As everyone knows, the "society lady" is not an independent and self-sustaining phenomenon. For every one of these exquisite, sweet-smelling creatures that you meet on Fifth Avenue, there must be at home a large number of other women who live sterile and empty lives, and devote themselves to cleaning up after their luckier sisters. But these "domestics" also are human beings; they have emotions—or, in religious parlance, "souls;" it is necessary to provide a discipline to keep them from appropriating the property of their mistresses, also to keep them from becoming enceinte. So it comes about that there are two cathedrals in New York: one, St. John the Divine, for the society ladies, and the other, St. Patrick's, for the servant-girls. The latter is located on Fifth Avenue, where its towering white spires divide with the homes of the Vanderbilts the interest of the crowds of sight-seers. Now, early every Sunday morning, before "Good Society" has opened its eyes, you may see the devotees of the Irish snake-charmer hurrying to their orisons, each with a little black prayer-book in her hand. What is it they do inside? What are they taught about life? This is the question to which we have next to give attention.
Some years ago Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, traction and insurance magnate of New York, favored me with his justification of his own career and activities. He mentioned his charities, and, speaking as one man of the world to another, he said: "The reason I put them into the hands of Catholics is not religious, but because I find they are efficient in such matters. They don't ask questions, they do what you want them to do, and do it economically."
I made no comment; I was absorbed in the implications of the remark—like Agassiz when some one gave him a fossil bone, and his mind set to work to reconstruct the creature.
When a man is drunk, the Catholics do not ask if it was long hours and improper working-conditions which drove him to desperation; they do not ask if police and politicians are getting a rake-off from the saloon, or if traction magnates are using it as an agency for the controlling of votes; they do not plunge into prohibition movements or good government campaigns—they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and the patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then turn him out for society to make him drunk again. That is "charity," and it is the special industry of Roman Catholicism. They have been at it for a thousand years, cleaning up loathsome and unsightly messes—"plague, pestilence and famine, battle and murder and sudden death." Yet—puzzling as it would seem to anyone not religious—there were never so many messes, never so many different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the thousand years of charitable activity!
But the Catholics go on and on; like the patient spider, building and rebuilding his web across a doorway; like soldiers under the command of a ruling class with a "muddling through" tradition—
And so of course all magnates and managers of industry who have messes to be cleaned up, human garbage-heaps to be carted away quickly and without fuss, turn to the Catholic Church for this service, no matter what their personal religious beliefs or lack of beliefs may be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of every steel-mill, every coal-mine or other place of industrial danger, you will find a Catholic hospital, with its slave-sisters and attendants. Once when I was "muck-raking" near Pittsburgh, I went to one of these places to ask information as to the frequency of industrial accidents and the fate of the victims. The "Mother Superior" received me with a look of polite dismay. "These concerns pay us!" she said. "You must see that as a matter of business it would not do for us to talk about them."
Obey and keep silence: that is the Catholic law. And precisely as it is with the work of nursing and almsgiving, so it is with the work of vote-getting, the elaborate system of policemen and saloon-keepers and ward-heelers which the Catholic machine controls. This industry of vote-getting is a comparatively new one; but the Church has been handling the masses for so many centuries that she quickly learned this new way of "democracy," and has established her supremacy over all rivals. She has the schools for training the children, the confessional for controlling the women; she has the intellectual machinery, the purgatory and the code of slave-ethics. She has the supreme advantage that the rank and file of her mighty host really believe what she teaches; they do not have to listen to table-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings in order to bolster their hope of the survival of personality after death!
So it comes about that our captains of industry and finance have been driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy. The Church is here, and her followers are here, before the war several hundred thousand of them pouring into the country every year. It is no longer possible to do without Catholics in America; not merely do ditches have to be dug, roads graded, coal mined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be granted, tariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police trained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system, for these purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes belong to people of a score of nationalities—Irish and German and Italian and French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and Portuguese and Polish and Hungarian. Who but the Catholic Church can handle these polyglot hordes? Who can furnish teachers and editors and politicians familiar with all these languages?
