The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1898-05-07
RECOMMENDATION FROM THE
CHURCH IS DISCUSSED.
TESTIMONY OF A PROTESTANT WRITER,
POPEs WE'RE NOTED FOR THEIR
MODERATION OF SPEECH.
A NUMBER OF CASES ARE REVIEWED.
Plus VII. AND THE FIRST NAPOLEON
OF FRANCE.

The unique spectacle of Protestant
divine refuting, one after another, vii
lainous calumnies against the Catholic
church continues to be presented In the
columns Of the Sacred Heart Review, tho
writer being Professor Charles G. STAR
buck. In a recent article the learned pro-
fessor says:
"As we know, there Is found In Iris
tram Shandy' string OF imprecations,
given as the Roman Catholic form of eX-
communication. They begin with the
hair Of the head and proceed successfully
down through all the members of the
body, invoking curse upon each, as also
| upon every function and activity of body
! and soul. The whole disgusting thing is
SO utterly allen to the use of the Roman
Sec that almost all Roman Catholic
clcrgymen, even those OF eminent schol-
| arship, suppose nothing else but that it
was invented by Lawrence Sterne out of
| his own head. However, some OF the
| learned professors of the Brighton Cath
that 1t is an amplincntion OF an actual
| formula used In some barbarious country
and barburous time by some barbarous
priest. Stcrne has retouclled 1t, and out
of his own hnmurous indecency has per-
| haps given 1t some additional obsccn-
tiles.
| Some GO years ago the bishop OF Phla-
delphia eXcommunicatcd priest named
| Hogan. Forthwith some Jealous Protest.
| ant hearing the word decentralization
| pricked up his ears, got out his "'Tristram
Shandy" and published Lawrence
| Stcrno's string Of curses as the form Of
the sentence used. If it caught the bisll-
ops eye, he doubtless published a denial,
but how much good would that do, above
+, ALL in Philadelphia, the city that WAS
soon to distinguish itself by numbering
Catholics and burning their homes and
churches? remember reading the
curses, perhaps so years ago with the
undoubting faith of childhood, as TIL,
authentic way in which Rome puts pco-
pie out of the church.
In some other barharo,s country and
barbarous time another formula was
more or less in use, less obscene than the
former, but even more feroclous. One of
| tho two somebody has compounded for
Mr.. Lansings use q form which he as
sures us is that used by Plus IN against
Victor Emmanuel when the latter entered
the states of the church. Would II do
any good TO him or his to refutc this?
Good? Let us remember what Holy
Writ says about those whom we may
bray in q mortar with u pcstlo among
wheat and frutlessly. In reality Plus TX
never eXcommunicated Victor Emmanuel
at all. At the time of the invasion /
read the sentence in full, and as pointed
out in Johnsons Cyclopcdia, it is not
properly Papal sentence even of minor
cxcommunicatfon 1t mentions no
names; 1t gives no directions as from the
POpe's free will; it pronounces no for
feit1re Of membership in the church. 1t
| u SLtlUulllH
law Of the church (from which the Pope
finds no call To deparD that those who
despoil the church OF her possessions in
cur thereby privation of the sacraments,
except in extrcmis, lapsing again under
prlvation should they recover. Call it
accommodation or what you will it is
in fact almost precisely equivalent to
what we In Protestatism call a sentence
of suspension, having this in it's favor,
| however, that whereas with lls the
church must act afrcsh before even
dying person can be restored, here every
confcssor can at his discretion absolvc
any dangerously sick pcnitcnt whatever,
who, if he dies, goes hence free OF all
ecclesiastical ccnsure.
! This sentence and no other Gf it can
be called scntencc) was pronounced
against Victor Emmanuel not by name,
hut inclusivcly. He. too, died ahsolved
and cOmfortcd by AN affcctionatc message
from the Pope who loved him and whom
he loved Destiny set the two men in
public hostility, but neither Of them was
capable Of a malignant act or word
against the other.
1t is curious study to make out in
what sort of world such men as the Rev.
Isaac J. Lansing live. They are members
of civilized society; If not cultivated in
themselves, in any true sense, they at
least have cultivated associatcs-they
read the current literature Of the day.
Yet here he is found, capable of suppos-
ing that in courteous Italy, in the midst
Of cultivated Europe, in 1866 or there
abouts, that refined Italian noblcmon,
Count John Mastai, was capable in war
or peace of hurling out against a great
Italian king, his own personal friend a
string Of filthy imprecations unknown 10
the Roman chancery Of the rudest ages,
such as it is wholly improbable that oven
John XII was capable of pronouncing.
And we are to suppose that civilized
s,e i1 fla -, i. "a sss5s3