THE BUILDER JUNE 1927

The Vatican Talked

BY DR. LEO CADIUS

IN the April, 1927, number of THE BUILDER I find on page 126 a review of Ian
Ferguson's book The Philosophy of Witchcraft. The following observation of the
author on the stifling of thought by the Church is quoted:

The dim stirring of the intellect was evident in the speculative
fields of astrology, a subject with heretical boundaries and for
which Galileo was to die.

On this passage the reviewer comments:

Galileo of course did not die of anything but of a "slow fever" in
old age, many years after his condemnation by the Inquisition, not
for speculative astronomical theories, but for venturing into the
realms of theology and attempting to prove his scientific
doctrines by Scripture. He was indeed most leniently treated, and
the imprisonment to which he was condemned amounted to no more
than residence in the household of a Cardinal who was his warm
friend.

In the Catholic Encyclopaedia (under Galilei) the English Jesuit,
John Gerard, is not quite so lenient with the Roman Inquisition.
Says Father Gerard:

. . . Then followed a decree of the Congregation of the Index
dated 5th March, 1616, prohibiting various heretical works to
which were added any advocating the Copernican system. In this
decree no mention is made of Galileo, or of any of his works,
neither is the name of the pope introduced, though there is no
doubt that he fully approved the decision, having presided at the
session of the Inquisition, wherein the matter was discussed and
decided. In thus acting, it is undeniable that the ecclesiastical
authorities committed a grave and deplorable error, and sanctioned
an altogether false principle as to the proper use of Scripture.

Now when a Jesuit condemns the action of the Roman Inquisition,
while a Protestant Freemason minimizes its culpability, it would
seem that broad-mindedness, religious tolerance and good will are
fairly progressing. One feels encouraged to hope that a few more
sharp angles in religious controversy that have caused friction
and strife may be cleared away, or at least be rounded off and
smoothed down. I shall discuss here several pronunciamentos by
recent popes that have aroused great animosity against the Roman
Catholic Church. They will continue to engender distrust and
hatred of her until the Vatican, in a Syllabus of Papal Errors,
expresses its official regrets for them.

I. THE SYLLABUS OF POPE PIUS IX

This is a collection of errors condemned by this Pope and issued
on the 8th of December, 1864. It had been prepared during the
twelve preceding years by three successive commissions of
theologians. These errors had been dealt with and proscribed
sing]y by the Pope in his various Encyclicals, Consistorial
Allocutions and Apostolic Letters. The Syllabus is a resume, in
skeleton form, of these objectionable theses. As the then papal
secretary of state, Cardinal Antonelli, explained in his
concomitant letter, it was published chiefly for the guidance of
the Catholic bishops some of whom, by chance, may never have read
above Encyclicals and other papal documents.

Denzinger, in his Enchiridion, warns that in order to obtain the
true sense of the Syllabus, it is necessary to consult the
respective papal documents from which each condemned proposition
is taken. Interpreted apart from the context, the Syllabus is
bound to be misunderstood. As a matter of fact, countless readers
have misunderstood it Gladstone and other discerning minds among them.

It may be a propos to suggest here that non-Catholics who are not
theologians are venturing on slippery ground when they enter the
field of Catholic theology and Canon law. Even Protestant
theologians will do well to watch their step. Our Catholic
theologians may often be lacking in ordinary common sense, and
also in the ability to grasp the larger aspects of a problem. But
they are trained dialecticians and thoroughly at home on the wide
field of theology. A scholar who is not familiar with those
grounds, nor trained in Aristotelian philosophy, takes his chances
in engaging in a theological controversy with them.

I fully agree with Hillaire Belloc, the distinguished English
Catholic literateur, that there is bound to be a conflict between
the Vatican and the Washington government. When it comes, the
Federal Government will make a bad mistake if it neglect to enlist
the services of a few Catholic theologians. (No, I am not offering
my services. I disclaim being a theologian!) Without them, it is
almost certain to muddle the issue, aggravate unnecessarily a
situation precarious enough, and probably arrive at an impasse.
While, if the subject is broached cautiously, with the assistance
of Catholic theologians, the Government may count on the support
of the American Catholics and the Vatican will have to yield.

