Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/25

 INFIDELS INFIDELS sin against faith, the most grievous of all sins, apos- tasy. Being endowed with reason, and subject to natural law, infidels are not excluded from the moral order; they can perform acts of natural virtue; and so the ecclesiastical authorities had to condemn proposition xxv of Baius which declared that: "Om- nia infidelium opera peccata sunt, et philosophorum virtutes vitia" (all works of infidels are sinful, and all the virtues of the philosophers are vices ; cf . St. Thomas, loc. cit., a. 4; Hurter, "Theol. dogm.", Ill, thes. cxxvi and cxxvii). Daily experience moreover proves in- contestably that there are infidels who are really religious, charitable, just, true to their word, upright in their business, and faithful to their family duties. One can say of them, as the Scriptures say of Corne- lius the centurion, that their prayers and their alms are acco])tabli' to God (Acts, x, 4). It wgis especially among such well-meaning infidels that the Church of Jesus grew up, and it is from their ranks that she gains her recruits at the present day in missionary lands. The Church, mindful of the order of the Saviour: "Go, teach all nations" (Matt., xxviii, 12), has always considered the preaching of the Gospel among the in- fidels and their conversion by her apostolic mission- aries to be one of her principal duties. This is not the place to recall the history of the missions, from the labours of St. Paul, the greatest of missionaries, and those who gave the light of faith to the Greek and Roman world, and tho.se who converted the barbarian peoples, down through the ages when the phalanxes of religious men rushed to the conquest of the Orient, the Far East, and .merica, to the present-day pioneers of the religion of Jesus Christ ; the multitude of heroes and martyrs antl the harvest of souls that have been won to the true Faith. Doubtless, we still are far from having but " one fold and one shepherd " ; nevertheless, there is not to-day a province or a race of men so remote, but has heard the name of Him by whom all men must be saved and has given children to the Church. The work of the missions is placed, as is well known, under the care and direction of the congregation of cardinals that bears the admirable name " De Propaganda Fide " (for the propagation of the Faith), instituted by Gregorj' XV in 1022. Ever encouraged and developed by the popes, it is the directing liody on whom the evangelical labourers in infidel lands depend. It sends them forth and grants them their powers, it establishes the prefectures Apostolic and the vicari- ates, and it is the tribunal to whose decision the mis- sionaries submit their controversies, difficulties, and doubts. Though there is a general obligation on the Church to toil for the conversion of infidels, yet it is not in- cumbent on any particular persons, unless on those priests charged with the care of souls who have infidels within their territory. For the distant fields of labour missionaries, priests, members of religious orders, both men and women, who voluntarily offer themselves for the apostolic work, are recruitei 1 in Cathcjlic countries. Native Christians are not excludcil froTu the ranks of the clergy, and it is a duty of the mi.ssiunaries to pro- vide themselves prudently with auxiliary workers in their missions. To draw the infidels to the Faith, the missionaries ought, like St. Paul, to make themselves all things to all men, adopt the customs of the country, acquire the native language, establish scliuols and char- itable institutions, preach especially liy their example, and show in their lives how the religion they have come to teach is to be practised (cf. Instr. of the Prop, to the Vicars Apostolic of China, in the " Collectanea S. C. de Prop. Fide", n. 328). They and their cate- chists are to instruct with zeal and patience those who are anxious to know the true religion, admitting them to baptism after a longer or shorter period of proba- tion, as was done in the case of the catechumens in ancient times. But the conversion of infidels must be free and without compulsion, otherwise it will not be genuine and lasting (cap. 9, tit. vi, lib. V, "de Ju- diEis"). It cannot be denied that at various epochs, notably under Charlemagne and later in Spain, there were forced conversions, which may be explained, though not excused, by the custom of the age; but the Church was not responsible for them, as it has con- stantly taught that all conversions should be free. On several occasions it expressly forbade the baptism of Jews and infidels against their will, and even the bap- tism of children without their parents' consent, unless they were in imminent danger of death (cf. Collect, cit., " De subjecto baptismi "). In the rite of admin- istering Ijaptism the Church still asks the questions: " Quitl petis ab Ecclesia Dei? Vis baptizari?" Though ecclesiastical law does not affect the acts of infidels as such, yet the Church has to pass judgment on the validity of these acts and their juridical conse- quences when infidels come within the fold by baptism. No act of an infidel can have any value from the point of view of the spiritual society to which he does not be- long; he is incapable by Divine law of receiving the sacraments, notably Holy orders (evidently we are not speaking here of a purely material reception) ; nor can he receive or exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The acts of infidels are to be considered in the light of natural law, to which they, like all men, are subject, and in accordance with the Divine law, in so far as it determines the secondary natural law. This applies principally to the case of matrimony. The marriage of infidels is valid as a contract under natural law, not as a sacrament, though at times this word has been ap- plied to it (cf . Encycl. " Arcanum ") ; it is subject only to the impediments of natural law and, at times, to those of the civil law also, but it is not affected by the impediments of canon law. However the Church does not recognize polygamy as lawful among infidels; as to divorce strictly so called, it admits it only under the form of the " Casus Apostoli ", also known as the priv- ilege of the Faith or the Pauline privilege; this con- sists in a convert being permitted to abandon his partner, who remains an infiilel, if the latter refuse to continue the common life without endangering the faith of the convert (cf. Divorce, I, B, 1); under such circumstances the convert may marry a Catholic. As to acts which are prohibited or void in virtue of canon law alone, they are valid when performed by infidels; thus, the impediment of the remoter degrees of con- sanguinity and affinity, etc., does not affect the mar- riages of infidels. But the juridical consequences of the acts, performed by them when infidels, begin to exist at the moment of and in virtue of their baptism; consequently, a converted widow-er may not marry a relative of his late wife without dispensation; and again, a man who has had two wives before his con- version is a bigamist and therefore irregular. Most of the laws passed by the Church refer to the relations between its subjects and infidels in not only religious but also civil affairs. Speaking generally, the faithful are forbidden to take part in any reUgious rites, considered as such, of pagans, Mohammedans, or Jews, and all the more to practise them through a kind of survival of their primitive superstitions. If this prohibition is inspired not so much by a fear of the danger of perversion as b^ the law forbidding the faithful to communicate in sncris with non-Catho- lics, aversion from false religions and especially from idol worsliip justifies the rigour of the law. To men- tion but the principal acts, the faithful are forbidden to venerate idols, not only in their temples, but also in private houses, to contribute to the building or repair- ing of pagan temples or of mosques, to carve idols, to join in pagan sacrifices, to assist at Jewish circum- cisions, to wear idolatrous images or objects having an acknowledged religious significance, so that the fact of wearing them is looked upon as an act of pagan worship, and finally to make use of superstitious and especially idolatrous practices in the acts of civil or