Tema: Liberalism Is A Sin

CHAPTER 29 Liberalism and Journalism

The press has grown so omnipresent nowadays that there is no escape from it. It is therefore important to know exactly how to steer our course amidst the many perils that beset Catholics on this score. How then are we to distinguish between journals that merit or do not merit our confidence? Or rather, what kind of journals ought to inspire us with very little and what with no confidence? In the first place, it is clear that such journals as boast of their Liberalism have no claim to our confidence in matters that Liberalism touches on. These are precisely the enemies against whom we have constantly to be on guard, against whom we have to wage perpetual war.

This point then is outside of our present consideration. All those who in our times claim the title of Liberalism, in the specific sense in which we always use the term, become our declared enemies and the enemies of the Church of God.
But there is another class of journals less prompt to unmask and proclaim themselves, who love to live amidst ambiguities in an undefined and indefinite region of compromise. They declare themselves Catholic and aver their detestation and abhorrence of Liberalism, at least if we credit their words. These journals are generally known as Liberal Catholic. This is the class which we should especially mistrust, and we should not permit ourselves to be duped by its pretended piety. When we find journals, Catholic in name and in profession, strongly leaning to the side of compromise and seeking to placate the enemy by concessions, we may rest assured that they are being drawn down the Liberal current, which is always too strong for such weak swimmers. He who places himself in the vortex of a maelstrom is sure in the end to be engulfed in it. The logic of the situation brings the inevitable conclusion.
The Liberal current is easier to follow. It is largely made up of proselytes and readily attracts the self-love of the weak. The Catholic current is apparently more difficult; it has fewer partisans and friends and requires us constantly to row against the stream, to stem the tide of perverse ideas and corrupt passions. With the uncertain, the vacillating and the unwary, the Liberal current easily prevails and sweeps them away in its fatal embrace. There is no room, therefore, for confidence in the Liberal Catholic press, especially in cases where it is difficult to form a judgment.
Moreover, in such cases, its policy of compromise and conciliation hampers it from forming any decisive or absolute judgment, for the simple reason that its judgment has nothing decisive or radical in it; on the contrary, it is always overweighted with a preponderating inclination towards the expedient. Opportunism is its guiding star. The truly Catholic press is altogether Catholic, that is to say, it defends Catholic doctrine in all its principles and applications; it opposes all false teaching (known as such) always and entirely, opposite per diametrum ["diametrically opposed"], as St. Ignatius says in that golden book of his exercises. Arrayed with unceasing vigilance against error, it places itself on the frontier, always face-toface with the enemy. It never bivouacs with the hostile forces, as the compromising press loves to do.
Its opposition is definite and determined; it is not simply opposed to certain undeniable maneuvers of the foe, letting others escape its vigilance, but watches, guards, and resists at every point. It everywhere presents an unbroken front to evil, for evil is evil in everything, even in the good which, by chance, may accompany it.
Let us here make an observation to explain this last phrase, which may appear startling to some, and at the same time explain a difficulty entertained by not a few.
Bad journals (we include doctrinally unsound journals under this head) sometimes contain something good. What are we to think of the good thus imbedded with the bad in them? We must think that the good in them does not prevent them from being bad, if their doctrine or their character is intrinsically bad. In most cases this good is a mere artifice to recommend, or at least disguise, what in itself is essentially bad. Some accidentally good qualities do not take away the bad character of a bad man. An assassin and a thief are not good because they sometimes say a prayer or give alms to a beggar. They -are bad in spite of their good works, because the general character of their acts, as well as their habitual tendencies, is bad and if they sometimes do good in order to cloak their malice, they are even worse than before.
On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a good journal falls into such or such an error or into an excess of passion in a good cause and so says something which we cannot altogether approve. Must we for this reason call it bad? Not at all, and for a reverse although analogous reason. With it the evil is only accidental; the good constitutes its substance and is its ordinary condition. One of several sins do not make a man bad-above all, if he repent of them and make amends. That alone is bad which is bad with full knowledge, habitually and persistently. Catholic journalists are not angels; far from it; they too are fragile men and sinners. To wish to condemn them for such or such a failing, for this or that excess, is to entertain a pharisaical or jansenistic opinion of virtue, which is not in accord with sound morality!
To conclude, there are good and bad journals; among the latter are to be ranked those whose doctrine is ambiguous or ill-defined. Those that are bad are not to be accounted good because they happen to slip in something good, and those that are good are not to be accounted bad on account of some accidental failings.
Good Catholics, who judge and act loyally according to these principles, will rarely be deceived.

CHAPTER 30 Can Catholics and Liberals Ever Unite?

A question very pertinent to our times and our surroundings is, "Should Catholics combine with the more moderate Liberals for the common end of resisting the advance of the revolutionists or extreme Liberals?" With some, this is a golden dream; with others, a perfidious snare by which they seek to paralyze our powers and divide us.

