Catholicism insists that blind faith is superior to reason; that mysteries are of more importance than facts.
She claims to be the sole interpreter of Nature and revelation, the supreme arbiter of knowledge; she summarily rejects all modern criticism of the Scriptures, and orders the Bible to be accepted in accordance with the views of the theologians of Trent; she openly avows her hatred of free institutions and constitutional systems, and declares that those are in damnable error who regard the reconciliation of the pope with modern civilization as either possible or desirable.
SCIENCE AND PROTESTANTISM.

But the spirit of the age demands--is the human intellect to be subordinated to the Tridentine Fathers, or to the fancy of illiterate and uncritical persons who wrote in the earlier ages of the Church?
It sees no merit in blind faith, but rather distrusts it.
It looks forward to an improvement in the popular canon of credibility for a decision between fact and fiction.

It does not consider itself bound to believe fables and falsehoods that have been invented for ecclesiastical ends.

It finds no argument in behalf of their truth, that traditions and legends have been long-lived; in this respect, those of the Church are greatly inferior to the fables of paganism.

The longevity of the Church itself is not due to divine protection or intervention, but to the skill with which it has adapted its policy to existing circumstances.