LAICISM. - A mentality of systematic opposition to every influence exerted upon men by a religious hierarchy, and particularly by the Catholic Church. The word became fashionable in the nineteenth century, when the word “lay” was given a polemical meaning that it had not possessed in antiquity. The distinction between clergy and people (clerics and laity in the Christian conception) does not exclude harmony and mutual assistance, as is demonstrated Action (v.).
Protestantism abolished that distinction and attributed to an abuse of power the superiority that the hierarchy had until then exercised over the Christian people. Thus it Enlightenment (v.), which prevailed in the more cultured nations of Europe in the eighteenth century. This movement drew especially upon an alleged conflict of interests between the class of ecclesiastics and the rest of the Christian people (the laity), targeting the privileges that had been recognized for the clergy in the Middle Ages. In fact, medieval society considered itself indebted to the clergy for the salvation of civilization, which the clergy had brought about during the period of the barbarian invasions and the long crisis that followed. During this period culture remained concentrated almost entirely among the ecclesiastics (cleric and educated man were synonymous); hence the pre-eminent position of the clergy not only in the Church but also in civil society, which regarded that pre-eminence as a benefit, as in fact it was. Later, with the spread, through the work of the Church, of culture among the laity, they too were able competently to participate in the direction of public life and to enter those offices that for a certain time had seemed a monopoly of the ecclesiastics. The laity thus grew in importance in the world; but this ascent had no anti-religious character, nor was it obstructed by the Church, which indeed was aware of the grave danger of worldliness to which ecclesiastics were exposed in the position into which historical circumstances had placed them during the first half of the Middle Ages. VIZI (v.) aimed to defend the Church from that danger, and was supported by the laity, who fought, together with the Pope, not against ecclesiastics as such, but against worldly ecclesiastics, supporters of the emperors’ claims. At the beginning of the modern age, the laity was in full possession of the administration of civil power in the States that had been taking shape through the dissolution of the imperial idea. In Germany and generally in the northern countries, the lords took advantage of the Protestant movement to occupy the Church’s property. This helped to make Protestantism stable in those countries, and consequently to extend its influence over European thought, and to prepare a mentality embracing the whole conception of life, namely, the Enlightenment. The remnants of privilege retained by the clergy until the French Revolution were merely the occasion for a struggle aimed at removing from every positive religion in general, but more especially and directly from the Catholic Church, every influence over society. A conception of life was preached based on the exclusion of every supernatural Revelation, and therefore purely rationalistic in character, with ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity that were purely worldly; with the exaltation of the instincts of nature, considered, in Rousseau’s manner, essentially good; with the promise of an infallible and imminent universal happiness as the fruit of human progress (identified with scientific progress); with a “social” morality, concerned only with what preserves and promotes external coexistence; with principles of friendship and benevolence among men, though not sanctioned by an absolute law superior to men themselves; with a vague “religion of humanity” tending to replace the true worship of the Divinity; and in any case leaving religion to the consciences of individuals, as an entirely private affair. In practice, not only was every positive faith opposed, but gradually every form of religiousness came to be viewed with suspicion; and rightly so, because religiousness necessarily tends to blossom into that faith. Much was said, especially in the nineteenth century, of the “lay” State, the “lay” school, and “lay” culture, insofar as they were inspired by such concepts. The word “lay” was chosen almost as if to call the laity to form an organization resembling that of the clergy, which they wished to combat. Laicism had its most clamorous manifestations in France during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century and the decade preceding the First World War (1914–18), extending as far as the expulsion of religious teaching Orders and the rupture of the Concordat.
In other countries as well, laicism was proclaimed the highest expression of modern civilization, and was encouraged by governments that called themselves liberal, especially where Freemasonry exercised stronger influence. It began to decline with the First World War, but its spirit persists among those who, even while belonging to parties and currents of thought otherwise very different, agree in holding an overly absolute conception of the State. That is, they do not accept the principle that civil society, and therefore the State, although possessing its own autonomy, nevertheless has, in the very essence of its powers and in the exercise of them, certain limits. Among these are the requirements of the human person, supreme and inviolable; those of humanity (an indication of the natural society of all men); and finally, especially in a Christian country, the requirements of the supernatural spiritual society, the Church. The State, therefore, is never something absolute, to the point of being able to claim that it is the source of every right and every power. Even if it declares itself non-confessional, it remains obliged to take account of the citizens’ religious conscience, which is one of the supreme requirements of the human person; in its legislation and governmental measures, it is bound to act in such a way as to satisfy that requirement. In practice, if the citizens are Catholics, the State must recognize the existence and rights of the Catholic Church, which with each of them is one and the same. The ordinarily most suitable means of doing this consists in concluding with the Church reasonable agreements safeguarding the rights of both contracting parties, which experience shows to be feasible. Laicism as a state of mind, that is, as distrust of the action of the clergy and hierarchy in general, may be encouraged by contingent historical circumstances, as was the Roman question in Italy before the reconciliation of 1929. The prejudices that arise in such cases are dispelled through the enlightened work of sincere souls on both sides.
