What Is Liberalism? - Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany (1899 - Imprimatur) - Chapters XXI - XXXIII

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Chapter XXI - Personal Polemics and Liberalism
- Liberals and those tainted with Liberalism have hurled it at our heads, they imagine that we are overwhelmed by the charge. But they deceive themselves. We are not so easily thrust into the background. We have reason—and substantial reason—on our side.
- The authors and propagators of heretical doctrines are soldiers with poisoned weapons in their bands. Their arms are the book, the journal, the lecture, their personal influence. Is it sufficient to dodge their blows? Not at all; the first thing necessary is to demolish the combatant himself.
- It is thus lawful, in certain cases, to expose the infamy of a Liberal opponent, to bring his habits into contempt and to drag his name in the mire...The only restriction is not to employ a lie in the service of justice. This never.
- The Fathers of the Church support this thesis. The very titles of their works clearly show that, in their contests with heresy, their first blows were at the heresiarchs.
- Whence do the Liberals derive their power to impose upon us the new obligation of fighting error only in the abstract and of lavishing smiles and flattery upon them? We, the Ultramontanes, will fight our battles according to Christian tradition and defend the Faith as it has always been defended in the Church of God...This is the only real and efficacious means of waging war.

Chapter XXII - A Liberal Objection to Ultramontane Methods
- The Liberals tell us that our violent methods of warfare against them are not in conformity with the Pope's counsels to moderation and charity. Has he not exhorted Catholic writers to a love of peace and union, to avoid harsh, aggressive and personal polemics?
- There is no doubt that the Pope here makes no allusion to the incessant battles between Catholics and Liberals, for the simple reason that Catholicity is truth and Liberalism heresy, between which there can be no peace, but only war to the death. By consequence, therefore, it is certain that the Pope intends his counsels to apply to our "family quarrels" unhappily much too frequent, and that by no means does he seek to forbid us from waging an unrelenting strife with the eternal enemies of the Church...
- Therefore, there can be no contradiction between the doctrine we expound and that of the briefs and allocutions of the Holy Father on the subject...how can we interpret the words of the Holy Father in any other way?
- How could we suppose the Pope to be in contradiction with all Catholic tradition from Jesus Christ to our own times? Is it for a moment admissible that the style and method of most of the celebrated Catholic polemists and apologists from St. Paul to St. Francis de Sales should be condemned by a stroke of the pen? Clearly not...
- Common sense itself shows this. Imagine a general in the midst of a raging battle, issuing an order to his soldiers not to injure the enemy too severely!
- Pius IX has given us an explanation of the proper meaning of his words. On a memorable occasion he calls the sectaries of the Commune demons; and worse than demons the sectaries of Liberalism.
- the Pope recommends moderation and charity to Catholic writers as a means of preserving peace and mutual union. Clearly, this peace and union is between Catholics and not between Catholics and their enemies...Would it not be absurd to imagine that there could be any union between truth and error, therefore between the advocates of truth on the one side and error on the other? Irreconcilable opposites never unite. One or the other must disappear.
(Freemasons vs. Catholics)

Chapter XXIII - The "Civilta Cattolica's" Charity to Liberals
- Lest our competence to judge in so important a matter be called into question, we will cite as authority on this subject the foremost religious journal of the world, the Civilta Cattolica, founded by Pius IX...
- "The Church and the Pope have never asked anything but truth and justice for their cause. On the other hand, the Liberals, no doubt on account of the horror they naturally entertain for truth, and above all, for justice, are always demanding charity...They beseech us not to give them over to the ridicule of their neighbors, not to expose to an inspection so detailed, so minute, their sublime writings, not to be so obstinate in subjecting their glorious exploits to such a strong search-light, to close our eyes and our ears to their blunders, their solecisms [inconsistencies], their lies, their calumnies, their obscurities, in a word, to let them live in peace."
- "After having shown (according to the measure of their means) by their acts and their writings that they have a love for charity equal to the devil's for holy water, when they hear it spoken of, they suddenly remember that there exists in the world a thing called charity, which might on certain occasions prove very profitable to them..."
- "'What obliges you to enter into these quarrels?" they confidentially say to us. 'Have you not enough enemies already? Be tolerant and your adversaries will be so with you. What do you gain by following this wretched occupation, like a dog spending his life barking at robbers?
- It will be in fact a great charity, not such indeed as the Liberals beg of us, but one truly very meritorious, the charity of listening to them with patience for the hundredth time.

