"Blasphemy"

"Under the insinuating blandishments of their words lurks the gravest error, which tends totally to undermine the very foundations of the Catholic faith. . . . All men understand . . . the duty of believing absolutely God's revelations and obeying His commands. For this purpose, Christ founded the Church on earth. All those who profess themselves Christians cannot but believe that one Church and one Church alone, was founded by Christ. When we enquire . . . which this Church is . . . then all are not in agreement.

". . . Christ's Church not only must exist for all time, but must moreover, exist exactly as it was in the apostolic times, lest we are ready to admit either that Jesus Christ failed of His purpose or erred when He affirmed that the gates of perdition never shall prevail against His Church.

". . . Some . . . concede to the Roman Pontiff a certain priority but they claim it is derived, not from divine right, but from the opinion of the majority of the faithful. They declare themselves ready to negotiate with the Roman Church . . . on a basis of equality. . . . How could she tolerate an iniquitous attempt to drag the truth--divinely revealed truth--into a compromise? . . . If we admit this possibility, we must also say that the descent of the Holy Ghost on the apostles, that the permanence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, and even the teaching of Jesus Christ, lost all influence in the world many centuries ago. To affirm this is blasphemy.

"It is impossible to hasten the unity of all Christians except by obtaining the return of the dissidents to the single Church of Christ from which they one day unhappily broke away. . . . May they return to the common Father. He, forgetting the hard words they have hurled against the Apostolic See, will receive them with a heart of affection. . . . If they return, it must not be with the idea or hope that the Church of the Living God, the pillar and support of truth, will scrap its integrity and faith or tolerate their errors. . . .

"And would that our Divine Saviour, listening to our ardent prayers, should design to recall all sinners to the unity of the Church."

Not these words but their Latin equivalent were written last week by Pope Pius XI. They, together with many another illuminating the same question, formed the first papal encyclical of the year and the eleventh encyclical composed by the present pontiff. Superficially, they were merely a restatement of the principles which have guided the Roman Catholic Church throughout its entire existence; principle all based upon the principle of permanence. But the encyclical also had a more specific effect; this was to dispose once more and perhaps finally of the plans for a union of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, much discussed in the Maline conversations sponsored by Viscount Halifax, long president of the English Church Union, and the late Cardinal Mercier.

Now an old man, frail, delicate, serious, Lord Halifax could read in the encyclical the defeat of a lifetime's labor. It had been his idea, as it was the idea of many English high-churchmen and laymen, that the Church of England, which does not recognize itself as protestant in the sense for example of Lutheran, Methodist, or Presbyterian Churches, might be ready to amalgamate itself with the Roman Church. Certainly, for the last century, some members of the Anglican Church have tended more and more to recognize certain Roman Catholic tenets. At the Lambeth Conference, in 1920, English clergymen stated their willingness, should church unity be effected, to accept a Roman Catholic reconsecration since the Roman Church did not recognize them as properly ordained priests. Lord Halifax, long President of the English Church Union, hoped to gain some tiny compromise, some small unbending from the Roman Church. His hopes were sustained by some, not many, Anglicans; they were heard with sympathy but without encouragement by certain noted Catholic prelates, notably the late Cardinal Mercier. It was the latter who arranged the annual conversations at Malines, Belgium, the seat of his archbishopric, to which every June came many Anglicans to discuss and forward progress toward church unity.

Recently Pope Pius refused Lord Halifax a private audience. His present encyclical, while it does not end the indubitable Anglican tendency toward Church Unity, leaves no hope that it can be reached through the means hitherto most emphasized.

Said America, national U. S. Catholic weekly: "Logically, the Holy Father holds it impossible to conceive of a Christian society where each is free to believe as he lists. . . . Others may whittle away or compromise their principles; not, however, the Vicar of Christ. To assume that he can is to grant that the Spirit of Truth may fail the Church."

L'Osservatore Romano, official Vatican organ, described the encyclical as "a page of magnificant apologia for the sanctity of the Church of Rome. . . ."

In Manhattan, the Rev. Charles Francis Potter, M.A., S.T.M.,* who was ordained into the Baptist ministry in 1908, who later adopted the Unitarian creed, was installed in the pulpit of the Unitarian Church of the Divine Paternity. Famed for his liberal views on Christian theology, quite opposed to those of many members of his original sect, Mr. Potter preached a sermon in which he described the Pope's encyclical as "a singularly blundering, misinformed and untrue document . . . a claim of monopoly of the Christian religion that is most impudent. . . . Intolerance is one of the cleverest rapiers used by the Catholic Church.

* I. e., Master of Scientific Theology.