Considering how complex is the service, the price is extremely moderate—the mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of red fire and torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper advertisements. The rest may come out of the public till, in the form of exemption from taxation of church buildings and lands, a share of the public funds for charities and schools, the control of the police for saloon-keepers and district leaders, the control of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal administrations and boards of education, of legislatures and governors; with a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our sacred self-esteem, a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court Bench; and on state occasions, to keep up our necessary prestige, some cabinet-members and legislators and justices to attend High Mass, and be blessed in public by Catholic prelates and dignitaries.
You think this is empty rhetoric—you comfortable, easy-going, ultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades, absorbed in "the passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence"—while the world about you slides down into the pit! You ladies of Good Society, practicing your "sweet little charities," pursuing your "dear little ideals," raising your families of one or two lovely children—while Irish and French-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are breeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out of your country!
You remember "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Browning's study of the psychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware of modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants to have beauty about him, to be a "cabin passenger":
He wishes that he had faith—faith in anything; he understands that faith is all-important—
But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it—
He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he asks what there would be in it for him—
So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of the contempt of intellectual people.
But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of faith, that is what
So he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of shepherd to those whom he calls "King Bomba's lazzaroni," and "ragamuffin saints."
I wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop Blougram is doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints here in this new country of the far West. It is easy to acquire the information, for the saleswoman is polite and the prices fit my purse. America is going to war, and Catholic boys are being drafted to be trained for battle; so for ten cents I obtain a firmly bound little pamphlet called "God's Armor, a Prayer Book for Soldiers." It is marked "Copyright by the G. R. C. Central-Verein," and bears the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor Theolog." and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici"—which last you may at first fail to recognize as a well-known city on the Mississippi River. Do you not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic of the past creeping over you, as you read those Latin trade-marks? Such is the Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis sound mysterious!
In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes of war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have played throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule. Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with crosses, performing genuflections, mumbling magic formulas in the trenches—how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts of men!
I quote from this little book:
Start this day well by lifting up your heart to God. Offer yourself to Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin. Make the sign of the cross. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, behold me in Thy Divine Presence. I adore Thee and give Thee thanks. Grant that all I do this day be for Thy Glory, and for the salvation of my immortal soul.
During the day lift your heart frequently to God. Your prayers need not be long nor read from a book. Learn a few of these short ejaculations by heart and frequently repeat them. They will serve to recall God to your heart and will strengthen you and comfort you.
You remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the Thibetans. The Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan, and is less progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices for saving labor. You have to use your own vocal apparatus to keep yourself from hell; but the process has been made as economical as possible by kindly dispensations of the Pope. Thus, each time that you say "My God and my all," you get fifty days indulgence; the same for "My Jesus, mercy," and the same for "Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things." For "Jesus, Mary, Joseph," you get three hundred days—which would seem by all odds the best investment of your spare breath.
And then come prayers for all occasions: "Prayer before Battle"; "Prayer for a Happy Death"; "Prayer in Temptation"; "Prayer before and after Meals"; "Prayer when on Guard"; "Prayer before a long March"; "Prayer of Resignation to Death"; "Prayer for Those in their Agony"—I cannot bear to read them, hardly to list them. I remember standing in a cathedral "somewhere in France" during the celebration of some special Big Magic. There was brilliant white light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the thunder of a huge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of young boys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching up, trying to climb over the top of one another. It sent a shudder into the depths of my soul. There is nothing left in the modern world which can carry the mind so far back into the ancient nightmare of anguish and terror which was once the mental life of mankind, as these Roman Catholic incantations with their frantic and ceaseless importunity. They have even brought in the sex-spell; and the poor, frightened soldier-boy, who has perhaps spent the night with a prostitute, now prostrates himself before a holy Woman-being who is lifted high above the shames of the flesh, and who stirs the thrills of awe and affection which his mother brought to him in early childhood. Read over the phrases of this "Litany of the Blessed Virgin":
Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God. Holy Virgin of Virgins. Mother of Christ. Mother of divine grace. Mother most pure. Mother most chaste. Mother inviolate. Mother undefiled. Mother most amiable. Mother most admirable. Mother of good counsel. Mother of our Creator. Mother of our Savior. Virgin most prudent. Virgin most venerable. Virgin most renowned. Virgin most powerful. Virgin most merciful. Virgin most faithful. Mirror of justice. Seat of wisdom. Cause of our Joy. Spiritual vessel. Vessel of honor. Singular vessel of devotion. Mystical rose. Tower of David. Tower of ivory. House of gold. Ark of the covenant. Gate of heaven. Morning Star. Health of the sick. Refuge of sinners. Comforter of the afflicted. Help of Christians. Queen of Angels. Queen of Patriarchs. Queen of Prophets. Queen of Apostles. Queen of Martyrs. Queen of Confessors. Queen of Virgins. Queen of all Saints. Queen conceived without original sin. Queen of the most holy Rosary. Queen of Peace, Pray for us.