Chapter XXIV - A Liberal Sophism and the Church's Diplomacy
- In the first place, we must remember that there are two ministrations in the Church of God: one which we may call apostolic, relative to the propagation of the Faith and the salvation of souls; the other, which we may very properly term diplomatic, having for its subject human relations with the powers of the world.
  The first is the most noble...The second is inferior and subordinate to the first, of which it is only the auxiliary. In the first, the Church is intolerant and uncompromising...When it is a question of divine rights and divine duties, neither attenuation nor compromise is possible.
  In the second ministration, the Church is condescending, benevolent and full of patience. She discusses, she solicits, she negotiates, she praises, that she may soften the hard; she is silent sometimes, that she may better succeed...
  When it is a question of mere human relations, she comports herself with a certain flexibility and admits the usage of special resources. In this domain, everything that is not declared bad and prohibited by the law common to the ordinary relations of men is lawful and proper.
- The Church is the home of good people (or of those who ought to be and desire to be), but she is surrounded by governments more or less perverted, or even entirely perverted. She says to her children: "Detest the maxims of these governments; combat these maxims; their doctrine is error; their laws are iniquitous." At the same time, in questions when her own and sometimes their interests are involved, she finds herself under the necessity of treating with the heads or the representatives of these governments, and in fact she does treat with them, accepts their compliments, and employs in their regard the formula of the polished diplomacy in usage in all countries; she negotiates with them in relation to matters of common interest, seeking to make the best of the situation in the midst of such neighbors.
- Does the Church sanction the Koran when she enters into negotiations, power to power, with the sectaries of the Koran? (NO!)
- It is a sophism to pretend that the Church authorizes by such acts what she has always condemned by other acts. Her diplomatic can never frustrate her apostolic ministration, and it is in this latter that we must seek the seeming contradictions of her diplomatic career.

Chapter XXV - How Catholics Fall into Liberalism
- Very often corruption of heart is a consequence of errors of the intellect, but more frequently still, errors of the intellect follow the corruption of the heart. The history of heresies very clearly shows this fact.
- Error nearly always has its origin, not in profound and laborious studies, but in the triple-headed monster which St. John describes and calls Concupiscentia carnis, concupiscentia oculorum, superbia vitae 'Concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, the pride of life."
- 1. Men become Liberal on account of a natural desire for independence and for an easy life.
  Liberalism is emancipation from restraint; Catholicity the curb of the passions. Now, fallen man, by a very natural tendency, loves a system which legitimatizes and sanctifies his pride of intellect and the license of passion.
- 2. Men become Liberal by the desire for advancement in life. Liberalism is today the dominating idea; it reigns everywhere and especially in the sphere of public life. It is therefore a sure recommendation to public favor.
  On starting out in life, the young man looks around upon the various paths that lead to fortune, to fame, to glory, and sees that an almost indispensable condition of reaching the desired goal is, at least in our times, to become Liberal.
- 3. Men become Liberal out of avarice, or the love of money. To get along in the world, to succeed in business, is always a standing temptation of Liberalism. 
  Let him relax a little in his faith, Join a forbidden secret society, and lo, the bolts and bars are drawn; he possesses the "open sesame" to success!...Be Liberal, admit that there is no great difference between men's creeds, that at the bottom they are really the same after all. Proclaim your breadth of mind by admitting that other religious beliefs are just as good for other people as your faith is for you; they are...You will be extensively patronized, for Liberalism is very generous to a convert. "Falling down adore me, and I will give you all these things' " says Satan yet to Jesus Christ in the desert.

Chapter XXVI - Permanent Causes of Liberalism
- What then are the permanent causes of Liberalism?
- 1. Corruption of morals: The theater, literature, public and private morals are all saturated with obscenity and impurity. The result is inevitable; a corrupt generation necessarily begets a revolutionary generati .on. Liberalism is the program of naturalism. Free thought begets free morals, or immorality. Restraint is thrown off and a free rein given to the passions. WHOEVER THINKS WHAT HE PLEASES WILL DO WHAT HE PLEASES...Thus does Liberalism propagate immorality, and immorality Liberalism.
- 2. Journalism: Incalculable is the influence exercised without ceasing by the numerous publications which Liberalism spreads broadcast. In spite of themselves, by the ubiquity of the press, people are forced to live in a Liberal atmosphere.
UNLESS ONE IS ON HIS GUARD, HE FINDS HIMSELF THINKING, SPEAKING AND ACTING AS A LIBERAL...Poor people, by very reason of their simple good faith, absorb more easily the poison than anyone else.
- 3. General ignorance in matters of religion...For the past hundred years, Liberalism has striven to paralyze the action of the Church...The Liberals themselves have avowed this to be their aim: to destroy the religious life, to place every hindrance possible in the way of Catholic teaching, to ridicule the clergy and to deprive them of their prestige.

Freemasonry in Europe and South America are constantly seeking to bind her hand and foot, that she may be put at its satanic mercy. By open and secret means, this organization has sought to undermine her discipline in every country where it has obtained a footing. NATURALISM, THE DENIAL OF THE SUPERNATURAL, IT INCULCATES EVERYWHERE.
(United States founders [Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc.])
...civil marriage, by civil burial and divorce, by teaching the insidious doctrine that society as such has no religious relations or obligations and that man as a social and civil being is absolutely independent of God and His Church and that religion is a mere private opinion to be entertained or not entertained, as one pleases...

- 4. Secular education: To gain the child is to secure the man. To educate a generation apart from God and the Church is to feed the fires of Liberalism to repletion. When religion is divorced from the school, Liberalism becomes its paramour. Secularism is naturalism, the denial of the supernatural....Liberalism has realized the terrific power of education and with satanic energy is now striving, the world over, for the possession of the child. With what success we have only to look around us to realize...Snatch the soul of the child from the breast of its mother the Church," says Liberalism, "and I will conquer the world."