What should we think of these would-be unionists, we who wish above all things the wellbeing of our Holy Religion? In general, we should think such unions are neither good nor commendable. Liberalism, let its form be as moderated or as wheedling as possible, is by its very essence in direct and radical opposition to Catholicity. Liberals are the born enemies of Catholics, and it is only accidentally that both can have interests that are truly common.
It is possible, however, in very rare cases, that a union on the part of Catholics with a Liberal group against the Radicals may prove useful under given conditions. Where such a union is really opportune, it must be established on the following basis:
1. The bond of union should never be neutrality or the conciliation of interests and principles essentially opposed, such as are the interests and principles of Catholics and Liberals. This neutrality or conciliation has been condemned by the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX and is, consequently, a false basis. Such a union would be a betrayal, an abandonment of the Catholic camp by those who are bound to defend it. An instance would be to compromise Catholic education with Secularism by banishing religious instruction and influences from the school room. The basis of such conciliation is false, as it necessarily sacrifices Catholic interests and principles. It concedes to Secularism what is essential to the integrity of Catholic education, viz., the formation of the Catholic character in children, and admits the validity of the principle of neutrality. It can never be said, "Let us abstract from our differences of doctrine, etc." Such a loose abdication of principle can never obtain in the Catholic estimation. It would be the same as to say, "In spite of the radical and essential opposition of principles between us, we can, after all, agree in the practical application of these principles." This is simply an intolerable contradiction.
2. Much less could we accord to the Liberal group, with whom a temporary and accidental alliance is formed, the honor of enrolling ourselves under its banner. Let each party keep distinct its own proper device, or let the Liberals in question range themselves under our ensign, if they wish to fight with us against a common enemy. We can never assume their emblem under any circumstances. In other words, let them unite themselves to us; we can never unite ourselves to them. Accustomed as they are to a varying and motley ensign, it cannot be difficult for them to accept our colors. For us there can be but one flag-the one emblem of the one, unvarying Faith which we ever profess.
3. We must never consider this alliance constant and normal. It can never be anything else than a fortuitous and transient condition, passing away the moment the immediate exigency of its existence ceases. There can be no constant and normal union, except between homogeneous elements. For people of convictions who are radically opposed, to harmonize for any length of time would require continual acts of heroic virtue on the part of both sides. Now heroism is no ordinary thing, nor is it of daily exercise. Such ra ica incompatibility would simply expose the undertaking to lamentable failure and would build upon contradictory opinions, whose only accord is accidental. For a transistory act of common defense or attack, such an attempt at a coalition of forces is permissible-and even praiseworthy and extremely useful-provided, however, that we never forget the conditions or rules we have already laid down as governing the exceptional circumstances obtaining in a given case; these rules are an imprescriptible necessity. Outside of these conditions, not only should we hold that such a union with any group, for any enterprise whatever, would be unfavorable to Catholics, we should also hold that it would be actually detrimental. Instead of augmenting our forces, as would be the case in the union of homogeneous elements, it would paralyze and nullify the vigor of those who would be able, if alone, to do something for the defense of the truth. Without doubt, as the proverb runs, "Unhappy the one who walks alone' " But there is another proverb equally true which says, "Better seek solitude than bad company." It was St. Thomas, we believe, who said, Bona est unio sed potior est unitas, "Union is good, but unity is better." If we have to sacrifice true unity for the sake of an artificial and forced union, not only is nothing gained, but much is lost.
Experience has always shown that the result of such unions, outside of the conditions just laid down, is barren. Their result always renders the strife even more bitter and rancorous. There is not a single example of such a coalition which served either to edify or consolidate.

CHAPTER 31 An Illusion of Liberal Catholics

Amongst the illusions entertained by a certain class of Catholics, there is none more pitiable than the notion that the truth requires a great number of defenders and friends. To these people, numbers seem a synonym for force. They imagine that to multiply heterogenous quantities is to multiply power.

Now true force-real power, in the physical as in the moral order-consists in intensity, rather than in extension. A greater volume of matter equally intense evidently produces a greater effect, not by reason of the increased volume, but by virtue of the augmented intensities contained in it. It is therefore a rule of sound mechanics to seek to increase the extension and number of forces, but always on the condition that the final result be a real augmentation of their intensities. To be content with an increase without consideration of the value of the increment is not only to accumulate fictitious force, but to expose to paralysis the powers which one does possess by the congestion of an unwieldy mass. The millions of Xerxes' army constituted a force of tremendous extension, but they were of no avail against the vigorous intensity of the Greek three hundred at Thermopylae.
Faith possesses a power of its own, which it communicates to its friends and defenders. It is not they who give the truth power, but truth which charges them with its own vigor. This on the condition that they use that power in its defense.
If the defender, under the pretext of better defending the truth, begins to mutilate it, to minimize it, to attenuate it, then he is no longer defending the truth. He is simply defending his own invention, a mere human creation, more or less beautiful in appearance, but having no relation to truth, which is the daughter of Heaven.
Such is the delusion of which many of our brethren are the unconscious victims, through a detestable contact with Liberalism.
They imagine, with blinded good faith, that they are defending and propagating Catholicity. But by dint of accommodating it to their own narrow views and feeble courage, in order to make it, they say, more acceptable to the enemy whom they wish to overcome, they do not perceive that they are no longer defending Catholicity, but a thing of their own manufacture, which they naively call Catholicity, but which they ought to call by another name. Poor victims of self-deception, who at the beginning of the battle, in order to win over the enemy, wet their own powder and blunt the edge and the point of their swords! They do not stop to reflect that an edgeless and pointless sword is no longer a weapon, but a useless piece of old iron, and that wet powder cannot be fired.
Their journals, their books, their discoursesveneered with Catholicity but bereft of its spirit and its life-have no more value in the cause of the Faith than the toy swords and pistols of the nursery.
To an army of this kind, be it ten times as numerous as the multitudinous hosts of Xerxes, a single platoon of well-armed soldiers-knowing what they are defending, against whom they are contending, and with what arms they fight in order to defend the truth-is preferable a thousand times over. This is the kind of soldiers we need. This is the kind who have always and will yet do something more for the glory of His Name. They go into the deadly, imminent breach and never flinch.
No compromising, no minimizing with them.
They plant their banner on the topmost height and form a solid, invincible phalanx around it that not all the legions of Earth and Hell combined can budge a single inch. They make no alliance, no compromise with a foe whose single aim, disguised or open, is the destruction of the truth. They know that the enemy is by nature implacable and that his flag of truce is but a cunning device of treachery.
Of this we will become more and more convinced, if we consider that an alliance of this kind with a false auxiliary group is not only useless to the good Christian in the midst of the combat, but moreover, it is most of the time an actual embarrassment to him and favorable to the enemy. Catholic associations hampered in their onward march by such an alliance will find themselves so impeded that free action becomes impossible. They will end by having all their energies crushed under a deadly inertia. To bring an enemy into the camp is to betray the citadel. It was not until the Trojans admitted the fatal wooden horse within the city walls that Illium [Troy] fell. This combination of the bad with the good cannot but end in evil results. It brings disorder, confusion, suspicion and uncertainty to distract and divide Catholics, and all this to the benefit of the enemy and to our own disaster.
Against such a course la Civilta Cattolica, in some remarkable articles, has emphatically declared. Without the proper precaution, it says, "associations of this kind (Catholic) run the certain danger, not only of becoming a camp of scandalous discord, but also of wandering away from their true principles, to their own ruin and to the great injury of religion '" And this same review, whose authority is of the greatest possible weight, in regard to the same subject, says, "With a prudent understanding, Catholic associations ought chiefly to take care to exclude from amongst themselves not only those who openly profess the principles of Liberalism, but also those who have deceived themselves into believing that a conciliation between Liberalism and Catholicism is possible, and who are known as Liberal Catholics."

