RISE AND FALL OF PROTESTANT PROSPERITY

New Zealand Tablet, 11 April 1918, Page 29

RISE AND FALL OF PROTESTANT PROSPERITY

(Joseph Husslein, S.J., in America.)

There was a time when much was said and written of .the material prosperity of so-called Protestant countries. The/voices that then were heard have died into silence or are but feebly "audible now. As an argument against the Catholic Church this vaunt; of -prosperity was never to be taken seriously. Yet we can readily understand its power of appeal to the masses, since even the Apostles were misled by such tests and standards of religious truth before their minds had been more fully enlightened by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. "Blessed is he that shall not be scandalised in me," was the warning of our Lord. Christ had not come to restore to the Jewish nation the vanished glory of Solomon, the golden splendors of the ancient temple, the oorch of pillars and the house of precious stones. His disciples were to be driven from city to city, and men were to glory in afflicting them as if performing a service to God. Christ Himself was to-be, in the eyes of the world, the most monumental failure of all. Only when He was lifted up upon the Cross was He to draw all things to Himself. - Yet from the teachings of His Church there was to spring, as the flower from its seed, the most perfect material civilisation the world had seen. The paintings of Raphael, the sculptures of Michael Angelo, the poems of Dante, and those majestic cathedrals whose beauty and value the modern world has just learned to appreciate are eloquent expressions of her great ideals. Wherever the Catholic Church advanced there likewise sprang up thousands of nameless builders who wrought into monuments of stone the inspirations of their faith. There, too, were to be found in every city and town those splendid co-operative associations, the Catholic guilds, which in the period of their perfection expressed the truest ideals of human brotherhood and the highest principles of economic justice and Christian charity to which the world has yet attained. But the time came when the statues in her sanctuaries were smitten to earth by the destructive mallet of the Reformer; when her libraries of classic and patristic lore were pillaged .and her archives scattered to the winds ; when her guilds were ruthlessly stripped of their accumulated wealth devoted to charity and the service of God ; when her richly illuminated missals, bright with gold and all the living colors borrowed from earth and sky, were cast upon the blazing pyre; when her storied windows, all aglow with scenes from Holy Writ and the lives of saintly men and women, were broken into thousands of fragments; and the matchless music of her Solemn Masses, that rolled in mighty harmonies through the high cathedral vaults, was silenced by relentless edicts. The creed of sixteen centuries of Christianity, the perfect and complete expression of the Gospel teaching, which alone, had given being to all this mighty art, had suddenly become a pernicious superstition in the eyes of men whose own lives bore no imprint of the sanctity of Apostolic times. Enter to-day the doors of the world's greatest museums and view the wonderful collections of painting, sculpture, architecture, and the marvellous works of the

loom, and 'you will find yourself standing in bewilderment before the ;mere fragments and i remnants of Catholic art. -- __-.,. ._7 - ; ; : . . ~ \ % ,- '-.-'-._ Yet when this had been swept away, so far as the hand of man could complete its' ravages, and the desolated , fanes had beenj newly dedicated to - a worship which their builders would have abhorred no less than the Egyptian idolatry,, a new culture arose. It began . in Germany and soon took even more exclusive possession in more northern lands, while Catholicism, which nowhere could be completely destroyed, retained unbroken hold in the more sunny countries of Italy, France, and Spain. Yet even into these lands the new culture spread, in spite of their ancient and Apostolic - Faith. ~. Upon that new culture is based the Protestant prosperity of which the world was for a time to hear so much, and which to-day is weighed in the balance and found wanting by the universal consent of mankind. Sociologists, -economists, labor unionists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews are all in accord upon this one fact: that the new civilisation, as it gradually developed since the days of the Reformation and reached its complete expression in the years immediately preceding the great world-war, was a dismal failure and a sad mistake. There can be no disagreement on this, however the minds of men may vary in their proposed plans of social and economic reconstruction. That the material prosperity from which the world has turned in protest to-day is essentially the result of the Reformation, -no one can doubt who has wisely studied the economic history of the past four centuries. Such it has always been proclaimed by Protestants themselves. ' Careful reflection will show that it is based upon strictly Protestant principles, not in so far as these principles are Christian, but in so far as they are Protestant, that is in opposition to Catholic doctrine. It is important that this great truth be thoroughly grasped in order that the new reconstruction may be based upon more sound and lasting foundations. There is supreme need for Protestant and Catholic alike to find the reason for the failure of the past and to base the new social structure four-square upon the unchangeable and indestructible rock of Christian principles. . It is true that the new Protestant culture brought a certain type of prosperity. It is true likewise that this prosperity reached its culmination before the worldwar. But it is equally true that it differed- in an essential way from that Catholic ideal of true prosperity which the world is seeking again to-day, though it is still blindly groping in the darkness after Socialist delusions and deceptive dreams. It rests with the Church to show the path to real Christian Democracy. Protestant prosperity was first a civic and later a national prosperity. It reached its highest development in modern Germany and England. In its nature it was never identical with the common good, as true prosperity must always be." The latter provides for the real good of all; the former for the inordinate enrichment of a few. Upon this excessive opulence of the wealthy classes the claim of the false prosperity was founded. It is a commonplace of history that the greatest oppression and impoverishment of the masses can coexist with the highest external splendor, wealth, and material culture of a nation. Such were the con-

