Now all this leads very directly to a discussion of the relations of a person of my way of thinking to the Church and religious institutions generally. I have already discussed my relation to commonly accepted beliefs, but the question of institutions is, it seems to me, a different one altogether. Not to realize that, to confuse a church with its creed1, is to prepare the ground for a mass of disastrous2 and life-wasting errors.
Now my rules of conduct are based on the supposition that moral decisions are to be determined3 by the belief that the individual life guided by its perception of beauty is incidental, experimental, and contributory to the undying life of the blood and race. I have decided4 for myself that the general business of life is the development of a collective consciousness and will and purpose out of a chaos5 of individual consciousnesses and wills and purposes, and that the way to that is through the development of the Socialist6 State, through the socialization of existing State organizations and their merger7 of pacific association in a World State. But so far I have not taken up the collateral8 aspect of the synthesis of human consciousness, the development of collective feeling and willing and expression in the form, among others, of religious institutions.
Religious institutions are things to be legitimately9 distinguished10 from the creeds11 and cosmogonies with which one finds them associated. Customs are far more enduring things than ideas,— witness the mistletoe at Christmas, or the old lady turning her money in her pocket at the sight of the new moon. And the exact origin of a religious institution is of much less significance to us than its present effect. The theory of a religion may propose the attainment12 of Nirvana or the propitiation of an irascible Deity13 or a dozen other things as its end and aim; the practical fact is that it draws together great multitudes of diverse individualized people in a common solemnity and self-subordination however vague, and is so far, like the State, and in a manner far more intimate and emotional and fundamental than the State, a synthetic14 power. And in particular, the idea of the Catholic Church is charged with synthetic suggestion; it is in many ways an idea broader and finer than the constructive15 idea of any existing State. And just as the Beliefs I have adopted lead me to regard myself as in and of the existing State, such as it is, and working for its rectification16 and development, so I think there is a reasonable case for considering oneself in and of the Catholic Church and bound to work for its rectification and development; and this in spite of the fact that one may not feel justified17 in calling oneself a Christian18 in any sense of the term.
It may be maintained very plausibly19 that the Catholic Church is something greater than Christianity, however much the Christians20 may have contributed to its making. From the historical point of view it is a religious and social method that developed with the later development of the world empire of Rome and as the expression of its moral and spiritual side. Its head was, and so far as its main body is concerned still is, the pontifex maximus of the Roman world empire, an official who was performing sacrifices centuries before Christ was born. It is easy to assert that the Empire was converted to Christianity and submitted to its terrestrial leader, the bishop21 of Rome; it is quite equally plausible22 to say that the religious organization of the Empire adopted Christianity and so made Rome, which had hitherto had no priority over Jerusalem or Antioch in the Christian Church, the headquarters of the adopted cult23. And if the Christian movement could take over and assimilate the prestige, the world predominance and sacrificial conception of the pontifex maximus and go on with that as part at any rate of the basis of a universal Church, it is manifest that now in the fulness of time this great organization, after its accumulation of Christian tradition, may conceivably go on still further to alter and broaden its teaching and observances and formulae.
In a sense no doubt all we moderns are bound to consider ourselves children of the Catholic Church, albeit24 critical and innovating25 children with a tendency to hark back to our Greek grandparents; we cannot detach ourselves absolutely from the Church without at the same time detaching ourselves from the main process of spiritual synthesis that has made us what we are. And there is a strong case for supposing that not only is this reasonable for us who live in the tradition of Western Europe, but that we are legitimately entitled to call upon extra European peoples to join with us in that attitude of filiation to the Catholic Church since, outside it, there is no organization whatever aiming at a religious catholicity and professing26 or attempting to formulate27 a collective religious consciousness in the world. So far as they come to a conception of a human synthesis they come to it by coming into our tradition.