CHAPTER 32 Liberalism and Authority in Particular Cases

How is one to tell on his own authority who or what is Liberal, without having recourse to a definitive decision of the teaching Church? When a good Catholic accuses anyone of Liberalism or attacks and unmasks Liberal sophisms, the accused immediately seeks refuge in a challenge of the accuser's authority: "And pray, who are you to charge me and my journal with Liberalism? Who made you a master in Israel to declare who is or who is not a good Catholic? And is it from you that I must take out a patent on Catholici'ty?" Such is the last resort of the tainted Catholic on finding himself pushed to the wall. How then are we to answer this opposition? Upon this point, is the theology of Liberal Catholics sound? That we may accuse any person or writing of Liberalism, is it necessary to have recourse to a special judgment of the Church upon this particular person or this particular writing? By no means.

If this Liberal paradox were true, it would furnish Liberals with a very efficacious weapon with which, practically speaking, to annul all the Church's condemnations of Liberalism.
The Church alone possesses supreme doctrinal magistery in fact and in right,juris etfacti; her sovereign authority is personified in the Pope. To him alone belongs the right of pronouncing the final, decisive and solemn sentence. But this does not exclude other judgments less authoritative but very weighty, which cannot be despised and even ought to bind the Christian conscience. Of this kind are:
1. judgments of the Bishops in their respective dioceses.
2. judgments of pastors in their parishes.
3. judgments of directors of consciences.
4. judgments of theologians consulted by the lay faithful.
These judgments are of course not infallible, but they are entitled to great consideration and ought to be binding in proportion to the authority of those who give them, in the gradation we have mentioned. But it is not against judgments of this character that Liberals hurl the peremptory challenge we wish particularly to consider. There is another factor in this matter that is entitled to respect, and that is:
5. The judgment of simple human reason, duly enlightened.
Yes, human reason, to speak after the manner of theologians, has a theological place in matters of religion. Faith dominates reason, which ought to be subordinated to faith in everything. But it is altogether false to pretend that reason can do nothing, that it has no function at all in matters of faith; it is false to pretend that the inferior light, illumined by God in the human understanding, cannot shine at all because it does not shine as powerfully or as clearly as the superior light. Yes, the faithful are permitted and even commanded to give a reason for their faith, to draw out its consequences, to make applications of it, to deduce parallels and analogies from it. It is thus by use of their reason that the faithful are enabled to suspect and measure the orthodoxy of any new doctrine presented to them, by comparing it with a doctrine already defined. If it be not in accord, they can combat it as bad, and justly stigmatize as bad the book or journal which sustains it. They cannot of course define it ex cathedra, but they can lawfully hold it as perverse and declare it such, warn others against it, raise the cry of alarm and strike the first blow against it. The faithful layman can do all this, and has done it at all times with the applause of the Church. Nor in so doing does he make himself the pastor of the flock, nor even its humblest attendant; he simply serves it as a watchdog who gives the alarm. Opportet allatrare canes "It behooves watchdogs to bark," very opportunely said a great Spanish Bishop in reference to such occasions.
Is not perchance the part played by human reason so understood by those zealous prelates who on a thousand occasions exhort the faithful to refrain from the reading of bad journals and works, without specially pointing them out? Thus do they show their conviction that reason, this natural criterion, illumined by faith, is sufficient to enable the faithful to apply well-known doctrines to such matters.
Does the Index of Forbidden Books itself give the title of every forbidden book? Do we not find under the rubric of "General Rules of the Index" certain principles according to which good Catholics should guide themselves in forming their judgment upon books not mentioned in the Index, but which each reader is expected to apply at his own discretion? Of what use would be the rule of faith and morals if in every particular case the faithful could not of themselves make the immediate application, or if they were constantly obliged to consult the Pope or the diocesan pastor? just as the general rule of morality is the law in accordance with which each one squares his own conscience (dictamen practi .cum-"practical judgment") in making particular applications of this general rule (subject to correction if erroneous), so the general rule of faith, which is the infallible authority of the Church, is and ought to be in consonance with every particular judgment formed in making concrete applications-subject, of course, to correction and retraction in the event of mistake in so applying it. It would be rendering the superior rule of faith useless, absurd and impossible to require the supreme authority of the Church to make its special and immediate application in every case and upon every occasion which calls it forth.
This would be a species of brutal and satanic Jansenism, like that of the followers of the unhappy Bishop of Ypres, who exacted, for the reception of the Sacraments, such dispositions as would make it impossible for men to profit by that which was plainly intended and instituted for them by Jesus Christ Himself.
The legal rigorism invoked by the Liberalists in matters pertaining to faith is as absurd as the ascetic rigorism once preached at Port Royal [the seat of the jansenist heresy]; it would result even more disastrously. If you doubt this, look around you. The greatest rigorists on this point are the most hardened sectaries of the Liberal school. But how explain this apparent contradiction? It is easily explained, if we only reflect that nothing could be more convenient for Liberalism than to put this legal muzzle upon the lips and the pens of their most determined adversaries. It would be in truth a great triumph for them, under the pretext that no one except the Pope and the bishops could speak with the least authority, and thus to impose silence upon the lay champions of the Faith, such as were DeMaistre, Cortes, Veuillot, Ward, Lucas and McMaster, who once bore, and others who now bear, the banner of the Faith so boldly and unflinchingly against its most insidious foes.
Liberalism would like to see such crusaders disarmed and would prefer above all to succeed in getting the Church herself to do the disarming.