Chapter XXVII - How to Avoid Liberalism
- How may Catholics, who are perpetually surrounded by the snares of Liberalism, guard themselves securely against its dangers?
- 1. By the organization of all good Catholics, be their number great or small...have a nucleus of Catholic men of action. Such an organization will attract the undecided, give courage to the hesitating and counteract the influence of hostile or indifferent surroundings...Thus united, be your number ever so small, lift on high the banner of a sound, pure and uncompromising doctrine, without disguise, without attenuation, yielding not an inch to the enemy.
(Knights of Columbus, or what they should be/used to be)

Above all, give good example, give good example always. What you preach, do...Proselytes will be forthcoming.
- 2. Good journals...Read it; but not content with that, give it to others to read; explain it; comment on it, let it be your basis of operations...Encourage the reluctant to take it; The Holy Father has said that "a Catholic paper is a perpetual mission in every parish."
- 3. The Catholic school: The Catholic school has become in this age the only secure bridge of the Faith from generation to generation.While we protest against the wrong and never cease demanding our right, our clear and peremptory duty is to provide the best possible schools of our own, where our children may be educated in the full and only true sense of the word. Where Catholic schools are needed, build them, build them, build them! "The foundation of the parish church is the schoolhouse'"
The spiritual life of a parish without a school is tepid, neither hot nor cold. Let the school be the best possible...Speak out fearlessly on this matter of education. Say squarely and frankly that irreligious education leads to the devil. An irreligious school is the school of Satan.

Chapter XXVIII - How to Distinguish Catholic from Liberal Works
- [Liberalism] is usually very clever and cautious in concealing its real meaning in various disguises...There should therefore be some easy and popular criterion to distinguish, at every instant, the Catholic cry from the infernal birdcall of Liberalism.
- It often happens that some project or enterprise is put on foot, some sort of a work is undertaken, whose bearings Catholics cannot promptly or easily apprehend. It may appear indifferent or even innocent enough, and yet it may have its roots in error...It may speak the language of charity, appealing to us from the tenderest side, and ask us to associate ourselves with it in the name of a common humanity. "Sink all differences of creed and let us fraternize on the broader plane of brotherly love" is often its most insidious appeal.
(Religious Indifferentism)
- ...all this may be for God or the devil; or what is worse, it may be evil cloaked in the garb of holy things. How shall we guide ourselves in such a labyrinth?
1. Observe carefully what class of people are the projectors of the affair. Such is the first rule of prudence and common sense. It is based on that maxim of Our Lord: "A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit."
(Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, 1892, #15 - Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God.)
If they are such that you cannot have entire confidence in their doctrines, be on your guard against their enterprises. Do not disapprove immediately, for it is an axiom of theology that not all the works of infidels are sinful, and this axiom can be applied to the works of Liberals. But be careful not to take them immediately for good; mistrust them, submit them to examination, await their results.
- 2. Observe the kind of people who praise the work in question. This is an even surer rule than the preceding...See if the Liberal current approves, recommends and accounts them its own. If yes, the book and the project are judged: they belong to Liberalism.
Repudiate, then, whatever Liberals praise or vaunt...Certain scruples of charity and the habit of thinking well of our neighbor sometimes blind good people to such an extent as to lead them to attribute good intentions where unhappily they do not exist.
- It seems to us that these two rules of common sense, which we can call rules of good Christian sense, suffice—if not to enable us to judge definitively every question—at least to keep us from perpetually stumbling over the roughness of the uneven soil which we daily tread and where the combat is always taking place...these secret societies are served even by those who detest their infernal work.

Chapter XXIX - Liberalism and Journalism
- The press has grown so omnipresent nowadays that there is no escape from it.
(This is extremely amplified today...almost infinitely so it would seem)
it is clear that such journals as boast of their Liberalism have no claim to our confidence in matters that Liberalism touches on...we have to wage perpetual war...against [these] enemies of the Church of God.
- But there is another class of journals less prompt to unmask and proclaim themselves, who love to live amidst ambiguities in an undefined and indefinite region of compromise. They declare themselves Catholic and aver their detestation and abhorrence of Liberalism, at least if we credit their words. These journals are generally known as Liberal Catholic. This is the class which we should especially mistrust, and we should not permit ourselves to be duped by its pretended piety...He who places himself in the vortex of a maelstrom is sure in the end to be engulfed in it. The logic of the situation brings the inevitable conclusion.
- There is no room, therefore, for confidence in the Liberal Catholic press, especially in cases where it is difficult to form a judgment. Moreover, in such cases, its policy of compromise and conciliation hampers it from forming any decisive or absolute judgment, for the simple reason that its judgment has nothing decisive or radical in it...Opportunism is its guiding star. The truly Catholic press is altogether Catholic, that is to say, it defends Catholic doctrine in all its principles and applications; it opposes all false teaching (known as such) always and entirely, opposite per diametrum ["diametrically opposed"], as St. Ignatius says in that golden book of his exercises. Arrayed with unceasing vigilance against error, it places itself on the frontier, always face-to face with the enemy.
- [The truly Catholic Press] watches, guards, and resists at every point.
- Bad journals sometimes contain something good. What are we to think of the good thus imbedded with the bad in them? We must think that the good in them does not prevent them from being bad, if their doctrine or their character is intrinsically bad. In most cases this good is a mere artifice to recommend, or at least disguise, what in itself is essentially bad. An assassin and a thief are not good because they sometimes say a prayer or give alms to a beggar.
- On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a good journal falls into such or such an error or into an excess of passion in a good cause and so says something which we cannot altogether approve. Must we for this reason call it bad? Not at all, and for a reverse although analogous reason.
- That alone is bad which is bad with full knowledge, habitually and persistently. Catholic journalists are not angels; far from it; they too are fragile men and sinners. To wish to condemn them for such or such a failing, for this or that excess, is to entertain a pharisaical or Jansenistic opinion of virtue, which is not in accord with sound morality!
To conclude, there are good and bad journals; among the latter are to be ranked those whose doctrine is ambiguous or ill-defined.

