The state conforms to what each holds
that is catholic, that is always and everywhere religion; and
what ever is not catholic it leaves, as outside of its province,
to live or die, according to its own inherent vitality or want of
vitality. The state conscience is catholic, not sectarian; hence
it is that the utmost freedom can be allowed to all religions,
the false as well as the true; for the state, being catholic in
its constitution, can never suffer the adherents of the false to
oppress the consciences of the adherents of the true. The church
being free, and the state harmonizing with her, catholicity has,
in the freedom of both, all the protection it needs, all the
security it can ask, and all the support it can, in the nature of
the case receive from external institutions, or from social and
political organizations.
This freedom may not be universally wise or prudent, for all
nations may not be prepared for it: all may not have attained
their majority. The church, as well as the state, must deal with
men and nations as they are, not as they are not. To deal with a
child as with an adult, or with a barbarous nation as with a
civilized nation, would be only acting a lie. The church cannot
treat men as free men where they are not free men, nor appeal to
reason in those in whom reason is undeveloped. She must adapt
her discipline to the age, condition, and culture of individuals,
and to the greater or less progress of nations in civilization.
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