The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-28
Conversations fc
Our Club 3 By Srsst SH. IT,


poor within her fold, las Father John
pointed out in the discourse published
last week. 1t was to the poor and
lowly that our Lord chiefly addressed
Himself While on earth and from their
ranks were for the most part drawn the
apostles and disciples of His time into
whose hands He committed the welfare
of the church and of the world The
wealthy are too fond of compromise
with the world in which they live and
lack of virile force which makes men
true soldiers of the cross. The Catholic
! church is the church of all, but especi-
/ ally the church of the meek and lowly.
| This week Father John analyses the
condition of affairs existing in Europe.
Conversion V. (Continued)
I'm all Catholic Countries added Die
fenbach, you find a similar class, and
more influential for evil than they are
| here. They have no Catholic public
spirit. In their way they are often
very pious, very devout; they make
many novenas ARE seen in every pro-
cession, observe punctiliously all the
/ precepts of the church touching feasts
| and abstinence; but they are imbecile
and cOwardly when called upon to take
an active part in defense of their re-
| ligion, or in the promotion of Catholic
|
ing political and social influences in
France, with almost her entire popu-
lation, nominally Catholic, are nOtori-
! ously and scandalously anti-C Catholic.
! In Sardinia, where the whole body of
the people, with a few individual eX-
| ceptions, are Catholic, or profess to be
| Catholic, and are and will be nothing
else the Catholic electors want the
spirit, the energy, the life, to use the
| freedom the constitution gives them to
get possession of the government, and
prevent it from being administered in
a sense hostile to religion. In Belgium
the Catholic majority permit the anti
Catholic minority to outvote them, and
a Catholic minister of state, frightened
| by a few street brawls. throws UP, in
| great trepidation, the seals of office and
/ suffers the administration to pass into
the hands of the bitterest enemies OF
his church,
But you forget" said De Bonneville
that our Lord said the children of this
world are wiser in their generation
! than the children of light"
Il know" replied Diefenbach, that
he said so, and that it is So but l do
not know that he approved it. He COM
mended the unjust steward for his
worldly prudence I do not recollect
that he commended the children of light
! light for their lack of prudence. What
he said he said to rebuke, not to COM
mend them: for when he sent forth his
disciples he told them that he sent
them forth as lambs among wolves, and
! they must be as wise as serpents and
as simple as doves. 1 know no reaon
why Catholics should neglect the wis
dom of the serpent any more than the
simplicity of the dove"
Il will not deny" interrupted Father
John, that it is hard to restrain ones
| Indignation at the weakness and timid-
| ity of Catholics in Europe, who, in
their contests with revolutionists dur
ing the last seventy years or more,
have failed to prove themselves in the
stronger qualities of our nature
| match for their opponents From Lu-
Their down, they have allowed them
selves to be beaten, subdued and en-
shaved by minorities. They seem not
to have learned that there are times
when active courage is as pleasing to
God as passive courage; when it is as
much the duty of the Catholic to stand
up and fight manfully for his religion
as it is to kneel down and pray. But
attribute the tirnidity, cowardice and
shameful surrender of Catholic inter-
ests, which so frequently excite our
Indignation, to the fact that the people
since Luther's time have been in lead
ing strings, and have been accustomed
to rely on authority to defend them and
their religion and have formed no hab-
its of self-reliance. Whether rich or
poor, learned or unlearned, they have
never felt that the defense of Catholic
rights and interests depends on them,
or that they, as the laity, have any
responsibility in the case. They have
counted on the questions that came up
being settled by negotiation beween the
civil authorities, and have taken no
further thouble about them. They,
therefore, have never acquired those
habits of vigilance and self help which
we find so strong in the Catholics in
the east, in Ireland, and, to a great
extent, in the United States.
THE great body of the Catholic pop
ulation have rarely been sufficiently in
structed in their religion. L do not
mean that the bishops and clergy have
neglected to teach them the decalogue,
the sacraments, and the precepts of
the church; but they have not generally
been taught with any thoroughness
Christian faith and morals in their re-
lation to the prevalent errors and here
sizes of the time. The laity need in our
times far more thorough instruction
in the faith and its relations than they
have ever hitherto received. They
need, in addition to the usual instruc-
tions in Christian doctrine and morals,
to be taught the bearings of faith on
the peculiar errors and tendencies of
the age, and especially to be made ae-
quainted with those points of faith,
and those decisions of the church.
which condemn them and strengthen
us to resist them. They need full in
struction in relation to the supremacy
of the spiritual order in face of the
temporal, the essential papal constitu-
ton of the church, and the absolute ne
cessity of the Catholic faith to saliva
ton, for these are three points on
which Catholics in our day are strong
ly tempted to mutilate, conceal or eX-
plain away Catholic truth. The whole
body of the faithful need, also. to be
instructed, that the day when they
could rely on princes or civil govern
ments to protect the faith, any further
than its protection is involved in the
protection of the rights of the citizens
and the preservation of the peace, has
gone by. There are no longer any
Catholic states. The prince, as such,
has thrown off the Christian law, and
fallen back on the law of nature, and
holds by the same title as held the
old pagan emperors of Rome. The
church is almost everywhere virtual
ly if not formally, separated from the
state, and has, and can have only, her
own freedom and independence as
spiritual kingdom in regard to her own
subjects. Catholic interests have now
to be defended. sustained, or promited.
in their relations with the temporal
order, by Catholics in their quality of
citizens, not in their quality of Catho-
lies, far less by the negotiations of the
1if y
the temporal sovereign. Hence, the
aanrIa the laitv 2 G well q G the clarou