Chapter XXX - Can Catholics and Liberals Ever Unite?
- "Should Catholics combine with the more moderate Liberals for the common end of resisting the advance of the revolutionists or extreme Liberals?"
- What should we think of these would-be unionists, we who wish above all things the well-being of our Holy Religion? In general, we should think such unions are neither good nor commendable. Liberalism, let its form be as moderated or as wheedling as possible, is by its very essence in direct and radical opposition to Catholicity.
- It is possible, however, in very rare cases, that a union on the part of Catholics with a Liberal group against the Radicals may prove useful under given conditions. Where such a union is really opportune, it must be established on the following basis:
- 1. The bond of union should never be neutrality or the conciliation of interests and principles essentially opposed, such as are the interests and principles of Catholics and Liberals. This neutrality or conciliation has been condemned by the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX and is, consequently, a false basis. Such a union would be a betrayal, an abandonment of the Catholic camp by those who are bound to defend it. An instance would be to compromise Catholic education with Secularism by banishing religious instruction and influences from the school room.
It can never be said, "Let us abstract from our differences of doctrine, etc." It would be the same as to say, "In spite of the radical and essential opposition of principles between us, we can, after all, agree in the practical application of these principles." This is simply an intolerable contradiction.
- 2. Much less could we accord to the Liberal group, with whom a temporary and accidental alliance is formed, the honor of enrolling ourselves under its banner...We can never assume their emblem under any circumstances. In other words, let them unite themselves to us; we can never unite ourselves to them.
- 3. We must never consider this alliance constant and normal...Such radical incompatibility would simply expose the undertaking to lamentable failure and would build upon contradictory opinions, whose only accord is accidental.
(United States & Pluralism; a failed system of ethics and a broken foundation)
- Outside of these conditions, not only should we hold that such a union with any group, for any enterprise whatever, would be unfavorable to Catholics, we should also hold that it would be actually detrimental.
- Without doubt, as the proverb runs, "Unhappy the one who walks alone." But there is another proverb equally true which says, "Better seek solitude than bad company."..If we have to sacrifice true unity for the sake of an artificial and forced union, not only is nothing gained, but much is lost.

Chapter XXXI - An Illusion of Liberal Catholics
- Amongst the illusions entertained by a certain class of Catholics, there is none more pitiable than the notion that the truth requires a great number of defenders and friends. To these people, numbers seem a synonym for force.
- To be content with an increase without consideration of the value of the increment is not only to accumulate fictitious force, but to expose to paralysis the powers which one does possess by the congestion of an unwieldy mass.
- If the defender, under the pretext of better defending the truth, begins to mutilate it, to minimize it, to attenuate it, then he is no longer defending the truth. He is simply defending his own invention, a mere human creation, more or less beautiful in appearance, but having no relation to truth, which is the daughter of Heaven.
Such is the delusion of which many of our brethren are the unconscious victims, through a detestable contact with Liberalism.
They imagine, with blinded good faith, that they are defending and propagating Catholicity. But by dint of accommodating it to their own narrow views and feeble courage, in order to make it, they say, more acceptable to the enemy whom they wish to overcome, they do not perceive that they are no longer defending Catholicity, but a thing of their own manufacture, which they naively call Catholicity, but which they ought to call by another name.
- The kind of soldiers we need [are ones who]...make no alliance, no compromise with a foe whose single aim, disguised or open, is the destruction of the truth.
- Catholic associations hampered in their onward march by such an alliance will find themselves so impeded that free action becomes impossible.
(HHS MANDATE! It has begun...)
- To bring an enemy into the camp is to betray the citadel.
(Non-Catholics have no place interjecting or proposing their thoughts at an ecumenical council)
This combination of the bad with the good cannot but end in evil results. It brings disorder, confusion, suspicion and uncertainty to distract and divide Catholics, and all this to the benefit of the enemy and to our own disaster.

