The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-12-24
People Easily Swayed.

apathetic for all things outside her own
| field. or family hearthstone If it moves
| at all it Is at the call of the loudest
| voice, in response to the liveliest agita-
| tion-and the loudest and the liveliest are
| the professional agitators, or the self-in-
terest officials. There is no other country
| where a we'll organized and stirring frac-
ton of the population can sway so easily
the masses and impose upon them it's
will.
| The clergy, who are the chief suffer-
| ers, are much to blame. They, too, have
| retained, even at the altar and in the pull
pit, the spirit of passive obedience inher-
| tied from old regimes. Admirable in
teaching the catechism. in administering
| the sacramento have never learned
the virtues Of public life, they have never
quickened beneath the activities of the
| battlefield. Their example and their
preaching have left their disciples in the
| same passivity-and these know nothing
of the public defense of principles; saints
before the altar, they are towards before
| the electoral urn. N
Then, French Catholics have been un-
| fortunate in many of their leaders and
| spokesman. These remain dreamers of
! the past partizans of buried political re-
| gimes. If the masses Of the people have
learned any one thing. it is this-that
France is a republic, that they are re-
publicans. But the monarchists are nu-
merous, chiefly the old nobility, the most
generous patrons of religion, and too
many of the clergy who still read their
politics in Bossuet and Massillon, who
| judge the republican form of government
| by the Jacobine republic of contemporary
| France. Here is the weakness of the
Catholics of France-the infidel, the So
cialist, who solicits votes, cries out-the
republic is in peril; no republican must
| III Is F0,, i-k
| that monarchist be otherwise the best
and the purest of men; and the masses
vote for the infidel. or the socialist, in Or
der that the republic survive, trusting to
| the republic to do in the long run what is
most servceable for France and even for
religion itself. The evil goes farther.
There is an infdel or a socialist candi-
| date, and opposed to him a. republican,
moderate, conservative, who clings to a
peaceful, even religious France. But he
! is republican,. monarchists, generally
well-known Catholics, put up a candidate
of their own the king must not be for
gotten; if no kings live, scores of them
have lived, and fidelity to them is the
duty of the hour. What happens? The
moderate republican is defeated; the in
! fdel or socialist is elected. This is what
is witnessed in numerous circumscriptions
on every election day. No one understood
France better than Leo XIII. He babe
all Catholics seek the welfare of country
and of church within the ranks of loyal
adherents to the republic. Had Leo been
| listened to, France in all probability
would have escaped the religious persecu-
| ton Of the present day. Monarchial ideas
and plottings have done dreadful injury
to the church in France.
Lesson to France.
WE'LL lesson has been read to the
Catholics Of France to the whole people
| of France. We pray that they heed it..
Were it only on the merest social and
civic grounds Frenchmen should see that
Justice be done to the church. Else, there
never will be. peace In France, and with
out peace within her borders, there will
be no strength to guard those borders
from outside foe. There are in neighbor-
ing nations those who rejoice over relig-
| ious war in France; they see in it the
| weakening of all her forces; they see
| beyond it the possibilities Of inglorious
defeat. and even of dismemberment. No,
it is not possible that the peril to which
the nation is exposed will not stir up
| Warmest patriotism, and will not wrench
from all parties the cry-France must be
saved; peace must be returned to her.
And, then, the French people, always
as a. people, bound by their deepest heart
strings to the Catholic church-now
made to see that her very life is in issue
will rise in their might and declare the
church must live and prosper.
The pope and the bishops were right
In remitting the whole question to the
| people of France
The war may not cease in day; time
Is needed to still passion and dispel
prejudice. But the moment will come
when all will be we'll The church can
never be uprooted from the soil of
France; the attempt was often before
made; it always failed. From every battle
the church arose brighter, purer, more
enlightened-and in the victory of the
church France saw her own victory. We
will pray for France and for the church
and in a special manner we will pray for
Plus x, the leader Of the forces of relig-
ion, that wisdom, and fortitude be ever
given to him, that with his own eyes he
see the triumph Of religion in that land,
which, let us believe, will always be the
eldest daughter of the church