p. 171 | SPECIAL MENTION

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

SPECIAL MENTION.

THE CONTROVERSY IN BELGIUM.

The Christian at Work of Feb. 19 gives the following relative to the contest between the civil and ecclesiastical power in Belgium; a contest in which every lover of liberty, religious and political, is interested:—

The contest between the Liberals and Clericals—or between the Roman Catholic Church and Liberty—in Belgium, is marked with such persistent and exceptional bitterness that the mere looker-on can scarcely refrain from questioning the fitness of either party in the fierce controversy to appreciate the arguments or do justice to the position of the other. But the issues involved in the contest are of incalculable importance, and partisanship runs high, because both parties are dreadfully in earnest. M. de Laveleye, one of the most eminent among Belgian writers, points out the real cause of the contest to which at present all eyes are turned, as found in the fact that “the principles of the Belgian Constitution, borrowed from England and the United States—that is, from Protestant countries—are condemned by the dogmas of the dominant religion in Belgium.” Why that conflict is more violent in that country than elsewhere, he explains by a twofold reason: first, because the principles embodied in the Belgian Constitution have been proclaimed there with more distinctness than in other Catholic countries; and, second, because the clergy there have maintained more authority and influence over the people than elsewhere. “It is impossible to forget,” says M. de Laveleye, “that our clergy overthrew two sovereigns, Joseph II. and William I.”

Three points are clearly demonstrated in connection with this controversy: (1.) that the Catholic Church, by the agency of Councils, Popes and Bishops, condemns the liberty of opinion, of religion, of the press, of civil rights claimed by modern Protestantism; (2.) that this liberty is more absolutely recognized in Belgium than elsewhere, and (3.) that the Catholic clergy arrayed against it, have there more influence, or have more effectually organized their means of action. The issue between Roman Catholicism and liberty has been raised in such a distinct and practical manner in Belgium that the parties to the conflict are not likely to lose sight of the distinctions which separate them, and, at the same time, the strength of the two sides to the conflict is so evenly balanced that neither side can afford to be off its guard.

The struggle is a political one, and concerns the future as well as the present. It involves, in a large measure, the existence of personal liberties, and the continuance of free institutions. For the time being, the Liberals are in the ascendant, and the principle is asserted and enforced that in matters of religious opinion and practice the citizen is entitled to freedom from the control of the State. On the other hand, the Clerical party are working incessantly to wrest the power from hands which they consider sacrilegious, and would thus place Belgium under a priestly tyranny, as complete and as crushing as that which holds sway in Austria or Spain. To this end they seek constantly to get under their direction the education of the young, for they know that it is with the plastic material of youth that they can most confidently expect to acquire abiding influence and produce permanent results. And we see, too, this same principle sought to be carried out in our own country through the concerted and well-arranged attack made by the Roman Catholic Church upon our own educational system. Happily, in Belgium, the vigilance of their opponents is at present more than a match for them, and every friend of civil and religious liberty will hope that it may continue so. The acrimoniousness which has entered into the contest is certainly to be regretted; but in a conflict between Right and a terrible Wrong, between Freedom and Bondage, between Progress and Stagnation, between man's most sacred privileges and aspirations and the most crushing tyranny of both body and soul, there will be heat and fierceness and earnestness in proportion to the depth of conviction in the souls of the contestants.