THE BUILDER JULY 1927

The Vatican Talked

By DR. LEO CADIUS

(Concluded)

IN my discussion of the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX I have arrived at
the, perhaps, faulty conclusion that its promulgation was a
mistake. It was, to my mind, in itself an innocuous and timely
document that respected the liberty of conscience and the
reasonable rights of the state. But being infelicitiously worded,
it has been misconstrued, has irritated millions of nonCatholics
and, all in all, done more harm than good.

Being in a fault-finding mood, I will call attention here to a few
more papal pronouncements that have unnecessarily stirred up bitter
sentiment against the Catholic Church and hence should have been
omitted. These pronouncements are not entirely a thing of the past.
They are again and again being cited, sometimes for the purpose of
anti-Catholic propaganda. They are like phonograph records: they
may be turned on any moment. They should be destroyed in the
interest of religious peace. I know of but one way of destroying,
or at least weakening, them: Let the Vatican retract them, or
apologize for them, in a Syllabus of Papal Errors or of Papal
Retractions that breathe a tone of genuine tolerance and good will
towards all mankind. The present Pope, Pius XI, could do so with
the best of grace and without any self-humiliation; for he himself
has so far abstained from any hasty, intolerant utterance.

I am entertaining the hope that this article of mine will be
favored with the kind attention of the American Catholic
Episcopate. Maybe the dignitaries will be inclined to suggest to
the Vatican such a Syllabus of Retractions. If not, they might at
least succeed in persuading the Vatican to be guarded in its future
pronouncements.

The purpose of this, my criticism, is not destructive, but
constructive; to remedy past mistakes and to prevent their
repetition in the future.

1. THE ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X ON THE REFORMATION

It seems to have been inspired by two causes. One was the
Los-von-Rom (away-from-Rome) movement in German Austria. The other
was the approach of the fourth centenary of the Reformation.

A. THE LOS-VON-ROM MOVEMENT

This was essentially of a nationalistic, political character.
Religion practically played no part in it. A few thousand German
Austrian Catholics, who had already discontinued the practice of
their religion long before, formally espoused Protestantism to
emphasize their hatred of Rome. It is doubtful whether most of
them, after having abjured their faith, ever put a foot into a
Protestant church again. The well educated and perfectly organized
German Catholics were fully competent to cope with the situation
and check the movement. As regards the history of the Reformation,
Catholic historians of the first rank, like Johannes Jansen, Ludwig
von Pastor, the Dominican Denifle, the Jesuit Hartmann Grisar and
others, had covered that field so well as to evoke the
uncomfortable admiration of their literary adversaries. The Pope
could shed no additional light upon it. He was a splendid,
spiritual pontiff, who introduced many important beneficent
reforms. He was the best kind of a pontiff, but no historian.
Besides that, the political agitation in German Austria (it can
hardly be dignified with the name of a religious movement) had
fairly spent itself. In the rest of the world, there was nowhere
among Catholics a drift towards Protestantism. Religious
indifferentism and anti-Christian socialism was the chief menace
confronting the Roman Church, and the rest of Christianity as well.

A papal encyclical may be devoid of great intrinsic value and
significance. Nevertheless, it always carries considerable weight
and will attract world-wide attention by reason of the exalted
position of the pontiff. If our encyclical was really aimed at that
little provincial disturbance in Austria, at a dying straw fire,
then the Pope was shooting sparrows with a Big Bertha. Moreover,
this German Nationalistic agitation which often disgraced itself by
rowdyism and riots, rather aided the Catholic cause. It aroused and
consolidated the insulted Catholics and confirmed them in their
loyalty to the Holy See, particularly the non-German nationalities
in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Insults always have that effect.

B. THE FOURTH CENTENARY OF THE REFORMATION

This fell in October, 1917, four hundred years after the bold Saxon
Monk had hurled the gauntlet at the feet of the papacy by affixing
his ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church in
Wittenberg. The German Protestants were then planning, rather
appropriately, a giant demonstration, a Lutherfeier, for the
occasion. (It did not materialize on account of the world war.) Did
the Pope actually hope to succeed in throwing cold water on
Protestant enthusiasm? He was, by his very position, the last
person on earth who could hope to accomplish that ! And what
benefit would have accrued from it to the Church? The best he could
expect was that his encyclical would fall flat. And unless he used
the utmost tact and caution, he was liable, by a single unguarded
remark, to pour oil into the flame and to foment Protestant
enthusiasm into a substantial, if only temporary, Protestant
revival. He came very close to achieving that.