Giuseppe Borzetti
THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. — Because of the ambiguity of the name and the variety of the snares it employs, l. conceals many errors and entails highly diverse interpretations and practical applications. In fact, it concerns a direction of thought or of political and social action that has many points of contact and often becomes intertwined, confused, or identified with liberalism, socialism, communism, modernism, naturalism, materialism, religious indifferentism, atheism, etc. Thus the various condemnations by the Church of all these errors also implicitly constitute a condemnation of the principles and practice of l.
Here it is useful to recall that this system is capable of taking different forms, which may be reduced to three principal ones. Some, including Catholics, while not going so far as to deny the divine origin and certain rights of the Church, nevertheless uphold the absolute independence of the State, to which ecclesiastical authority ought, indeed, to be subject. Others, more logically, arrive at almost the same conclusions by denying the divine origin and divine institution of the Church, as well as the divinity of its founder, Jesus Christ. The condemnation of these errors is contained in the condemnation by Pius IX in the Syllabus of the following propositions: “The Church cannot exercise her authority without the permission and consent of the civil government” (Denz-U, 1720), “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, possesses such a right as is not circumscribed by any limits whatsoever” (ibid., 1739, cf. 1719). Moreover, can. 21 of the schema proposed to the Fathers of the First Vatican Council, for a modern and complete formulation of the doctrine concerning the Church, states: “If anyone shall say that the laws of the Church have no force unless they are sanctioned by the civil power; or that it belongs to the civil power to judge and command in matters of religion: let him be excommunicated” (Acta et decreta SS. Conciliorum recentiorum. Appendix. Collatio Lacensis, Freiburg im Br. 1890, col. 578).
L. takes a third, more rigid and absolutist form: every religion is rejected and the very existence of God is denied, so that every distinction between Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, deists, atheists, etc., is eliminated. In its subjects, the State sees nothing but human beings; the Italian State recognizes nothing but Italian citizens. Nor is this a matter of pure and simple neutrality, but rather of real and obstinate opposition: a secular State is synonymous with a non-religious, irreligious, atheistic State. E. Lavisse (d. 1922) had already expressly declared: “To be secular means denying religions that pass the right to govern the Humanity that endures” (L. Capéran, L'invasion laïque, Paris 1935, p. 149). The ecclesiastical magisterium has intervened more than once and with the utmost energy against these doctrinal aberrations. It is sufficient to recall the encyclicals of Gregory XVI, Mivari, 15 Aug. 1832 (Denz-U, 1613 ff.); of Pius IX, Singulari quadam, 9 Dec. 1854 (ibid., 1642-43); of Leo XIII, Quod apostolici muneris, 28 Dec. 1878 (ibid., 1849-50), Diuturnum illud, 29 June 1881 (ibid., 1857-58), Immortale Dei, 1 Nov. 1885 (ibid., 1866-88), Libertas praestautissimum, 20 June 1888 (ibid., 1931-32); and of Pius XI, Ubi arcano, 20 Dec. 1922 (ibid., 2190). Especially noteworthy is the encyclical of Pius IX, Quanta cura, 8 Dec. 1864, in which he deplores the extension to the social sphere of the impious and absurd principle of naturalism, by virtue of which people dare to affirm that human society must be constituted and governed without taking religion into the slightest account, or at least without admitting any distinction between the true and false religions (ibid., 1869). Finally, besides the encyclical of Pius X, Pascendi Dominici gregis, 8 Sept. 1907 (ibid., 2091-93), it is well to recall that of Pius XI, Quas primas, 11 Dec. 1925, in which l. is expressly discussed in the following terms: “The plague of our age is so-called l., with its errors and its most pernicious incentives... Indeed, it began by denying Christ’s dominion over all nations; the Church was denied the right deriving from the right of Jesus Christ, namely, to teach the nations, to make laws, and to govern peoples in order to lead them to eternal happiness. Gradually the Christian religion was equated with the other false religions and disgracefully lowered to their level; then it was subjected to the civil power and left almost entirely to the discretion of princes and magistrates; matters went still further: there were those who thought of substituting for the religion of Christ a certain natural religious sentiment. Nor were there States that believed they could do without God and placed their religion in irreligion and contempt for God himself” (ibid., 2197).