Seminaries of the Church
SIR,—No one desires more
earnestly than the writer of these lines, that free discussion should be
allowed us on all matters which the Church has not ruled. No one laments
more than I do that bigotry and jealousy which would enthrone the
decisions of individuals, or of parties, or of schools, as if divine
truths, unassailable and irreversible. Nor will I yield to any one in my
desire, that the secular education of Catholics in the middle and upper
classes should be the best of its kind, and such as to enable them to
take their place in society by the side of Protestants of their own
rank. It is not inconsistent with such avowals for me to express my
sorrow at a portion of the letter signed "X.Y.Z.," which appeared in
your Number for July. I believe that letter has incurred the
animadversion of one of our newspapers; but I have not read it, and,
even though I chance to repeat it in substance in what I am going to
say, that will not be a reason for my not saying it. For your correspondents should be answered, if
they need it, in your Magazine,
not out of it, that those who read the one side may read the
other.
My own complaint with "X.Y.Z." is this, that in
a lay magazine he has discussed a purely clerical subject. If it is a
mistake in ecclesiastics to go beyond their calling and their knowledge,
and to lecture laymen on secular subjects, I consider it a greater in a
lay "X.Y.Z." to discuss the education of the clergy, and to find
fault with the existing system, which is founded on the decree of an Œcumenical
Council. I certainly think that a writer should be taken {399} to task
who finds fault with provisions sacred both from the persons whom they
concern, and from the authority by which they are enforced.
The Council of Trent decrees that a
seminary for
the clergy shall be established in every diocese, and that it
shall
consist exclusively of ecclesiastics. "Hoc collegium," it says,
"Dei ministrorum perpetuum seminarium sit." These seminaries, if
possible, are to be erected "prope ipsas ecclesias;" the youths,
there educated, "tonsurâ statim atque habitu clericali semper
utentur;"
they shall be "pauperum filii præcipuè;: they are admissible at
twelve years of age, and they are to learn "grammatices, cantûs,
computi ecclesiastici, aliarumque bonarum artium disciplinam,
sacram
Scriptuam, libros ecclesiasticos, homilias sanctorum, et
sacramentorum
tradendorum, et rituum et cæremoniarum formas." Thus their
education
is distinctly and professedly narrow (I am not using the word in
an
unfavourable sense, but to express the fact), as the education
of a
farmer is narrow, or of an artillery officer, or of a medical
man.
If any one thinks me paradoxical in thus speaking,
I shelter myself behind the words of an author to which "X.Y.Z."
refers. Dr. Newman, in his Dublin Lectures of 1852, speaking of liberal
education, says: "If theology, instead of being cultivated as a
contemplation, be limited to the purposes of the pulpit, or be
represented by the catechism, it loses, not its usefulness, not its
divine character, not its meritoriousness, but the particular attribute
which I am illustrating; just as a face worn by tears and fasting loses
its beauty, or a labourer's hand loses its delicateness; for theology,
thus exercised, is not simple knowledge, but rather is an art or a
business making use of theology. And thus it appears that even what is
supernatural need not be liberal, nor need a hero be a gentleman, for
the plain reason that one idea is not another idea."
To return:—by the side of the grave provisions of
the Council which I have quoted, let us see what are the views of "X.Y.Z."
I have taken the liberty to expand his sentiments into their full
meaning by additions within brackets, in order to bring out what I
conceive to be their inconsistency in the mouth of a Catholic.
"There are many reasons," he says, "why the
question of Catholic ecclesiastical education should be assuming special
importance at the present day." After mentioning some of them, he
proceeds thus:
"These and other reasons make it important [not
for our ecclesiastical rulers, but for your readers] to consider,
whether any modifications, and of what nature, are desirable
in the system of our schools and colleges, [which system was determined
by the Œcumenical Council of Trent]."
"As I am … simply suggesting points for
the consideration of those [of the reading public who are] better
qualified [than myself] to judge, I shall make no apology for briefly
jotting down a few questions, that have occurred to my mind
[on a subject which, after fasting and prayer, engaged the anxious
attention, and elicited {400} the definitive decision, of the Fathers of
an Assembly 'in Spiritu Sancto congregata'].
"As regards the question of separate
training for the clergy from boyhood, it seems to me [an
anonymous " X.Y.Z."] that two questions may be raised, [though the
Council of Trent put them to rest three centuries ago], viz.:
1. "How far it is, per se, desirable,
[though the Council desires it so much as to direct the Bishops, every
where and individually, to carry out 'tam pium et sanctum
institutum, prout Spiritus Sanctus suggesserit,'—another
sort of 'suggestion'].
2. "And further, how far," with our present
objects and needs, "such a system would be even possible,
[though the Sancta Synodus thinks it so possible, as to decree that, if
there be negligence in any persons 'in hoc seminarii erectione et
conservatione,' the competent authority 'acriter corripere,
eosque ad omnia supra dicta cogere debeat'].
"I am far from saying that there would not be room
for a St. Sulpice in England: [so far I concede to the sacro-sancta Œcumenica
Synodus, though I must still maintain, pace Patrum Reverendissimorum,
that what they call 'sanctum et pium opus' is the exception, not the
rule].
"But [I repeat, in spite of the Council] I cannot
help thinking, that if the class of men who are trained for the
Protestant ministry at our public schools and universities are to be
enlisted for the service of the altar, a very different system
from that of St. Sulpice [which is behind the day as following the
directions of the Church] would be found necessary, at least for many of
them."
I need not pursue my comment further; before
concluding, however, I am reminded by the last sentence in the foregoing
paragraph, that I ought to contrast another passage from " X.Y.Z.,"
not with the Tridentine Decrees, but with a sentence in the
correspondence of the Guardian newspaper of last Wednesday.
"X.Y.Z." says:
"Why is it that, while the Protestant minister,
ignorant for the most part of theology, fluctuating and uncertain in his
views, &c. … can usually secure at least the respectful
attention of an ordinary congregation to his stammering exposition
of a mutilated creed, the Catholic priest, &c. … Does that
intellectual refinement, that power of varied illustration, that mastery
of language and thought, which are the results of an educated
taste, and fair acquaintance with the standard literatures, both prose
and poetry, of our own and other countries, avail in the one case to light
up the broken shadows of an unsatisfying religion with a glory
not their own, while in the other," &c. &c.
On the other hand, "Medicus Mayfairensis,"
writing in the Guardian of August 8, with what seems like a
feeling experience of the matter he is treating of, says:
"It
strikes me, that if from time to time some educated men who
can speak English in their own tongue, and not in the dreary,
{401} roundabout, latinised, somniferous dialect which is consecrated
to the use of the pulpits in the
Establishment, would take the trouble to get on a tub on a Sunday
afternoon in the Park, … it would absolutely neutralise the spirit of
those trading agitators," &c.
Had I leisure to search the columns of the Times,
I should find passages in still more vehement antagonism with "X.Y.Z."
on the subject of Anglican University preaching.
Thus he is as little countenanced by Protestants in
his facts as by the Tridentine Fathers in his opinions.