THE OBSCURITY OF THE SYLLABUS

A very common error in regard to the Syllabus is the following:
the Pope condemns this thesis; therefore, it would seem, he holds
that the opposite is the truth. This is not the case. A man who
disclaims being a pro-German, does thereby not declare himself to
be the opposite, that is, an anti-German. He may be a neutral.

The Pope proscribes proposition 55: "the church and state should
be separated." From this many have inferred that he insists on the
union of state and Church. This is a hasty conclusion. He merely
maintains that Church and state do not necessarily have to be
separated. The Lutherans in Germany and in the Scandinavian
countries, the Anglicans in England, the adherents of the Reformed
Church in Holland and Switzerland, will cordially agree with him.
For these denominations are supported by the state.

Union of Church and state has invariably hampered the free
development of the Church. Very frequently it meant the servitude
of the Church under the state. The Roman Church is possessed of a
perfect organization, of an extraordinary vitality, of an
inexhaustible spiritual fecundity. She has a genius for creating,
by her symbolism, ceremonial, ecclesiastical seasons, and external
practices, a religious atmosphere in which religious interests
tower over all other considerations and gradually permeate every
phase of national life. A free Church in a free state has always
ended in the triumph of the (Roman) Church and her ascendancy over
the state. American patriotic zealots who fear that the papacy is
aiming at the union of state and Church in this country, are
haunted by an imaginary spectre. They will soon be wishing that
the state find some means of checking the rapidly growing power
and prestige of the Roman hierarchy.

CHURCH AND STATE

It is true, hoary theologians of the old school are still hugging
the dream of an ideal Church married to an ideal Catholic state.
But their bubble has burst. Archbishop Dowling of St. Paul has
happily expressed it in declaring that this dream has been
relegated to the limbo of defunct controversies.

In the first three centuries of the Christian era, the time of the
persecutions, the Church, figuratively speaking, lived under
ground in the catacombs. After that, beginning with Constantine,
came the period of union of state and Church. The emperors, kings
and other Christian rulers usurped all sorts of rights and
prerogatives in the government and affairs of the Church. She had
to submit under duress.

In the United States, she is completely free from interference by
the state. She flourishes in this splendid isolation. The Vatican
may look calmly forward to an unprecedented triumph in this
country, to the richest pasture in its entire history. If some
people fail to see it, it may be due to the fact that nobody is so
blind as he who does not want to see.

If the papacy is opposed to the separation of state and Church in
some countries, as for instance in Austria, it is because there
the state has confiscated the najor portion of the vast
possessions of the Church, accrued mostly from the offerings and
pious legacies of the faithful in the course of many centuries.
From this confiscated property the state is doling out a pittance
for the support of the Church. A separation of state and Church
would imply a discontinuance even of that scanty allowance, a
complete spoliation of the Church. Naturally she objects to that.

In such a state, like Austria, the Church also quite reasonably
objects to the state according equality to the Protestant
denominations, that is, by subsidizing them from her own
confiscated funds.

A regrettable intolerance, however, it is that in Catholic Spain
Protestant houses of worship are prohibited from having steeples,
a disability the Catholics are also subjected to in the German
Protestant state of Mecklenburg.

For the rest, be it readily admitted that the Vatican has claimed
unwarranted prerogatives for itself that are prejudicial to the
freedom of conscience and to the just rights of the state.
However, as it happens, the Syllabus advances no such claims.
For the correct interpretation of the Syllabus it is necessary
that before each condemned proposition be supplied its
contradictory, namely: "it is not true that . . . ," for instance,
that Church and state should be separated.

THE LIGHT OF REASON PROSCRIBED

A stumbling block to many has been the proscription of proposition
14:

Everybody is free to adopt and profess that religion which he,
guided by the light of reason, holds to be true.

Is the condemnation of this thesis not clearly tantamount to a
denial of the principle of the freedom of conscience? It would
seem so. In reality, however, it has nothing to do with a person's
civic right of choosing his own religion. It is as purely a matter
of speculative theology, as is the controversy between
Presbyterian fundamentalists and modernists.

The thesis had been advanced, in 1848, by a Peruvian priest,
Vigil, a rationalist, in his Defensa. He held that human reason,
uninfluenced by what Christian positivists call the light and
facts of Divine Revelation, is a sure and safe guide to religious
truth.

