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 TOLERATION

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TOLERATION

religious peace compels the modern State to concede tolerance and religious freedom. Without this peace, the undisturbed continuation of the commonwealth is inconceivable. The history of the world could not easily display before the eyes of a patriot a more revolting picture than the fratricidal struggles which re- sulted from the Reformation in the religious wars of Europe. Wherever separate rehgious parties hve in the same land, they must work together in harmony for the public weal. But this would be impossible, if the State, instead of remaining above party, were to prefer or oppress one denomination as compared with the others. Consequently, freedom of religion and conscience is an indispensable necessity for the State.

From the standpoint of natural law and Christian pubUc law, however, this poUtical tolerance is subject to a threefold limitation, since neither the completely unreligious character of the State nor the unbridled liberty of all imaginable cults may be set up as a principle of government, nor finally may the separa- tion of State and Church be lauded to the skies as the perfect state ideal. These three limitations can be easily justified.

(a) To propose for the State such do^\Tiright irre- ligion as a drastic remedy against intolerance is to advise it to saw through the bough on which it sits. For the "State without God", pledged to the "Prin- ciples of 1789", would be an immoral monster, which through lack of internal vitaUty would as surely encounter decay and destruction as did the atheistic Revolutionary State of France at the opening of the nineteenth century. If it is true that human socictj' as a whole is bound to recognize the supreme dominion of God, then no State can shirk the obligation of con- fessing this God and of pubhcly venerating Him. The religionless State would be nothing less than an athe- istic State, bearing in its very nature the germ of dis- integration; since atheism is in itself and its effects a direct peril to the State. The pantheistic is not a whit better; for Hegel's motto, "the State is God", is pure nonsense, since it makes the absurd claim that the State is the original source of all right, and sets the omnipotent State in the place of God (cf . Syllab. Pii IX, prop. 39). A commonwealth that is to endure can be erected only on a theistic basis, since the fun- damental ideas of justice, fidehty, and obedience, in- dispensable for the preservation of the State, can exer- cise their full influence only in theism. Furthermore the respect for propertj', the observance of the laws of chastity, aversion to revolution and high treason are best secured by a lively faith in God. Consequently, not alone Christian statesmen like Montesquieu and Guizot, but also freethinkers hke MacchiaveUi and Voltaire, strongly defended the religious foundations of the State. Even the pagan Cicero (De nat. deor., I) frankly recognized the impossibihty of a State with- out the fear of God, on which depend in turn fidelity and justice. A State which is not itself permeated with sentiments of religion and idly tolerates the sap- ping of religion and morality is preparing the way for revolution, that is for its own destruction. The state axiom of religious freedom can therefore mean only freedom for religion, not freedom from religion or irreligion. In his Encyclical "Vehementer nos", of 11 Febru.ary, 1906, Pope Pius X sharply denounces for its injustice the violent breach of the Concordat by the French Government, instancing as the chief grievance that, by the official recognition of its own irreligion, the French Republic had forsworn God Himself (cf. Denzinger. n. 1995). The historian von Treitschke expressed the conviction that "atheists have strictly speaking no place in the state" ("Poli- tik", I, Leipzig, 1S97, p. 32); the philosopher John Locke would hear nutliing of state tolerance towards atheists. Willi a strange perversity of judgment he would indeed extend this intolerance toCathoUcs also,

the firmest believers in God among all classes of man- kind and the surest supporters of throne and altar. But, as things are to-day, nothing remains for the State but to tolerate atheists in its midst so long as they do not, by unlawful deeds, render themselves Uable to punishment. In its own interest, however, the State must endeavour to protect and promote belief in God among the people b}' the establishment of good schools, by the training of believing teachers and officials in seminaries, lyceums, secondary schools, and universities, and finally by leaving the Church free to exert her salutary influence.

(b) A weD-ordered commonwealth can no more recognize the maxim of unlimited and unbridled religious freedom than it can adopt the suicidal prin- ciple of irreligion. For state toleration of all forms of rehgion without exception, which could be justified only on the basis of disruptive atheism or a deistic indifferentism, is in palpable contradiction to natural law and to every rational system of poUty (cf. Encyc- lical of Pius IX "Quanta cura" of 8 December, 1864). If the State as such is under the same obligation to confess and venerate God as the individual, it must set bounds to rehgious freedom at least at the point where the unrestricted exercise of this freedom would lead to the subversion of state security and public morality. The history of religion shows that, to deceive unwary authorities, intrigues most immoral and most dangerous to the State have disguised themselves in the mantle of religion: the cults of Moloch and Astarte, religious prostitution and community of women, ritual child-murder and Anabaptist horrors, conventicles for debauchery and anarchistic secret societies, etc. No State with a regard for its own preservation will hesitate to raise a barrier against moral, rehgious, and political anarchy; and to repel with vigour all such attacks aimed, under the mask of freedom of belief, at the existence of society. Free competition between truth and error, which is some- times urged in the name of tolerance, promises neither for the State nor the Church an enduring success; the free competition between virtue and vice could be up- held by the same reasoning. There are certain deceits and vices which display their immoraUty so plainly that the State must mercilessly apply her penal law and, in the interest of the community, pre- vent their propagation. Thus England, in general so indulgent towards paganism in her colonies, could not tolerate the continuation among the Hindus of the ritual murder of children and the bm-ning of widows (the Suttee), prohibiting the former under severe penalties in 1802 and the latter in 1829 (cf. Lecky, "Democracy and Liberty", I, London, 1896, pp. 424 sqq.). Again, although the Constitution of the L^ni- ted States guarantees complete freedom of belief, the American people always found Mormonism unbear- able, and never rested until, by forbidding polyg.amy , to the Mormons, the Christian conception of marriage had been recognized (see Mormons). Xot even the atheistic Revolutionary State of France granted an unlimited freedom of religious opinions in its "Decla- ration des droits de I'homme" (1791), since it added the clause: " pourvu que leur manifestation ne trouble pas I'ordre public (5tabh par la loi". Almost all modern States have admitted this limitation of reli- gious freedom into their constitutions.

(c) Christian public law erects a third barrier to complete religious freedom in forbidding that the principle of the separation of Church and State be raised to the true ideal of the State and regarded as fundamentally the best form of the State; this does not mean that in certain exceptional cases actual separation may not be more beneficial for both Church and State than their organic union. While this separation may be always viewed as relatively the better condition, it iloes not thereby become the ideal state. The latter is only then attained when Church