Answer to the Reply of Abbot Chesnel
On May 28th last, the newspaper L’Univers published our response to
the article written by Abbot Chesnel about Spiritism, followed by
the Abbot’s response. We could not respond to this second article, which
repeats the arguments of the first one but now without the civil character
of the first one, to which everybody applauded, we could not respond
but through the repetition of everything that we have said before, seeming
completely useless to us. Abbot Chesnel strives to demonstrate that
Spiritism is, must be and could not be anything else but a new religion,
since a whole philosophy stems from it, and through Spiritism we deal
with the physical and moral constitution of the worlds. From that point of
view every philosophy would be a religion. Well, considering that the different
systems abound and that each one has a more or less large number
of experts, this would significantly restrict the circle of Catholicism. We
don’t know the extent of such imprudence and the danger in proclaiming
such a doctrine since it would be the same as provoking an inexistent
split. This is at least the proposal of an idea. Carefully observe its consequences.
When science contested the meaning of the Biblical text about
the six days of creation, anathemas were thrown; they said it was an attack
to religion. Today, the facts gave reason to science; there no longer is any means of disputing it unless it is through the denial of light; Church has
moved to line up with science.
Let us assume that over that time one had considered the scientific
theory as a new religion, a sect, for it seemed in contradiction with the
sacred books as it was destroying a secular interpretation. The result from
all this would be that someone could not be Catholic and adopt such new
ideas.
Let us think for a moment about the reduced number of Catholics
in case those who do not believe that God created Earth in six days were
excluded!
The same happens to Spiritism. If you consider it as a new religion,
it means that it is not Catholicism to your eyes. Well, follow my train of
thoughts. It is one or the other: a reality or a utopia. If it is a utopia there
is no reason for concern since it will fall by itself. If it is a reality then
not even all storms will preclude it from existing, in the same way that
Earth was not impeded form turning in the former times. If there truly
is an invisible world that surrounds us; if we can communicate with that
world, obtaining information about the condition of their inhabitants –
the whole Spiritism is in this – it will soon seem as natural as seeing the
Sun at noon or finding thousands of living and invisible creatures in a
crystalline drop of water. Such a belief will be so much vulgarized that
you will have to surrender to the evidence. If that belief is a new religion
to your eyes, it is outside Catholicism, since it cannot simultaneously be
the Catholic religion and a new religion. If by the force of the facts and
the evidence it generalizes, and it cannot be different once it is one of the
forces of nature, from your point of view there will be no more Catholics
and you yourself will no longer be Catholic since you will be forced to act
like the others.
That is Mr. Abbot, the terrain to which your doctrine leads us to,
and it is so absolute that you already gratifies me with the title of supreme
priest of that religion, an unsuspected honor. But you go further. In your
opinion every medium is a priest of that religion. I wish to stop you here
in the name of logic. Up until now it seemed to me that the priesthood was facultative; that one could become a priest only from an act of will;
that one could not be priest irrespectively, and as a consequence of a natural
faculty. Well, the medium’s faculty is natural, depends on their organization,
like the somnambulistic faculty; it does not require gender, age or
instructions, once we find it in children, with the ladies and with the old
folks; among wise as well as ignorant people. Could it be understandable
that boys and girls would become priests, without knowing or willing to
do so?
Really, Mr. Abbot, this is an abuse of the right of interpreting words.
As I said, Spiritism is outside the field of the dogmatic beliefs, which are
not Spiritism’s concern. We do consider it a Philosophical Science that
explains to us a number of things that we did not understand and, exactly
because of that, instead of smothering the religious ideas like some other
philosophies, it makes them sprout in those who did not have them. If,
however, you want to elevate it at any cost to the level of a religion, you
throw it into a new path.
That is what is perfectly understood by many clergymen and instead
of pushing it towards a rupture, they struggle to conciliate things, following
this reasoning: if there are manifestations from the invisible world,
those can only be by the will of God and we cannot go against God’s
will, unless we say that there are things that happen in this world without
God’s permission, which would be an impiety. If I had the honor of being
a priest, I would take advantage of all that to serve religion. I would use it
as a weapon against incredulity and would tell the materialistic atheists:
Do you want proofs? There you have them; it is God who sends them.
