OPPOSITION TO THE CHURCH EVIDENCE OF

HER DIVINE ORIGIN AND NATURE

ADDRESS BY THE REV. JOHN J. LOUGHRAN, S.T.D.

In this age of boasted enlightenment we are called upon to witness a bitter and persistent outbreak of hate and bigotry against the Catholic Church and her institutions. Like her Divine Founder, she goes about doing good, and yet her motives are impugned, her doctrines misrepresented, her agents reviled and slandered to such an extent that even the most indifferent and apathetic have been stirred to feelings of resentment. Pulpit and press, public rostrums and public mails combine in propagating this gospel of hate and in spreading abroad its vaporings. Irritated by this unjust and impious propaganda, Catholics seem to exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist: "How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? How long shall sinners utter and speak iniquity?"

This recrudescence of hostility may appear to some unusual or extraordinary, but those slightly acquainted with the history of the Church know that it is only a common and oft-repeated incident in her life. "My children," says the Church, "be not surprised at these assaults." "Often have they fought against me from my youth" (Ps. cxxviii, 2). The principal and fundamental reason of this opposition is found in the avowal of Christ, who said: "My kingdom is not of this world." The history of religious strife is the history of that enduring combat between the kingdom of God and the kingdom

of this world. There has dwelt in the world from time

immemorial a spirit of infidelity or unbelief.

It was this spirit which harassed our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and eventually led to His death. He came into the world to give testimony to the truth, to unfold to the world the things He had seen in the bosom of His Father, but this spirit of infidelity, this spirit of opposition which proud and presumptuous ignorance had engraven in the heart of man arose in revolt. Not being able to comprehend the lofty truths and sublime precepts which He uttered, so contrary to human passions and to prejudiced reason, man was not content merely to despise them, but violently opposed them and sought to annihilate them in the very person of Christ. Wherefore our Lord says: "You seek to kill me because my word hath no place in you." The more lofty the truths and the more his proud reason was confounded, the more implacable man's hatred and resistance became. As Christ then preached the hidden and mysterious things of God which He had learned in the bosom of His Father, man was driven to the last excess of fury and resolved to put Him to death.

The Church of Christ then appearing in the world, to preach the same doctrine by which her Divine Master had scandalized the proud, aroused and provoked bitter and relentless enemies. She became an object of hatred to the world, and it is almost incredible what she suffered during nearly four centuries under pagan emperors. She was so laden with the hate and imprecations of men that they did not hesitate to accuse her of all the disorders in the world. If rain was wanting in due season, if the barbarians made a raid or invasion, if the Tiber overflowed its banks, the Christians were blamed for all, and everyone agreed that there was no better way to appease the wrath of the gods than to immolate Christians to them by the

most ingenious atrocities. What did the Church do to be treated in this manner? Many reasons may be assigned, but the principal one was this: she proclaimed the truth of God fearlessly and without compromise; she combated the spirit of the world, that spirit of infidelity and opposition which lurked down deep in the heart of man, and only when cruelty became sated with indulgence was she granted a respite from trial and affliction.

This relief from enemies without, however, was no guarantee of immunity from enemies within, and the world planned a second great assault upon the Church by instilling into souls a spirit of inordinate curiosity - unbridled curiosity, the torment of souls, the ruin of piety, and the mother of heresies. Just as Divine Providence has set limits to the sea, so He has set limitations to the human mind to mark the boundary of its activity and its aspirations. "Thus far thou shalt go and no farther, and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves." Having established His Church, Christ ordained that we should seek truth in the Church and with the Church. God could indeed conduct us individually to a knowledge of the truth, through our own individual illumination (for His power is infinite), but He established another way. He wished and decreed that each individual should discern the truth, not alone, but in and with the whole Catholic body and communion, to which individual judgment must ever be submitted. Proud spirits could not bear the yoke imposed for the sake of Catholic unity and charity. The inveterate spirit of opposition sprung up from the human heart, and men, setting themselves up as leaders and judges, indulged in foolish questions and subtle speculations about God, Christ, and the Church. They essayed to measure with the yardstick of their puny minds the height and length and breadth of heaven itself, and to compass

if possible the counsels of God, the cause of His miracles, and the impenetrable nature of His mysteries. The result was discord and confusion. The Church under the circumstances was forced to speak and defend the truth without fear or favor, and heresiarchs, proud in their vaunted independence of thought and chafing under the discipline of the Church, rebelled, bringing ruin upon themselves and upon countless numbers of their deluded followers. Again it is the Church, the kingdom of God, in conflict with the kingdom of this world. How appropriately is she named the Church Militant. During the progress of heresy she had to endure every form of violence. Her maternal instincts were outraged, seeing her children snatched from her bosom by impostors and usurpers who, in order to give some semblance of reason for their revolt, heaped upon her every kind of abuse and slander.

When the spirit of the world failed to captivate and corrupt the mind of the Church, it laid siege to her heart, injecting into it the poison of moral weakness. In the days of her comparative peace and prosperity, while men were asleep, her enemy came and covertly sowed cockle among the wheat. Faith began to wane and charity to grow cold and iniquity raised up its head in the very temple of God. St. Bernard says that an offensive malady infected almost the whole mystical body of Christ. Well might she exclaim, in the words of Isaias the prophet: "Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter." God only knows what shame and humiliation our Holy Church endured during this period of moral decadence. Many, yielding to pharisaic scandal, turned away from her and fraternized no more with her. God, however, lost none of His own. As St. John says (1 John xi, 19): "They went out from us, but they were not of us." The wind blew and the winnowing took place, the chaff was separated from the wheat, and they

that were as chaff went into their own place, as St. Luke has said of Judas (Acts i, 25). Needless to say, the kingdom of God was once more triumphant over the kingdom of this world, and simply because Christ was with her and wielded His Divine Power in her behalf.

Although the Church emerged safely from the three great tempests which threatened her destruction, yet even to our own day she has never been free from the wanton and continued assaults of bigotry and infidelity. Her history and life are just what Christ Himself forecasted, namely, an encounter with hate, distress, and persecution. Her life, in fact, is a literal transcript of His. What transpired in His, person He wished to be made manifest in the Church which is His Body. Consequently tribulation and suffering constitute a singular and distinctive characteristic of the true Church. If the Catholic Church did not meet with the odium and opposition of the world, we would have good reason to doubt her divine origin and nature. In fact no other Christian denomination is subjected to abuse and vilification because of its religious persuasion. No other Christian body incurs public hate and obloquy because of its particular doctrine or form of worship, nor are its members discriminated against socially or politically. The Catholic Church alone has to suffer from this spirit of intolerance, and, accordingly, to dim her glory and to thwart her progress, narrow-minded men resort to all kinds of sinister means in order to vilify and harass her with a constant and systematic opposition. But it is this very antagonism that identifies her with Christ and gives us the assurance that she is truly His Body, the Church of His promises, and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her. "Who, then, shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or