chief of these changes was that men attached to the Church in any way even
by minor orders (not necessarily priests) should, if they committed a crime
amenable to temporal jurisdiction, be brought before the ordinary courts of
the country instead of left, as they had been for centuries, to their own
courts. The claim was, at the time, a novel one. The Primate of England
resisted that claim. In connection with his resistance he was subjected to
many indignities, many things outrageous to custom were done against him;
but the Pope doubted whether his resistance was justified, and he was
finally reconciled with the civil authority. On returning to his See at
Canterbury he became at once the author of further action and the subject
of further outrage, and within a short time he was murdered by his
exasperated enemies.

His death raised a vast public outcry. His monarch did penance for it.
But _all the points on which he had resisted_ were in practice waived by
the Church at last. The civil state's original claim was _in practice_
recognized at last. Today it appears to be plain justice. The chief of St.
Thomas' contentions, for instance, that men in orders should be exempt from
the ordinary courts, seems as remote as chain armors.

So far, so good. The opponent of the Faith will say, and has said in a
hundred studies--that this resistance was nothing more than that always
offered by an old organization to a new development.

Of course it was! It is equally true to say of a man who objects to an
aëroplane smashing in the top of his studio that it is the resistance of an
old organization to a new development. But such a phrase in no way explains
the business; and when the Catholic begins to examine the particular case
of St. Thomas, he finds a great many things to wonder at and to think
about, upon which his less European opponents are helpless and silent.