THE ENGLISH ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROMAN CATHOLICS.
IT is, we believe, a matter of pained and regretful comment among Roman Catholics just now that they find English opinion far more unfriendly to them than it used to be. They notice, or think they notice, a reaction towards the actively hostile spirit of former times, and they wonder what is the cause of this change, as they conceive it, in public opinion. Are they right,—has there been a change in the course of the last year or two, and are English people inclined to be less tolerant than formerly and more inclined to believe harsh things of Roman Catholicism ? We do not believe that the English people are, in fact, becoming less tolerant, or that there is any tendency to be unjust and unsympathetic to the really spiritual side of Roman Catholicism. At the same time, we quite understand what Roman Catholics mean when they assert that the English atmosphere seems to them more hostile than it was. Undoubtedly there is a challenge to a very large part of the Roman Catholic claims which used hardly to be heard in former years, and so there seems something like a disappearance of the old wide tolerance. In reality, we believe that this seeming lack of tolerance and this show of hostility only affect Roman Catholicism on its material and political side, and do not in the very least affect the spiritual aspects of Roman Catholicism, and that in regard to those aspects Englishmen feel just as they used. But Roman Catholics, however spiritually minded themselves, do not readily notice such distinctions, but are inclined to lump things together, and to believe that Englishmen are becoming more hostile than formerly to Roman Catholicism as a whole. Naturally they ask : "Why is this ? What has brought about this change in English public opinion ? " We will endeavour to supply as far as we can the true answer to the question.
During the past twenty years the ordinary Englishman had very largely come to regard Roman Catholics as a body of specially spiritually minded and specially respectable Nonconformists. He saw them learned in theology and self- sacrificing in good works, and though he might not like their doctrines, he regarded them like the Irvingites, or the Uni- tarians, or the Baptists,—as persons holding a particular set of theological views with which he did not sympathise personally, but which he considered they had a perfect right to hold and to put into practice. He did not merely tolerate them, but regarded them with sympathetic interest as a spiritual body doing good work and fighting the good fight against the material and secularist tendencies of the age. The fact that in theory the Roman Catholics were not willing to extend to Protestants the same spiritual tolerance felt for them by Protestants was disregarded, and the spiritual allegiance tendered by them to a non-English ecclesiastical organisation was also ignored and forgotten. It was foolish, perhaps, to ignore these facts, especially as Roman Catholics were always perfectly frank in regard to them, and never concealed their dis- belief in the notion that there could be several forms of spiritual truth, or threw any cloak over their allegiance to Rome. Still, the fact remains that Roman Catholics came to be regarded by English people in general as a religious sect not very unlike other religious sects.
No doubt, in spite of abstract Roman Catholic teachings on these points, there was a good deal of practical truth in this view. But it went somewhat too far. Then a series of circumstances drew violent attention to the other side of the Roman Catholic position, and a reaction in public opinion followed which also has gone a great deal too far. What were these circumstances ? First, and by far the most important, was the action taken bl the Roman Church in France, and also within the Vatican itself, in regard to the Dreyfus case. If there is one thing which the ordinary Englishman feels strongly about, it is a case of injustice. If he believes that injustice is being done to an individual or body of individuals, he holds it to be the duty of religious persons and organisations to step forward fearlessly, to take the side of the injured, and to see that justice is done. Most Englishmen, then, honestly and sincerely expected and believed, when the question was in debate whether Captain Dreyfus should have his case reopened and jus- tice be done him by a new trial, that the forces of the Church in France and at Rome would be arrayed in support of the prisoner's demand. They expected, that is, that the cry of the prisoner would find a special response in the Roman Church. Instead they saw the Roman Church in France, or, at any rate, that part of it which was visible to them, not boldly and without fear of consequences demanding that right should be done, but actually intervening to stifle the cry of the prisoner. They saw Roman Catholic priests and Roman Catholic editors appealing to the worst prejudices of the French nation in order to foment an attack on the whole Jewish race, 'and to brand as Semites and Huguenots all who dared to support the cause of Dreyfus the Jew. No doubt there were thousands—nay, millions—of sincere and religious Roman Catholics on the Continent who did not join in the Anti-Semite, Anti-Dreyfus crusade, but the visible portion of the Roman Church was apparently arrayed to hunt down the Jew who called for mercy and justice.
Englishmen, though at first staggered by the spectacle, felt sure that the central force of Roman Catholicism would be applied at any rate to stop the general crusade against the Jews, and to silence the demands for a new St. Bartholomew of the Hebrews. They remembered that Roman Catholicism was a highly centralised creed, and that Roman Catholics were spiritually controlled from Rome, and they expected that just as they had seen ful- minations from the Holy See against this or that doctrinal movement believed to be prejudicial to Roman Catholicism, so they would see the Pope intervene to stop the crusade against the Jews. If the Pope could speak out against movements like Americanism, or could denounce Boycotting and the Plan of Campaign, he could denounce Anti-Semitism. To their intense surprise and astonish- ment the Papacy was silent, and not a finger was stirred at Rome, or at any rate stirred so as to be effective, either to stop the baiting of the Jews in general, or even to prevent the leaders of Roman Catholic opinion in France from denouncing those who dared to demand what they held to be justice for Dreyfus. It is not too much to say that the British people as a whole felt a sense of deep and poignant disappointment at the attitude of the Roman Church,—of a body, that is, which they had re- garded, and desired to regard, as a great spiritual force, and one which, whatever its doctrinal views, was working for truth and justice. Cosmopolitan critics will, of course, smile at the notion of the British householder feeling "disappointed in the Roman Church " But we are dealing with facts, and not with the alleged "provincial attitude of mind of the British householder," and undoubtedly the feeling in England was one of profound disappointment,— that of the man who feels and says, "I must say that I expected better things of the great Roman Church."
