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Article THE BELGIAN CLERGY AND THE FREEMASONS. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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The Belgian Clergy And The Freemasons.
The first is a copy of the Latin text , printed at Rome , of the Allocution [ address ] of Gregory XVI , relative to the affair of Cologne ; and next , an exposition of the present state of the Flemish Association for the propagation of the faith , with a very interesting correspondence relative to it , between his Eminence the Cardinal Framboni , head of the Congregation dc propaganda Fide , and the bishops of our dioceses . " The Allocution of the Pope ( proceeds Le Commerce Beige ) , given
as the rule of tolerance to the Belgian clergy , had already produced sufficient sensation , without adding to it other proofs of retrogadation . The style of the pastoral letter of the archbishops and bishops reminds us of far distant periods ; and if from shame they confine themselves to invoking the opinions of Clement XIII , Benedict XIV , Pius VII , Leo XII , to ' justify a step of such a nature , it is only because they dare not , as yet , bring us back to'the glorious days when the inquisition was queen of the Christian world .
The manifesto of the Belgian bishops is the declaration of the union . The liberals allied themselves to the catholics to urge forward and aid the events of 1830 ; there still remain men silly enough to believe that the alliance had survived the common triumph . Not at all ! For some time past the dominant party have separated themselves from those primary conventions whose motto was , ' LAberty in every thing , and for all . ' These are but vain words , and the principles of toleration expressed by a member of the congressnow the representative of our
, government at the court of Rome , are wholly forgotten . Then the Saint Simonians found in Count Vilain XIV . a zealous defender . Now the Freemasons are reproved ; the commands of the bishops drive them out of the churches , and the day will shortly come when , by aid of the mysterious confessional , they will attempt , by domestic annoyances , or through the agency of ministers of a God of love , to represent them to their wives and children as objects of horror and malediction .
Looking at such acts , so little in accordance with the movement of those minds , who , from inexplicable causes , at the close of a great political struggle were reconciled to religious ideas—looking at such acts , we say , it is impossible to misunderstand the retrograde pretensions of men who think themselves infallible because they are invested with religious authority . They absolutely desire to make the world move backwards ; but let them take care—before they see the age of Clement XIII .
return , it would be previously necessary to go back to the atheism and incredulity of the middle of the 18 th century , and to the religious indifference of the first thirty years of the present . The epoch is not yet come to publish the use they desire to make of a voluntarily obtained victory ; violence will drive the half-converted into the opposite direction . The future is full of storms . To show the effect produced by the Episcopal Letter , we shall
simply state that the estimable pastor of an important parish in Brussels has , from the pulpit , shown the repugnance he felt to read it to the assembled faithful ; he distinctly said , that ' were it not out of respect for the errors of others , which was commanded in the Gospel , he would not have believed himself bound to occupy his brothers and sisters with a subject so . ' There he stopped his preamble , but it was easy to divine his thoughts . QThe same journal has a communication signed " V . . . " immediately following this article , which we also translate /] When we heard yesterday the intelligence of this mandate of the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Belgian Clergy And The Freemasons.
The first is a copy of the Latin text , printed at Rome , of the Allocution [ address ] of Gregory XVI , relative to the affair of Cologne ; and next , an exposition of the present state of the Flemish Association for the propagation of the faith , with a very interesting correspondence relative to it , between his Eminence the Cardinal Framboni , head of the Congregation dc propaganda Fide , and the bishops of our dioceses . " The Allocution of the Pope ( proceeds Le Commerce Beige ) , given
as the rule of tolerance to the Belgian clergy , had already produced sufficient sensation , without adding to it other proofs of retrogadation . The style of the pastoral letter of the archbishops and bishops reminds us of far distant periods ; and if from shame they confine themselves to invoking the opinions of Clement XIII , Benedict XIV , Pius VII , Leo XII , to ' justify a step of such a nature , it is only because they dare not , as yet , bring us back to'the glorious days when the inquisition was queen of the Christian world .
The manifesto of the Belgian bishops is the declaration of the union . The liberals allied themselves to the catholics to urge forward and aid the events of 1830 ; there still remain men silly enough to believe that the alliance had survived the common triumph . Not at all ! For some time past the dominant party have separated themselves from those primary conventions whose motto was , ' LAberty in every thing , and for all . ' These are but vain words , and the principles of toleration expressed by a member of the congressnow the representative of our
, government at the court of Rome , are wholly forgotten . Then the Saint Simonians found in Count Vilain XIV . a zealous defender . Now the Freemasons are reproved ; the commands of the bishops drive them out of the churches , and the day will shortly come when , by aid of the mysterious confessional , they will attempt , by domestic annoyances , or through the agency of ministers of a God of love , to represent them to their wives and children as objects of horror and malediction .
Looking at such acts , so little in accordance with the movement of those minds , who , from inexplicable causes , at the close of a great political struggle were reconciled to religious ideas—looking at such acts , we say , it is impossible to misunderstand the retrograde pretensions of men who think themselves infallible because they are invested with religious authority . They absolutely desire to make the world move backwards ; but let them take care—before they see the age of Clement XIII .
return , it would be previously necessary to go back to the atheism and incredulity of the middle of the 18 th century , and to the religious indifference of the first thirty years of the present . The epoch is not yet come to publish the use they desire to make of a voluntarily obtained victory ; violence will drive the half-converted into the opposite direction . The future is full of storms . To show the effect produced by the Episcopal Letter , we shall
simply state that the estimable pastor of an important parish in Brussels has , from the pulpit , shown the repugnance he felt to read it to the assembled faithful ; he distinctly said , that ' were it not out of respect for the errors of others , which was commanded in the Gospel , he would not have believed himself bound to occupy his brothers and sisters with a subject so . ' There he stopped his preamble , but it was easy to divine his thoughts . QThe same journal has a communication signed " V . . . " immediately following this article , which we also translate /] When we heard yesterday the intelligence of this mandate of the