The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869.Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869.
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Biassing the reader thus, he keeps back the real exterminating,
destructive, and intolerant spirit of the Huguenots, and, while
detailing here and there excesses, treats as insignificant the
conspiracy of Amboise, Coligny's complicity in Poltrot's
assassination of the Duke of Guise, Queen Jane's ruthless
extirpation of Catholicity, the Michelade, and the fearful
butchery enacted by Montgomery at Orthez, a small place where,
nevertheless, the Catholic victims numbered, according to his own
figures, three thousand, halt what he claims as the number of
Protestant victims at Paris on the bloody day of St. Bartholomew.
Nor is he more happy in depicting the theories and ideas of the
two parties.
Compare the Protestants in France with the early Christians and
the difference will be seen. The Reformers everywhere were
aggressive and intolerant. They did not ask merely liberty to
adopt new religious views and practise them. They did, indeed,
raise the cry of religious freedom--freedom of worship--freedom
of conscience; but what did these words really mean? They meant
the suppression of the Catholic worship, the extermination of the
priesthood and religious orders, the pillage and defacing of
Catholic churches, and the destruction of paintings, statues,
relics, and crosses. When this was done, they proclaimed
religious liberty. Thus, at Lyons, in 1562, "the Mass was
abolished, liberty of conscience proclaimed," in two consecutive
clauses.
The utter absurdity of such a connection does not strike Mr.
White, nor will it strike many English readers as it does a
Catholic ear. The Protestant spirit has so falsified ideas that
we constantly hear the same inconsistency. The enthusiastic son
of New England claims that the Puritan fathers established
"freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience,"
when, in fact, they claimed only the right to worship for
themselves and denied it to all others; the son of Rhode Island
claims Roger Williams as the real founder of toleration, and yet
his fanatical opposition to the slightest semblance to
Catholicity was such that he exhorted the trained bands not to
march under the English flag because it had the cross on it; the
historian of New York, or the more elaborate historian of the
Netherlands, will claim for Holland the honor of establishing
religious freedom, and we read their pages with the impression
that the people of the Netherlands were Protestant, as a unit;
and that the republic established after throwing off the Spanish
yoke made the land one where all creeds met in harmony, and all
men were equal in the eye of the law in their religious rights.
Yet what is the real fact? From that time till the present nearly
one half of the people of the Netherlands have been Catholics.
The Protestants, possessing a slight numerical advantage, ruled,
and to the Catholics their rule was one of iron. They were
deprived of all churches, prohibited from erecting others,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account