: The Irish Ecclesiastical Record Volume 1 July 1865 by - Catholic Church Periodicals; Catholic Church Ireland Periodicals The Irish Ecclesiastical Record

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Judge Keogh And Catholic Doctrines. The See Of Killaloe In The Sixteenth Century. The Sacrament Of Penance In The Early Irish Church. Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop Of Armagh. Purgatory Of St. Patrick In Lough Derg. Liturgical Questions. Notices Of Books. Footnotes

JUDGE KEOGH AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINES.

We have read the address of Mr. Justice Keogh with feelings of surprise and sorrow. It is un-Catholic in its language, it is un-Catholic in its spirit, it is un-Catholic in its principles. If it had come from a member of a hostile sect, we could well afford to let it pass unnoticed; to let it live its short life, and die a natural death. But when the calumnies, the sneers, the sarcasms of our enemies are turned against us by one who is enrolled under the banner of Catholic faith, we can no longer remain silent in safety. The weapons which are powerless in the hands of a declared enemy, are dangerous indeed when they are wielded by a traitor in the camp.

Mr. Justice Keogh is no ordinary man. His mind is adorned with talents well fitted to amuse, to delight, to instruct an audience. In his short but brilliant career as an orator and a statesman, he won for himself a great name at the bar and in the senate. And now he is lifted up above his fellows, and placed in a position of high trust and extensive influence. When such a man comes forward, with forethought and preparation, as one of the instructors of the age, he is a conspicuous object of interest and attraction. He is looked upon, by those who are not acquainted with his antecedents, as the exponent of Catholic views, the representative of Catholic intelligence and education. We are therefore compelled, in self-defence, to declare that the opinions he has expressed are not the opinions of the Catholic Church, and the language he has thought fit to use cannot be regarded, by the Catholic people of Ireland, but as offensive and insulting.

His lecture contains little originality of thought or novelty of argument. It does but reflect the spirit of the age in which we live. The opinions and the views which it sets forth have long been familiar to our ears: they pervade the shallow current literature of England, of Germany, of Italy, of France. Intellectual freedom, unbounded, unrestrained; freedom of thought in the search after truth, without any regard to authority; freedom of speech in the circulation of every view and opinion; freedom to pull down old theories, freedom to build up new theories; freedom to roam at large without any guide over the vast fields of speculation, adopting that which private judgment commends, rejecting that which human reason disapproves; these are the popular dogmas of the present day; and these are the topics which Mr. Justice Keogh proposes to illustrate and to enforce by the life and writings of our great English poet.

With this preliminary remark we shall now submit to our readers the opinions of Mr. Justice Keogh:--

"Could words of mine prevail to induce you to devote a small portion of your leisure hours, stolen though it be from the pleasure paths of sensational or periodical literature, to those great productions of John Milton, in which the staunchest friend of freedom and of truth that ever lived has made the most successful war against tyranny and falsehood--in which he has proclaimed in tones not unworthy of the Apostle of the Gentiles, that education really free is the only source of political and individual liberty, the only true safeguard of states and bulwark of their renown--in which he has for ever 'justified the ways of God to man', by asserting the right of all men to exercise unrestrained their intellectual faculties upon all the gifts of God--to determine for themselves what is truth and what is falsehood--to circulate their thoughts from one to another, from land to land, from tribe to tribe, from nation to nation, free as 'the winds that from four quarters blow'--to raise their thoughts and to pour forth their words above the level of vulgar superstition, unrestricted by any illiberal or illiterate licenser--then you will find that he has risen, as mortal man never did before, to the height of greatest argument, and proclaimed in language which is affecting the fate of millions, even at this hour, on the banks of the Mississippi, and in the remote forests of the far west, that He who has made 'of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, willeth not that men shall any longer hold in bondage as a property the bodies or the souls of men, but that all alike shall have, unobstructed by any ordinance, a free book, a free press, a free conscience'. If any words of mine shall tempt you to approach these considerations, to ponder upon them as they are to be found in the tractates of Milton, in a tranquil, in a large and comprehensive spirit, and when you have done so, to make their fit application not only at home but abroad, not only abroad but at home, then we shall not have met in vain in this assembly".

According to Catholic faith, our Divine Lord has established in His Church an infallible tribunal, to pronounce, in matters of religion, what is true and what is false. Hence, it is never lawful, whether there be question of religious belief or of human science, to adopt opinions at variance with the teaching of this infallible tribunal. Here indeed is a check upon intellectual freedom, but a check which must, of necessity, be admitted by all who belong to the Catholic Church. And surely it is no great sacrifice to submit our finite understanding, so frail and erring, to the authority of God's Word, explained by a tribunal which He has Himself established, and to which He has promised His never-failing help.

Protestants, on the other hand, maintain the right of each one to interpret for himself, according to the best of his private judgment, the Revelation which God has given to man. The liberty of the human mind is therefore unfettered by any human authority. In this all sects are agreed. Some, indeed, believe that the Church has authority to teach, and some reject this opinion; but all maintain that there is no obligation in conscience to accept her teaching. She has not the gift of infallibility. Just as individuals may fall into error, so too may the Church herself fall into error. Her teaching may be true, or it may be false; each one is to judge for himself. The only check upon the freedom of thought is the Divine Message sent to us from on High, and recorded in the pages of Holy Writ.

We maintain, of course, that the Catholic system which we have just explained is true, and the Protestant system false. If we were engaged in controversy with a Protestant, it would be our duty at once to establish and to defend our doctrine; to demonstrate that the Church of Christ is infallible, and that the right of private judgment is contrary alike to the teaching of Scripture and to the dictates of common sense. But in the case before us, there is no call for proof: Mr. Justice Keogh is a Catholic. It remains then only to examine if the language of his address is not calculated to convey an opinion quite inconsistent with the faith which he professes.

Notwithstanding this ardent and enthusiastic declaration, we yet think it would be unfair to impute to the learned lecturer every casual expression or even every deliberate opinion set forth in the speech he so much admires. It is, however, clear that he adopts as his own at least the main features of the doctrine enunciated, and the general character of the argument by which it is defended. This doctrine may be explained in two words: unbounded liberty, on the one hand, to publish and to circulate all manner of opinions; unbounded liberty, on the other, to read all manner of books. The State, it is contended, has no right to forbid, or to repress, those publications which are dangerous to the welfare of society; neither has the Church a right to forbid or to repress those publications which are hostile to the spiritual interests of the faithful. These views we believe to be false and pernicious both as regards the power of the State and the power of the Church. It is, however, under the latter aspect alone that we propose to consider the subject.

The pastors of the Church have received a divine command to guard the integrity of faith and to watch over the purity of morals. Therefore have they also received from God that authority which is necessary for the due fulfilment of this high charge. And such is the authority to prohibit and, as far as may be, to repress those publications of which the only tendency is to introduce error and to disseminate vice. For it is impossible to preserve truth incorrupt in a community, if error may be circulated without restriction, dressed up in the delusive garb of sophistry; it is impossible to preserve morals pure, if vice may be freely exhibited in the most seductive and alluring forms. A great writer and a wise philosopher, Samuel Johnson, even though a Protestant, had the vigour of mind to seize this important principle, which he has expressed with a singular felicity of diction and an epigrammatic power peculiarly his own: "If every murmurer at government", he says, "may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace; and if every sceptic in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion".

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