Chapter XXXII - Liberalism and Authority in Particular Cases
- When a good Catholic accuses anyone of Liberalism or attacks and unmasks Liberal sophisms, the accused immediately seeks refuge in a challenge of the accuser's authority: "And pray, who are you to charge me and my journal with Liberalism? Who made you a master in Israel to declare who is or who is not a good Catholic?...How then are we to answer this opposition?
- That we may accuse any person or writing of Liberalism, is it necessary to have recourse to a special judgment of the Church upon this particular person or this particular writing? By no means.
- The Church alone possesses supreme doctrinal magistery in fact and in right, juris et facti; her sovereign authority is personified in the Pope. To him alone belongs the right of pronouncing the final, decisive and solemn sentence. But this does not exclude other judgments less authoritative but very weighty...
- Faith dominates reason, which ought to be subordinated to faith in everything. But it is altogether false to pretend that reason can do nothing, that it has no function at all in matters of faith...
- It is thus by use of their reason that the faithful are enabled to suspect and measure the orthodoxy of any new doctrine presented to them, by comparing it with a doctrine already defined. If it be not in accord, they can combat it as bad, and justly stigmatize as bad the book or journal which sustains it.
- The faithful layman can do all this, and has done it at all times with the applause of the Church. Nor in so doing does he make himself the pastor of the flock, nor even its humblest attendant; he simply serves it as a watchdog who gives the alarm. Opportet allatrare canes "It behooves watchdogs to bark..."
- Of what use would be the rule of faith and morals if in every particular case the faithful could not of themselves make the immediate application...?
- Liberalism would like to see such crusaders disarmed and would prefer above all to succeed in getting the Church herself to do the disarming.

Chapter XXXIII - Liberalism as it is in this Country
- Its chief manifestation in the United States is in the form of what is popularly called NON-SECTARIANISM (aka Theosophy). It is a current fallacy, laid down as a fundamental truth that one religion is as good as another, that everyone has the right to believe what be pleases, that differences in creed are after all but differences in forms of expression, that everyone may select his own creed or sect according to his taste—or even altogether repudiate religious beliefs—and finally, that religion is a thing entirely apart from civic and social life. All this of course is SECULARISM in its various degrees—the denial of the supernatural.
- Civil marriage and divorce, mixed marriages and the consequent degeneration of family life, business standards and morality in general pitched on a low key, a vicious literature, a materialistic journalism catering to lax thinking and lax living, religion publicly mocked, scoffed, denied or held indifferently; all these things are coldly regarded as a matter of course, a necessary expedience, things to be condoned and applauded, all on the ground that they are the fruit of liberty...
- Secularism, with the instinct of a foe, has here most positively and triumphantly asserted its claim and, under the disguise of strict impartiality and even patriotism, has banished religion from the schoolroom.
- THE NATURAL TENDENCY IN HUMAN NATURE TO ESCAPE FRICTION AND AVOID ANTAGONISM IS UNHAPPILY IN MOST INSTANCES A READY FACTOR IN THE DIRECTION OF CONCESSION.
- This is especially true where Liberalism eschews aggressive action and with a cunning, either satanic or worldly wise, bases its treacherous tolerance upon a supposed generosity of mind or breadth of view. When the supernatural is vaguely identified with the superstitious, faith with credulity, firmness with fanaticism, the uncompromising with the intolerant, consistency with narrowness (for such is the current attitude of secularism around us), in these adjuncts it requires courage, fortitude and the consolation of the assured possession of truth to resist the insidious pressure of a false public opinion.
- Unless supernaturally fortified and enlightened, human nature under this moral oppression soon gives way to "human respect."
(Pope St. Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, 1910 - [Modernists/enemies of the Church] have a particular conception of human dignity, freedom, justice and brotherhood; and, in an attempt to justify their social dreams, they put forward the Gospel, but interpreted in their own way...We know well that they flatter themselves with the idea of raising human dignity and the discredited condition of the working class.)

- But we are in duty bound to resist their fatal contagion with all the powers of our soul. If we hope to preserve our faith intact, to keep it pure and bright in our souls, to save ourselves from the malign influence of a deadly heresy which is daily leading thousands to perdition...
- We require to be on our guard in a twofold way: first, by means of a life lived in the state of grace, second, by means of an enlightened reason, which may shine out over our path as a guide to ourselves and a beacon to others.
- Liberalism pretends to be the champion and guardian of natural reason, laying its snares to entrap the unwary and the ignorant. Not in violence but in a treacherous friendliness on the part of Liberalism does the danger lie.
- Ultramontanism is the only conquering legion in this sort of warfare.
- His task is doubly difficult; be must conquer an enemy who appears his dearest friend.



Jesus grant me the grace to defend your faith with my whole being and every fiber and, if necessary, to give my life for it.
Mary, mother of God, pray for us.
Sts. Peter & St. Paul, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. John the Baptist, pray for us.
St. Athanasius defender of the faith, pray for us.
St. Pius X warrior of truth, pray for us.

What Is Liberalism? - Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany (1899 - Imprimatur) - Chapters I - VII

Published by Tan Books, 1899.
Translated from original text in Spain in 1886.

From chapter to chapter, I will basically separate thoughts or phrases where necessary by starting a new line with "-". But I may also use "..." to continue thoughts that can be coherently strung together.
Following the preface, my comments in parentheses will be in italics to differentiate from the verbatim text.
I am going to type out the entire Preface because I think it merit's great consideration.


