The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-01-13
CBY REV. T. T. BURKED


For some years the Catholic church
in. America has taken a prominent
stand upon two matters which may at
first appear to have but little in COM
mon. These two matters are her work
in the cause of total abstinence and
her preaching of Catholic doctrine to
those not in her fold. In all parts of
our land where nOn-Catholic mission
work has been ATTEMPTED it has met
| with success, greater or less. Not only
| those personally engaged in the work,
| but all Catholics who love religion,
must feel that any good action which
/ may tend TO further such a noble IN
dertaking as the conversion of America
to the Catholic faith, deserves most Sc
! riouS consideration.
Now, to some who have been labor
| ing among non-Catholics it has become
[ evident that the practice and preach
/ ing of total abstinence are most inftu-
/ entail factors to the furtEerance of
/ nOn-CaIthOlfc mission work. And this
, for two reasons. In the first place the
cause of total abstinence, as defended
| by the church, presents her to the
minds of men in a plain, public way,
as she is always, the defender of Chris
tfan morality. In the second place,
| through the powerful influence which
her stand upon any moral question ex-
eT'tS upon the social body, she helps, by
her preaching of total abstinence, to re-
move one of the most serious obstacles
to religious thinking, and thus more
efficiently to prepare the way for the
acceptance of all Catholic truth.
He who would today blind himself to
the existence of the drink evil in our
land and to the necessity of adopting
some stringent measures to abolish it,
is untrue to the best interests of his
country and of religion. He who would
hesitate to see in intemperance an evil
which has an intimate bearing, in it's
unseernly power, upon social, political
and religious life. at the best confesses
his ignorance of existing facts. Let
him study the reports of police courts,
and the records will compel him to ad-
nit that the majority of crimes take
their root in intemDerance. Let him
honestly consult medical statistics, and
he must confess that no other vice has
laid to its charge so many fatal dis
eases. Let him know, as lately was
acknowledged by the head of an in
sane asylum in which wereS-2600 in
mates, that over one-third of the mad
ness in our land is caused by drink. and
his reason will force him to oppose the
veil with all his power. Let him go
down to the lower depths of life and
witness the awful misery of children
and of mothers; let him behold the
poverty and the inhuman Indebtedness
that drink by it's magic centuries up:
let him come as close to all this as for
example, the Catholic priest must come,
and if there be spark of love for
man within his heart, it will set him
on fire in his efforts to put down the
evil.
These facts are sufficient to applaud
the EFFORTS which result from the prac-
tice of total abstinence; but if any are
looking for another motive. they can
md II in the assistance which this prac-
tlVeS gives to the spread of Catholic I
truth. The best outside of the church /
have recognized hte evil of drink: and. |
II must be confessed, have at times |
done far more to oppose it than Cath /
ol1cS themselves. Perhaps. they have, /
not intrequently, made mistakes in the /
methods of their opposition, but such /
MISTAKES can be easily forgiven and
easily rectified. One of these mistakes
has BEEN their failure to distinguish
between the Catholic church and the
personal faults of some of her MEM
oers. By their fruits you shall know
them, they say. And then, judging by
the EVes of some had Catholics they
conclude that the church is +
responsible. Drawing conclusions from
ZONE unfortunate instances which have |
come to their notice, they have not hes
tated alt times to point ito the Catholic
;hurch, the church which we love- AZ
% the supporter Of tine liquor traffic
turtherm9re, seeing some who lead
drunken lives, they have asked them
selves and others; How can that
,nurch be the true Church of Jesus
christ? We can, indeed, distinguish