THE CHURCH AND PROGRESS

New Zealand Tablet, 9 August 1906, Page 11

THE CHURCH AND PROGRESS

(By His Grace the A-rchbishop of Wellington.)

Progress, like liberty, is a modern magic word. The enemies of the Church art hoarse with shouting it, and brandish it as a formidable weapon against her. Read their speeches, books, and newspapers. 'We are,' they shout, ' the men of pio&ress, the men of the future ; you Catholics are ietrogra.de, behind the age, unprogressive, men of the past. 1 Yes, we are men of the past, and a grand past it is. Like a tall, stiong, majestic tree we defy the storms of ages, our roots strike deep into twenty centuries, c\en unto the days of Christ. Yes, we glory in our divine origin, and in our long life ever lenewed with vigorous youlh, in our magnificent, services to humanity during our long existence. But we aie also men of the present ; for, if our age, instead of sinking under its load of conuption, is yet able to beget noble and generous souls. it is owing to the salutaiy lea %en kept in it by the Church, neutralising bad principles and noxious germs of death, fostering lile and value m society. Moreover, we are men of the future, as we now proceed to prove by unfolding tv\o main thoughts. (1) The Church rejects no pio&rt'-ss, nay, she facilitates eveiy pi ogress. (2) The Chinch alone guarantees the realisation ot moial progress, which is true progress. 1. Three kinds of progrebs arrest our attention—scientific, material, political. Let us examine them, briefly. — (1.) Owing to the application of the experimental method, scientific piogiess has of late had marvellous triumphs, but it docs not, date from this century, nor from the centiuy ju&t ended. Science belongs to all time. It began with the mventoi. of the plough, the flint adze, the common, domestic, cooking fire. It is prodigiously prior to C hnstianity. Science exists since man exists, and Christianity, modern as it is, has not interrupted its opeiations. Christianity dealt with totally different matters, whilst science continued, as best it could, undei the circumstances, its ordinary course. Science and leligion, like two trains running on parallel lines, ha\e come clown from the very cradle of mankind. They cannot clash with each other, because they arc incapable of collision, having a different starting point, different means, and a different end. Nowadays certain scientists— l do not say certain sciences— pretend, by an abuse of their crude •theories and gratuitous- assumptions taken for demonstrated facts, to contradict revealed truths. But religion quietly pursues its je'ourse, certain beforehand that no antagonism is possible, save in appearance, between it and science, and that future discoveries will only bring out in closer relief t lie harmony of both. But, because the domains of science and religion are distinct, it is no proof that religion. is opposed to science, or scorns scientific investigations and progress. A host of illustrious scientists "might be cited who have been, at all points, the faithful children of 1 the Church; but it is preferable to keep to the words of St. Augustine : Intellectual valde ama— ' love to learn and understand.' It has been the Church's traditional watchword, and history is there to witness the intellectual progress wrought by the Church not only in religious matins, but also in human sciences, i At the fall of the 1 Roman empire it was the monks that saved the masterpieces of antiquity. 'When old Rome fell,' said Thiers, with the enthusiastic applause of the French legislative assembly. ' van-