Here was clearly a situation where silence would have been golden.
Any effort to the contrary was bound to be a case of love's labor
lost. But the pontiff saw fit to talk.

The ill-fated document contained, among others, one passage that
gave grave offense. It referred to the Reformers as "men whose God
was their belly." Therewith the Holy Father had put his hand into
a wasp's nest.

The King of Saxony, himself a devout Roman Catholic, over ninety
per cent of whose subjects were Protestant, addressed a spirited
letter to the Pope, protesting against the encyclical. Other German
Catholic leaders followed suit, with the result that the papal
letter was officially suppressed in Germany.

But the mischief was done. The German Protestants took up the
challenge. They returned insult by insult. That was to be expected.
They called the Pope an "uncouth, churlish, peasant pope"
(bauern-pabst) alluding to his humble parentage. And as regards the
Biblical quotation "whose God is their belly," they pointed with
satirical glee to the well known propensity of the Catholic prelate
toward a conspicuous enbonpoint. That propensity is proverbial
among the German Catholics themselves. Among the Bavarians the
expression is in vogue: "to have a belly like a prelate." (Einen
Bauch haben wie ein Praelat.) They mean no disrespect. They do not
begrudge the prelates their sleek, abdominal rotundity, front and
rear elevation.

The sarcastic Rhinelanders, though very loyal sons of Holy Mother
the Church, have a song describing a church procession in which the
passage occurs: "Here comes the high clergy ! How they swing their
wobbly bellies ! How they swing their wobbly bellies !" (Hier kommt
die hohe Klerisei! Die wackelt mit den Bauchen! Die wackelt mit den
Bauchen!)

During the heyday of the excitement, in cities preponderantly
Protestant, Catholic clergymen who were burdened with an excessive
avoirdupois were afraid to show themselves on the street. They were
liable to be mocked by being sneeringly called "Reformers."
Carlsbad, Marienbad, and other watering resorts became overcrowded
with distressed Catholic ecclesiastics who were hurrying thither to
reduce a more than normal tonnage and displacement. See what may
happen when the Pope talks !

The practical outcome of the encyclical was: It fanned Protestant
enthusiasm. It brought humiliation on the Catholics. A serious
internal crisis was narrowly averted by the prompt action of the
German Catholics in protesting against the Letter.

My love of historical truth compels me to add another melancholy
reflection. The Holy Father, in characterizing the Reformers as
"men whose God is their belly," betrayed a rather awkward lack of
familiarity with a very important, outstanding phenomenon in
ecclesiastical history: the forerunners and leaders of the
Reformation had no "bellies" to speak of ! This hapless oversight
is the more deplorable when you consider that His Holiness had any
number of scholarly consultors at his command who could have drawn
his attention to that peculiar circumstance.

John Wycliff, John Huss, John Knox, John Calvin and the whole
regiment of trouble-making Johns were lean, austere churchmen. Had
they devoted themselves more assiduously to the joys of a well set
table-- as did the popes of that period--and developed a complacent
corpulence, they would never have embraced the profession of a
reformer. You could never think of a jovial, fat kidneyed rascal
like Sir John Falstaff turning uplifter and reformer !

Martin Luther was a slender, ascetical Augustinian monk when he was
stung by the reforming bee and commenced to thunder away at the
demoralized papal court. Had he granted himself an indulgence in
gastronomical delights, he would never have concerned himself about
the indulgence preached by John Tetzel--another overzealous,
troublesome lean John, by the way. It is the leanness of these men,
their lack of appreciation of the highly developed culinary art of
those days, that lies at the bottom of the whole tragedy. For a
tragedy the Reformation is, from my orthodox Roman Catholic point
of view.

