Here was the mistake of the brilliant but unhappy De la Mennais. He called upon the church to cut herself loose from her entangling alliance with the state, and throw herself back on the people; which would have been not bad counsel, if the people were hostile to her only because they supposed her allied with despotic governments, or if they were less hostile to her than the governments themselves. But such is not the fact at present. The people are to-day controlled by Catholics who care little for any world but the present, by Protestants, rationalists, Jews, infidels, and humanitarians; and to act on the Lamennaisian counsel would seem very much like abandoning weak, timid, and too exacting friends, to throw one's self into the arms of powerful and implacable enemies. When, in the beginning of his reign, the holy father adopted some popular measures, he was universally applauded, but he did not win those who applauded him to the church; and his measures were applauded by the outside world only because believed to be such as would tend to undermine his own authority, and pave the way for the downfall of Catholicity. The movement party applauded, because they thought they could use him as an instrument for the destruction of the church. In the French Revolution of February, 1848, originating in deep-seated and inveterate hostility to the church, the ready acceptance of the republic, the next day after its proclamation, by the French bishops and clergy, did not for a moment conciliate the hostility in which the revolution had its origin. They were applauded indeed, but only in the hope of making use of them to democratize, or secularize, and therefore to destroy the church as the authoritative representative of the spiritual order. The bishops and priests, all but a very small minority, showed that they understood and appreciated the applause they received, by abandoning the revolution at the earliest practicable moment, and lending their support to the movement for the Establishment of imperialism; for they felt that they could more safely rely on the emperor than on the republic.
These facts and the reminiscences of the old French Revolution, have created in the great majority of intelligent and earnest Catholics, wisely or unwisely, we say not, a profound distrust of the movement party, which professes to be the party of liberty, and which carries in its train, if not the numerical majority, at least the active, energetic, and leading minds of their respective nations, those that form public opinion and give its direction, and make them honestly believe that Catholic interests, which are not separable from the interests of society, will be best protected and promoted by the church's standing by the governments and aiding them in their repressive measures. Perhaps they are right. The church, of course, cannot abandon society; but in times like ours, it is not easy to say on which side lie the interests of society. Is it certain that they lie on either side, either with the governments as they are, or with the party opposed to them? At present the church neither directs the governments nor controls the popular or so-called liberal movement; and we confess it is difficult to say from which she and society have most to dread. Governments without her direction want morality, and can govern only by force; and popular movements not inspired or controlled by her are blind and lawless, and tend only to anarchy, and the destruction of liberty as well as of order, of morality as well as of religion as a directing and governing power. We distrust both.