For another five cents—how cheaply a man of insight can obtain thrills in this fantastic world!—I purchase a copy of the "Messenger of the Sacred Heart", a magazine published in New York, the issue for October, 1917. There are pages of advertisements of schools and colleges with strange titles: "Immaculata Seminary", "Holy Cross Academy", "Holy Ghost Institute", "Ladycliff", "Academy of Holy Child Jesus". The leading article is by a Jesuit, on "The Spread of the Apostleship of Prayer among the Young"; and then "Sister Clarissa" writes a poem telling us "What are Sorrows"; and then we are given a story called "Prayer for Daddy"; and then another Jesuit father tells us about "The Hills that Jesus Loved". A third father tells us about the "Eucharistic Propaganda"; and we learn that in July, 1917, it distributed 11,699 beads, and caused the expenditure of 57,714 hours of adoration; and then the faithful are given a form of letter which they are to write to the Honorable Baker, Secretary of War, imploring him to intimate to the French government that France should withdraw from one of her advances in civilization, and join with mediaeval America in exempting priests from being drafted to fight for their country. And then there is a "Question Box"—just like the Hearst newspapers, only instead of asking whether she should allow him to kiss her before he has told her that he loves her, the reader asks what is the Pauline Privilege, and what is the heroic Act, and is Robert a saint's name, and if food remains in the teeth from the night before, would it break the fast to swallow it before Holy Communion. (No, I am not inventing this.)
I quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how deftly the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly prosperity. But the Catholic Church does not show any squeamishness in dealing with its "million imbeciles", its "rough, purblind mass". There is a department of the little magazine entitled "Thanksgiving", and a statement at the top that "the total number of Thanksgivings for the month is 2,143,911." I am suspicious of that, as of German reports of prisoners taken; but I give the statement as it stands, not going through the list and picking out the crudest, but taking them as they come, classified by states:
GENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Mass and publication were promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used, for others the prayers of the Associates had been asked.
Alabama—Jewelry found, relief from pain, protection during storm.
Alaska—Safe return, goods found.
Arizona—Two recoveries, suitable boarding place, illness averted, safe delivery.
British Honduras—Successful operation.
California—Seventeen recoveries, six situations, two successful examinations, house rented, stocks sold, raise in salary, return to religious duties, sight regained, medal won, Baptism, preservation from disease, contract obtained, success in business, hearing restored, Easter duty made, happy death, automobile sold, mind restored, house found, house rented, successful journey, business sold, quarrel averted, return of friends, two successful operations.
And for all these miraculous performances the Catholic machine is harvesting the price day by day—harvesting with that ancient fervor which the Latin poet described as "auri sacra fames". As Christopher Columbus wrote from Jamaica in 1503: "Gold is a wonderful thing. By means of gold we can even get souls into Paradise."
