The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-05-01

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| (Signed) SHUcK s. RACKET
I ~ ajst1s Attorneys for Defendants.
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A FREKKAsoN on cATHoIIcIfY.
The following communication, translated
from Q hate number Of q Parisian paper,
will whet the curiosity and enlist the stten-
ton of our readers. 1t emanates from trust
worthy source, whichever party concern
ed in it may DO considered, il the admission,
by one in high standing among European
Freemasons, Of the sentiments with which
they are animated towards the Catholic
Church, and a. such cannot fail to commend
itself to their American copyists. It
throws peculiar light on certain pregnant
events of the day:
eve are accused" {says this gentleman,
whose frankness at least IL creditable to
him. eve are accused of being hostile to
Christianity, but wrongfally. We are, on
the contrary, in favor Of Christianity, bat
Christianity, mind you, clear of all
Christianity in its essence,
and stripped Of all the ceremonial trumpery,
in which your priests swathe it:-an un
bearable yoke to free men, and contrived
for the sole purpose of smotbering humani-
ty, enslaving minds, crushing science and
barring progress. We will none Of your
Church, and precisely fop this reason we
will mono Of your Papacy either Papacy
is your Church's vitality.
''Evidently the aim of the Council was
to strengthen the spiritual and temporal
power Of the Pope, stronger and more
powerful now than it ever was before. The
plan first settled upon, was to have pre-
vented the Council from assembling-DO
very difficult matter, when the vastness of
our resources is taken into consideration
but this plan was soon abandoned as in
adequate, and more likely to compromise,
than to benefit the cause in behalf of which
it was devised. By enlisting on our side
the opposition of governments, whose CO.
operation we can command whenever we
choose, we should have raised to fever
height the peoples attachment for the Pope
and the Church and, what is still worse,
many persons who now only belong nomi-
nally to CathOlicity, would have denounced
our injustice and intolerance, aud from
being lax and indifferent would have de-
clared themselves its fearless champions
and Apologies.
.sWe should have lost, in particular, the
Invaluable services, which we have been
able to command these many years, of q
powerful party within the Church, a kind
of half way house between the Church and
us--the liberal Catholic party. This party
IL would never do f0r us to estrange IL
serves our purpose to an extent little
dreamed Of by the more or less able men
belonging to it in France, in Belgium,
throughout the whole Of Germany, in Italy
and, under the Pope's very nose, in Rome
itself,
prevailed, and our plan was reversed. In
stead eff setting iMpedimenss in the way of
the Council's meeting, We afforded every
facility to it free passage to bishops and
their suite, polite attentions, protection and
civilities Of every sort were lavished on the
Council to be full and free, that before the
eyes of the whole world turned towards it
now, the Church should, even in this very
exhibition of her power, break against the
rock she herself has set up. If the Church
does not founder now, the future for many
long day is hers; but founder she will:
"The Pope wanted three months
Council four months at the longest,
and the majority of of the Bishops calcula
ted on having to make no longer a sojourn
in Rome. The Pope's treasury is depleted,
and cannot much longer defray the ex-
penses of over three hundred bishops de-
pendent on its scant resources. At least
half the other bishops will be obliged to go
back to their dioceses, and. very likely,
will not return. The three months have
elapsed, and yet nothing has been accom-
plished. The Pope will have to adjourn
the Council, and adjournment is but an
other word for failure. The Council will
miscarry; and the result will be the weak
ening of the faith throughout the world.
The halo of authority will fade from the
Patal brow, and the people, seeing that
yenerated head shorn of its glory, will De-
come lukewarm and Indifferent. Then the
CAurch will wane, and, slowly but surely,
disappear.
maturely planned. Long since, the cur
rent of aspiration and affection, with the
immense majority of the priesthood and
the faithful, set in towards Rome, and de-
manded an unprecedented exaltation of the
Pontifical authority, and the definition of
its doctrinal infaliibiiity. --..
"This current we intercepted by waking
ND the old dormant Gallicanism, which is
a sort of compromise between rationalism
and faith Even before the Council we OBJ
structed this current by our writings, trans
lated into all languages, and scattered, at
enormous expense, broadcast throughout
the world, in order to shake the consistency
of bishops, SOW the seeds of uncertainty
among the clergy of the second order, I'M
dermine the peoples convictions, and es-
pecially distract the Council in its de-
alterations from the paramount question OF
the Pope's doctrinal infallibility.
"In the Council we have the organs of
the liberal Catholic party, whose watch
word it is, hy opposing every measure
brought forward, to kill the time of others,
gain their own, and thus weary into fretful
impatence the endurance of the majority