I write here of the Catholic Church as an idea. To come from that idea to the world of present realities is to come to a tangle28 of difficulties. Is the Catholic Church merely the Roman communion or does it include the Greek and Protestant Churches? Some of these bodies are declaredly dissentient, some claim to be integral portions of the Catholic Church which have protested against and abandoned certain errors of the central organization. I admit it becomes a very confusing riddle30 in such a country as England to determine which is the Catholic Church; whether it is the body which possesses and administers Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, or the bodies claiming to represent purer and finer or more authentic31 and authoritative32 forms of Catholic teaching which have erected33 that new Byzantine-looking cathedral in Westminster, or Whitfield’s Tabernacle in the Tottenham Court Road, or a hundred or so other organized and independent bodies. It is still more perplexing to settle upon the Catholic Church in America among an immense confusion of sectarian fragments.
Many people, I know, take refuge from the struggle with this tangle of controversies34 by refusing to recognize any institutions whatever as representing the Church. They assume a mystical Church made up of all true believers, of all men and women of good intent, whatever their formulae or connexion. Wherever there is worship, there, they say, is a fragment of the Church. All and none of these bodies are the true Church.
This is no doubt profoundly true. It gives something like a working assumption for the needs of the present time. People can get along upon that. But it does not exhaust the question. We seek a real and understanding synthesis. We want a real collectivism, not a poetical35 idea; a means whereby men and women of all sorts, all kinds of humanity, may pray together, sing together, stand side by side, feel the same wave of emotion, develop a collective being. Doubtless right-spirited men are praying now at a thousand discrepant36 altars. But for the most part those who pray imagine those others who do not pray beside them are in error, they do not know their common brotherhood37 and salvation38. Their brotherhood is masked by unanalyzable differences; theirs is a dispersed39 collectivism; their churches are only a little more extensive than their individualities and intenser in their collective separations.
The true Church towards which my own thoughts tend will be the conscious illuminated40 expression of Catholic brotherhood. It must, I think, develop out of the existing medley41 of Church fragments and out of all that is worthy42 in our poetry and literature, just as the worldwide Socialist State at which I aim must develop out of such state and casual economic organizations and constructive movements as exist to-day. There is no “beginning again” in these things. In neither case will going apart out of existing organizations secure our ends. Out of what is, we have to develop what has to be. To work for the Reformation of the Catholic Church is an integral part of the duty of a believer.
It is curious how misleading a word can be. We speak of a certain phase in the history of Christianity as the Reformation, and that word effectually conceals43 from most people the simple indisputable fact that there has been no Reformation. There was an attempt at a Reformation in the Catholic Church, and through a variety of causes it failed. It detached great masses from the Catholic Church and left that organization impoverished44 intellectually and spiritually, but it achieved no reconstruction45 at all. It achieved no reconstruction because the movement as a whole lacked an adequate grasp of one fundamentally necessary idea, the idea of Catholicity. It fell into particularism and failed. It set up a vast process of fragmentation among Christian associations. It drove huge fissures46 through the once common platform. In innumerable cases they were fissures of organization and prejudice rather than real differences in belief and mental habit. Sometimes it was manifestly conflicting material interests that made the split. People are now divided by forgotten points of difference, by sides taken by their predecessors47 in the disputes of the sixteenth century, by mere29 sectarian names and the walls of separate meeting places. In the present time, as a result of the dissenting48 method, there are multitudes of believing men scattered49 quite solitarily50 through the world.
The Reformation, the Reconstruction of the Catholic Church lies still before us. It is a necessary work. It is a work strictly51 parallel to the reformation and expansion of the organized State. Together, these processes constitute the general duty before mankind.
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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merger
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| n.企业合并，并吞 | |
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collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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legitimately
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| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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rectification
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| n. 改正, 改订, 矫正 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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innovating
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| v.改革，创新( innovate的现在分词 )；引入（新事物、思想或方法）， | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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controversies
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| 争论 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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discrepant
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| 差异的 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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medley
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| n.混合 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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fissures
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| n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 )；裂伤；分歧；分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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dissenting
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| adj.不同意的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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solitarily
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| adv.独自一人地，寂寞地 | |
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51
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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