ditions in Rome and Greece in the day of their decadence. Such was the splendor of ancient. Egypt, of Babylon, and Nineveh. More significant than men commonly understood was that question asked in one of our prominent secular magazines: "Is America riding to a Roman fall /The same question could have been asked as well of England and of Germany, or of other countries which had all in a greater or less degree adopted false economic standards. ■■-,therefore, though it may still appear to some, the peculiar nature of the new prosperity was not / directly due to the invention of machinery but to the newly invented doctrines of the Reformation. Such statements are not made in the carping spirit of criticism, but are based upon evidence. The new teaching rejected the Scriptural truth that Christ established His Church not merely for the administration of His Sacraments, but likewise to keep His doctrine pure and undefiled to the end of time. He had for this purpose promised her freedom from error by the assurance of His abiding presence. All this the Reformation ignored. The Church was no longer regarded as the official interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures, though these Scriptures themselves* warn us that men, left to their personal interpretation, may wrest them to their own perdition. Each one might read out of the Bible or into it his own favorite prejudices. This false individualism in religion soon had its parallel in the false economic individualism on which t.h*» Pro- , testant prosperity was founded. In all social and economic relations the Church demands that the common good be first and always kept in view. All private privilege must yield to it. But with the new doctrine a new ethical code arose. Each one sought, under the new individualism of the Reformation, to enrich himself to the utmost without regard for the common good of his fellow-men. In Catholic times this tendency of fallen nature would likewise have striven to exert itself, but against it there would have stood forever the teaching of the Church. Under the new individualism the duty of State interference and regulation was furthermore ignored, since the State too interpreted the Bible after its own prejudices. This meant a slavish compliance with the desires of the rich and powerful who asked for nothing more than an absolute freedom of individual bargaining with labor. The latter was thus stripped of all its power of collective action which the Church so jealousy safeguards. As a consequence enormous individual fortunes soon grew up side by side with the most abject impoverishment and oppression of the masses. Though labor, after centuries of struggle against these false principles, regained many of its rights, yet discontent and dissatisfaction grew. Men could but ill conceal their disquiet at" the intermittent volcanic rumblings that waxed constantly more ominous beneath the bright surface of the new social and economic prosperity for which Protestantism was so eager to take the full credit. In vain did Catholic leaders like Bishop Ketteler in Germany, Cardinal Manning in England, and the great Pope Leo XIII. point out the deception underlying this Dead-Sea fruit. In words never to be forgotten the Pontiff thus described both the history and nature of the false prosperity at a moment when it was approaching its very zenith and was receiving the adulation of its worshippers : "The ancient workmen's guilds were destroyed in the last century, and no other organisations took their place. Public institutions and the laws have repudiated the ancient religion. Hence by degrees it has come to pass that working-men have been given over, isolated and defenceless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition. The evil has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different form but with the same guilt, still practised by avaricious men.- And to this must be added the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many branches qf trade in the hands v

of a ! : few/ individuals, so ; that a 'small : ", number 'of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself."— The Condition of Labor. • '.-: u Such is the true picture of the misery that lay hidden j beneath a mere public or national prosperity. Since that time conditions have changed considerably in many regards. Labor has asserted itself and is fast gaining strength. The future fate of the nations is likely to turn upon the question whether labor will use its power prudently, justly, and religiously.. J A new era is dawning, a great world-crisis to which the struggle of warring nations is only a prelude. There are glorious prospects for the world to-dav if it will heed the voice of the Church: "Not in Socialism," she cries in accents of earnest warning, "not in capitalism as based on the Reformation, but in Christian -cooperation lies the hope of the future !'' Only through a return to her can this hope ever be fully realised.