Part 4. The Material and Moral Strength of Roman Catholicism (Cont.) (7)

The external historical circumstances with which conversions were connected do not explain the fact of conversions themselves. They only contributed to its manifestation and in no case would have produced it if internal causes, which gave the possibility of the origin of the very inclination to conversion, had not acted behind them. Therefore, the full and important significance is obtained by the question of these internal causes. There are many such causes and only their totality was sufficient for the occurrence of the phenomenon under consideration. The main and most general cause lies in the very religious condition of the American people. This people is distinguished by a remarkable intensity of religious feeling and is far from the cold, soulless skepticism that permeates the Western European peoples. Its thought is constantly attuned to religious truth and it seeks it with an intensity worthy of wonder. This seeking of religious truth explains the religious ferment that was particularly noticeable from the beginning of the present century until the period of the civil war. In the absence of guiding principles and with the complete dominion of the Protestant principle – individualism – in religious consciousness, this ferment could naturally only lead to fragmentation of religious consciousness, as it indeed did. Sects, each smaller and more intolerant of each other, constantly emerged on the surface of this churning and fermenting sea of religious consciousness and again dissolved into it. Such intensity of feeling could naturally not continue forever, and by a natural law a reaction had to occur. Religious feeling began to tire from fruitless agitation, and religious thought, having recognized all the hopelessness of individualism, began to seek more solid social support. From this, a weakening of religious ferment began to be noticed and small sects began to coalesce with larger religious communities. When turning to these larger religious communities, thought could distinctly discern two kinds among them, of which one holds more or less to the same principle of religious individualism, which was the cause of the tiring religious ferment, and the other holds to a completely opposite principle – enduring, historically established forms of thought and life. In a word, thought encountered Protestantism and Catholicism as two opposite principles. If many, accustomed to the vigor of religious thought and personal responsibility, could not at once change the principle of individualism for the opposite principle of Church authority and were satisfied only with a more stable form of the same principle in larger Protestant communities, then many also, most worn out by ferment, hastened to find consolation in the Roman Catholic Church, which took upon itself all the responsibility that had become an unbearable burden for such persons. This tendency found correspondence also in political consciousness, in which it received a new motive. Political separatism before the civil war in political consciousness was the same thing as sectarianism in religious consciousness. When the former reached its highest intensity and produced a political crisis followed by a reaction in favor of political centralization, religious thought, which had shown signs of weariness even earlier, found in this reaction a natural ally and moved even more strongly in the direction opposite to sectarianism. If further political thought, as a result of reaction against extreme separatism, began to seek support in a strong national organization, so that adherents of separatism began to suspect even the birth of Caesarism,[1] then religious thought even more and sooner could stop at such an organization which represented the most reliable support against the extremes of sectarianism. And such an organization on American soil was represented only by Roman Catholicism. Its powerful organization, resting on tested historical foundations, its unshakable and absolute authority emanating from one center, the unchanging stability of its forms – all this involuntarily inspired respect for it on the part of those wearied by the varied mutability of forms and in comparison gave it an advantage over the wavering, unstable, and troubled Protestantism. Finally, the very splendor of its worship, in which it distinguished itself in America from all other confessions, also began to constitute one of its advantages, when the era of stern Puritanism had passed in the country and, with increased comfort of life, aesthetic feeling began to develop in the population.[2]

After clarification of the general causes of the phenomenon under consideration, the question naturally arises about the environment from which the majority of converts come. American Protestantism presents many gradations in the application of the general principle of individualism in faith. In some confessions it is accepted only with significant limitation, so that the communities themselves constitute a sort of compromise between Protestant and Catholic principles, such for example as the Episcopal confession. Others, on the contrary, carry the principle of individualism to extreme limits, so that not only is the principle of churchiness denied but even the basic dogma of Christianity itself is limited, for example in the Unitarian community. The rest occupy various gradations between these extreme points of Christianity. Now, which degrees of Protestantism give the most converts? It would not be surprising if the Episcopal confession gave the greatest number of conversions, as it stands in the closest relations to Catholicism; but the question becomes much more interesting in view of the fact that converts come predominantly from both extreme degrees, both from the Episcopal and from the Unitarian. “Various Protestant sects, says a Catholic publicist, furnish very unequal contingents to the small army of souls daily returning to the true faith. But the curious fact is that the two sects which give the greatest number are Episcopalians, who in their forms and traditions stand closest to the Catholic Church, and Unitarians, who stand on the most opposite fringe and apparently push their philosophical and rationalist principles almost beyond the limits of Christianity. These two sects embrace the most enlightened and educated population of North America. On the other hand, confessions which embrace more ignorant classes, such as Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, etc., provide, proportionally to their number, only a few converts”.[3] Such a phenomenon appears enigmatic, but it logically flows from the religious condition of these communities as two extremes in the general ferment of Protestant consciousness. A satisfactory explanation of it is presented by Hecker, the founder of the Paulist order in America. “The human mind is restless, he says, until it attains unity and embraces universal truth. And this is achieved by two different but equally legitimate paths. Those who are born in sectarianism, as soon as they allow their mind to act on their faith, learn that they have only fragments of Christian truth; following them to their logical connection with other truths contained in divine revelation, they gradually acquire knowledge of the entire totality of revealed truths. Upon reaching this stage of preparation, the divine character and mission of the Catholic Church stand before their mental vision. As soon as this is understood, entrance into its flock becomes a test both of their intellectual consistency and of the sincerity of their Christian faith. Such is the path which leads Episcopalians and others, still firmly holding to one or more of the revealed truths of Christianity, to the Catholic Church. The second class turns toward the essential truths of natural reason. As soon as this ground is reached, the logical consequence is rejection of sectarianism, for the denial of any one truth of divine revelation contains the necessity of contradiction in human reason. Dissatisfied with this, people of this class begin to seek a religion which agrees with the dictates of reason and finds its foundation in the human spirit. Americans who have rejected Protestantism on the grounds of reason (and there are not a few of them) made the discovery that the exposition of Christianity by the Catholic Church agrees with the dictates of reason and that it calls to its purpose all the faculties of human nature. This is the path of Unitarians, which is destined, in our opinion, to become the great American road to the Catholic Church”.[4] The foundations of this explanation, apart from its optimistic Catholic coloring, cannot be subject to doubt and find justification both in the actual facts of conversions and in the logical process which produces them. In the latter case, in our opinion, along with the positive cause indicated by the Catholic writer, there hardly acts less strongly another, negative cause, namely the protest of Christian religious feeling against the rationalist extremes to which Protestant individualism leads in the end. The fact of conversions from these two extreme confessions of Protestantism is confirmed even by the locality in which the majority of conversions occur. The principal center of the Episcopal Church is New York, and the center of Unitarianism and another extreme Protestant community, which has almost completely displaced the principle of churchiness and put in its place the principle of complete individualism, namely Congregationalism, is Boston. And in these very two centers does the greatest number of conversions occur.[5] The causes leading to conversion act slowly and imperceptibly, but the consequences of this action make themselves known in many phenomena and sometimes as though quite unexpectedly. We shall cite the most recent example. The most famous American preacher, Dr. Beecher, pastor of the Congregationalist Church in Brooklyn (a suburb of New York), was considered one of the most liberal religious thinkers, standing almost outside the limits of the basic Christian dogma[6] and in any case an irreconcilable opponent of Roman Catholicism. Yet recently he produced a genuine sensation in his congregation when in one of his sermons he clearly expressed his sympathy for the Catholic Church.[7] Of course, he is still far from actual recognition of the superiority of this Church over the system of Congregationalism, but in this very expression itself there shows through a note of dissatisfaction with the latter.