Vigil's theory had been dwelt upon by Pope Pius IX in his
Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter of June 10, 1851; also in his
Allocution Singulari quadam of Dec. 9, 1854. In the latter, the
Pope advises that in the search for religious truth we must,
besides using our reason, also pray to God for light. Mere
reasoning, unaided by prayer, may not lead us to the right goal.
The Syllabus, therefore, merely condemns Vigil's theory anew.
Every Protestant fundamentalist will subscribe to the Pope's
condemnation of it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the
individual's civic right to select whatever religion he prefers.

THE SYLLABUS A BLUNDER

Here we see where the fatal blunder of the Syllabus lies: it
should not have proscribed certain propositions in their bald,
naked form. A safer way would have been to dispose of them in a
more elucidated form which indicated their objectionable features
or fallacies. For instance, the thesis of Vigil might have been
condemned by the following counter proposition: "It is an error to
hold that human reason, unaided by prayer, and disregarding the
facts, and light of Divine Revelation, is a safe guide to
religious truth." Vigil's thesis could then have been appended to
this declaration. It would have been clear then that its
proscription did not touch the question of the freedom of
conscience.

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it may also lead to confusion
and misunderstandings.

We still remember the famous remark of the German Chancellor
Bethmann-Holweg, in August, 1914, that the treaty of 1839,
guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, was "a scrap of paper."
What the Chancellor meant to say, according to the German version,
was this:

In the treaty of 1839 the Belgian government pledged itself to
strict neutrality. But by entering a secret alliance with France,
it has violated its pledge and rendered the treaty of 1839 a scrap
of paper.

Accepted in its ordinary sense, the thesis of Vigil: "Everybody is
free to adopt and profess that religion which he, guided by the
light of reason, holds to be true," states a true enough
principle. What the Syllabus objects to is the meaning Vigil had
injected into the expression "the light of reason."

But it is exactly because the thesis on its face value enunciates
a true enough principle, that the Syllabus blunders in proscribing
it in this bald form.

AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE METHOD

Let me offer an analogy. Three plus one is four. From this plain
truth a Mr. Wag draws the conclusion that three apples and one
pear make four apples. He is stating a fallacy. But it would
assuredly be an odd procedure on my part, if I went to disprove
that fallacy by starting out: "It is not true that three plus one
is four," even if I then appended a paraphrase explaining in what
sense it is not true, namely, that three articles of one kind plus
one article of another kind do not make four articles of one kind.
This is what the Syllabus has done in several cases.

In regard to the question of the freedom of conscience, let us
assume, for the sake of argument, that the Pope, in proscribing
the thesis of Vigil, meant to deny a person's civic right to
choose whatever religion he preferred. Could an American citizen
consistently criticize the Pope in that? Let us see. The Mormons
adopted and professed, in the light of their reason, a religion
that encouraged the practice of polygamy. Uncle Sam soon induced
them to see that practice in a different light.

However, as we have seen, the thesis of Vigil does not bear on the
question of the freedom of conscience.

The condemnation of proposition 55, regarding the separation of
state and Church, might have been worded as follows:

It is an error to hold that Chruch and state must necessarily be
separated.

That one word "necessarily" would have implied that the Vatican
does not always insist on a union of state and Church.

Equally liable to be misunderstood is proposition 80:

It is an error to hold that the pope may and must reconcile
himself with, and adapt himself to, Progress, Liberalism, and
Modern Civilization.

In the Catholic Encyclopaedia, under Syllabus, the Jesuit, A.
Haag, defines the pontiff's attitude:

[This thesis] is to be explained with the help of the allocution
Jam dudum cernimus of 18th March, 1861. In this allocution the
pope expressly distinguishes between true and false civilization,
and declares that history witnesses to the fact that the Holy See
has always been the protector and patron of all genuine
civilization, and he affirms that, if a system designed to
de-Christianize the world be called a system of progress and
civilizabion, he can never hold out the hand of peace to such a
system. According to the words of this allocution, then, it is
evident that the eightieth thesis applies to false progress and
false liberalism and not to honest pioneer work seeking to open
out new fields to human activity.

CIVIL AND CANON LAW

Another proscription that has been objected to is that of the
following thesis:

In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the Two Powers [the
state and the Church] the civil law prevails.

If press reports are true, the Calles government in Mexico has
expressed its willingness to permit the Catholic clergy the
exercise of its pastoral functions under certain conditions, one
of them being that the clergy get married.