CHAPTER 33 Liberalism as It Is in This Country

Liberalism, whereas essentially one and the same everywhere, presents various faces in different countries. In its essence, it is the denial of the supernatural in whole or 1.n part, but that denial takes a local coloring from place or circumstances.

The traditions, customs, prejudices, and idiosyncrasies of a people reflect it at various angles. It is protean [variable] in its presentations throughout the world, and to the casual observer, who falls to probe below the appearances of things, it may not seem to manifest itself at all; whereas, in reality, it exists in its subtlest and therefore most dangerous form.
In America it would scarcely seem to exist at all, so ingrained is it in our social conditions, so natural is it to the prevailing modes of thought, so congenital is it with the dominant religious notions about us-and thus providing so congenial a habitat to the Protestant sects. Indeed it is the very constituent of the pseudo-religious and pseudo-moral atmosphere we daily breathe. We can hope to escape its taint only by copious and frequent draughts of orthodox doctrine, by the strictest intellectual vigilance, fortified by supernatural grace. Its aspect in this country is peculiar and fraught with especial danger to those negligent either in faith or morals. Its chief manifestation in the United States is in the form of what is popularly called NON-SECTARIANISM. It is a current fallacy, laid down as a fundamental truth that one religion is as good as another, that everyone has the right to believe what be pleases, that differences in creed are after all but differences in forms of expression, that everyone may select his own creed or sect according to his taste-or even altogether repudiate religious beliefs-and finally, that religion is a thing entirely apart from civic and social life. All this of course is SECULARISM in its various degrees-the denial of the supernatural.
In practice, this principle ingratiates itself into social and civic life, directly or indirectly working out to the prejudice of religion and morality: Civil marriage and divorce, mixed marriages and the consequent degeneration of family life, business standards and morality in general pitched on a low key, a vicious literature, a materialistic journalism catering to lax thinking and lax living, religion publicly mocked, scoffed, denied or held indifferently; all these things are coldly regarded as a matter of course, a necessary expedience, things to be condoned and applauded, all on the ground that they are the fruit of liberty. But the most virulent effect crops out in the prevailing educational theory. Here Liberalism manifests itself in its most direful and fullest effects, for it denies to religion the very sphere where it has the strongest right and the fullest reason to use its widest and most lasting influence, viz., upon the minds of children.
Secularism, with the instinct of a foe, has here most positively and triumphantly asserted its claim and, under the disguise of strict impartiality and even patriotism, has banished religion from the schoolroom.
That Catholics should not feel the effects of this relaxing atmosphere is scarcely to be expected.
With the air so strongly impregnated with poison, it would be difficult indeed to keep the blood healthy. In not a few instances, they have fallen victims to the plague, and if not always out-and-out corrupted, they become not a little tainted.
Hence we find amongst, if not a large, at least no small number, an easy disposition to compromise or minimize their faith in points of doctrine or practice. THE NATURAL TENDENCY IN HUMAN NATURE TO ESCAPE FRICTION AND AVOID ANTAGONISM IS UNHAPPILY IN MOST INSTANCES A READY FACTOR IN THE DIRECTION OF CONCESSION.
To apologize, excuse, extenuate, soften, explain away this or that point of faith, practice or discipline easily follows from a habit of thought contracted from perpetual contact with Liberalists, with whom everything takes precedence over faith and supernaturalism. This is especially true where Liberalism eschews aggressive action and with a cunning, either satanic or worldly wise, bases its treacherous tolerance upon a supposed generosity of mind or breadth of view. When the supernatural is vaguely identified with the superstitious, faith with credulity, firmness with fanaticism, the uncompromising with the intolerant, consistency with narrowness (for such is the current attitude of secularism around us), in these adjuncts it requires courage, fortitude and the consolation of the assured possession of truth to resist the insidious pressure of a false public opinion. Unless supernaturally fortified and enlightened, human nature under this moral oppression soon gives way to "human respect."
Such are our Liberal surroundings in this country. We cannot escape them. But we are in duty bound to resist their fatal contagion with all the powers of our soul. If we hope to preserve our faith intact, to keep it pure and bright in our souls, to save ourselves from the malign influence
of a deadly heresy which is daily leading thousands to perdition, we must be guarded and vigilant in its presence. Amidst a host of swarming foes, our armor should be without flaw from greave to helmet, our weapons well-tempered, keen, and burnished, not only to ward off the hostile blow, but ready to deal home a telling stroke wherever the enemy's weakness exposes him.
It is because we live in the midst of such perplexities, where the ways are devious and where snares are laid for our every footstep, in order to entrap us unawares, that we require to be on our guard in a twofold way: first, by means of a life lived in the state of grace, second, by means of an enlightened reason, which may shine out over our path as a guide to ourselves and a beacon to others.
In a special manner is this a need in our country, where Liberalism pretends to be the champion and guardian of natural reason, laying its snares to entrap the unwary and the ignorant. Not in violence but in a treacherous friendliness on the part of Liberalism does the danger lie. A well-instructed Catholic-who thoroughly comprehends the rational grounds of his faith and understands the character of Liberal tactics under our national conditions-can alone successfully cope with the enemy face-to-face. Ultramontanism is the only conquering legion in this sort of warfare. It is for the vanguard of the army to surprise the enemy at his own ambuscade, to mine against his mine and to expose him before he has burrowed under our own camp. Ultramontanism is Catholicity intact and armed cap-a-pie [from head to foot]. It is Catholicity consistent in all its parts, the logical concatenation of Catholic principles to their fullest
conclusions in doctrine and practice. Hence the fierce and unholy opposition with which it is constantly assailed. The foe well knows that to rout the vanguard is to demoralize the entire army; hence their rage and fury against the invincible phalanx which always stands fully armed, sleeplessly vigilant and eternally uncompromising.
In this country, above all others, do Catholics need to be Watchful, constant and unshaken in their falth, for the disease of Liberalism is virulently endemic. Its assault is perpetual, its weapons invisible, save to the enlightened eye of a resolute and undaunted faith. In Europe, at least on the Continent, Liberalism is violent, aggressive, openly breathing its hatred and opposition. There the war is open; here it is concealed. There the battlefield is the public arena in civic and political life; here the contest is within the social, business and even domestic circle. There it is declared foe against declared foe; here it is friend against friend, even brother against brother, and all the more dangerous in results because friendly, social or domestic relations endure without injury amidst the struggle and are dangerous to the Catholic because these various ties are so many embarrassments to his free action, so many bonds of affection or interest to enchain him. Therefore must be be all vigilant; therefore should his courage be great, his attitude firm and his stand bold, for whereas his circumstances make him friendly to his foe, he must wage a deadly battle for his faith. His task is doubly difficult; be must conquer an enemy who appears his dearest friend.

