The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1877-03-25
TIE EccLESIAsTICAL POLICY IN ITALY.

| in Italy are now confessed to be miserable
| and destructive OF national life, and q
| change in that policy is demanded by the
| revoiutionists them selves. They say in
effect, we cannot do without religion, We
| have cast away aud alienated the Catholic
| religion, and we must get another religion
| in its place. That any religion save the
| Catholic can be created in Italy is an i'm
possibility. on which few words need be
wasted. But it is worth while to put on
record some of the confessions of these
revolutionary guides. From letter 10 the
Diritto may be culled a few statements,
| valuable at least as the candid acknoW-
Judgments of foes to Catholicity. Accord
in Italy towards the Church, religion, and
the clergy ia most reprehensible and de-
plOrable. Noother State, psrcbance, holds
Itself 80 Indifferent, impossible, and
strange towards the religious life of the
nation. The Govern
ties, one religious, the other lay, which it,
stead of agreeing and harmonizing, tend to
neutralizs and destroy each other. A nation
in such condition ends by feeling itself
devoid of soul and spirit The interior
schism in the very life of conscience, the
dualism between the principles of religion
and the institutions and ideas of practical
life, destroy all the power and vigor of the
nation, and render it impossible for it to
advance or perchance even to exist. I his
religion, which we in Italy affect to mock
at and deride, is in reality the most active
popular power which can be imagined,
4. Nothing can equal or form cub
stitute for this religion, nor can it's place be
taken by labor, self interest, domestic af-
fections, patriotism, laws, arts, science or
philosophy" Religion is {" the concentra-
ted sentiment of the nation" 1t is the
mother of all activity spiritual or other !"
Religion carries men and nations - beyond
;,,ka lnof inn
of the low and vulgar kind, and places
them in the bosom6f the infinite. A nation
''devoid of religious ideal is a nation
more Of brutes than of men," The writer
| thinks the Catholic religion to be false, and
says that "with the PApal aud Catholic
| religion, or without a religion more worthy
| of the Christian name aud ideal, the ragen-
| GRAFTON of Italy in it's spirit and conscience,
| is hopeless, and the durable relief of the
material and moral miseries of the masses
is an impossibiity." He therefore regards
an Ecclesiastical reform" as the grand
| panacea for the ills of Italy. He meaDs,
dou btiess, although he does not say it in
terms, that Professionalism, or some sort of
State Chuich, must be introduced to ena-
BILE the Government to keep it's place. He
thinks no Goddess system can last, "Ele-
mentary instruction depends on religion,
directly and Immediately" He ridicules
the notion of obligatory lay instruction
under pains aud penalties. AS long as we
keep religion hostile to us, and despise the
aid of the clergy. 1--WE shall effect nothing
that is good" The "natural sup
ports of the schools of the people are the
clergy and religion" From onr
lay schools, without religion and without
morality, the sons of the people will &C
forth, instructed, perhaps, IN reading and
writing, bus certainly uneducated and
made worse than they were. The school
more than anything else, will awake pro-
huIl ir1f hnir hnpr a mir do z inr
which they can never satisfy, and greed
desires, jealousies, and envy, which ne
, moral force can bride or keep in check
destruction, of itself, cannot furnish "ths
noralislng influence which leads to gooG
Conduct" This Influence eau only come
! from on high, that is from religion
!. "Nether the SYSTEMS of Darwin, nor o.
Strauss, nor even of Hegel, can form the
D basis of a peoples life" "Tbe true
r kingdom of God is the realm of intelligence
and knowledge" Everyone whe
! has eyes and brain perceives that in Ital
: all the various forms of intellectual activity
, seem seized by somnolent lapgor." H.
: then quotes Goethe, and adduces him 81
testifylng "that all those times, wherein
y faith dominated. "no matter under wha
+ aspect, were splendid times, sublime anC
= fruitful for contemporaries and posterlty
9 And the other hand those periods
}, during which incIedulty, under whatever
form, could boast of some paltry triumph
although for u moment they might have
! been surrounded by ephemeral splendor
i yet vanished without the regret of pusteri-
ty, because no one cares to remember wha
, is altogether sterile of good results" 4
: people which seeks not God has no ideal
: 'save cynical epicurism, aud practica
Il scepticsm." Its youth frequent SCHOOL
9 and universities, not to seek the divine
i light aud the select joys of science and o
thought, but to find means to satisfy in
etincts and passions which degrade men Il
those sensual and material brute enjoy
y ments, which form ''the positive of life
: The visible and the sensible are not tn,
d ideal or the true. without the mysteries
Q aud the consciousness of religion man ha
= neither intellect nor knowledge, for hG
u lacks that which would raise him above
. the level of beast. ." The mystica
4 localities of religion form the death of tn,
) sensual, of the apparent, and of the letter
which killeth, but form the fount and lif.
), of the infinite, of thought, and of the spiri
which quickeneth. 1t is only through