Bavaria, two-thirds Catholic, has a union of state and Church.
Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches are supported by the
state. Let us suppose now that the Catholic majority in the
Bavarian diet passed a law demanding that the Protestant clergy
observe celibacy, under penalty of being prohibited from the
exercise of the functions of the ministry. Would that law
rightfully prevail over the law of the Protestant Church
permitting her clergy to be married? May the state enact any law
it sees fit? Or is there a limit to the authority of the state?

SEPARATION OF NATIONAL CHURCHES

The Syllabus declares:

It is an error to hold that national churchs, withdrawn from the
authority of the Roman Pontiff and altogether separated, can be
established.

The Roman Catholic Church is an international organization, a
world Church. A strong faction in the Protestant Episcopal Church
favors a union (fusion) with the Roman Church. How can the latter
continue as a world Church, if each nationality is ( dogmatically)
free to separate itself completely from the main body and its
central government?

The Syllabus does not advocate the use of external force, say a
league of Catholic powers, to compel a nation, for instance
Poland, to remain within the Roman communion. Catholic theologians
may have, in theory, claimed for the papacy the right to employ
external force to compel submission to the Holy See. However, as
it happens, no such foolish claim is advanced by the Syllabus.

Dogmatic insistence on a one and undivided world Church in union
with the Roman Pontiff contains no challenge to religious freedom.
Unjust, obviously, is the system by which the Italians have for
over four centuries monopolized the supreme government of the
world Church. Unjust also is the over-centralization of power by
which the Vatican arrogates to itself the right of nominating the
bishops in the United States. But as long as the American
Catholics, who are more Roman than the Pope himself, are pleased
to make a door mat out of themselves, the Pope naturally wipes his
feet on them.

Again the Syllabus asserts:

It is an error to hold that the Sacrament of Matrimony is only
something accessory to the contract and separate from it.

In this many have seen a challenge to the sovereignty of the
state. The issue, however, is purely theological. It does not
touch the right of the state to enact marriage laws nor does it
question the validity of civil marriage.

The Roman catechism teaches that the marriage contract, or
exchange of conjugal vows, constitutes the essence of the
Sacrament of Matrimony. The officiating priest acts as the
official witness of the Church and as the minister delegated by
her to impart her blessing to the couple. He does not confer the
Sacrament on the couple. The man and woman, by exchanging the
marriage vows, confer the Sacrament on each other. This marital
contract is the Sacrament of Matrimony, and the Sacrament of
Matrimony is the contract, and not a mere accessory to the
contract. The blessing of the Church is the accessory.

THE ROMAN VIEW OF PROTESTANT MARRIAGES

It would require a long dissertation to cover the practical
aspects of that doctrine in reference to the spiritual life of the
faithful. The Roman Church holds that a Protestant couple, that is
when not disqualified by a divorce or any other impediment,
receives a Sacrament, be the marriage contracted before a minister
or a civil officer.

A recent cause celebre, fully reported in the newspapers, is a
case in point. It is supposed that the annulment of the
Marlborough marriage by the Sacred Rota implied a discourtesy to
the Anglican Church and an affront to the sovereignty of the
state.

The Protestant denominations have made their marriage regulations
without consulting the Roman Church. The latter cannot be expected
to consult the three hundred Protestant denominations in passing
and enforcing her marriage regulations. At the time of the
Reformation the Pope refused King Henry VIII of England an
annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine. The Anglican Church
granted that annulment. The Vatican has no special reason to view
with favor the findings of an Anglican matrimonial court. The
Vatican has a long memory.

As regards the injured sovereignty of the state, it must be
remembered that the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had obtained a
divorce from the state. Each contracted a second marriage under
the laws of the state. These two (second) marriages the Anglican
Church rejects, she declares them invalid. But the parties are no
longer under her jurisdiction, having become members of the Roman
Church, which for a certain reason--be that reason solid or not
does not matter here--recognizes them as valid. How can a member
of the Anglican Church that rejects these two marriages contracted
under the laws of the state, accuse the Roman Church, that
recognizes these two marriages, of putting up an affront to the
sovereignty of the state? I am unable to follow the argument.