It is true, Martin Luther later became partial to good cheer,
seasoned by conviviality and appropriate table talk, and he
accumulated a double chin. But that was after the mischief was
done, after he had upset the apple cart and caused a rift in the
Western Church. That double chin came too late. Had he acquired it
twenty years sooner, there would never have been a Reformation.
Erasmus, who had laid the egg that Luther hatched out, was another
lean, sour-faced, nervous dyspeptic. It was the lean, restless
Cassiuses that engineered the Reformation !

Since that tragic event, the most dangerous of all heresiarchs, or
schismatics, was John Ignace von Doellinger. He was the leading
scholar in the Church at his time. The distinguished Jesuit
historian Emil Michael pays him, the outspoken enemy of the
Jesuits, the compliment of having been a walking library. He was
the pride of the University of Munich where he taught. He was
another lean John, though his colleagues, in affectionate
admiration, spoke of him familiarly as "our Natzy," from his middle
name, Ignatz.

Doellinger's father was a noted surgeon who held the chair of
anatomy at the University of Munich. He was an aggressive
materialist and atheist who denied the existence of a spiritual
soul. With more wantonness than good tact he would occasionally,
while dissecting a body in the lecture room, taunt his hearers in
his amusing dialect: "Go upstairs where my Natzy is expounding his
theology ! Tell him to come down here and show us where the soul
is! I have dissected hundreds of bodies, but I have not found a
soul yet !" Though a religious scoffer, the old man was very proud
of his "Natzy," who already as a young priest had acquired an
international reputation as a scholar.

In a city where every man, woman and child drinks beer and every
self-respecting citizen cultivates a spacious ante-pendium, our
"Natzy" quenched his thirst with milk and lemonade, rarely, if
ever, touching the more palatable and exhilarating malt. This
peculiarity of his was regarded as an eccentricity that a scholar
of his renown was entitled to. It was generously condoned. In an
ordinary mortal it would have been viewed with strong misgivings as
to his proper mental balance.

At the time of the Vatican Council Doellinger agitated against the
dogma of papal infallibility. After it was proclaimed, he refused
to subscribe to it. He was excommunicated. The event, though not
unexpected, caused a great sensation throughout all Europe, most of
all in Munich. When the decree of excommunication was read from the
pulpits of the city on a certain Sunday, it fell like a peal of
thunder on the ears of the faithful. A hush hung, like a pall, over
the normally so gay community.

On the evening of the same Sunday a group of Doellinger's
colleagues met as usually at their accustomed stammtisch (round
table) in the Hofbrau. They sat there in deep reverie. At last, one
of them, a florid, benevolent churchman of ample dimensions and
irreproachable orthodoxy, broke, after quaffing his eighth stein,
the gloomy silence: "I have always said it that our Natzy was
headed for trouble. Had he taken his twelve steins of Hofbrau every
day, like a good Bavarian, he would never have bolted the Vatican
Council."

There was more truth in that remark than one is inclined to
believe. The Germans have a saying:

Ein Bayer ohne Bier 
Ist ein gefahrlich Tier.

"A Bavarian without his beer is a dangerous animal." He will be at
the best an intolerable crank. He may even go so far as to become
a schismatic, heresiarch and reformer. Doellinger is an
illustration.

Let me cite just one more instance of a reformer, of an
ultra-modern one, one of the most recent model, one whom we, the
people of the United States, have particular reason to be
interested in. Of course, his name is John, and he is lean. Your
surmise is correct: it is John D. Rockefeller, the king of unsavory
oil. He is the financial angel, or archangel, or arch-fiend, of the
iniquitous Anti-saloon League, that aggregation of Uplifters and
Reformers that is universally dreaded and detested as the direst
curse, plague and pestilence of the human race today. He is the
Super-Reformer. I assert without fear of contradiction that if Lean
John was blessed with a sound digestion and pushed a comfortable
"tank" along, as he could well afford, he would not be promoting
that nefarious League that has cast a wet blanket over our once
happy nation. Not contented with that, it is reaching out with
fiendish malice to pour wormwood into the cup of cheer of many
another friendly nation with whom we have never had a quarrel.
Is there need of adducing any more examples of Reformers? We let
this suffice.