PREFACE
  In 1886, there appeared in Spain a little work under the title el Liberalismo es Pecado: Liberalism is a Sin by Don Felix Sarda y Salvany, a priest of Barcelona and editor of a journal called La Revista Popular. The book excited considerable commotion. It was vigorously assailed by the Liberals. A Spanish Bishop, of a Liberal turn, instigated an answer to Dr. Sarda's work by another Spanish priest. Both books were sent to Rome praying the Sacred Congregation of the Index to put Dr. Sarda's work under the ban. The following letter, under date January 10, 1887, from the Sacred Congreation itself, explains the result of its consideration of the two volumes:
Most Excellent Sir:
  The Sacred Congregation of the Index has received the denunciation of the little work bearing the title, "El Liberalismo es Pecado" by Don Felix Sarda y Salvany, a priest of your diocese; the denunciation was accompanied at the same time by another little work entitled, "El Proceso del Integrismo," that is "a refutation of the errors contained in the little work El Liberalismo es Pecado." The author of the second work is D. de Pazos, a canon of the diocese of Vich.
  Wherefore the Sacred Congregation has carefully examined both works, and decided as follows: In the first not only is nothing found contrary to sound doctrine, but its author, D. Felix Sarda merits great praise for his exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order and lucidity, and without personal offense to anyone.
  The same judgment, however, cnanot be passed on the other work by D. de Pazos, for in matter in needs corrections. Moreover his injurious manner of speaking cannot be approved, for he inveighs rather against the person of D. Sarda, than against the latter's supposed errors.
  Therefore the Sacred Congregation has commanded D. de Pazos, admonished by his own Bishop, to withdraw his book, as far as he can, from circulation, and in future if any discussion of the subject should arise, to abstain from all expressions personally injurious, according to the precept of true Christian charity; and this all the more since Our Holy Father, Leo XIII, while he urgently recommends castigation of error, neither desires nor approves expressions personally injurious, especially when directedagainst those who are eminent for their doctrine and their piety.
  In communication to you this order of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, that you may be able to make it know to the illustrious priest of your diocese, D. Sarda, for his peace of mind, I pray God to grant you all happiness and prosperity and subscribe myself with great respect,
Your most obedient servant,
Fr. Jerome Secheri, O.P.
Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index.

Chapter I - What Begets Liberalism
- Swarming in the atmosphere of our spiritual lives are innumerable deadly germs ever ready to fasten upon the depleted and weakened soul, and, propagating its leprous contagion through every faculty, destroy the spiritual life.
- Intellectual torpidity, inexperience, ignorance, indifference, complaisance, or even virtues such as benevolence, generosity, and pity may be the unsuspecting way open to the foe, and lo! we are surprised to find him in possession of the citadel.
- The difficulty is that the uniform of the enemy is so various, changeable, sometimes even of our own colors, that if we rely upon the outward semblance alone we shall be more often deceived than certain of his identity.
- The population of this country (Spain) is at present something over sixty-three million. Of these, ten million are Catholics, and according to their claim, twenty million Protestants, leaving a population of thirty-three million or more who do not profess any form of Christianity at all. Amongst the twenty million Protestants every shade and variety of belief in the Christian dispensation finds easy lodgment, from the belief in the Incarnation and Consubstantiation to the rejection of the Divinity of Christ altogether in the vacuous creed of Unitarianism. In this scale of heresy the adjustments of creeds are loose and easy. Lack of any decisive authority renders any exact standard of belief impossible.
- Outside of these various bodies of loosely professed Christians, stands a still larger mass of our population who are either absolutely indifferent to Christianity as a creed or positively reject it.
- Heresy and infidelity are irreconcilable with Catholicity. "Who is not with me is against me" are the words of Our Lord Himself, for denial of Catholic truth is this radical and common element of both heresy and infidelity.
- We live in the midst of this religious anarchy. Fifty-three million of our population is anti-Catholic. From this mass, heretical and infidel, exhales an atmosphere filled with germs poisonous and fatal to Catholic life, if permitted to take root in the Catholic heart...We cannot escape from it. It enfolds and embraces us. Its breath is perpetually in our faces. It enters in by eye and ear...It now soothes and flatters; now hates and curses, now threatens and now praises. But it is most dangerous when it comes in the form of "liberality." It is especially powerful for seduction in this guise.

