Paradoxes of Catholicism | Page 8

come _to set mother against daughter and daughter against
mother_; I am come not to establish universal toleration, but universal
Truth."
What, then, is the reconciliation of the Paradox? In what sense can it be
possible that the effect of the Personality of the Prince of Peace, and
therefore the effect of His Church, in spite of their claims to be the
friends of peace, should be _not peace, but the sword?_
III. Now (1) the Catholic Church is a Human Society. She is constituted,
that is to say, of human beings; she depends, humanly speaking, upon
human circumstances; she can be assaulted, weakened, and disarmed
by human enemies. She dwells in the midst of human society, and it is
with human society that she has to deal.

Now if she were not human--if she were merely a Divine Society, a
far-off city in the heavens, a future distant ideal to which human society
is approximating, there would be no conflict at all. She would never
meet in a face-to-face shock the passions and antagonisms of men; she
could suppress, now and again, her Counsels of Perfection, her calls to
a higher life, if it were not that these are vital and present principles
which she is bound to propagate among men.
And again, if she were merely human, there would be no conflict. If she
were merely ascended from below, merely the result of the finest
religious thought of the world, the high-water mark of spiritual
attainment, again she could compromise, could suppress, could be
silent.
But she is both human and divine, and therefore her warfare is certain
and inevitable. For she dwells in the midst of the kingdoms of this
world, and these are constituted, at any rate at the present day, on
wholly human bases. Statesmen and kings, at the present day, do not
found their policies upon supernatural considerations; their object is to
govern their subjects, to promote the peace and union of their subjects,
to make war, if need be, on behalf of the peace of their subjects, wholly
on natural grounds. Commerce, finance, agriculture, education in the
things of this world, science, art, exploration--human activities
generally--these, in their purely natural aspect, are the objects of nearly
all modern statesmanship. Our rulers are professedly, in their public
capacity, neither for religion nor against it; religion is a private matter
for the individual, and governments stand aside--or at any rate profess
to do so.
And it is in this kind of world, in this fashion of human society, that the
Catholic Church, in virtue of her humanity, is bound to dwell. She too
is a kingdom, though not of this world, yet in it.
(2) For she is also Divine. Her message contains, that is to say, a
number of supernatural principles revealed to her by God; she is
supernaturally constituted; she rests on a supernatural basis; she is not
organized as if this world were all. On the contrary she puts the
kingdom of God definitely first and the kingdoms of the world

definitely second; the Peace of God first and the harmony of men
second.
Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with
human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage
laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the
majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these
principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to cease to
be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her Divine
Message?
Again, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are
supernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more
modify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the
kingdom of this world if she would do so; it was proposed to her that
she actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and
yield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If she
had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How
inevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with
human ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely
impossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well as
human!
Take courage then! We desire peace above all things--that is to say, the
Peace of God, not that peace which the world, since it can give it, can
also _take away_; not that peace which depends on the harmony of
nature with nature, but of nature with grace.
Yet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the world,
or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases itself upon
natural principles