




                     The Irish Ecclesiastical Record

                                 Volume 1

                                July 1865





CONTENTS


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(1) 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.

Now, we are not the enemies of freedom. The Catholic Church is not the
enemy of freedom. But we should expect that one who comes forward to
enlighten the world on this important subject, would tell us _how far_
human reason is to be left without restraint in the search after truth. It
is easy to talk of intolerance, persecution, narrow-minded bigotry; but
these words have no meaning unless we first clearly understand what that
freedom is--in thought, in word, in action--which is the natural right of
all men; which it is intolerance to deny, which it is tyranny to
extinguish. First of all, if the fact of a Divine Revelation be once
admitted, it is clear that human reason is not exempt from _all
restraint_: it must be controlled at least by the Word of God. We are
surely bound to believe what God has taught: and when reason would lead us
to conclusions contrary to His teaching, as may sometimes happen, we are
bound to check our reason and to abandon those conclusions. For, reason
_may_ be deceived, but God can _not_. This is what we understand by the
words of St. Paul when he speaks of "bringing into captivity every
understanding unto the obedience of Christ"--II. _Cor._, x. 5.

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,(2) 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".


We do not propose to offer any remarks on the subject of political
liberty. But the principles here enunciated are of universal application.
Milton waged the "successful war" of freedom not less in matters of
religion than in matters of state. And Mr. Justice Keogh adopts his
principles without any limitation. He asserts with Milton "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". If we take these words literally as they stand, they are
inconsistent not with the Catholic religion only, but with every system of
Christianity that has ever existed. Luther, the great champion of
intellectual freedom, though he shook off the yoke of church authority,
set up in its stead the authority of the Bible. Even he was willing to
admit that the wanderings of the human mind should be restricted by the
teaching of the Word of God. It is clearly contrary to the common
principles of Christianity to assert that in metaphysics, in ethics, in
psychology, in any human science, the mind is at liberty to embrace
opinions incompatible with the truths which God has revealed. And if it be
not at liberty to do so, then it is not "unrestrained".

It may be said, however, that the author of this address does not really
intend to assert what his words seem to convey. How then are we to guess
at his meaning? He insists upon "the right of all men to exercise
_unrestrained_ their intellectual faculties" in the pursuit of truth. If
he does not mean this, what _does_ he mean? If he does not wish to exclude
_all restraint_ on the "intellectual faculties" of men, what restraint is
he willing to admit? Upon this point there seem to be just two opinions
between which he has to choose: the one is the common doctrine of all
Catholics; the other is the fundamental principle of the Protestant
Church. Let us pause for a moment to examine these two systems.

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.

The question we wish to raise is simply this: "Does the address before us
admit that the human mind in the pursuit of truth should be restrained by
the authoritative definitions of the Catholic Church, or does it rather
exclude this restraint?" Now, in the first place, it is to be remembered
that this restriction of intellectual freedom is denied by all Protestants
in this country, and maintained by all Catholics. When a lecturer, then,
addressing a mixed audience, in a written discourse, tells them that "all
men have a right to exercise their intellectual faculties _unrestrained_",
do not the circumstances of the case fix upon his words a Protestant
signification? Will not his hearers naturally say that he has chosen the
Protestant side of the controversy, and not the Catholic? Again, according
to the Protestant doctrine, each one is at liberty to construct a system
of religious belief for himself: according to the Catholic doctrine, every
one should accept the tenets of his faith on the authority of the Church.
Now we are told in the address, that all men have "_a right to determine
for themselves_ what is truth and what is falsehood". Has this phraseology
a Catholic or a Protestant complexion? Lastly, the lecturer exhorts his
hearers to go themselves to the pages of Milton, there to learn the
doctrine of intellectual freedom. It will, therefore, naturally be
supposed, that the doctrine is defended by