No doubt there are a great many reasons—some of them not a little cogent—why, in fact, the Papacy could not act differently than it did, but we are concerned now not so much with the excuses, sound or the reverse, for its action, as with the circumstance that such action was of a par- ticular kind, and had particular results in England. The Papacy might conceivably have lost France if it had vigorously and effectively condemned Anti-Semitism, but this cannot blind us to the fact that by not doing so a great blow was dealt to its influence in England. The disappointment in the spiritual attitude of the Roman Church in regard to what the majority of Englishmen thought a matter of truth and justice, and not of politics, was profound in itself, and it was maintained by a number of circumstances which, though small per se, were of considerable importance when taken together. As soon as the Transvaal War broke out, the chief organs of Roman Catholicism on the Continent proved, to the astonishment of Englishmen, to be virulently antagonistic to this country. The official organ of the Vatican was specially violent and abusive, and, indeed, wherever there was a. Clerical organ there was apparent an enemy of England. Very possibly the writers wrote rather as foreigners than as Roman Catholics, but Englishmen could hardly be expected, in the heat of the moment, to make this distinction, and thus their disappointment with Roman Catholicism over Anti-Semitism was increased, not allayed, by the war. The next minor cause may be said to have been largely accidental. Englishmen have always looked upon the kingdom of Italy with special interest and affection, and the attitude of the Vatican in regard to the temporal power has always caused regret in England. This feeling has also been intensified by the fact that the Italian Dynasty and Government have stood. almost alone on the Continent in supporting the British against the Boers. When, then, after the assassination of the late King of Italy, the Vatican showed as great hostility as ever to the Italian Kingdom, and reiterated its claim to the temporal power, another non-conductor of sympathy may be said to have been developed. These special causes of a wave of unpopularity as regards Roman Catholicism were further strengthened by another accident. Cardinal Vaughan's letter in regard to religious services in memory of the Queen may have been bold and straightforward, but it certainly was not tactful or calculated to efface the feelings of dis- appointment with the Roman Church which had grown up for other reasons. That letter may be said to have been the last stage in the disillusionment of the "man in the street" in regard to the theory that Roman Catholics were a sect very like other sects. When the Cardinal declared in words which resembled in spirit those addressed by the priest in Hamlet to Laertes, that the dead Queen could not receive the religious honours accorded to "peace-parted souls "—the phrase is, of course, Shakespeare's, not Cardinal Vaughan's —the ordinary Englishman's impulse was to retort with the exuberance of 1 mnguag,e employed by Laertes. Very likely here, again, the Cardinal was in reality only doing an unavoidable duty, but the disappointment with Roman Catholicism was none the less keen among those who had come to believe that modern Roman Catholicism "was just like any other creed as regards toleration." In a word, then, the reaction against Roman Catholicism noticed at present by members of that faith comes, not from any desire to take a hostile or aggressive attitude towards Rome, but from a certain disillusionment and disappointment in regard to the nature of Roman Catholicism. The ordinary Englishman had fashioned a form of Roman Catholicism in his own image, and believed it to be a true representa- tion of that creed. In reality, Roman Catholicism is something quite different. It is always well to face facts and. a away with illusions, but we cannot help wishing very strongly that in the present case the illusion had never taken place, and so necessitated a period of disillusionment and disappointment, for in matters affecting religion reactions of that kind are apt to go much too far. Though we are Protestants to the backbone, we cannot condemn too strongly anything that approaches even in the very least degree to intolerance. We dislike more than we can say any attempt to rake into the rusty techni- calities of the Roman Catholic creed, and to prove, or rather try to prove, that Roman Catholics cannot be, in theory at any rate, good and loyal citizens, or to show that they are not fit subjects of absolute toleration because they are intolerant. Thank God, men are often infinitely better than their spiritual and political creeds, and we have not a shadow of doubtas to the loyalty of the Roman Catholics throughout England and the Empire. Again, we do not believe for a moment that English Roman Catholics would, if they could, imitate M. Drumont and his Anti-Semites and Anti-Hugue- nots. The notion is, of course, -utterly preposterous. But the ordinary Englishman, having lived of late in something of a fool's paradise about Roman Catholicism, is, we fear, just now apt to take his disillusionment rather bitterly. That being so, it is the duty of all true and liberal-minded Protestants to withstand all forms of intolerance, be the pleas raised for it never so subtle and ingenious, and to remember that tolerance is essential to the faith of the true Reformed Church, and that it is in that sign that we shall conquer. Those who never shared the fool's paradise of which we speak should be foremost to insist that the nation shall not be poisoned by an outbreak of bigotry. But, in truth, we do not fear any such outbreak. Englishmen may be surly and sulky when disillusioned and disappointed, but they do not really lose their good sense, and very shortly we hope to see, and believe we shall see, a return to a state of opinion better and healthier than before,—a state based on fact and not on illusion, but none the less just, tolerant, and liberal, and also sympathetic towards the best and most spiritual side of Roman Catholicism. The only certain way to ensure that Roman Catholics shall be good citizens is to treat them as such. Nothing must be allowed to deflect our minds from this, the central factor of the whole problem.
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