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

People today are almost universally asking, "What has happened to our society? What is wrong?" The book you hold in your hands, Dear Reader, contains in essence the answers to these questions.

Liberalism Is A Sin was written in Spain by Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany in 1886 and was translated and adapted for U.S. readership by Conde B. Pallen, Ph.D., L.L.D. under the title What Is Liberalism? and published in English in 1899. The book went through various reprints from the original hardbound edition of the B. Herder Book Company, the latest of which were done by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., the first in 1979, and then the second one in 1989. This present edition of the book has been completely retypeset in a more readable style, using modern spelling and punctuation. Plus, we have brought up to date Dr. Pallen's statistics cited in Chapter 1. Also, we have changed the title from Dr. Pallen's What Is Liberalism? back to Fr. Sarda y Salvany's original and more provocative title, Liberalism Is A Sin.
We have also added most of the italics and all the capitalization in the text, to emphasize important points and to give the reader a little better frame of reference in each chapter. Other than these minor changes, the book is the same as the one Conde Pallen issued in 1899 and substantially the same as the Reverend Dr. Sarda y Salvany's original Spanish text.
Liberalism Is A Sin is one of the most important books for Catholics today (and for non-Catholics, too, if they will read it with an open mind). For it discusses the problem of Liberalism, both in its principles and in all its details and ramifications. (It must be noted here that as the word is used in this present context, "Liberalism" refers to religion and not to politics, though it definitely bears upon that realm as well.)
By definition, Liberalism is the mistaken notion that "One religion is as good as another." The absurdity of this proposition is immediately obvious to all, for two beliefs that contradict each other cannot at the same time both be true. Therefore, insofar as one at least is false, it is simply not good at all, and definitely it is not as good as a belief which is true. Nor is it even as good as one that is nearer to the truth. Also, Liberalism takes no cognizance of there being in the world a One, True, Divinely revealed Religion that is true in all its doctrines and moral teachings--which is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church unabashedly maintains that it is.
This book shows that Liberalism--at least here in America--is all-pervasive and is almost, as it were, universally victorious over the thinking of our people. Yet as a religious--philosophical tenet it is false! And woefully so! For, as the author points out, it leads to an eventual denial of any truth whatsoever by some of its adherents. For people hear first one religious "truth" asserted and then another that contradicts it, and soon they are so confused that they do not know what to believe. And often they end up believing nothing--or holding that nothing is certain, even in matters relating to the Natural Law, which all people know through the use of their reason alone.
Regarding its source, Liberalism, as the author shows very clearly, is a direct result of Protestantism, with its tenet of private interpretation of the Bible. For if a person has a right to decide for himself what the Bible means, this says in effect that he has a right to choose whether he will believe or not believe certain revealed teachings. Then in effect, he also has a right to believe nothing at all. Whereas the correct view is that when the mind of man sees the divinely revealed truth, he has NO CHOICE, morally speaking, to reject it. Its obvious truth requires that he must accept it as true.
(Society, on the other hand, must concede every person a civil right to reject religious truth, as far as he individually is concerned, but that is only because both religion and society must allow a person to exercise his free will and to choose for himself whether he will accept or reject God's Revelation. He who rejects the truth, however, must personally bear whatever evil consequences that result from his own personal choice.) For some, this book may be difficult because they are unaccustomed to reading abstract, theoretical books, but the issues it discusses are so important to each person individually, and to our society as a whole, that it behooves everyone to persist to the end (the concluding chapter is one of the best in the book, maybe even the best), and even to reread the book, that he or she might become completely familiar with the issues covered here. For Liberalism says in effect that there is no objective truth, which is patently absurd. And in the practical order--in our social and political lives--Liberalism leads to a practiced atheism, that is, to a situation in society where, though we do not deny the existence of God, we nonetheless must conduct ourselves vis-a-vis one another as if God did not exist, because we must in effect deny that He has a right to tell man what to do.
This situation results from Liberalism's denying in effect that there is one body of revealed truth, with which man must comply. Liberalism therefore destroys adherence even to the Natural Law, that law which we all understand to be true without the assistance of divine Revelation. But it also destroys the universal acceptance among people of divine Revelation. Adherence to both the supernatural and the natural order, therefore, breaks down under its influence, and the result is chaos in individual lives and anarchy in society.
The all-pervading Liberal ideas that "one religion is basically as good as another" and that "it does not matter what a person believes so long as he is a good person" were spawned almost automatically and by logical necessity, as it were, due to the historical context leading up to where we find ourselves today.
By the year 304 A.D., Christianity (read here "Catholicism") had pretty well permeated and converted the ancient Roman world, so that with the victory of Constantine the Great at that time in the battle of the Malvian Bridge and with his succession as Roman Emperor in that year, Catholicism became the official religion of society. And as the Roman world more and more influenced its neighbors, especially the northern European peoples, the civilization that developed there was Roman-Catholicized civilization, or Catholicized-Roman civilization, if you will. At the time of the Protestant Reformation (read "Revolt"), starting in 1517 and continuing throughout that century, European civilization had already been well formed by the Catholic religion for, at the most, 1,200 years in some regions to, at the least, 400 years in others.
Significant for our Western civilization is the fact, as Hilaire Belloc points out in Essays of a Catholic, that THE PEOPLE WHO HAD BECOME PROTESTANT DID NOT ABANDON THEIR CATHOLIC MORAL CUSTOMS. They continued to live by the truth which their Catholic forefathers had lived by for centuries. The only problem was that they no longer believed as true the religious-philosophical truths taught by the Revealed Religion, the Catholic Faith, which had created their customary and traditional ethic.
This dichotomy between varying professed faiths in the minds of people, on the one hand, and the continued practice of the traditional Catholic and therefore true moral customs, on the other, has come down into our own time. All during the centuries since Luther's revolt in 1517, society has been able to function fairly well, despite the various erroneous religious-philosophical ideas in the minds of people in the same nation--simply because, practically speaking, they were by and large living by the old inherited Catholic truths and practices, and this was what enabled our society to function more or less harmoniously, despite a diversity of belief among its members. Let us pause here to name some of the Catholic social moral customs that are based on the revealed word of God: to worship God on Sunday, not to work on Sunday, to give honest work for your pay, not to steal, to keep monogamous marriage relations, not to practice polygamy, to avoid adultery and fornication, to shun homosexuality (like a plague!), to have children and not to practice birth control (let alone abortion), to raise and nurture them within the family they were born in, to respect and care for the elderly, to nurse the sick, to bury the dead (in anticipation of the resurrection of the body), etc., etc.
