The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-08-23
A PERIOD OF TROUBLE.
In Very Few Lands Can the Church
Be Said to Be Enjoying Peace.
lLondon CathOIic MINES

CLondon Catholic Ttmes.l
1t would be hard to find in history a
period of trouble exactly parallel 10
that through which the church is pass
ing today In very few lands can we
say that she is enjoying peace. Here
at home she is face to face with a sit
uation extremely perilous for her
schools. which, when all is said, are the
gates of the sanctuary. What the gov
ernment which Mr. Balfour directs as
prime minister may ultimately make OF
its education bill not even prophets
can foretel.
Abroad the outlook is yet more omi-
nous. France still rejoicing in her
somewhat threadbare title of Eldest
Daughter of the church, presents a
spectacle to make the angels weep. Not
content with having driven forth into
foreign lands a host of monks and
nuns, whose only crime was that of
teaching the ignorant and helping the
afflicted, she is now busily engaged in
destroying Catholic schools, and there
by forcing hundreds of thousands of
Catholic children into the institutions
managed by the state. She is, to put
the matter quite frankly, doing
her utmost to dechristionize the peo-
pie. And so terribly handcuffed are the
protests they can do nothing to avert
the evil which they see gathering like
a storm-cloud above their heads. Men
who SOW the wind must reap the whirl-
wind. Nor is the outlook pleasant IN
countries near France. In Spain the
clergy are preparing for an attack by
the radicals on the religions orders, and
for a measure of cOnfiscatiOn likely to
be extended to themselves. In Italy
the laity are ither so apathetic or so
little used to individual initiative that
well-ment efforts to advance the Chris
tian democratic propaganda produce
small result, and the out-and-out So
cialist party increases in strength and
confidence by leaps and bounds. AUS
tria is disturbed by an anti-Catholic
movement which has the momentum of
a political interest, and Poland is
threatened with a determined effort on
the part of Prussia to Protestantize its
Catholic people. In the Philippine
islands. long the unquestioned home of
Catholic missionary success, a conflict
is impending which may prove disas-
trOus to the faith of the simple-minded
natives. Since its conquest of those
islands, the United States has found
itself impelled, in virtue of its own con-
stitutiOn, 10 make numerous changes
in the regulations tolerated or estab-
lished by Spain. The schools are to be
made communal. that is, practically
secular. The friars are TO be turned
out of the missions and it requires not
a moments thought to understand how
grievously their absence viii affect the
continuance, to say nothing of the pro-
gress, Of Catholicism among the ma
tives whom they have converted.
The occupant of st. Peters chair has
indeed at this moment to bear the bur
den of his august Office. While bound
to strive for the protection of all rights
and privileges justly appertaining to
the church of which he is the head, he
must at the same time recognize the
limitations which political necessities
impose upon those with whom he is to
treat. Hence there arise difficulties in
his way which are commonly misun-
derstood by the general newspaper
press, and not unfrequently misappre-
hended even by Catholics. The one de-
mands why he should not give way,
and do just what he is asked, as in the
negotiations at present going on in ref
erence to the settlement of affairs in the
Philippines; the others wonder that he
gives way at all, and are tempted 10
think that he might intervene, say in
France, with some effect. But neither
secular newspaper nor Catholic critic
knows the exact nature of the difficult
ties which beset the holy see. Trou-
bled at home. harassed abroad, the
pope must view the situations as they
come before him, not singly, but in
their relations to the whole church. On
his shoulder the difficulties rest, and
TO his judgment the decisions of each
one of them are entrusted. His chill
dren will humbly accept his solutions
as final and authoritative, convinced
that they are the wisest, all things con-
sidered And they will, while they
sympathize with the troubles that af-
hict him in his extreme old age, not
fail to breathe a prayer for strengthen
ing and consoling grace.