Paradoxes of Catholicism | Page 5

kept the faith all through
the period of persecution and lost it in the era of toleration. And he is
shaken and dismayed. "How can these be in a Society that is Divine? I
had trusted that it had been_ She _who should have redeemed Israel;_
_and now--_!"
(ii) Another man approaches the record of Catholicism from the
opposite direction. To him she is a human society and nothing more;
and he finds, indeed, a thousand corroborations of his theory. He views
her amazing success in the first ages of Christianity--the rapid
propagation of her tenets and the growth of her influence--and sees
behind these things nothing more than the fortunate circumstance of the
existence of the Roman Empire. Or he notices the sudden and rapid rise
of the power of the Roman pontiff and explains this by the happy
chance that moved the centre of empire to the east and left in Rome an
old prestige and an empty throne. He sees how the Church has profited
by the divisions in Europe; how she has inherited the old Latin genius
for law and order; and he finds in these things an explanation of her

unity and of her claim to rule princes and kings. She is to him just
human, and no more. There is not, at first sight, a phenomenon of her
life for which he cannot find a human explanation. She is interesting, as
a result of innumerable complicated forces; she is venerable, as the
oldest coherent society in Europe; she has the advantage of Italian
diplomacy; she has been shrewd, unweary, and persevering. But she is
no more.
And then, as he goes deeper, he begins to encounter phenomena which
do not fall so easily under his compact little theories. If she is merely
human, why do not the laws of all other human societies appear to
affect her too? Why is it that she alone shows no incline towards
dissolution and decay? Why has not she too split up into the component
parts of which she is welded? How is it that she has preserved a unity
of which all earthly unities are but shadows? Or he meets with the
phenomena of her sanctity and begins to perceive that the difference
between the character she produces in her saints and the character of
the noblest of those who do not submit to her is one of kind and not
merely of degree. If she is merely mediaeval, how is it that she
commands such allegiance as that which is paid to her in modern
America? If she is merely European, how is it that she alone can deal
with the Oriental on his own terms? If she is merely the result of
temporal circumstances, how is it that her spiritual influence shows no
sign of waning when the forces that helped to build her are dispersed?
His theory too, then, becomes less confident. If she is Human, why is
she so evidently Divine? If she is Divine, whence comes her obvious
Humanity? So years ago men asked, If Christ be God, how could He be
weary by the wayside and die upon the Cross? So men ask now, If
Christ be Man, how could He cast out devils and rise from the dead?
II. We come back, then, to the Catholic answer. Treat the Catholic
Church as Divine only and you will stumble over her scandals, her
failures, and her shortcomings. Treat her as Human only and you will
be silenced by her miracles, her sanctity, and her eternal resurrections.
(i) Of course the Catholic Church is Human. She consists of fallible
men, and her Humanity is not even safeguarded as was that of Christ

against the incursions of sin. Always, therefore, there have been
scandals, and always will be. Popes may betray their trust, in all human
matters; priests their flocks; laymen their faith. No man is secure. And,
again, since she is human it is perfectly true that she has profited by
human circumstances for the increase of her power. Undoubtedly it was
the existence of the Roman Empire, with its roads, its rapid means of
transit, and its organization, that made possible the swift propagation of
the Gospel in the first centuries. Undoubtedly it was the empty throne
of Caesar and the prestige of Rome that developed the world's
acceptance of the authority of Peter's Chair. Undoubtedly it was the
divisions of Europe that cemented the Church's unity and led men to
look to a Supreme Authority that might compose their differences.
There is scarcely an opening in human affairs into which she has not
plunged; hardly an opportunity she has missed. Human affairs, human
sins and weaknesses as well as human virtues, have all contributed to
her power. So grows a tree, even