The Romans had an adage: omnis pinguis bonus, "every fat man is
good." They were keen observers. Fat men have rarely caused any
more serious trouble than displacing too much room in a crowded
car. Of course, a fat man is not necessarily a bonvivant. Saint
Thomas of Aquinas, the profound scholar, was exceedingly abstemious
and exceedingly corpulent. Nor was His Holiness, Pope Pius X,
himself a feather-weight, though a strict practitioner of the
simple life. Nevertheless, as a general rule, fat men are known to
be remarkably regular and punctual in making their appearance at
meal time.

To make a long story short: Pope Pius X was a good, kind, saintly
pontiff. But, be it said with due reverence to his august person,
his exalted position and to his prerogative of infallibility: he
was beating the air when he attacked the "bellies" of the
Reformers. They had no "bellies" deserving that name, "bellies" in
the full, comprehensive sense of the word. It was the absence of a
regular "belly" that made them Reformers.

2. THE ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON FREEMASONRY

It is known, by its opening words, as the encyclical Humanum genus,
"the human race." It is dated 20th of April, 1884.

Here is an anthology from it:

They [the Masons] vie in attacking the power of God.

The sect of Masons is established against law and honesty, and is
equally a danger to Christianity as well as to society.

Its tenets contradict so evidently human reason that nothing can be
more perverted.

Inebriated by its prosperous success, Masonry is insolent, and
seems to have no more limits to its pertinacity. Its sectaries
bound by an iniquitous alliance and secret unity of purpose, they
go on hand in hand and encourage each other to dare more and more
for evil.

Impious [Masonic] sects in which one sees clearly revived the
contumacious pride, the untamed perfidy, the simulating shrewdness
of Satan.

I believe that most of the American Catholics who should happen to
read the above florilegium will disapprove of the severe language
in which the Pontiff condemns a fraternal organization to which 85
per cent of our national Senate and our national House of
Representatives and a very large section of our other leading
citizens belong. From the days of George Washington and Bishop
Carroll of Baltimore--and prior to that--down to the present day,
the American Catholics and Freemasons have lived together on the
best of terms. They have cooperated harmoniously in building up the
nation. They have shared the common sacrifices and dangers in war
and common prosperity in peace. Quite commonly we hear an American
Mason say that some of his best friends are Roman Catholics; and
vice versa.

The Literary Digest, of Dec. 1, 1923, quotes Father Francis P.
Duffy, the chaplain of the famous sixty ninth regiment, and friend
of Governor Smith of New York, as follows:

We must take a stand against the narrow-minded within our own fold.
Take, for instance, the matter of Freemasonry. I am bitterly
opposed to the attempt made by some Catholics to create a state of
friction between the Catholic Church and the Masonic Order. It is
true that a Catholic cannot be a Mason neither can he be an
Episcopalian. The Masons we know, and particularly the leaders of
Masonry, are not anti-Catholic. There is no feeling of antagonism
between the priest and the Mason. We have inherited our views of
Masons from other countries and from other times. There is no
reason why we should go out of our way to start a fight with the
Masons. There are Catholics who are hindering the work of men like
Justice Tompkins who are doing all in their power to keep their
ancient and honorable Order from going over to the dark ways of
bigotry, as some of its wily members would have it.

Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry vastly outnumbers the Latin or Continental
Masonry. A Masonic friend advises me that the bulk of Anglo-Saxon
Masonry frowns on the political activities of the Latin brotherhood
and has formally repudiated any connection with it. It cannot sever
its affiliation with it because it has no such affiliation.

I am told that American Masonry has no national organization. The
members in each state form a unit that is completely independent of
the forty-eight other units. Much less is the whole of Anglo-Saxon
Masonry an international organization. There is no such thing as a
central Masonic headquarters or central government on the plan of
the Superior-General of the Jesuits and other Catholic Orders. In
that respect it resembles, in a way, our Benedictine order in which
each archabbey with its dependencies constitutes a separate group
or congregation independent from the other groups. Over these
groups, united only by the common rule and common ideals, the
Abbot-Primate in Italy has practically no jurisdictional or
administrative powers.

