The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1901-11-02
.BEEFSTEAk CATHOLICS. The 5es,;
The g ShOneenS" Who
SCandalize Everybody.

ly Catholics try to be smart and semi
atheistic to win an approving smile
which they are astonished to find is
withheld. 1t is to be found in tile home
of the really bad Catholics. and in the
home of the mixed marriage. The wife
who marrieS a Protestant will some
times plead that she has an excuse to
ignore her religious obligations. But
there is none. Her husband has married
her as a Catholic, and only in extreme
cases does he endeavor to make her
lax in her religious duties. Even agnos-
tics prefer a religious wife, if only for
the sake of the children who, in after
life, reflect their mother. The excuse
sometimes advanced by the Catholic
wife for her laXity is the trouble of
preparing two sets of meals on Fri
day-one for her husband and one for
herself and. children. So out of moth
ing more than laziness she sits down
to meat and offers her children the
worst possible example. How can she
expect her little ones to grow up good
Catholics if they see her every week
violating one of the ordinances that at
school and in church they have con-
stantly impressed upon them? If the
mother is prepared to take the church
so lightly, the children will come to re-
gard their religion in the same way,
and from eating meat on Friday will
soon leave off attending mass. Some
times ill-health is pleaded. but they
do not trouble to get the dispensation
any priest will readily grant if the case
is genuine.
Very rarely has the meat-eating
Catholic the shadow of an excuse.
Usually the habit is begotten of either
Indifference, Iaziness or shoneenism. 1t
is the thin end of the wedge which
opens the way TO the worst results.
Complete neglect of Church duty very
easily follows, and the breaking of any
or several of the commandments be-
comes a very easy thing. Once Cath
Ole becomes Indifferent to, or
breaks away from his faith,
his complete spiritual ruin be-
comes only matter of time.
Yet, perhaps, the majority of the meat
eating Catholics do not imagine they
are running any such danger. So alb
sorbed in things of the world are they
that, losing sight of the spiritual as
pect of the case, they backslide with
the hope of gaining the most frivolous
Of material advantages. Some want to
get on in society; others do not desire
to put their hosts to a momentary in
convenience; others, again, will not
deny their appetites, and yet another
finds it too great a task to fry piece
of fish for themselves. while they grill
a steak for their Protestant husbands.
In every case meat-eating on Fridays
is the outcome of moral cowardice, and
in every case, too, the man is unworthy
OF the sacrifice, even if it were at
tanned, which is very rare. One can
generally exclaim. at the sight OF a
Catholic eating meat on Friday:
Here is a shoneen,' creature upon
whom no one can rely, for he is be-
traying for the sake of his stomach or
moral cowardice. not only a.
sa cred law of the Church, but a prin-
ciple which Catholics all over the world,
in all stages of life and under every
have honored through
out the ages. DR.. Johnson said a man
who would make a pun would pick a
pocket, and while many are disposed to
regard punning as an amiable weak
ness. it is certainly true that all classes
and creeds in every country look with
suspicion on the Catholic who puts
his appetite above a religious prin-
ciple.
And the most despicable of all Friday
is the Irishman, or the son
or daughter of Irish parents. For
the dark ages of persecution
and privation to which no other race
was subjected, our forefathers pre-
ferred death with honor to the tempt
ing dishes ofthe souper. How contempt
ible. therefore, are their degenerate
sons who so disgrace their creed and
nationality in a land of luxury!