Now, the average person might say, "Most of that we have always taken for granted" But the fact is that now (1993) most of these traditional customs--that have made our society workable heretofore--have been, not just called into question, but simply abandoned by many people, as if there were no objective truth, and definitely as if there were no divine retribution for sin left unexpiated. This abandonment is the direct result of the loss of the one, true Catholic faith as the integral creed of our society as a whole, which in turn has eventuated in the abandonment of traditional Catholic moral customs that enable man to live in conformity with God's laws and enable society to function harmoniously.
Liberalism, which in effect says, "It does not matter what you believe--or whether you believe anything at all"--could be held without dire results by even the majority of people in our present society--so long as the majority of our people were also still practicing the old traditional (read "true," "Catholic") moral customs, for these customs, based on the revealed truths of Almighty God and adherence to the Natural Law, enabled our society to function reasonably well. But now, in the 1990's, with so many people having lost touch with the reasons for morality and goodness, we live in a situation where many of these customs have been abandoned by a large segment of our society, and the result is social disorder of the first magnitude.
It is only when the present disorder arose in our social affairs--when murders and broken marriages and people going berzerk in all sorts of ways--became epidemic that people universally began to ask: "WHAT IS WRONG?!" People in general do not understand philosophy, let alone the bad effects that a bad philosophy can have. These evil effects must first impinge on their lives--"smack them hard in the face"--before they cry out, "What is wrong?!"
Well, Dear Reader, "What is wrong" is what has already been wrong for a very long time in the thinking of our people--they no longer profess the truth. They abandoned it starting in 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the chapel door at Wittenberg and initiated his revolt against the True Faith and a unified Catholic society. They jettisoned the Revealed Religion of God, sort of like naughty children left home alone and rebelling against their parents' firm (but orderly) rule--not realizing that they were destroying the very underpinnings of society itself, not to mention the infinitely more important matter of abandoning the one and only vehicle of their eternal salvation. And it was these people by and large who emigrated to North America and founded our nation.
I believe we can say with good historical accuracy that the Catholic moral customs inherited from centuries of Catholic and Roman civilization survived until the decade of the 1960's, when the rot of Liberalism--spread at an accelerated rate by the immoral movie industry--had prepared the social seedbed for people finally to abandon the traditional Catholic moral customs. This abandonment of order for hedonism and personal licentiousness was precipitated during the 1960's, more than anything else, I believe, by the advent of the birth control pill, accompanied by the utter daring of the movie industry in portraying on the screen people actually committing fornication and adultery. The result over the next few years was a general disintegration of sexual morality, pandemic infidelity, a meteoric rise in divorce, and finally, the coup de grace for society, abortion. Top this all off with the concomitant alarming increase in drug abuse, and the rest of human morals simply disintegrated in the train.
This historical scenario we have actually witnessed in just the past 30 years! The discussion here, therefore, is not academic. For the collapse of Catholic customs has taken place only recently, and that within the lifetimes of many of us. The result--if not soon reversed--will destroy what is left of our civilization.
This collapse ultimately is the result of Protestantism--with its belief in private interpretation of the Bible. With the Protestant Revolt from revealed truth and the divinely established authority in the person and office of the Pope in Rome, everyone became his own little pope. Whereas people could not abide one man's being infallible--one man, who held the divine commission from Jesus Christ Himself, when He said to St. Peter, "I say to thee: that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven" (Matt. 16:18-20); whereas they could not abide this one man's being infallible, whose authority exists only within the strictly defined limits of a tightly wrought, nearly 2,000--year, universally known tradition, all the while being guided by the Holy Spirit, the "Paraclete" whom Christ had sent; whereas they could not accept this sort of God--assisted, worldwide--visible, tightly constrained infallible teacher; they could and did accept, and continue to this day to accept, THEMSELVES(!) as the infallible, unfailing, inerrant rule of faith and morals--they, who are often mental pygmies in theoretical matters, uninstructed in theology and philosophy, poorly informed, busy with practical affairs, weak, sick and all of that; they themselves are the only, the one, the true and infallible authority which they will accept--only themselves! God preserve us from such nonsense!
Is it any wonder we have ended with the social dilemmas we now face, when the majority of people in our society operate under an idea structure such as this? The moral, social, civil, political chaos we have brought upon ourselves is the direct result of Protestantism, with its disastrous tenet of "private interpretation," and its ugly stepchild, "Liberalism," which blesses the spiritual and moral disorder produced by Protestantism with the gooey mental salve of "One religion is as good as another," and its equally absurd corollary, "It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you lead a good life."
As Fr. Sarda y Salvany states, "Protestantism is now a dead dog." (Page 74). But Liberalism still waxes strong in Protestantism's defense. However, the social upheaval of our times, brought on by these false ideas, now demands the ringing of the death-knell of Liberalism. We can no longer abide this error and survive as a civilization. For liberals in a society are like termites in a wooden house. They live off the house while it is still basically sound, saying all the while, "What harm do we do? The house still stands!" But we know that the house of our civilization is getting progressively weaker as the termite--Liberals increase and thrive, and at some point, in the not-too-distant future, we are going to crash!
It is my opinion that we are now there! We are about to crash as a civilization. And we need immediately to begin the process of exterminating the verminous Liberal pest with large antidotes of real, logical truth, taken from the wellspring of all truth, our Divinely Revealed Religion--the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Faith. No other medicine will do for what is otherwise a terminal case for all of us.
We are at the point where action is imperative. For our very personal, earthly safety is at stake--not to mention the vastly more important matter of the salvation of our souls. But we can only act rightly if we know the truth and act in accordance with it.
Liberalism Is A Sin will focus our sights on the last enemy that needs to be destroyed before we can begin rebuilding the "Lost Faith" that makes life on this earth reasonable and harmonious and that enables people to obtain eternal salvation--if they will only embrace it and live by it. For Liberalism is all that is left standing between us and the shedding of the light of Catholic truth on all the problems of our times and eventuating thereby those real, lasting solutions to the moral, social and religious problems which now afflict us unto the death of our civilization.
Thomas A. Nelson
March 10, 1993



