Tolerance of false religions

Text by Cardinal Pie
(Sacerdotal Works, Vol. 1, pgs 359, 360 in the French edition)

“We tolerate you, say the false religions, why do you not tolerate us?”

“It is, replied Father Pie (then the vicar of Notre Dame of Chartres), as if the bond woman were saying to the legitimate spouse, “We support you whole heartedly, why be more exclusive than we are?” Outsiders support the spouse, this is really a great favour, and the spouse is really unreasonable to want to be the only claimant to the rights and privileges to which they want to leave her a share at least until they succeed in banishing her completely.

See therefore this Catholic intolerance! It is often said bout us; they cannot endure any church other than their own; the protestants put up with them well.

My Brothers, you were in the tranquil possession of your house and your property, armed men fell upon it, they laid hands on your bed, your table, your money; in brief, they set themselves up in your home but they did not chase you out of it; they were condescending enough to allow you to have a part of it. What have you got to complain about? You are really hard to please not to be satisfied with the common lot.

Protestants say rightly that one can be saved in your Church; why do you make out that one cannot be saved in theirs?

My Brothers, let us take ourselves to a spot in this city. A traveller asks me which route leads to the capital: I point it out to him. Then one of my fellow citizens approaches me and says to me: I admit that this road leads to Paris, I allow you that, but you must make the same allowance for me and do not contest that this other road, for example the road to Bordeaux, does also lead to Paris. Indeed this road to Paris would be most intolerant and exclusive not to want a route that is directly opposed to it lead to the same destination.. It does not have a conciliatory spirit; at what point do encroachment and fanaticism run into one another? And I could still concede, for the most opposite routes would perhaps end up meeting after having made a tour of the globe, whilst one could follow the path of error without ever getting to heaven. Don’t then ask anymore why, when protestants admit that they could save themselves in our religion, we refuse to recognize, generally speaking and except for the case of invincible ignorance, that one can be saved in theirs. Thorns can admit that vines produce grapes, without the vine being obliged to recognize that thorns have the same propensity. We are therefore intolerant in doctrinal matters. We have the right to be so and we have the duty to be so because Our Lord Jesus Christ was the originator of it having founded, loved and espoused only one Church.

Of necessity, intolerance is everywhere, because good and evil, truth and error, order and disorder, are everywhere, and everywhere truth does not support error, good excludes evil, order fights disorder ... Affirmation defeats itself, if it is not sure of itself; and it is not sure of itself if it lets denial exist besides it. It is a condition of all truth to be intolerant; but religious truth, being the most absolute and the most important of all truths is, consequently, also the most intolerant and the most exclusive.