of worship and instruction—whether called nonsectarian or not—it is a monstrous violation of human conscience, not to mention the letter and spirit of this state’s constitution. Its true name would be: a church established in public institutions. From the day a Catholic child enters such an institution until the day he leaves, he is in most cases not even allowed to see a Catholic priest; he is absolutely forbidden to practice his religion; he is not allowed to hear Mass or receive the sacraments. His religion is taken from him and barred to him, and his soul is left dry and barren. The injustice does not end even there, for all the while he is subjected to non-Catholic influences and a direct system of anti-Catholic instruction and worship. He is compelled to bow and believe in the institution’s established church.[13]

Thus even with legal equality between Catholicism and Protestantism, the latter has many advantages over the former, solely due to its numerical superiority, which necessarily influences the direction and spirit of government and state, inclining them toward Protestantism. The state’s Protestant tendency is so strong that Catholicism must be in constant struggle to defend its legal rights and continually protect them from encroachment by Protestant authorities. Yet this position of Catholicism within a Protestant state has, on the other hand, taught it to be wise as a serpent, and it has profitably exploited this wisdom in those respects where the state, by force of social necessity, had to recognize equal rights with Protestantism. Catholicism achieved particularly important results in the realm of financial relations with the state.

One of the spheres of public life in which the state cannot in fact separate itself from the church, despite the most complete legal separation, is charitable activity. Conditioned by the internal state of public life, it equally affects both church and state. The Church is called to charitable activity by the very essence of Christianity, one of whose principal precepts is the relief of the sufferings and miseries of the destitute and unfortunate. The state is called to the same by the very essence of the state idea, according to which the state is established as a collective defense against private evils that would be unbearable for individuals to combat. Yet while neglect of charitable activity would be for the Church merely a violation of Christian principle, for the state it would result in incalculable public calamities—the inevitable social evils, such as homeless children, fallen women, those afflicted by nature, and such beings, if not counteracted by charitable activity, would be a terrible scourge to society and would undermine the very foundations of the state. Therefore, both Church and state are equally interested in charitable activity, and in the same proportion that generally determines the relations of Church and state, as principle and fact, soul and body. In this regard, the Church acts as the moving principle, and the state as realizing that principle in actuality. Such are the relations that Church and state have assumed in the sphere of charitable activity in the United States. Charitable activity owes its beginning to the Church or to various private religious societies, which, from purely religious and Christian motives of philanthropy, founded charitable institutions to aid the distressed. The state soon recognized their beneficial activity for society and, to support and develop their work, began to grant them subsidies from public funds collected through ordinary state taxes.[14] At present these relations between Church and state in charitable activity have reached such full development that in most cases the state has assumed the budget of charitable institutions on itself, leaving to the Church or private religious societies only the management of their operations. Charitable institutions are divided into Catholic, Protestant, and municipal. The latter are supported entirely from public funds, while the former receive only subsidies. To ensure uniform distribution of public funds among them, a rule has been adopted by which the amount of subsidies is determined by the number of persons maintained in the charitable institutions. This rule has been used to excellent advantage by the Roman Catholic Church.