FOREWORD--WHY LIBERALISM CAN EXIST

A major factor related to our living in a post-Catholic civilization allows Liberalism to live and to thrive; it is an element the author does not touch upon, and in fact, which I have never seen mentioned by any other author, and it is this: Christianity (read "Catholicism") solved the nagging questions for mankind as to the purpose of life, whether man is immortal, and what is his eternal destiny. Those who have studied the pre-Christian era literature of ancient Greece and Rome realize that the answers to these questions held at that time were at the very best vague, shadowy and uncertain notions in the minds of the ancient people. Save for the Israelite nation, singled out by God to prepare themselves (and to a certain extent, the world) for the coming of a Redeemer, the nations of the world by the time Our Lord Jesus Christ entered the picture of human history had pretty well lost the correct view of these important questions, which God had communicated to Adam and Eve and which had been handed down through the millenia before Christ. But the teachings of Jesus Christ, once they had permeated the Roman world and spread to the barbarian European nations, solved all these ultimate questions for our ancestors in the West. People were assured by Divine Revelation that man is immortal, that he is destined ultimately either to Heaven or to Hell, that these states last forever (in an ever-present now that the human mind, knowing only the element of change in this world, finds impossible fully to grasp) and that man's acceptance or rejection of Christ's doctrine, plus living an absolutely correct life and dying in God's grace, are the determining factors as to whether a person will go to Heaven or to Hell. Since the advent of Protestantism, it is my contention, the SOCIAL AWARENESS of the answers to man's questions about the immortality of the soul, the purpose of life, the ultimate end of man, and the role of human behavior in determining man's last end has not been lost! The historical reality of Catholicism's being the only religion of Europe is not that old (16th century), and therefore the memory of its teaching is still fairly fresh from a social awareness aspect, plus Catholicism is still with us today--e.g., almost 20% of the U.S. population is Catholic, at least in name, and some areas of the Western world are predominantly Catholic. So the ferment of Catholicism, the fountainhead of Christianity, with its true, unalloyed doctrines on these ultimate questions, is still in our midst (though in the post-Vatican II era, i.e., after 1965, it definitely has become significantly weaker). Consequently, there exists in our social awareness a pretty strong conviction among most people of our society today that man is immortal, that he is intended by God for an eternity of happiness and that, if he will lead a good life here on earth, he will attain that end.