quishecl and bleeding at the feet of the barbarians, the Roman . Church took up in her arms the' human, mind, like a foundling saved in a sacked" and . ruined city, from the breast of its dead mother. She fed it with Roman and Greek literature, taught it what she knew, and none at that time knew jnore.' This civilising mission, mis advancement of letters, and sciences, this progress 'of the human mind the Church has always pursued in every quarter of the globe. We will confine our attention to France, which for many centuries stood the leading nation of Europe. You are so well acquainted with the name of the illustrious monk Alcuin that I need not remind you with what zeal he seconded the views of Charlemagne, and with what success he multiplied schools throughout that count ly. Nor was he an exception. Well nigh all the monasteries— and great was their number— had a school open to all indiscriminately, to the sons of sert.s not less than to the sons of nobles and freemen, to clerics preparing for Holy Order, and to laymen designed for the world. In these cloisters whose silence and recollection favored study and the elevation of the soul, the monks most commendable for learning and virtue instructed this ardent youth, and from their learned lips fell upon those young minds the dew of all ihe sciences which, together with sacred theology, formed the whole curriculum of studies : mathematics, astronomy, geometry, rhetoric, poetry, music and the languages- Not a few of these monastic schools achieved great fame. In France we may mention Kurriei.es, which reached its zenith under the direction of the celebrated abbot, Lupus Servat, and attracted the youth of all France, meriting ,the title of the ' Niw Athens ' ; also the school of SaintBenoit sur-Loire, which then bore the name of Fleury. This school had in the tenth and eleventh centuries five thousand students. Above these schools, in order to favor higher studies, the Church created universities which rose in most of the large cities of France. At the time of the French Revolution they were nineteen. Studentsflocked from all directions to hear the illustrious masters who taught there. The university of Paris was so renowned that in the thirteenth century it had 10,000 students following its famous courses. AH tßesestudents, and their numbers show how widespread learning was at that period, which some people -are wont to call ' barbarous.' None the less, in order to multiply the foci of science, the Church founded everywhere numerous colleges for secondary education ; even the smallest towns had them. Tame informs us that there were 800 of them in France. They were all flourishing, and the number of their pupils was all the greater from the fact that tuition in them was gratuitous. So true it is that to surpass the Church in whatever she undertakes is a hard task, and that our modern legislators fancy they are achieving novelties when they are simply following in her footsteps. The Church particularly cared for the children of the people, and was most zealous for primary instruction. In its number of the 15th. of January, the ' Revue des Deux Mondes,' then a rationalistic and irreligious organ, published over the signature of M. Lonanclre, you read the following :: — * We hear it constantly repeated, even by lettered men, that the Medieval Age systematised ignorance, that the clergy stultified the people in order to domineer over them. The researches of Beaurepaire, ancL^local monogranpics show the worthlessness of such assertions. Ancient France had at least 60,000 schools ; every town had its groups of students, every parish its school-master, its magister as they called him in the North. From all this it results that, down to the French Revolution, the dhurch, which some people would- fain brand as the foe of progress, alone directed primary, secondary, and higher education ; that she distributed it almost gratuitously, and with such success that an author could write in the eighteenth century : ' People have the mania now to not engage^ domestic servant unless he knows how to read, 'write, and cypher.' People are hardly so exacting in our day. The Revolution arrested this intellectual advance, like so many others, and for a lo.ng time. For many years, indeed, numbers of communities! remained schoolless. Their instruction was organised on * a fresh plan ; and the Church was systematically thrust aside, despite her eminent past services, and her direction of education prohibited. But the moment the Church,- under the~ pressure of public opinion, retrieved her -liberty by the law of 1830, she began, on her own account, with the money of the faithful, and without any subsidy -frpm the public funds, to build free primary and secondary, schools. Very shortly after, as under the ancient regime, France was studded with them, and, -to crown all, five free faculties, in which the most distinguished masters taught, educated tnV elite of Catholic youth.

for a people still in its youth— and the youth of peoples is often long-to be governed by the authority of a King, like the child is governed by his father it seems right and proper that, when n has reached mannood and grown conscious of its forces and responsibilities, it should more directly manage its own affairs It is quite possible, no doubt, that in the nrst Hush and intoxication of libeity, it should commit, some indiscretion or even crime ; but you know experience is generally acquired at one's own expenseana it may be believed that experience will ere long give it wisdom to make a noble use of liberty However, it may be with these theories, the Church is no enemy of popular governments. In principle she is absolutely indiflcrcnt to every form of government; she is Catholic, or universal, and treats equally with republics and monarchies. The gieat principle directing her conduct now, as in all times, was formulated long ago by St. Paul : Omnis potestas a Deo • 'AH power is from God.' The moment a nation, using its inalienable right, has chosen the power which it desires, that power receives a divine consecration and represents God's authority. When, therefore, Pope Leo A 111. asked that Frenchmen, not oblivious of services rendered in the past by kings, without renouncing any of their old national glories, should rally round the Kepublican flae;, he was only expressing i doctrine as old as the Church. The Church is not hostile to the Republican form. JN ay, her preferences are rather for that modo of government. St. Thomas, in whom you hear the voice of reason and theology, inquiring which is the best form ot government, answers that the most perfect of political organisations is that in which all the citizens have a share in the Go\ eminent, because it is the organisation which most inteiests all the nation in its destinies.

(To be concluded next week.)