The American Republic [139]
to bring her under the control of the state, which were equally against her interest and her nature.
The religious mission of the United States is not then to establish the church by external law, or to protect her by legal disabilities, pains, and penalties against the sects, however uncatholic they may be; but to maintain catholic freedom, neither absorbing the state in the church nor the church in the state, but leaving each to move freely, according to its own nature, in the sphere assigned it in the eternal order of things. Their mission separates church and state as external governing bodies, but unites them in the interior principles from which each derives its vitality and force. Their union is in the intrinsic unity of principle, and in the fact that, though moving in different spheres, each obeys one and the same Divine law. With this the Catholic, who knows what Catholicity means, is of course satisfied, for it gives the church all the advantage over the sects of the real over the unreal; and with this the sects have no right to be dissatisfied, for it subjects them to no disadvantage not inherent in sectarianism itself in presence of Catholicity, and without any support from the civil authority.
The effect of this mission of our country fully 429 realized, would be to harmonize church and state, religion and politics, not by absorbing either in the other, or by obliterating the natural distinction between them, but by conforming both to the real or Divine order, which is supreme and immutable. It places the two powers in their normal relation, which has hitherto never been done, because hitherto there never has been a state normally constituted. The nearest approach made to the realization of the proper relations of church and state, prior to the birth of the American Republic, was in the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors; but the state had been perverted by paganism, and the emperors, inheriting the old pontifical power, could never be made to understand their own incompetency in spirituals, and persisted to the last in treating the church as a civil institution under their supervision and control, as does the Emperor of the French in France, even yet. In the Middle Ages the state was so barbarously constituted that the church was obliged to supervise its administration, to mix herself up with the civil government, in order to infuse some intelligence into civil matters, and to preserve her own rightful freedom and independence. When the states broke away from feudalism, they revived the Roman 430 constitution, and claimed the authority in ecclesiastical matters that had been exercised by the Roman Caesars, and the states that adopted a sectarian religion gave the sect adopted a civil establishment, and subjected it to the civil government, to which the sect not unwillingly consented, on condition that the civil authority excluded the church and all other sects, and made it the exclusive religion of the state, as in England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and the states of Northern Germany. Even yet the normal relations of church and state are nowhere practicable in the Old World; for everywhere either the state is more or less barbaric in its constitution, or the religion is sectarian, and the church as well as civilization is obliged, to struggle with antagonistic forces, for self-preservation.
There are formidable parties all over Europe at work to introduce what they take to be the American system; but constitutions are generated, not made--providential, not conventional. Statesmen can only develop what is in the existing constitutions of their respective countries, and no European constitution contains all the elements of the American. European Liberals mistake the American system, and, were they to succeed in their efforts, would not in- 431 troduce it, but something more hostile to it than the governments and institutions they are warring
The religious mission of the United States is not then to establish the church by external law, or to protect her by legal disabilities, pains, and penalties against the sects, however uncatholic they may be; but to maintain catholic freedom, neither absorbing the state in the church nor the church in the state, but leaving each to move freely, according to its own nature, in the sphere assigned it in the eternal order of things. Their mission separates church and state as external governing bodies, but unites them in the interior principles from which each derives its vitality and force. Their union is in the intrinsic unity of principle, and in the fact that, though moving in different spheres, each obeys one and the same Divine law. With this the Catholic, who knows what Catholicity means, is of course satisfied, for it gives the church all the advantage over the sects of the real over the unreal; and with this the sects have no right to be dissatisfied, for it subjects them to no disadvantage not inherent in sectarianism itself in presence of Catholicity, and without any support from the civil authority.
The effect of this mission of our country fully 429 realized, would be to harmonize church and state, religion and politics, not by absorbing either in the other, or by obliterating the natural distinction between them, but by conforming both to the real or Divine order, which is supreme and immutable. It places the two powers in their normal relation, which has hitherto never been done, because hitherto there never has been a state normally constituted. The nearest approach made to the realization of the proper relations of church and state, prior to the birth of the American Republic, was in the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors; but the state had been perverted by paganism, and the emperors, inheriting the old pontifical power, could never be made to understand their own incompetency in spirituals, and persisted to the last in treating the church as a civil institution under their supervision and control, as does the Emperor of the French in France, even yet. In the Middle Ages the state was so barbarously constituted that the church was obliged to supervise its administration, to mix herself up with the civil government, in order to infuse some intelligence into civil matters, and to preserve her own rightful freedom and independence. When the states broke away from feudalism, they revived the Roman 430 constitution, and claimed the authority in ecclesiastical matters that had been exercised by the Roman Caesars, and the states that adopted a sectarian religion gave the sect adopted a civil establishment, and subjected it to the civil government, to which the sect not unwillingly consented, on condition that the civil authority excluded the church and all other sects, and made it the exclusive religion of the state, as in England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and the states of Northern Germany. Even yet the normal relations of church and state are nowhere practicable in the Old World; for everywhere either the state is more or less barbaric in its constitution, or the religion is sectarian, and the church as well as civilization is obliged, to struggle with antagonistic forces, for self-preservation.
There are formidable parties all over Europe at work to introduce what they take to be the American system; but constitutions are generated, not made--providential, not conventional. Statesmen can only develop what is in the existing constitutions of their respective countries, and no European constitution contains all the elements of the American. European Liberals mistake the American system, and, were they to succeed in their efforts, would not in- 431 troduce it, but something more hostile to it than the governments and institutions they are warring