mental defectives by the State should so shock Mr. Belloc's sensibilities, when the Church for so many centuries insisted on the extirpation of religious defectives, 22 and no one thought it was murder! The extirpation of defectives and the extirpation of heretics seem alike reprehensible.

The conclusion may be ventured that the only safe way for conscience is to deny a Divine sovereignty to the Church of Rome, thereby reserving to individuals their freedom of conscience and the right to revolt, free from a priori convictions that any official, ecclesiastical or secular, occupies upon this earth the place of God, or is intrinsically the Vicar of Christ.

In respect to the principle of tolerance "the ultimate dogma of modern politics"—a counter-principle of theoretical dogmatic intolerance has been developed by the Church of Rome. This is set forth by the Reverend Dr. Pohle in the Catholic Encyclopedia.23 We would concede at the outset that Dr. Pohle expresses the most fraternal charity and the greatest sympathy for those against whose opinion the theoretical dogmatic intolerance of his Church is directed. He is emphatic in his assurances that the Roman Catholic

22 Of course no claim is here made that the extirpation of heretics or religious persecution of any kind was limited to the Latin Church. In certain aspects, Protestantism was a greater offender, at least in its theory. Lord Acton points out (History, p. 158), that at Schmalkald and Augsburg, the definition of the Church made excommunication equivalent to damnation, not allowing, as the Roman doctrine allows, that excommunication may be erroneous. The submergence of the Church in the State, in the Lutheran theory, often made the end of persecution purely political, whereas at least in the Roman Catholic Church the end was theoretically religious. (Ibid., pp. 150, 187.)

23 C. E., vol. xiv, p. 763.

Church would enjoin upon its members the careful observance of those constitutional guarantees which, in the United States for instance, are of the very essence of tolerance. Dr. Pohle even quotes with approval the words of Professor Walter in reference to those States in which various religions exist:

"... The government as such, entirely regardless of the personal belief of the sovereign, must maintain towards every church the same attitude as if it belonged to this (Roman Catholic) Church. In the consistent and upright observance of this standpoint lies the means of being just to each religion and of preserving for the State its Christian character." 24

But Dr. Pohle only asserts what all intelligent and reasonable people admit: that Roman Catholics will observe existing constitutional provisions and respect a de facto situation that circumstances make unalterable. In honor, they would not violate the former, and, in reason, they could not disregard the latter. But Roman Catholic doctrine, sincerely and frankly expressed, must require the amendment of existing constitutional guarantees of religious liberty that violate the principles of objective truth as defined by the Roman Catholic Church. Tolerance as a vital principle, in objective truth, of modern intellectual and religious life and theory, is recognized by the modern State,25 and by the religious and ethical societies within it except the Roman Catholic Church. It is a tolerance that is limited only by public opinion formed in a free moral

24 Ibid., p. 772 d.

25 The limitations on State tolerance of religious liberty are considered infra Chapter X.

consciousness of citizenship. That free moral consciousness in a State of mixed religious constituency is prevented by the obedience demanded in the Roman Church to the Pope. The exclusive claims of that Church, the putative relation of its Supreme Pontiff to God as His Vicegerent, the obedience promulgated in the Constitution Pastor Eternus, all forbid. What other churches may promulgate as opinion the Roman Church can, in its own theory, promulgate only as Divine law. The former are teachers; the latter a sovereign. Outside of the Roman Church there is a tolerance based on the belief that what is true will be worked out as the result of contact and struggle with error; but within the Roman Church there prevails the belief that its truth must be protected from contact or struggle with what that Church determines a priori as error. Intolerance, therefore, is, abstractly and in objective truth, as necessary a principle to the Roman Church as tolerance is to the modern State. And this we think Dr. Pohle admits. "By theoretical dogmatic tolerance," he says, "is meant the tolerating of error as such, in so far as it is an error. "26 But what, we would ask, is error? Dr. Pohle does not expressly define it but he says:

"Just as vice possesses no real right to existence, whatever toleration may be shown to the vicious person, so also religious error can lay no just claim to forbearance and indulgence, even though the erring person may merit the greatest affection and esteem.” 27

26 C. E., vol. xiv, p. 763 d. 27 Ibid., vol. xiv, p. 764 a.

Clearly what Dr. Pohle means by "error" is any denial of truth as defined by the Roman Catholic Church. Such error can lay no just claim to forbearance and indulgence in Roman Catholic theory, because that which the Pope declares to be error is error. But in all other religions, and in the State, which have no office of infallibility or of moral supremacy, Dr. Pohle's claim that "religious error" can lay no claim to forbearance and indulgence would, if put into effect, produce anarchy.28

The State has no quarrel with the abstract view that religious error can lay no just claim to forbearance and indulgence, but it cannot surrender its authority to a church to determine for the State what is or is not such error, or so to determine for a solidarity within the State as a basis for political conduct.

Referring to theoretical dogmatic tolerance as "the outcome of an attitude which is indifferent to the right of truth, and which places truth and error on the same level," Dr. Pohle says:

"In philosophy this attitude is briefly termed scepticism, in the domain of religion, it develops into religious indifferentism which declares that all religions are equally true and good or equally false and bad. Such an internal and external indifference towards all religions, especially the Christian religion, is nothing

28 Even a Court of last resort in the modern State, while it may be called "final," is not infallible. If such a Court promulgates what public opinion regards as error subsequent elections remove the judges and the promulgation is corrected by legislation—or revolution. See Hamilton's opinion in The Federalist, No. 28, p. 165; vide supra p. 39.

else than the expression of personal unbelief and lack of religious convictions." 29

This conclusion may be true but, nevertheless, this indifferentism underlies the constitutional law of the modern State, which ignores the claims of a religious sovereignty by reducing all religions to indifference in the eyes of the law provided that standards resulting from the free exercise of the free moral consciousness of the People are complied with. The State could not object to any Roman Catholic doctrine in matters belonging to morals that is the result of the exercise of the free consciousness of its people, and not in conflict with communal standards of morality. It does object to a doctrine which is not the result of such free consciousness but of the promulgation of Papal sovereignty.

Dr. Pohle would compare religious with scientific truth:

"In the domain of science," [he says] "and of faith alike, truth is the standard, the aim, and the guide of all investigation; but love of truth and truthfulness forbid every honourable investigator to countenance error or falsehood."

Again:

"... theoretical dogmatic intolerance . . . is claimed by every scholar, philosopher, theologian, artist, and statesman as an incontestable right, and is unhesitatingly accepted by everyone in daily intercourse." 30 29 C. E., vol. xiv, pp. 763 d-764 a.

80 Ibid., p. 764 b.