“By their Fruits ye shall know them.”—Priest W. Elliot, writing to the Catholic World for September, 1890, gives the following damaging testimony: “Now comes the horrible truth. In many cities we (Catholics) have something like a monopoly of the liquor traffic, and a monopoly also of getting drunk. There is scarcely a Roman Catholic family but one of its members is a victim of intemperance. I hate to acknowledge it, but three-fourths of the public paupers, and more than half the criminals carried to prison, are, by baptism and training, members of our Church. For twenty years the clergy of St. Paul’s Parish, New York, have had a hard fight to keep saloons from the very church door, because the neighbourhood of a Catholic church is a good stand for the saloon business, and this is equally so in nearly every city in America. The saloons line all the way to the Roman Catholic cemetery. The Roman Catholic chaplain asserts that of six or seven thousand women brought every year to prison, more than 80 per cent. are Catholics.”
Rev. Jacob Primmer and Convent Inspection.
A good deal has been made of the Vicar of Manningtree’s letter referring to his visit to the East Bergholt Convent from which Miss Moul recently escaped. Mr. Primmer wrote to the Edinburgh Evening News, as follows, on the subject:—”This so-called inspection by Protestants is an old trick of Rome. On 26th October, 1892, in a lecture I gave in Carlisle, I mentioned that at the foundation of the new nunnery there were ‘two vaults like the dungeons in the Castle.’ This led to great excitement among the Papists. Canon Waterton denounced me as a liar and a fool, and after two months’ fighting at last he said in a letter—’So many enquiries have been made on the subject that it may be as well authoritatively to state that no such places exist, and that any person applying to the Lady Superior will be allowed to visit the premises.’ He evidently thought that this would throw me off the scent. But it did not. This appeared in the Carlisle newspapers on the Saturday. On the Monday an ex-Mayor and two other Protestant gentlemen went to the nunnery, and like the self-constituted committee at Bergholt, they also were shown over the nunnery. But their report of what they saw was never published.”
Rome Outwitted.
Mr. Primmer explains the reason of the non-publication of the report referred to above as follows:—”The reason was that on the Wednesday I presented myself at the door of the nunnery, accompanied by Lieut.-Colonel Hobes, staff-paymaster, Mr. James N. Carr, and Mr. John Gordon, builder, was admitted, our names were never asked, the Lady Superior evidently concluding that we were a second gang sent to visit the premises in the interests of Rome. We made a thorough inspection of the premises, with the result that we discovered no fewer than four dungeons, two of them being like the Castle dungeons and two subterranean, the dimensions of the latter being: Length 21 ft. 6 in., breadth 3 ft. 4 in., height 5 ft. 3 in. Before leaving, when I pointed out that Canon Waterton had denied the existence of these dungeons, the Superior said, ‘It is a great pity that Canon Waterton took any notice of the matter. Had he simply ignored it altogether and said nothing about it, no one would have paid the slightest heed to what Mr. Primmer said about dungeons being under the nunnery.’ All these facts were printed in the Carlisle newspapers on 3rd December, 1892.”
Eucharistic Congress at Venice.
Dr. Robertson of Venice in his recently published book, The Papal Conquest, has a chapter on the “Eucharistic Procession Device,” in which he describes the discreditable scenes he witnessed when the Eucharistic Congress met at Venice in 1897. On this occasion the nave of the church in which it was held “was boarded off from the rest of the church, and was filled with seats and galleries, with a platform for the speakers in front of the altar. The side chapels were turned into shops for the sale of newspapers, writing materials, food, sweets, and such like; but the largest chapel was turned into a bar . . . The rioting and drunkenness became so disgraceful and intolerable that the citizens sent for the police, who entered the church and closed the chapel door. Great scandal was caused throughout Italy.”
Italy and Religious Houses.
There were in Italy, in 1865, 2,382 religious houses (1,506 for men and 876 for women), says Mr. A. Le Lievre, writing in the Protestant Observer. A law for the entire suppression of all these establishments was passed by Parliament in 1866. The lands and goods of the suppressed houses were appropriated by the State. Pope Pius IX. made many attempts to reform the monastic orders, but, owing to their opposition, in vain. He declared at the time of the suppression that “though he was bound to condemn the suppression of these monasteries, in his heart he could not but rejoice, as it was a blessing in disguise.” Cardinal Manning said that the success of the Italian Revolution was “in no small degree due to the laxity of the clergy, seculars and regulars, and to the defective education and training in the schools.” The Italian Under-Secretary for the Interior declared in February, 1904, that “the Government would continue to apply rigorously the laws for the suppression of religious congregations.” In Portugal all conventual establishments were suppressed by decree in 1834, their property being confiscated for the benefit of the State. There were then in that Catholic country 632 monasteries and 118 nunneries, with 18,000 monks and nuns and an annual income of nearly £1,000,000. “Holy Poverty!” In most Catholic Spain, two years later, all convents and monasteries were suppressed and their property confiscated.
Italy and the Church of Rome.
The disintegrating movement in the Romish Church, especially in its Italian home, proceeds apace. We gather the following interesting item of news from the magazine of the Waldensian Church, The Voice of Italy: “In addition to Don Murri (now an M.P.), Canon Sforzini (now a Methodist minister), Dr. Bartoli (Waldensian pastor), we now hear of Monsignor Giobbio, whose departure is an exceptionally heavy blow to the Papacy. He was an intimate friend of Cardinal Merry del Val, was Professor of Law in the Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles, a man of no small weight in the Vatican, Under-Secretary of the Congregation of Regulars, and Domestic Prelate to the Pope. He was recently sent as Apostolic Visitor to Sicily, in order to reorganise the theological courses of study in the different ecclesiastical provinces. His three volumes of ‘Lessons in Ecclesiastical Diplomacy,’ and his book on ‘Conciliation,’ are undoubtedly works of high value. He has now, at the age of forty-three, abandoned the Church for a life more conformed to the dictates of reason and conscience. It is reported that in the grave step which Signor Giobbio has taken he is being strengthened by the warm intellectual friendship of Dr. Bartoli. This leads us to hope that ere long the distinguished Prelate will be led into the full light of Bible Christianity.”—The English Churchman.