The system thus self-revealed you admit is appalling in its squalor; but you say that at least it is milder and less perilous than the Church which burned Giordano Bruno and John Huss. But the very essence of the Catholic Church is that it does not change; semper eadem is its motto: the same yesterday, today and forever—the same in Washington as in Rome or Madrid—the same in a modern democracy as in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church is not primarily a religious organization; it is a political organization, and proclaims the fact, and defies those who would shut it up in the religious field, The Rev. S. B. Smith, a Catholic doctor of divinity, explains in his "Elements of Ecclesiastical Law":
Protestants contend that the entire power of the Church consists in the right to teach and exhort, but not in the right to command, rule, or govern; whence they infer that she is not a perfect society or sovereign state. This theory is false; for the Church, as was seen, is vested Jure divino with power, (1) to make laws; (2) to define and apply them (potestas judicialis); (3) to punish those who violate her laws (potestas coercitiva).
And this is not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated proclamation of infallible popes. Here is the "Syllabus of Errors", issued by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in precise language that,
The state has not the right to leave every man free to profess and embrace whatever religion he shall deem true.
It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall require the permission of the civil power in order to the exercise of its authority.
Then in the same Syllabus the rights and powers of the Church are affirmed thus:
She has the right to require the state not to leave every man free to profess his own religion.
She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or consent of the state.
She has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state.
She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others.
She has the right to prevent the state from granting the public exercise of their own worship to persons immigrating from it.
She has the power of requiring the state not to permit free expression of opinion.
You see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who think that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization, ought at least to know what the Catholic Church has to say about the matter. Here is Mgr. Segur, in his "Plain Talk About Protestantism of Today", a book published in Boston and extensively circulated by American Catholics:
Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise the soul of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those impossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can regard as admissible. But a sound mind, that does not feed on empty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply absurd, and, what is more, as sinful.
You take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe because the Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this "Law" applies to your Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that they are bound by the restraints that bind you? Here is Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical of 1890—and please remember that Leo XIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist statesmen and editors, as wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever roasted a heretic. He says:
If the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of God—if they inflict injury upon the Church—or set at naught the authority of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff, then indeed it becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render obedience.
And consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a democratic state do and forever must contravene the "laws of God" as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that the Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that all persons who have been married by civil authorities or by Protestant clergymen are living in "filthy concubinage"! Consider, in the same way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by Gladstone, one might add many issues, such as birth control, which have arisen since his time.
What the Church means is to rule. Her literature is full of expressions of that intention, set forth in the boldest and haughtiest and most uncompromising manner. For example, Cardinal Manning, in the Pro-Cathedral at Kensington, speaking in the name of the Pope:
I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; I claim more than this—I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the consciences of men—-of the peasant that tills the field, and of the prince that sits upon the throne; of the household of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for kingdoms; I am the sole, last supreme judge of what is right and wrong.
What this means is, that here in our American democracy the Catholic Church is a rebel; a prisoner of war who bides his time, watching for the moment to rise in revolt, and meantime making no secret of his intentions. The pious Leo XIII, addressing all true believers in America, instructed them as to their attitude in captivity:
The Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for state and church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church.... But she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and patronage of the public authority.
Accordingly, here is Father Phelan of St. Louis, addressing his flock in the "Western Watchman", June 27, 1913:
Tell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen afterwards; of course we are. Tell us, in the conflict between the church and the civil government we take the side of the church; of course we do. Why, if the government of the United States were at war with the church, we would say tomorrow, To hell with the government of the United States; and if the church and all the governments of the world were at war, we would say, To hell with all the governments of the world.... Why is it that in this country, where we have only seven per cent of the population, the Catholic church is so much feared? She is loved by all her children and feared by everybody. Why is it that the Pope has such tremendous power? Why, the Pope is the ruler of the world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the presidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. The Pope is the ruler of the world.
You recall what I said at the outset about Power; the ability to control the lives of other men, to give laws and moral codes, to shape fashions and tastes, to be revered and regarded. Here is a man swollen to bursting with this Power. Dressed in his holy robes, with his holy incense in his nostrils, and the faces of the faithful gazing up at him awe-stricken, hear him proclaim:
The Church gives no bonds for her good behavior. She is the judge of her own rights and duties, and of the rights and duties of the state.
And lest you think that an extreme example of ultramontanist arrogance, listen to the Boston "Pilot", April 6, 1912, speaking for Cardinal O'Connell, whose official organ it is:
It must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley, O'Connell and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and members of an American hierarchy, yet they are as cardinals foreign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one of the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to concede the same honors that they receive abroad.
Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he would be entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for a foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainment at Washington the Cardinal will outrank not merely every cabinet officer, the speaker of the house and the vice-president, but also the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the chief magistrate himself.
Incidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not of sovereign rank visits New York it is his duty to make the first call on Cardinal Farley.
Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus. And what is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the rank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels of the ecclesiastical machine? His Holiness, the Pope, sent over a delegate to represent him in America, and at a convention of the Federation of Catholic Societies held in New Orleans in November, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered himself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the slave-code of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary carpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples:
Human society has its origin from God and is constituted of two classes of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively represent Capital and Labor.
Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and plebeians.
And lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second representative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general meeting of the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917, declared:
One of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is the spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic Church must be ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be ready to prevent the spread of Socialism and to work against it. As I understand, you have a society of wealthy people in St. Louis ready for such a campaign. You have experienced leaders who are masters in their kind of work. They are always insistent to show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the Church, and therefore it will not fail.
This, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book, which therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor Theolog.", and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici." No wonder that the "experienced leaders" of America, our captains of industry and exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be, to make use of this system of subjection. A few years ago we read in our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was presenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its war upon Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most far-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said that in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic church that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you watched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman Hierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get an expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any newspaper of importance. The Associated Press does not handle news unfavorable to the Church, and from top to bottom, the politician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. Said Archbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary Sodality:
I'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.
And how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our liberties? As a means of demonstrating the power of the church and the subservience of our politicians, the Catholics have invented what they call the "Cardinal's Day Mass": An elaborate procession of high ecclesiastics, dressed in gorgeous robes and jewels, through the streets of Washington, accompanied by a small army of policemen, paid by non-Catholic taxpayers. The Cardinal seats himself upon a throne, and our political rulers make obeisance before him. On Sunday, January 14, 1917, there were present at this political mass the following personages: Four cabinet members and their wives; the speaker of the House; a large group of senators and representatives; a general of the army and his wife; an admiral of the navy and his wife; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife, and another Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife.
And understand that the church makes no secret of its purpose in conducting such public exhibitions. Here is the pious Pope Leo XIII again, in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885:
All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in daily political life in the countries where they live. They must penetrate, wherever possible, in the administration of civil affairs; must constantly exert the utmost vigilance and energy to prevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed by God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of states and legislation to be modeled on the principles of the true Church.
And following these instructions, the Catholics are organized for political work. There are the various Catholic Societies, such as the Knights of Columbus, secret, oath-bound organizations, the military arm of the Papal Power. These societies boast some three million members, and control not less than that many votes. The one thing that you can be certain about these votes is that on every public question, of whatever nature, they will be cast on the side of ignorance and reaction. Thus, it was the influence of the Catholic Societies which put upon our national statute books the infamous law providing five years imprisonment and five thousand dollars fine for the sending through the mail of information about the prevention of conception. It is their influence which keeps upon the statute-books of New York state the infamous law which permits divorce only for infidelity, and makes it "collusion" if both parties desire the divorce. It is these societies which, in every city and town in America, are pushing and plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so that the public may not have a chance to read scientific books; to get Catholics into the public schools and on school-boards, so that children may not hear about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to have Catholics in control of police and on magistrates benches, so that priests who are caught in brothels may not be exposed or punished.
You are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but during a period of "vice raids" in New York I was told by a captain of police, himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing for them to get priests in their net. "Of course," the official added, good-naturedly, "we let them slip out." I understood that he had to do that; for the Pope, in his "Motu Proprio" decree, has forbidden Catholics to bring a priest into court for any civil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden Catholic policemen to arrest, Catholic judges to try, and Catholic law-makers to make laws affecting any priest of the Church of Rome. And of course we know, upon the authority of a cardinal, that the Pope is "the sole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong." He has held that position for a thousand years and more; and wherever you consult the police records throughout the thousand years, you find the same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn to Riley's "Illustrations of London Life from Original Documents," and I find in the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose name is considerately suppressed, had a breviary stolen from him by a loose woman, because he has not given her any money, either on that night or the one previous. In 1320 John de Sloghtre, a priest, is put in the tower "for being found wandering about the city against the peace", and Richard Heyring, a priest, is indicted in the ward of Farringdon and in the ward of Crepelgate "as being a bruiser and nightwalker." That this has been going on for six hundred years is due, not to any special corruption of the Catholic heart, but to the practice of clerical celibacy, which is contrary to nature, a transgression of fundamental instinct. It should be noted that the purpose of this transgression, which pretends to be spiritual, is really economic; it was the means whereby the church machine built up its power through the Middle Ages. The priests had children then, as they have them today; but these children not being recognized, the church machine remained the sole heir of the property of its clergy.
