The Irish standard., 1903-02-21
FROTHINGS OF A FANATIC.

In Il local weekly contemporary we
find Il lot of rubbish about the Catho-
lie Church from Il correspondent at
Spirit Lake, Alinn., Il little place of
fifty inhabitants in Otter Tail county.
Why such trash should be published
conSpicuOuSly, or at ALL in the columns
of Il reputable paper is Il matter of
HstOnSllment, for the editors thereof
cannot be justly accused of antipathy
to the Catholic Church. We assume
that the stuff had been printed before
they ever knew the nature of it. The
writer betr1ys profound ignorance
of his subject and tlippantly repeats
what has been rcfuted thousands of
times. He accuses the Catholic
Church of carrying on Il gigantic con-
spiracy for the overthrow of the
American republic and says:
You have but to look about you to
know how this plan is being carried
forward. You see our national capital
w
ion, orders and schools. Look ut the
large families of your Catholic neigh
bors, and then recall the fact that in
France. whose people belong to the
same church that your prolific neigh
bors do, the birth and death rate are
nearly equal. Read the number
100000 of immigrants landed on our
shores in 1902; ana note the fact that
Il large portion of these people come
from southern Europe, and are ignor-
ant and servilc tools of the most cN-
tensive political organization the world
has ever known. Now. if you know
that each one of these Catholic immi-
grants, and each Catholic in this coun-
try, is by his priest instructed to raise
all the children that he possibly can,
you will then understand that Rome,
no longer able to conquer by the
sword, hopes to conquer by the sim
pie process of out-brecding."
That is an awful conspiracy, indeed,
and no wonder the poor fellow is
alarmed What Il terrible plot it is
for the priests to tell the ignorant i'm
migrants from southern Europe to
III Use all the children they can in order
to destroy the Yankee nation! And it
looks as if President Roosevelt was in
league with them, for he wants healthy
people to get married and raise large
families like himself. President Eliot,
too. is not satisfied with the small
families among college graduates, and
thinks educated people hardly repro
duce themselves. But the man from
Spirit Lake sees other things in the
Catholic Church that stagger him. He
says: "rhere are some things about
the Catholic Church that l can not
understand Why are bcsOtted priests
permitted to hold up and rob poor
working girls under the pretense that
the prayers of these bcsOtted priests
can lessen the pangs of a soul in pur-
gatory? Why is it that a man enter
ing the priesthood may roll in wealth;
but woman entering the service of
the church must sacrifice her prop
erty and labor without reward? Why
is it that the 18th amendment to the
United States constitution does not
reach nun in convent. where. if
she decides to leave and escapes to
marry the man she loves. she is arrest
ed like some runaway slave and drag
ged back to the life that has become
a bondage? Why should the people
of northern Europe give allegiance to
the Italian church in which they are
not treated fairly and in which they
can never hope to reach. what the
humblest dago may aspire to. the
highest Office in the gift of the
church?"
The poor fellow really thinks he has
asked very hard questions. He cannot
understand these things. and he ap-
parently does not want to be enlight-
ened. Bigotry is a concomitant of ig-