For the rest, though it is not to the point, most of the American
Catholics who have followed the Marlborough case seem to be under
the impression that the Sacred Rota in Rome has sadly blundered in
granting the annulment. They fail to see how the Duchess could for
more than twenty years have remained under duress and force in
keeping up marital relations. They do not grasp certain fine
distinctions drawn by the Roman lawyers. Vatican prestige has been
impaired.

THE SECULAR POWER OF THE POPE

The Syllabus, then, does not encroach on the reasonable rights of
the state, nor on the freedom of conscience of the non-Catholics.
There is one proposition, however, the insertion of which tends to
restrict unjustly the freedom of conscience of the Catholics
themselves. This is the condemnation of proposition 75:

The abrogation of the civil authority (secular power) which the
Pope possesses would be very conducive towards the freedom and
prosperity of the Church.

In 1870, the Pope lost his civil authority. Who will deny that the
Church since then has gained immensely in power and prestige? Not
necessarily because the Pope is deprived of the secular power, but
somehow or other the Church has gained, in leaps and bounds. Maybe
Dollinger was right, after all, in calling the secular power the
Achilles heel, the weak spot, of the Church.

The late Jesuit, Hugo Hurter, in the eighth edition of his
Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae [Textbook of Dogmatic Theology,
Vol. I, No. 153]--it is extensively used in American seminaries--
maintains that the Pope in promulgating the Syllabus spoke ex
cathedra. Hence the Syllabus is endowed with dogmatic force. A
Catholic, therefore, who holds that the papacy is vastly better
off without the secular power, commits a sin against faith. This
is a rather sharply peppered morsel to force down the patient
throat of the faithful. It is one of the many instances of the
tendency of our ruling theologians to multiply dogmas.

Papal infallibility is supposed to confine itself to matters of
faith and morals. Even on that field it is narrowly circumscribed.
What has bhe civil authority, the possession of Central Italy, to
do with the teachings of Christ? It is interesting to note here
that in the opinion of Cardinal Newman, as quoted by Governor
Smith, the Syllabus has no dogmatic force.

Pius IX is said to have been a kind, guileless soul, an unassuming
aristocrat, a poor judge of character, but gifted with a sense of
humor and ready wit, as is well illustrated by the following
little pleasantry. During a conference with the French ambassador,
the Pope, taking snuff, offered it to the distinguished diplomat.
"Holy Father, this is a vice I have not got," the Frenchman
declined with a mischievous smile.

"If it was a vice, you would have it all right," the Pontiff
retorted.

The Pope's sense of humor seems to have been asleep when he
inserted proposition 75 into the Syllabus. For he surely was
sufficiently familiar with Church history to know that the
administration of secular power has been the occasion of an almost
uninterrupted carnival of graft, corruption and scandal.
Unscrupulous ecclesiastics and certain privileged noble families
had fattened on it all along. It is one of the most unedifying
chapters in the long history of the Church.

This secular power continued to be a source of graft and scandal
to its very last day. The man to whom Pius IX entrusted its
administration was his secretary of state, Cardinal Antonelli. The
Cardinal, who was descended from an impoverished family, left at
his death a fortune of about eight million dollars, an immense sum
for those days. Nobody knows how many more millions he may have
quietly disposed of before his death. There hardly existed any
doubt that the great "statesman" in administering the secular
power did not forget his own pocketbook. The Jesuits have been
severely criticized for antagonizing this financial genius who in
his policies was an absolutistic reactionary.

SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

Let us select one more example to show what a misleading document
the Syllabus really is. It proscribes proposition 17:

We may at least hope for the eternal salvation of those who live
outside the true Church.

By true Church, of course, is meant the Roman Catholic Church.
Does the condemnation of this thesis not clearly imply that only
Catholics can go to heaven ? It would seem so. In reality,
however, it does not mean to assert any such thing. It does not at
all intend to state that all non-Catholics are excluded from
heaven. This is evident from the context of the above mentioned
allocution Singulari quadam.

According to Catholic doctrine, anybody may save his soul who
lives up to his sincere religious convictions. God will judge
everyone by the light that has been given him. A Protestant ruler
who, misguided by an erroneous conscience, puts 50,000 Catholics
to death for the sake of their religion, honestly believing that
he is doing a service to God, may go to heaven, provided that in
everything else he obeys the dictates of his conscience.