The one aspect relative to all these Catholic answers to man's questions about the meaning of life and the ultimate end of man which has been lost--alas, even by many Catholics--is "exactly HOW salvation is attained!" "Just WHAT it takes to gain Heaven!" Non-Catholics no longer know this--or they would become Catholic--and even most Catholics today (those who are Catholic in name only) have lost it as well.
(The answer to how one attains salvation is simply this: to know and embrace Catholicism, "the faith of ... Christ" (James 2:1), "the faith of God" (Rom. 3:3), and to live an absolutely correct moral life by means of sharing actively and regularly in the Sacramental life of the Catholic Church. "For without me you can do nothing" said Our Lord (John 15:5), by which He meant that we need the light of His faith for knowledge of the way, plus the grace of His Sacraments to receive the life of God in our souls and for assistance to lead a good life. "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day." (John 6:54-55). This passage refers to the Sacrament of Holy Communion, which is received under the form or appearance of bread and wine.) Now Liberalism is able to live and to thrive today precisely because the people of our time have lost the precise knowledge of HOW to attain salvation. They have lost the awareness that the salvation of one's soul is a big job, the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, second-by-second preoccupation of man's entire life (especially if he intends to avoid Purgatory and gain a high place in Heaven), that it is bound up intimately with participation in the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, to give us, first of all, the life of Sanctifying Grace (God's life) in our souls through Baptism and, secondly, the assistance through the actual graces of the other Sacraments (Confession, Holy Communion, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders) to lead an absolutely correct life according to God's law and befitting our vocation and state of life.
People today, in other words, have RETAINED the general ideas that man is immortal, that he is destined by God for an eternity of happiness in the next life, that he must lead a good life in this world and die repentant of his sins to gain Heaven, and that the wicked will be punished in Hell. But they have LOST the exact knowledge of just what a "good" life entails and of bow all-consuming the job of salvation is and that it of Jesus Christ, which He gives through the Sacraments of His Church, and therefore that membership in His Church, the Catholic Church, is essential to salvation. (This membership is essential because only Catholicism has the KNOWLEDGE, through faith, plus the DIVINE LIFE and the HELP received from the Catholic Sacraments that we need for attaining this end.) Therefore, in the distance between modern man's SOCIAL AWARENESS (inherited through the centuries from Catholicism) that "all is well with man" (we are immortal and destined for Heaven if we will "be good") and the PRECISE KNOWLEDGE of the monumental task of salvation (achievable only with the exact knowledge of the Catholic faith and the assistance of the Catholic Sacraments), Liberalism--that doctrine that one religion is as good as another, that it does not matter what you believe so long as you lead a good life, that in effect if you do not accept any religion at all, it is all right--finds a comfortable atmosphere in which to thrive, living, as it only can, on contemporary man's SOCIAL AWARENESS that "all is well" regarding eternity and his ignorance of PRECISE spiritual truths and his laziness to bestir himself to learn the truth, plus his fear of the challenge which a correct perception of the truth will force him to accept. Probably the most important spiritual fact lost to the majority of people today--a fact that makes Liberalism so plausible--is the Catholic distinction between the natural and the supernatural orders--between natural ends and means and supernatural ones. Those today who entertain the fuzzy thinking of Liberalism do so largely because they have lost cognizance of this distinction. Heaven, according to Catholic teaching, is a supernatural state, an end or objective above man and beyond his ability to attain, a goal which man on his own cannot achieve. It is the presence of God. It is the eternal vision of God and an eternal sharing in the life of God Himself. But this is not something within the nature of man to achieve or possess. It is rather a special, supernatural gift from God, an unwarranted (on man's part), gratuitous GIFT OF GOD. We do not deserve it. We can only attain it by the special, supernatural assistance which God has given us through the knowledge of the "faith of God" (Rom. 3:3) and the help of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, the divinely revealed religion. These Sacraments were given by Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, to the Church and are supernatural means to give us supernatural assistance to save our souls and attain Heaven, a supernatural end. People who have lost the Catholic faith but retain the "social awareness" that we can be saved will just automatically think that every "good" or nice" person who dies will be saved, not realizing that "None is good but God alone" (Luke 18:19) and that Heaven is something we do not deserve in the natural course of things, but that it is a supernatural reward freely given by God, as a result of supernatural faith in His revealed word and requiring supernatural means to attain (which He provides through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church).
Thus, when people lose the True Faith, the natural and the supernatural get blurred or lost sight of, and people think everyone can be saved or even that everyone is saved--no matter that they ignore and neglect the only means of salvation. This is why Liberalism can exist!
Liberalism, because modern man has lost the true Christian faith (with its recognized distinction between the natural and the supernatural), can mouth its absurdities and find a hearing among ignorant lazy and/or unthinking people. But, as stated earlier, here on earth the ultimate fruit for man of Liberalism's chaotic reasoning is chaos and anarchy in the social order. And that chaos is now upon us, so that people are now seriously asking, "What is wrong?!"
And therefore now is the time we must shed the light of the True Faith upon the spiritual darkness of our times. Sweeping away Liberalism is the last job to be accomplished before the work of the regeneration of the True Faith and the reintroduction of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, the light of the world" (1 John 8:12), can begin.
Thomas A. Nelson
March 15, 1993