Christ did not denounce wealth any more than he denounced
pauperism. He did not abhor money; he used it. He did not
abhor the company of rich men; he sought it. He did not
invariably scorn or even resent a certain profuseness of
expenditure.
And do you think that the late Bishop of J.P. Morgan and Company
stands alone as an utterer of scholarly blasphemy, a driver of golden
nails? In the course of this book there will march before us a long
line of the clerical retainers of Privilege, on their way to the New
Golgotha to crucify the carpenter's son: the Rector of the Money
Trust, the Preacher of the Coal Trust, the Priest of the Traction
Trust, the Archbishop of Tammany, the Chaplain of the Millionaires'
Club, the Pastor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Religious Editor of
the New Haven, the Sunday-school Superintendent of Standard Oil. We
shall try the weight of their jewelled sledges--books, sermons,
newspaper-interviews, after-dinner speeches--wherewith they pound
their golden nails of sophistry into the bleeding hands and feet of
the proletarian Christ.
Here, for example, is Rev. F.G. Peabody, Professor of Christian Morals
at Harvard University. Prof. Peabody has written several books on the
social teachings of Jesus; he quotes the most rabid of the carpenter's
denunciations of the rich, and says:
Is it possible that so obvious and so limited a message as
this, a teaching so slightly distinguished from the
curbstone rhetoric of a modern agitator, can be an adequate
reproduction of the scope and power of the teaching of
Jesus?
The question answers itself: Of course not! For Jesus was a gentleman;
he is the head of a church attended by gentlemen, of universities
where gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of Christian Morals
proceeds to make a subtle analysis of Jesus' actions; demonstrating
therefrom that there are three proper uses to be made of great wealth:
first, for almsgiving--"The poor ye have always with you!"; second,
for beauty and culture--buying wine for wedding-feasts, and
ointment-boxes and other #objets de vertu#; and third, "stewardship,"
"trusteeship"--which in plain English is "Big Business."
I have used the illustration of soap and hot water; one can imagine he
is actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the proletarian
Founder emerging all new and respectable under the brush of this
capitalist professor. The professor has a rule all his own for reading
the scriptures; he tells us that when there are two conflicting
sayings, the rule of interpretation is that "the more spiritual is to
be preferred." Thus, one gospel makes Jesus say: "Blessed are ye
poor." Another puts it: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The first
one is crude and literal; obviously the second must be what Jesus
meant! In other words, the professor and his church have made for
their economic masters a treacherous imitation virtue to be taught to
wage-slaves, a quality of submissiveness, impotence and futility,
which they call by the name of "spirituality". This virtue they exalt
above all others, and in its name they cut from the record of Jesus
everything which has relation to the realities of life!
So here is our Professor Peabody, sitting in the Plummer chair at
Harvard, writing on "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," and
explaining:
The fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its
radicalism, but in its externalism. It proposes to
accomplish by economic change what can be attained by
nothing less than spiritual regeneration.
And here is "The Churchman," organ of the Episcopalians of New York,
warning us:
It is necessary to remember that something more than
material and temporal considerations are involved. There are
things of more importance to the purposes of God and to the
welfare of humanity than economic readjustments and social
amelioration.
And again:
Without doubt there is a strong temptation today, bearing
upon clergy and laity alike, to address their religious
energies too exclusively to those tasks whereby human life
may be made more abundant and wholesome materially.... We
need constantly to be reminded that spiritual things come
first.
There come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen for
whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen and pillars
of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid gloves and shiny
tophats; the ladies of Good Society with their Easter costumes in
pastel shades, their gracious smiles and their sweet intoxicating
odors. I picture them as I have seen them at St. George's, where that
aged wild boar, Pierpont Morgan, the elder, used to pass the
collection plate; at Holy Trinity, where they drove downtown in
old-fashioned carriages with grooms and footmen sitting like twin
statues of insolence; at St. Thomas', where you might see all the
"Four Hundred" on exhibition at once; at St. Mary the Virgin's, where
the choir paraded through the aisles, swinging costly incense into my
childish nostrils, the stout clergyman walking alone with nose
upturned, carrying on his back a jewelled robe for which some adoring
female had paid sixty thousand dollars. "Spiritual things come first?"
Ah, yes! "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall
be added unto you!" And it is so dreadful about the French and German
Socialists, who, as the "Churchman" reports, "make a creed out of
materialism." But then, what is this I find in one issue of the organ
of the "Church of Good Society"?
Business men contribute to the Y.M.C.A. because they realize
that if their employes are well cared for and religiously
influenced, they can be of greater service in business!
Who let that material cat out of the spiritual bag?
* * * * *
#BOOK THREE#
#The Church of the Servant-girls#
Was it for this--that prayers like these
Should spend themselves about thy feet,
And with hard, overlabored knees
Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat
Bosoms too lean to suckle sons
And fruitless as their orisons?
Was it for this--that men should make
Thy name a fetter on men's necks,
Poor men made poorer for thy sake,
And women withered out of sex?
Was it for this--that slaves should be--
Thy word was passed to set men free?
Swinburne.
