Page:Civil Liberty in Lower Canada.djvu/13

11 disclosed becomes the duty of all good citizens, be they Catholic or Protestant.

The Pastoral Letter of Monseigneur Bishop Bourget, dated 1st February, 1876, among many other extraordinary statements, contains the following, extracted from the translation in the Montreal Herald:—

WHAT IS CATHOLIC LIBERALISM?

Catholic Liberalism is a combination of religious and social doctrines which tend to free more or less spirits of the speculative order and citizens of the practical order from the rule which tradition had everywhere and always imposed upon them. Or rather what is Catholic Liberalism? What is Liberal Catholicism?

It is a false and dangerous sentiment; it is a factious party which conspires in fact, against the church and against civil society. A Liberal Catholic is a man who, to a certain degree, partakes of this sentiment, whether in this party or in this doctrine the more sick is he as the more Liberal; the less sick is he as he is more Catholic. Liberalism always seeks to subordinate the rights of the church to the rights of the State in the measure of prudence and high wisdom, and even to separate the church from the State where it desires a free church in a free state. Liberalism claims that the clergy is called on solely to defend religion, and that the laity have not this mission. Since that the Pope declares in his Encyclical of 1853 that the laity fulfil in that a filial duty from the moment that they combat under the direction of the clergy. Modern Liberalism pretends that religion should not leave the sacristy, nor go beyond the limits of private piety. But the Pope declares that Catholics can only efficaciously defend their rights and their liberties by actively mixing up in public affairs. By these characteristic traits you will recognize Catholic Liberalism. It is for that we have deemed it our duty to point them out to your serious consideration in order that you may better understand the definition of them which we have given you.

In order to make you understand still more clearly