Knowing what we know today, we marvel that it was possible for Germany to prepare through so many years for her assault on civilization, and for England to have slept through it all. In exactly the same way, the historian of a generation from now will marvel that America should have slept, while the New Inquisition was planning to strangle her. For we are told with the utmost explicitness precisely what is to be done. We are to see wiped out these gains of civilization for which our race has bled and agonized for many centuries; the very gains are to serve as the means of their own destruction! Have we not heard Pope Leo tell his faithful how to take advantage of what they find in America—our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, our open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met democracy?
We see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and we can read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the Prussian military caste had its slogan "Deutschland ueber Alles!" so the Knights of Slavery have their slogan: "Make America Catholic!"
Their attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact that none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to "deeply deplore the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the Pope." Their subjection to priestly domination is indicated by such resolutions as this, bearing date of May 13th, 1914:
The Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention assembled, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, present filial regards with assurances of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See and request the Papal blessing.
On June 10th, 1912, one T. J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to Archbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: "Must I, as a Catholic, surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by this I mean the right to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or Republican parties when and where I please?" The answer was: "You should submit to the decisions of the Church, even at the cost of sacrificing political principles." And to the same effect Mgr. Preston, In New York City, Jan. 1, 1888: "The man who says, 'I will take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics from Peter,' is not a true Catholic."
Such is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not discover some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a "Catholic battle-ship" in the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all ships of the navy; Catholic holidays—-such as Columbus Day—to be celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million dollars worth of church property exempted from taxation in New York City; mission bells to be set up at the expense of the state of California; state support for parish schools—or, if this cannot be had, exemption of Catholics from taxation for school purposes. So on through the list which might continue for pages.
More than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is concerned with education, or rather, with the preventing of education. It was in its childish days that the race fell under the spell of the Priestly Lie; it is in his childish days that the individual can be most safely snared. Suffer little children to come unto the Catholic priest, and he will make upon their sensitive minds an impression which nothing in after life can eradicate. So the mainstay of the New Inquisition is the parish-school, and its deadliest enemy is the American school system. Listen to the Rev. James Conway, of the Society of Jesus, in his book, "The Rights of Our Little Ones":
Catholic parents cannot, in conscience send their children to American public schools, except for very grave reasons approved by the ecclesiastical authorities.
While state education removes illiteracy and puts a limited amount of knowledge within the reach of all, it cannot be said to have a beneficial influence on civilization in general.
The state cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of utter illiteracy, so long as the essential physical and moral education are sufficiently provided for.
And so, at all times and in all places, the Catholic Church is fighting the public school. Eternal vigilance is necessary; as "America", the organ of the Jesuits, explains:
Sometimes it is a new building code, or an attempt at taxing the school buildings, which creates hardships to the parochial and other private schools. Now it is the free text book law that puts a double burden on the Catholics. Then again it is the unwise extension of the compulsory school age that forces children to be in school until they are 16 to 18 years old.
And if you wish to know the purpose of the Catholic schools, hear Archbishop Quigley of Chicago, speaking before the children of the Mary Sodality in the Holy Name Parish-School:
Within twenty years this country is going to rule the world. Kings and emperors will pass away, and the democracy of the United States will take their place. The West will dominate the country, and what I have seen of the Western parochial schools has proved that the generation which follows us will be exclusively Catholic. When the United States rules the world the Catholic Church will rule the world.