* * * * *
#Charity#
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 door-way; like soldiers under the command
of a ruling class with a "muddling through" tradition--
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
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!
#God's Armor#
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":
There's power in me and will to dominate
Which I must exercise, they hurt me else;
In many ways I need mankind's respect,
Obedience, and the love that's born of fear.
He wishes that he had faith--faith in anything; he understands that
faith is all-important--
Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat.
But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it--
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn!
He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he asks
what there would be in it for him--
State the facts,
Read the text right, emancipate the world--
The emancipated world enjoys itself
With scarce a thank-you. Blougram told it first
It could not owe a farthing,--not to him
More than St. Paul!
So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of the
contempt of intellectual people.
I pine among my million imbeciles
(You think) aware some dozen men of sense
Eye me and know me, whether I believe
In the last winking virgin as I vow,
And am a fool, or disbelieve in her,
And am a knave.
But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of
faith, that is what
Gives all the advantage, makes the difference,
With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule.
We are their lords, or they are free of us,
Just as we tighten or relax that hold.
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 genuflexions,
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.
#Thanksgivings#
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 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 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 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 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.
#Knights of Slavery#
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.
#Priests and Police#
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.
#The Church Militant#
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.
#The Church Triumphant#
The question may be asked, What of it? What if the Church were to
rule? There are not a few Americans who believe that there have to be
rich and poor, and that rule by Roman Catholics might be preferable to
rule by Socialists. Before you decide, at least do not fail to
consider what history has to tell about priestly government. We do not
have to use our imaginations in the matter, for there was once a
Golden Age such as Archbishop Quigley dreams of, when the power of the
church was complete, when emperors and princes paid homage to her, and
the civil authority made haste to carry out her commands. What was the
condition of the people in those times? We are told by Lea, in his
"History of the Inquisition" that:
The moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved.
Uniformity of faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and
its methods, and so long as faith was preserved, crime and
sin was comparatively unimportant except as a source of
revenue to those who sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie
tersely puts it, hell and purgatory would be emptied if
enough money could be found. The artificial standard thus
created is seen in a revelation of the Virgin to St.
Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no matter
how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he
has the absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are
many wicked popes plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts
on earth are accepted and confirmed by God, and all priests
who are not heretics administer true sacraments, no matter
how depraved they may be. Correctness of belief was thus the
sole essential; virtue was a wholly subordinate
consideration. How completely under such a system religion
and morals came to be dissociated is seen in the remarks of
Pius II, that the Franciscans were excellent theologians,
but cared nothing about virtue.
This, in fact, was the direct result of the system of
persecution embodied in the Inquisition. Heretics who were
admitted to be patterns of virtue were ruthlessly
exterminated in the name of Christ, while in the same holy
name the orthodox could purchase absolution for the vilest
of crimes for a few coins. When the only unpardonable
offence was persistence in some trifling error of belief,
such as the poverty of Christ; when men had before them the
example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and
debauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions
of morality were destroyed and the confusion between right
and wrong became hopeless. The world has probably never seen
a society more vile than that of Europe in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. The brilliant pages of Froissart
fascinate us with their pictures of the artificial
courtesies of chivalry; the mystic reveries of Rysbroek and
of Tauler show us that spiritual life survived in some rare
souls, but the mass of the population was plunged into the
depths of sensuality and the most brutal oblivion of the
moral law. For this Alvaro Pelayo tells us that the
priesthood were accountable, and that, in comparison with
them, the laity were holy. What was that state of
comparative holiness he proceeds to describe, blushing as he
writes, for the benefit of confessors, giving a terrible
sketch of universal immorality which nothing could purify
but fire and brimstone from heaven. The chroniclers do not
often pause in their narrations to dwell on the moral
aspects of the times, but Meyer, in his annals of Flanders,
under date of 1379, tells us that it would be impossible to
describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries,
blasphemies, adulteries, hatreds, quarrels, brawls, murder,
rapine, thievery, robbery, gambling, whoredom, debauchery,
avarice, oppression of the poor, rape, drunkenness, and
similar vices, and he illustrates his statement with the
fact that in the territory of Ghent, within the space of ten
months, there occurred no less than fourteen hundred murders
committed in the bagnios, brothels, gambling-houses,
taverns, and other similar places. When, in 1396, Jean sans
Peur led his Crusaders to destruction at Micopolis, their
crimes and cynical debauchery scandalized even the Turks,
and led to the stern rebuke of Bajazet himself, who as the
monk of St. Denis admits was much better than his Christian
foes. The same writer, moralizing over the disaster at
Agincourt, attributes it to the general corruption of the
nation. Sexual relations, he says, were an alternation of
disorderly lust and of incest; commerce was nought but fraud
and treachery; avarice withheld from the Church her tithes,
and ordinary conversation was a succession of blasphemies.
The Church, set up by God as a model and protector of the
people, was false to all its obligations. The bishops,
through the basest and most criminal of motives, were
habitual accepters of persons; they annointed themselves
with the last essence extracted from their flocks, and there
was in them nothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of
decent.
