The Profits of Religion Part 8

GENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Ma.s.s and publication were promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used, for others the prayers of the a.s.sociates 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 Holy Roman Empire

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 substance 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 in substance:

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 admissable. 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 G.o.d--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 G.o.d" as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that the Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that Catholics who are married by civil authorities or by Protestant clergymen will be 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.

Temporal Power

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 att.i.tude in captivity:

The Church amongst you, unopposed by the Const.i.tution 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l 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 ent.i.tled 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 amba.s.sadors, 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.

Knights of Slavery

Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus. And what is their att.i.tude towards their brothers in G.o.d, 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 G.o.d and is const.i.tuted of two cla.s.ses of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively represent Capital and Labor.

Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of G.o.d, human society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, n.o.bles 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 ent.i.tled 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 cla.s.ses. Today you cannot get an expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any newspaper of importance. The a.s.sociated 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.

Priests and Police

And how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our liberties?