The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-01-03

-ANii7t ely SIiplOySu 10 W6an the neart
from faith. and morals, and, therefore,
! no time when the faith and fidelity of
Catholics were more severely taxed,
than in this age of ours Our first wish.
| therefore, at the beginning of the New
Year, to all those who come within or
reach, is a faithful attachnent to
! mother Church, and urge an unswerv-
ing fidelity to, and an unrelenting zeal
for, the faith and cause she champions.
There is nothing which the cream
stances of the times demand more
urgently
There is striking, if not terrible,
similarity between the circumstances
of the close and opening of the nine
teenth and twentieth centuries and
those of the close and opening of the
eighteenth and nineteenth, which is
evident to every student of history. At
the latter period the infidels and liber-
| ais of every country, but especially of
France, united to form a league for the
destruction of both spiritual and tenn
poral authority. Knowing the influence
Of the Catholic church in maintaining
divine institution, all their nefarious
designs were upon her-she was first
to be destroyed, cost what it might
Voltaire, the leader of the infidels, ex-
horted without ceasins: Labor in the
vineyard, destroy the Catholic church"
To accomplish this they welded the
press, published books without number,
in 1xrl1f ,,I
everything that is venerable and sacred
to Christians, denied the divinity of
Christ, extolled vice as virtue, and
placed the happiness of man in the
qualification of carnal lust. These hell
ish writings were widely circulated,
and, as may well be imagined, caused
a great deal of mischief. The revolu-
ton broke out in France and upset all
the order which existed both in church
and state. The kings throne was de-
stroyed and all practice of the Christian
religion ceased; the churches We're pro-
famed, the affairs demolished, the pic
lures of saints defaced, the priests and
all those who did not deny their faith
were put to death; even the king and
queen ended their life by the guillotine
France was no longer permitted to be-
lieve in a God; a lewd woman was
placed upon the altar and adored as
the goddess of reason.
Things wear similar aspect in our
days, if we except, perhaps, their glar-
ing indecency. How great is the num-
Der of unbelievers today who assert
that there is no God, that the soul is
mortal, that man is nothing but a ra-
tional animal, and that all things end
with DEATH How many there are who
reject all revealed religion, who deny
the divinity of Christ and believe only
what they can comprehend with their
weak reason, obscured by many pas
sions! These hate the Catholic church
land not only these, but protesting
Christians have been taught from their
very infancy to hate the Catholic
church and everything Catholic-what
Christianity ?)-and would prefer to see
her destroyed today rather than to-
morrow. The weapons they use in
their wars against the church are the
same as those employed in the eight
zenith century-falsehood and calumny
and cunning and, where these fail,
brute force. Who can number the false
hoods and calumnies which irreligious
and infidel papers propagate against
the church, her doctrines, ministers and
No matter how frequent !
ly these lies and calumnies are refuted, |
as many new ones arise, for the enc
mics of our faith act according to the |
maxim: Throw plenty Of mud, some I
will stick They endeavor to with |
draw the school from the influence of |
the church in order to demoralize it /
and to cause the rising generation to
grow up in unbelief. The same they in
tend to do with the Christian family;
the ecclesiastical blessing of the be
-rothed is to be rendered unnecessary
and discarded for the civil marriage,
and thus parents with their children
are to be estranged from the church
md led into infidelity.
In order to weaken Catholic life, these
enemies desire all confraternities and
societies to be dissolved, and
every public manifestation of religion
o be abrogated. If circumstances de-
nand it, they have recourse first to
cunning, then to threats and finally to
,rute force in order to execute their
atanic projects the more effectively
n some countries, as in France, China
md the Philippines, our enemies have
ilready resorted to open violence,
PRIESTS and religions are banished or
killed, the people deprived of their
hurches and Ianguish in spiritual
anime from want of pastors to dis
reethinkers would everywhere enact
he same scenes of they had the power,
or their design is the destruction and
xtirpation of the Catholic church. and
When she is once removed, the rest of
falls easily.
1t is true the Catholic faith can never
,erish, for Christ has promised that
the gates of hell shall never prevail
gainst it," but the individual Cath
lie has not this assurance; he may
ose his faith and become a prey to
nbelief. The enemies of the church
ave already succeeded in injecting
umberless Catholics with their per- ;
icious maXims and in causing them,
not to fall from, at least to waver
n, their faith. IN large cities, where
he enemies of the faith find a par
icularly fertile soil, there are numbers
f freethinkers and men who have
o more faith than the pagans of old,
nd whose destructive influence is
felt; and, as a natural
in almost every congre-