The Irish standard., 1904-08-27

those who insist that authority shall
come from the people, and who by the
logic of circumstances can find their
hopes in nothing but Social Democ-
r1lcy. One may welcome or deplore
! the fact of this coming concentration
about the Roman Catholic church on
/ the one side and the Social Democracy
on the other, but no one can deny that
this concentration is inevitable; and
the future struggle will have to be
fought out between these two armies.
To those, therefore, who are interest
ed in the social movement of Europe
we say: Observe above all else, If
you wish to consider only the essential
factors, the political activities of the
Roman Catholic church and those of
international Socialism,
The mistake in these two declara-
lions is that the Catholic church is
held to be an enemy. She is not. She
will conquer, but conquer as friend.
Under these wild demands she detects
many glimmer of truth and many a
just cause for complaint, while she
also sees unfortunately bound up and
mingled with them many outrageou
and destructive errors which can only
bring disaster ON their adherents. To
eliminate the evil and secure the good
is her only purpose. She is not I'M
prepared for the fight; she expects it.
She may be beaten at first, but she
will ultimately triumph. She has had
the experience before.
To the doctrine of the divinity of
human nature she replies: Human
nature is divine, not, however, in be-
ing part Of the God-head, but in the
resemblance with God by the fulfil
ment Of the moral law, which is a
reflex Oh mans mind of the eternal
laws Of justice that are written in the
mind of God. The higher assimila-
lions to the Divinity by adoption and
tiliation only Catholic can under.
stand, but they are nobler and more
sublime than any pantheistic Socialist
ever dreamed of.
10 the clamor for International
Brotherhood she makes answer: II
alone can give it to you. My very
name Catholic implies that, but it will
be an Internationalism which will not
destroy the nations, but fortify them,
not obliterate patriotism, but make it
more acute and self-sacrifcing; not de-
grade human nature, but lift it up and
glorify it. The Black international, as
you call me, will not do as the Red
International, which typifies and
breaches blood and carnage. The
Black international is appareled in
deed in the garments of sorrow, but it
is sorrow for the sins Of mankind; it
is symbolical of it's own sufferings and
| Affections which must be undergone,
but through which alone happiness
and peace are to be won for humanity.
The destruction Of the marriage ties
she will never permit. She will fight
for it's indissolubility though the
world should seem to go to pieces
about her, knowing by the divine light
that is in her as we'll as by her two
thousand years of worldly trial that
upon the stability of the family and
the dignity Of woman depends the
safety Of the nations.
She will not countenance the right
of revolution, if only for the reason
that she has too often seen that these
popular upheavals are planned mostly
for the political ambition of individ-
uals, and that the people are invaria-
bly, the sufferers.
She makes light of the accusation
that she has been always the ally Of
kings and princes. She has been
when they reigned with Justice; but
most of her sorrows has come to her
for withstanding them when they
wrought iniquity. She alone dares to
reprove, and threaten and condemn the
rich and powerful.
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
She pays no heed to the calumny
that she favors the rich. Her distinc-
tive trait, as well as her glory, is that
she is the church of the poor. She
has covered the world with her insti-
buttons of benevolence, and she has
never ceased her care for the orphan,
the sick, the abandoned, the fallen, the
| ignorant, the outcast and the criminal
wherever they could be found, in the
hospitals, in the orphanages, in the
slums, in the prisons, and even on the
scaffold, and her claim was never so
much in evidence as to-day when the
Socialist government of France drives
out from their country 100000 ad-
mittedly blameless men and women
whose only purpose in life was to de-
vote themselves to the suffering men,
bers of humanity.
On what lines does the church pro-
pose to proceed? On the old lines.
1. BY teaching, by intoxicating, and
almost by compelling, through the in.
strumentality of her pulpits, her
schools and her confessionals, rever-
ence for God, obedience to divine and
human law, and love for humanity.