The Church of Jesus Christ - Part 2
by Dom Prosper Guéranger

How much they are to be pitied who know thee, and still live enjoying what you give your children, and who yet take side with thine enemies in insulting and betraying thee! They are men whose character is shallowness of mind, they speak their opinions as though they were oracles, they have contracted the flippant effrontery of our age; and to hear them speak of thee, one would suppose that they look on thee as a human institution, which they may approve or blame according to their humour.

Instead of revering whatsoever thou hast taught regarding thyself and thy rights, instead of revering what thou hast ordained, regulated, and practiced, these Catholics, whose sympathies are all with thine enemies, would have thee conform thy teachings and conduct with the so-called Progress of the times. The whole world is given to thee as thine inheritance, and yet these insolent children would have thee be content with what they think proper to assign to you. You, the Mother of mankind, must be under their wise care! It is from them you must, henceforth, learn how best to fulfil thy mission! Godless men, adorers of what they called the rights of man, dared, a century back, to expel thee from political life, which up till then you had kept in harmony with its divine Master. These men have left disciples, who would have thee withdraw from everything that regards the outward world, and look on as a mere stranger. Thou must no longer exercise the rights given thee by the Son of God over both soul and body; this royalty of thine is out of date, and thou must be satisfied to enjoy the liberty which, in virtue of the law of Progress, is granted alike to error and to truth.

 

The wise and powerful ones of this world have dethroned the Vicar of thy Spouse after a thousand years' reign; and instead of resenting such a project with holy indignation, as tending to the destruction of the last bulwark of Christendom, there are many among us who approve of it, and this on principles which are, it is true, in favour with rationalistic politicians, but which are formally condemned by thy teachings, thy acts, nay, by thy very existence. How short-sighted are such Catholics as these, who hope to make thee acceptable to the world by giving thee the semblance of a human institution! The world is too shrewd - it knows thee to be essentially supernatural, and this is what it never can tolerate.

 

Wiser and more Christian by far are they who, detesting such profane theories, have, like devoted Machabees, drawn the sword against thine enemies, O Church of Christ! and even in an age like this, when faith has grown weak, have so well understood their Christian duty as to die in thy defence, and, by so dying, to win the crown of martyrdom. Yes, it is our duty to confess thee; to disguise thee is to belie thee. Thou art one of the articles of our Creed: "I believe in the holy Catholic Church". Thou hast been known these nineteen hundred years, and shall men now pretend that thou must conform to the world's capricious views? This cannot be. Jesus made thee be like Himself - a sign of contradiction (Luke 2), and as such we must receive thee. We must listen to thy protestations against false principles and practices, and not attempt to remodel thee. Only God has power to give his Church a form other than that he has already given her.