The English language labors under one great defect: it has no
fixed consistent rule of pronunciation. For example, the "oo" is
pronounced differently in food, in flood, and in floor. This
inconsistency has elicited from a Frenchman the bon mot: the
Englishman writes "ass" and pronounces it "donkey." Of the
Syllabus of Pope Pius IX it may be said that it says "pepper" and
means "salt." It represents the result of twelve years of arduous
labor by three successive commissions of theologians. It is true,
the (third) commission that drew it up in its final form, appended
to each proposition the true meaning of it and reerred to the
respective papal document dealing with the subject. But it should
have been foreseen that the Syllabus might some day be broadcasted
in its naked form--with or without evil intent--and be misonstrued
and create prejudice against the Church. As a matter of fact, even
the average priest has difficulty in arriving at the true sense of
it. For the explanatory paraphrases and the respective papal
documents are difficult to obtain. An explanation of the Syllabus
appeared serially about two years ago in the Catholic periodical
Our Sunday Visitor. I do not know whether it has been reprinted in
booklet form.

THE EFFECTS OF THE SYLLABUS

We do not know whether the Syllabus can boast of any noticeable
success in crushing the errors of pantheism, rationalism,
communism and other anti-Christian doctrines. But we do know that
in its inevitably misleading form it has confused millions of
minds. Well meaning, intelligent people could not help waxing
wroth at what seemed to them the flaunting intolerance and defiant
arrogance of the papacy.

Twelve years of conscientious toil our Vatican theologians spent
on equipping an arsenal of weapons for the use of the enemies of
the Church. One wonders whether things could not have been managed
diflferently. If not, would it not have been the lesser of two
evils to consign the Syllabus to the fire instead of pronulgating
it?

The Syllabus has stirred up a considerable amount of hatred of the
Catholic religion. Such hatred often leads to discrimination
against Catholics in business, in the appointment to lucrative
positions, in the political and academic career. God alone knows
the number of innocent Catholics whose prospects of prosperity and
advancement have been blighted by this unfortunate document which
even today is still extensively cited.

In theory, and by intention, the Syllabus is an inoffensive
document that respects the freedom of conscience and the just
rights of the state. In practice, it has proven itself to be a
glaring misrepresentation of the Catholic faith. It is called the
Syllabus of Errors. It is--de facto, not de jure--a colossal error
itself.

It was a wise custom of the Middle Ages to assign to the rulers a
court jester. This privileged character opened their eyes to many
a salutary truth that nobody else dared to make them acquainted
with. It might have proved a great benefit to the Church, if the
popes had employed such a mentor. The right kind of a court jester
might have prevented a great harm to the Church if, on the even of
Dec. 8, 1864, he had stepped up to His Holiness and said: "Holy
Father, let me promulgate that Syllabus."
(To be continued)


THE REFORMATION

The terms "Reformation" and "Protestantism" are inherited by the
modern historian; they are not of his devising and come to him
laden with reminiscences of all the exalted enthusiasm and bitter
antipathies engendered by a period of fervid religious dissension.
The unmeasured invective of Luther and Aleander has not ceased to
re-echo, and the old issues are by no means dead.

The heat of controversy is, however, abating, and during the past
thirty or forty years both Catholic and Protestant investigators
have been vying with one another in adding to our knowledge and in
rectifying old mistakes; while an ever-increasing number of
writers pledged to neither party are aiding in developing an idea
of the scope and nature of the Reformation which differs radically
from the traditional one. We now appreciate too thoroughly the
intricacy of the medieval Church; its vast range of activity,
secular as well as religious, the inextricable interweaving of the
civil and ecclesiastical governments, the slow and painful process
of their divorce as the old ideas of the proper functions of the
two institutions have changed in both Protestant and Catholic
lands, we perceive all too clearly the limitations of the
reformers, their distrust of reason and criticism--in short, we
know too much about medieval institutions and the process of their
disintegration longer to see in the Reformation an abrupt break in
the general history of Europe. No one will, of course, question
the importance of the schism which created the distinction between
Protestants and Catholics, but it must always be remembered that
the religious questions at issue comprised a relatively small part
of the whole compass of human aspirations and conduct, even to
those to whom religion was especially vital, while a large
majority of the leaders in literature, art, science and public
affairs went their way seemingly almost wholly unaffected by
theological problems. 
--[James Harvey Robinson.]