Chapter II - What Liberalism Is
- Protestantism naturally begets toleration of error. Rejecting the principle of authority in religion, it has neither criterion nor definition of faith. On the principle that every individual or sect may interpret the deposit of revelation according to the dictates of private judgment, it gives birth to endless differences and contradictions...Belief is not imposed by a legitimately and divinely constituted authority, but springs directly and freely from the unrestricted exercise of the individual's reason or caprice upon the subject-matter of revelation. The individual or sect interprets as it pleases, rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience.
- Such is the mainspring of the heresy constantly dinned into our ears flooding our current literature and our press. It is against this that we have to be perpetually vigilant. The more so as it insidiously attacks us on the grounds of a false charity and in the name of a false liberty. Nor does it appeal only to us on the ground of religious toleration.
- Liberalism is laying down as the basis of its propaganda the following principles:
1. The absolute sovereignty of the individual in his entire independence of God and God's authority.
2. The absolute sovereignty of society in its entire independence of everything which does not proceed from itself.
3. Absolute civil sovereignty in the implied right of the people to make their own laws in entire independence and utter disregard of any other criterion than the popular will expressed at the polls and in parliamentary majorities.
4. Absolute freedom of thought in politics, morals or in religion. The unrestrained liberty of the press.
Such are the radical principles of liberalism.
- Here we have individual, social and political Rationalism, the corrupt fountain head of liberalist principles: absolute freedom of worship, the supremacy of the State, secular education repudiating any connection with religion, marriage sanctioned and legitimized by the State alone, etc.; in one word, which synthesizes all, SECULARIZATION.
This is veritable social atheism.
- In secret societies, organized in a spirit destructive of religion and often for the express purpose of exterminating Catholicity, it menaces our institutions and places the country in the hands of conspirators whose methods and designs, beyond the reach of the public eye, constitute tyranny of darkness.
- It will be ever found stigmatizing the most ardent defenders of the faith as reactionaries, clericals, ultramontanes, etc.
- Liberalism is a world complete in itself; it has its maxims, its fashions, its art, its literature, its diplomacy, its laws, its conspiracies, its ambuscades. IT IS THE WORLD OF LUCIFER, disguised in our times under the name of Liberalism, in radical opposition and in perpetual warfare against that society composed of the Children of God, the Church of Jesus Christ.

Chapter III - Liberalism is a Sin
- Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin. In the doctrinal order, it is heresy, and consequently a mortal sin against faith. In the practical order it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments.
- It repudiates dogma altogether and substitutes opinion, whether that opinion be doctrinal or the negation of doctrine.
- Liberalism is in itself dogmatic; and it is in the declaration of its own fundamental dogma, the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, that it denies all Christian dogmas in general. Catholic dogma is the authoritative declaration of revealed truth, or a truth consequent upon revelation, by its infallibility constituted exponent...Liberalism refuses to acknowledge this rational obedience and denies the authority. It asserts the sovereignty of the individual and the social reason...
- It follows, therefore, that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, who is God, over individuals and over society, and, by consequence, repudiates the jurisdiction which God has delegated to the visible head of the Church over each and all the faithful, whatever their condition or rank in life. It moreover denies the necessity of divine revelation and the obligation of everyone to accept that revelation under the pain of eternal perdition. It denies the formal motive of faith, viz., the authority of God revealing, and admits only as much of revealed doctrine as it chooses or comprehends within its own narrow capacity. It denies the infallible magistracy of the Church and of the Pope, and consequently all the doctrines defined and taught by this divine authority.
- It denies the validity of faith by baptism, when it admits or supposes equality of any or all religious cults; it denies the sanctity of marriage when it sanctions so-called civil marriages; it denies the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff when it refuses to accept laws of his official commands and teachings, and subjects them to scrutiny of its own intellect...to sit in defiant judgment upon their contents...Liberalism is radical immorality.
- We may say then of Liberalism: in the order of ideas it is absolute error; in the order of facts it is absolute disorder.

Chapter IV - The Gravity of the Sin of Liberalism
- The gravity of sin is determined by the object at which it strikes. Blasphemy, for instance, which directly attacks God Himself, is a sin of much graver character than theft, which directly attacks man. With the exception of formal hate of God, which constitutes the deadliest of all sins and of which the creature is rarely culpable unless he be in Hell, the gravest of all sins are those against the faith.
- To cutoff the branch of a tree will not kill it; but to lay the ax to the trunk or the roots is fatal to its life. "Hoc est peccatum quo tenentur cuncta peccata." "This is the sin which comprehends all other sins."
- The Angel of the Schools expresses himself with his usual clearness on this point: "The gravity of sin is determined by the interval which it places between man and God; now sin against faith, divides man from God as far as possible, since it deprives him of the true knowledge of God; it therefore follows that sin against faith is the greatest of all sins."
- Besides the deadly sin against faith itself, it is accompanied by hardness of heart, obstinacy, and the proud preference for one's own reason over the reason of God Himself. Hence the heretical doctrines, and works inspired by them, constitute the greatest of all sins with the exception of the formal hate against God, of which  only the demons in hell and the damned are capable. Liberalism, then, which is heresy, and all the works of Liberalism, which are heretical works, are the gravest sins known in the code of Christian law.
Liberalism is, therefore, greater than blasphemy, theft, adultery, homicide, or any other violation of the law of God, save in such case where one acts in good faith, in ignorance, or thoughtlessly.
- The law of the Church in matters of faith and morals and doctrine is unchangeable; it ordains today as it did yesterday, and heresy is always heresy no matter what shape it takes. Appearances may be fair, and the devil may present himself as an angel of light. The danger is the greater as the outward show is more seductive. Heresy has never been so insidious as under its present form of liberalism...When encountered it is obligatory upon the Catholic conscience to resist it with all the powers of the soul.

