SECULAR
675
SECULAR
To the Catholic the distinction of Church and sect
presents no difficulty. For him, any Christian denom-
ination which has set itself up independently of his own
Church is a sect. According to Cathohc teaching any
Christians who, banded together, refuse to accept
the entire doctrine or to acknowledge the supreme
authority of the Cathohc Church, constitute merely
a reUgious party under human unauthorized leader-
ship. The Catholic Church alone is that universal
society instituted by Jesus Christ which has a rightful
claim to the allegiance of all men, although in fact,
this allegiance is withheld by many because of ignor-
ance and the abuse of free-will. She is the sole
custodian of the complete teaching of Jesus Christ
which must be accepted in its entirety by all mankind.
Her members do not constitute a sect nor will they
consent to be known as such, because they do not
belong to a party called into existence by a human
leader, or to a school of thought sworn to the dictates
of a mortal master. They form part of a Church which
embraces all space and in a certain sense both time
and eternity, since it is mihtant, suffering, and
triumphant. This claim that the Cathohc religion
is the only genuine form of Christianity may startle
some by its exclusiveness. But the truth is necessarily
exclusive; it must exclude error just as necessarily
as light is incompatible with darkness. As all non-
Catholic denominations reject some truth or truths
taught by Christ, or repudiate the authority insti-
tuted by him in his Church, they have in some essential
point sacrificed his doctrine to human learning or his
authority to self-constituted leadership. That the
Church should refuse to acknowledge such religious
societies as organizations, like herself, of Divine
origin and authority is the only logical course open
to her. No fair-minded person will be offended at
this if it be remembered that faithfulness to its Divine
mission enforces this uncompromising attitude on the
ecclesiastical authority. It is but a practical a.ssertion
of the principle that Divinely revealed truth cannot
and must not be sacrificed to human objection and
speculation. But while the Church condemns the
errors of non-CathoUcs, she teaches the practice of
justice and charity towards their persons, repudiates
the use of violence and compulsion to effect their
conversion and is ever ready to welcome back into the
fold persons who have strayed from the path of truth.
II. Historical Survey; Causes; Remedy of
Sectarianism.— The recognition by the Church of
the sects which sprang up in the course of her history
would necessarily have been fatal to herself and to any
consistent religious organization. From the time
when Jewish and pagan elements threatened the
purity of her doctrine to the days of modernistic
errors, her history would have been but one long
accommodation to new and sometimes contradictory
opinions. Gnosticism, Manichaiism, Arianism in the
earlier days and Albigensianism, Hussitism, and Pro-
testantism of later date, to mention only a few
heresies, would have called for equal recognition.
The different parties into which the sects usually split
soon after their separation from the Mother Church
would have been entitled in their turn to similar
consideration. Not only Lutheranism, Calvinism,
and Zwinglianism, but all the countless sects spring-
ing from them would have had to be looked upon as
equally capable of leading men to Christ and salvation.
The present existence of 168 Christian denominations
in the United States alone sufficiently illustrates this
contention. A Church adopting such a policy of
universal approval is not liberal but indifferent; it
does not lead but follows and cannot be said to have
a teaching mission among men. Numerous general
causes may be assigned for the disruption of Christian-
ity. Among the principal ones were doctrinal con-
troversies, disobedience to disciplinary prescriptions,
and dissatisfaction with real or fancied ecclesiastical
abuses. Political issues and national sentiment also
had a share in complicating the rehgious difficulty.
Moreover reasons of a personal nature and human
passions not infrequently hindered that calm exercise
of judgment so necessary in religious matters. These
general causes resulted in the rejection of the vivify-
ing principle of supernatural authority which is the
foundation of all unity.
It is this principle of a living authority divinely commissioned to preserve and authoritatively inter- pret Divine Revelation which is the bond of union among the different members of the Catholic Church. To its repudiation is not only due the initial separation of non-Catholics, but also their subsequent failure in preserving union among themselves. Protestantism in particular, by its proclamation of the right of private interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures swept away with one stroke all living authority and consti- tuted the individual supreme judge in doctrinal mat- ters. Its divisions are therefore but natural, and its heresy trials in disagreement with one of its funda- mental principles. The disastrous results of the many divisions among Christians are keenly felt to-day and the longing for union is manifest. The manner, how- ever, in which the desired result may be attained is not clear to non-Catholics. Many see the solution in undogmatic Christianity or undenominationalism. The points of disagreement, they believe, ought to be overlooked and a common basis for union thus ob- tained. Hence they advocate the relegation of doc- trinal differences to the background and attempt to rear a united Christianity chiefly on a moral basis. This plan, however, rests on a false assumption; for its minimizes, in an unwarranted degree, the import- ance of the right teaching and sound belief and thus tends to transform Christianity into a mere ethical code. From the inferior j)osition assigned to doc- trinal principles there is but one step to their partial or complete rejection, and undenominationalism, in- stead of b('ing a return to the unity desired by Christ, cannot but result in the destruction of Christianity. It is not in the further rejection of truth that the divisions of Christianity can be healed, but in the sincere acceptance of what has been discarded; the remedy lies in the return of all dissenters to the Catholic Church.
Catholic authorities: Benson, Non-Calholic Denominations (New York, 1910); Mohler, Symbolism, tr. Robertson, 3rd ed. (New York, s. d.) ; Petre, The Fallacy of Undenominationalism in Catholic World, LXXXIV (1906-07), 640-46; Dollinger, Kirche u. Kirchen (Munich, 1861); Von Ruville, Back to Holy Church, tr. Schoetensack (New York, 1911); a Catholic monthly magazine specifically devoted to Church unity is The Lamp (Garrison, New York) non-Catholic authorities: Car- roll, The Religious Forces of the United States, in American Church Hist. Series I (New York, 1893); Kalb, Kirchen u. Sekten der Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1907) ; Kawerad, in Realencyk- lop.f. prot. Theol., 3rd ed.,8. v.; Sektenwesen in Deutschland; Blunt, Diet, of Sects (London, 1874) ; Mason, A Study of Sec- tarianism in New Church Review, I (Boston, 1894), 366-82; McBeb, An Eirenic Itinerary (New York, 1911).
N. A. Weber.
Secular Clergy (Lat. derus sacularis). — In the language of religious the world (sa^culum) is opposed to the cloister; religious who follow a rule, especially those who have been ordained, form the regular clergy, while those who live in the world are called the secular clergy. Hence the expression so fre- quentl}^ used in canonical texts: "uterque clerus", both secular and regular clergy. The secular cleric makes no profession and follows no religious rule, he possesses his own propert}- like laymen, he owes to his bishop canonical obedience, not the renunciation of his own will, which results from the religious vow of obedience; only the practice of celibacy in Holy Orders is identical with the vow of chastity of the religious. The secular clergy, in which the hierarchy essentially resides, always takes precedence of the regular clergy of equal rank; the latter is not essential to the Church nor can it subsist by itself, being
