Roman Catholicism in the Home.
This is the title of an excellent tract written by Mr. Michael J. F. McCarthy. It was delivered in the first instance as a public lecture in Hove Town Hall. Mr. McCarthy’s early home training places him in a position to speak with authority as to the manner of training Rome gives in the home. It is a training from which every true Protestant would desire in his heart to have the children of his country delivered. The pamphlet, consisting of twenty-four pages, may be had from Charles J. Thynne, Great Queen Street, Kingsway, London, W.C., for one penny, and 6/6 per 100, post free. The tract should be circulated broadcast, especially among the young people of Great Britain and Ireland.
Romish Intolerance in Ireland.
Since the passing of the Local Government Act, says a writer in the Vanguard, our worst fears have been confirmed as to what the condition of affairs would be if complete ‘Home Rule were by any act of insane folly granted. What are some of the facts? Speaking for myself as a Protestant, it would be quite impossible for me at the present time to get a public appointment, except in a part of Ulster where Protestantism predominates. There are some rare and insignificant exceptions, but this is true of nine-tenths of the country. Let me take a district well known to me. The local priest is a violent bigot, his hatred of Protestants can hardly be concealed or restrained, and his constant study is how, in petty ways, to injure them. If a Protestant is enjoying an unopposed prosperity in business, a Roman Catholic opponent is planted on the other side of the street. He is reported to have said to his people in a harangue from the altar, “If hell-fire were at the shop doors of Protestants you would deal with them.” Fortunately they do not all follow his advice, but there is an intensely bigoted clerical party who cannot look a Protestant honestly and openly in the face, and who follow to the letter the priest’s commands.
Former Eucharistic Congress in Canada.
The gravity of any steps involving a procession of the Host will be realized, when we recall the seriousness of the troubles occasioned some score of years since by a similar plan conceived in Toronto. In September, 1908, when the threatened Eucharistic procession in the streets of Westminster was creating so strong a feeling of opposition in this country, Mr. A. C. Foster Boulter, at that period M.P. for Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, wrote to the Times, as follows:—”About twenty years ago I was an eye-witness of the riots that took place in the city of Toronto, owing to the attempt by the Roman Catholics of that city to carry the ‘Host’ around the precincts of the Cathedral. The proposal to do this had aroused very grave resentment on the part of the Protestant population of Toronto, and this resentment culminated in a very serious riot, so serious, in fact, that had it not been for prompt measures by the authorities a good many lives would have been lost. As it was, owing to the police and military, the mob was dispersed, but not before many persons had been injured. Since then no attempt has been made to carry the ‘Host’ in Toronto or in any other Canadian city outside Quebec.” Should the Romish authorities be emboldened to contemplate a procession at the forthcoming Congress, we trust the Protestantism of Canada will assert itself that their designs may be frustrated.
Unhappy Italian Priests.
The Rev. Dr. Robertson, of Venice, in an article in The Bulwark for March on this subject, states that he “recently saw a statement by a Roman authority that there are 20,000 priests in Italy who are openly avowed infidels.” He mentions the case of a young priest who has just left the so-called Church, and gives the following quotation from a letter of his that appeared in an Italian newspaper:—”I renounce the comfort and ease that my ecclesiastical superiors have offered me. I shall gain my daily bread by labour. And the dignity of the workman who labours, and who produces something is infinitely superior to him who lives upon souls in purgatory, who trades with the aspessorium on the ignorance of the vulgar. Neither the calumnies nor the affections (not to be forgotten) of my old colleagues move me. Priestcraft is their trade. . . . For a time I had faith in a renewal, in a reform of the Church, in her return to that which is the essence of the Gospel. But observing, meditating, and studying to the utmost of my poor strength, I became convinced that it is not the slightest question of renovation or of reform; that the defect is properly, exactly at the root; that the Church, that Clericalism, that Catholicism, that Papal theology are absolutely the negation of Christ, of truth, of progress; that they are no more able in any degree to accept Christ, progress, without ceasing to exist, than was the old Jewish synagogue. I know well that other priests, notwithstanding that their ideas are opposed to the Church, remain in it, and submit to it. But that way of acting is to me illogical, and to be despised. I intend now to be born into a new life. I shall work outside the Church for a better Church. I am sick of the idle life of a priest, of rosaries, of ‘novenas,’ of benedictions, of exorcisms, of candles, of sorceries, of superstitions—which are all repugnant to my conscience, and to which my office of a priest constrained me.”