Whatever the faults and delinquencies of Latin Masonry may have
been, Anglo-Saxon Masonry--and, be it remembered, that means the by
all odds larger part of the Masonry of the whole world--has not
conspired against the Roman Church. The Catholics have been, and
still are, a hopeless minority in the English speaking world. In
these same countries Masonry has all along been a great force;
perhaps not as strong as we Catholics imagine it to be, but a
sufficiently strong power to persecute and disfranchise us
Catholics, if it wished to do so. It has abstained from persecuting
us. There is no indication that it ever aimed at harming us.
Religious tolerance is a cardinal principle of Anglo-Saxon Masonry.
It seems to have been faithfully practiced. Individual Masons, and
even whole lodges, may have manifested some hostility to the Roman
Church, but not because they were Masons, but rather despite the
fact of being Masons.

Even if today Anglo-Saxon Masons organized and united to declare
war on Roman Catholicism, could we blame them after all the insults
that have been hurled at them by the Vatican and a large section of
the Catholic press? Does it not place us American Catholics in an
embarrassing position, if the supreme head of our Church, a foreign
ecclesiastic in whose election not a single American citizen had a
vote, refers to a fraternal order to which George Washington
belonged, to which today the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States belongs, to which a most imposing galaxy of our
most distinguished citizens and patriots has belonged or belongs--
if the supreme head of our Church, a foreign autocrat, refers to
that fraternal order as an agency of Satan ?

The basic tenets of Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry may be
irreconcilable; though I know of Catholic bishops, of a rather
conservative type at that, who fail to see in Masonry anything but
a fraternal order with humanitarian ideals. But let those basic
principles be irreconcilable, could that difference between
Romanism and Masonry not have been expressed in moderate, polite
language?

When Pope Leo XIII, whose "smooth diplomacy" our loyal Catholic
press loved to extol, released that unfortunate encyclical Humanum
genus, replete with insults to Masonry, our American Catholics
should have done what the German Catholics did with the encyclical
of Pius X on the Reformation: they should have protested against
it.

It is somewhat late to take action now, but the damage inflicted on
American Catholicism could still be partly repaired. Could not an
organization of representative American Catholic laymen like the
Knights of Columbus choose a Commission of priests and laymen--men
like Father Duffy, Dr. John A. Ryan of the Catholic University in
Washington, Col. P. H. Callahan --to study Anglo-Saxon Masonry, its
chief tenets and its history?

If the Commission finds that said Masonry is not irreconcilable
with Catholicism, then let the Knights of Columbus petition the
Vatican that it lift the ban from such units of Anglo-Saxon Masonry
as formally repudiate all affiliation, or community of interests,
with Latin Masonry.

If, on the other hand, the Commission should report that Masonry
and Catholicism are irreconcilable, either dogmatically, or in
practice, or both, then let the Knights petition the Pope that he
at least issue a new Apostolic Letter dealing exclusively with
Anglo-Saxon Masonry. In this Letter he could in moderate language
and in a conciliatory tone state the reasons why membership in the
Masonic Order is incompatible with membership in the Roman Church.
He could explain that certain charges raised against Masonry in the
Encyclical of Leo XIII do not apply to Anglo-Saxon Masonry. He
could give the latter credit for its merits in the promotion of
religious tolerance, of humanitarianism, of material progress and
prosperity, of pacificism and the ideal of the fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man. If it be found that British Masons have
helped to liberate the English Catholics from the obnoxious
disability laws, that fact should also be mentioned. The Vatican
claims to be empowered to speak authoritatively for Catholicism.
The Vatican should not be too proud to express its gratitude to
non-Catholics who have conferred a favor on Catholicism.

A kind word is never wasted. We want religious peace and tolerance.
Vatican theologians have in the past rushed in where angels feared
to tread.

If the Knights of Columbus should ever seriously consider taking up
this issue, they might include in their petition to the Vatican a
list of more grievances we American Catholics would like to see
disposed of. I shall take the liberty, in future articles in this
magazine, of submitting a few items to their kind consideration.