Chapter V - The Degrees of Liberalism
- In whatever aspect we consider it, whether as a school or a sect or party, it presents itself in various degrees or shades; yet none the less liberalism because variant; for with specific and logical unity there may be a multitudinous variety.
- Their common criterion is "liberality" and "independence of mind."
- Sometimes Liberalism stalks along in the careless trappings of an easy-going good nature, or a simplicity of character which invites our affection and allays our suspicion. But all the greater the danger when it appears least possible.

Chapter VI - Catholic Liberalism or Liberal Catholicism
- Liberalism is the dogmatic affirmation of the absolute independence of the individual and of the social reason. Catholicity is the dogma of the absolute subjection of the individual and of the social order to the revealed law of God...the two can no more harmonize than the square can be made one with the circle ("What accord hath Christ with Belial?")
- The modern State does not recognize God or the Church. In the conflict of different religious creeds the public reason must stand neutral and impartial. Hence the necessary independence of the public reason. The State as State can have no religion...Now all this means civil or social atheism. It means that society is independent of God, its Author.
- THE ROAD IS OPEN TO ODIOUS TYRANNY
(Of note, this is the same exact thing Leo XIII says in Libertas Praestantissimum)
- They could actually, under the cover of authority, legislate against Christianity
(HHS Mandate, anyone?)
- In modern times it has gone further still and extends its baneful influence to the school-room, propagating itself by placing the education of the youth under its dominating influence. It forms the conscience of youth not according to the divine law which acknowledges the will of God, but upon a premeditated and careful ignorance of that law. It is a secular education that seizes upon the future and breeds atheism in the hearts of the coming generations.
(This is EXACTLY what is happening in this country!)
- The Catholic liberalist or the Liberal Catholic admitting the fatal distinction between the private and the public reason, throws open the gates to the enemies of the faith, and, posing as a man of intellect with generous and liberal views, stultifies reason by his gross offense against the principle of contradiction...He has not the courage to withstand the derision of his cunning foe. To be called intolerant, illiberal, narrow, ultramontane, reactionist, is gall and wormwood to his little soul. Under this epithetical fire gives way and surrenders his birthright of faith and reason for a mess of Liberal pottage.

Chapter VII - Intrinsic Causes of Liberal Catholicism
- With [the liberal catholic] the individual judgment is the rule of faith. He believes in the independence of reason. It is true he accepts the magisterium of the Church, yet he does not accept it as the sole authorized expounder of divine truth...[The Church] is of course infallible, they say, but we will determine when and in what she shall speak infallibly.
- He calls himself a liberal catholic because he believes no one can impose upon him any belief which his individual judgment does not measure as perfectly rational...As a consequence, he is not really a Christina, but a pagan. He has no real supernatural faith, but only a simple conviction.
- They have a horror of any coercive element in faith; any chastisement of error shocks their tender susceptibilities, and they detest any Catholic legislation in the direction of what they are please to call intolerance. THE SYLLABUS OF PIUS IX IS A NIGHTMARE TO THEM, a most inopportune, dominating, harsh and peremptory document, calculated to offend the sensibilities of the Protestant and modern world; it need not be accepted as an infallible utterance, and, if accepted, must be taken in a very modern sense.
- [They have] an abhorrence to antagonize the convictions of others, no matter how directly opposed to revealed truth, for with the Liberal Catholics the most erroneous are as sacred as the truest convictions, being equally founded upon the principle of intellectual liberty. Thus they erect into dogma what is called the principle of toleration. The differences of belief are, after all, they complacently argue, due to differences of temperament, education, etc.
- Liberal Catholics' appreciation of the Church has no foundation in its supernatural character...whose first and supernatural end is the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It is on her social and human side that he regards her with affection.
- Under this false conception apologies have been written in our times, and with strange inconsistency the Church is often lauded as the great promoter and preserver of civilization in the past, while her regressive tendencies are deplored in the present.
- True progress can only be through an advance to God...This the Church of Jesus Christ alone can do, for she, under His institution, is as He Himself, the way, the truth, and the life.
- Piety does not escape the action of this pernicious naturalistic principle; it converts it to pietism - that is to say, into a parody of true piety, as is painfully seen in the pious practices of so many people who seek in their devotions only the sentimental emotions of which they themselves are able to be the source...[this is] spiritual sensualism.
(This is part of the danger in the charismatic movement, also more precisely indicative of New Age and Buddhism. Looking within or trying to force "feelings" to take place. The Holy Spirit operates on a basis of need for the edification of the Church not to make people feel good or to be "slain in the spirit." "Blessed is he who believes without seeing." The point below details this more...)
- Thus we see in our day in so many souls the degeneration of Christian asceticism, which is the purification of the heart by the repression of appetites, and the falsification of Christian mysticism, which is neither emotion nor interior consolation, nor any other epicurean foible of human sentiment, but union with God through a supernatural love for Him and through absolute submission to His holy will.
- Liberal Catholicity, [is] rather, a false Catholicity. It is not really Catholicity, but mere naturalism, a pure rationalism; it is in a word paganism disguised in Catholic forms and using Catholic language.


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