The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-05-11
DEFENDS CONFESSIONAL.
Protestant Professors Answer to {
Charge Made by NJ. .CIemenceau.

Il notice says Professor Charles c.
Starbuck, the Protestant theologian
who writes for the Sacred Heart Re
view, that the Congregationalist pre-
sents portrait of the present prime
minister of France with the inscription,
NJ. Clemenceau. the resolute opponent
of the DaDacy'
This is interesting. But it would be
far more interesting if the Congrega-
! tionalist would present us with the por-
trait Of his noble father, the Devil,
as it seems that NJ. Clemenceau is ac-
cusomed to call him Without dispar-
aging the eminenCe of the son. the edi-
tors will allow that it sinks into moth
! ingness before the immemorial and
worldwide celebrity of the father. If
the CongrcgationaliSt could only secure
an indisputably authentic delineation
of the elder member of the family
which is now in charge of the govern
ment of France, il would have such
run as mortal journal never had before.
However. I wonder that when the
/ Congregationalist begins it does not
also make an end NJ Clemenceau is
much more than an opponent of the
papacY. He is resOlute opponent of
The whole Catholic religion. of the whole
Christian religion. or religion alto
gether.
M Clemenceau has always been
self-consistent Twenty-Five years ago.
we know he detailed 10 the Grand
| Orient-which has the chief control of
his fathers affairs in France and Of
his own and of the Pandemonian fam
lily eenerally-his scheme for suppress
ing the Catholic church
First, he says legislation should be
secured forbiddins confession, as some
thing which cOrruDtS youth
True. Froude himself attributes the
superior Nirtuousness of Catholic Ire
/ land over the northern province TO the
priesthood exercising influence. OF
course, chiefly through the pulpit. the
catechism class and the confessional.
True, Thackeray, whom no one will
accuse OF Catholic tone, says the
same, emphasizing the confessional.
True. Sir Aubrey de We're, father of
the poet. became a Catholic because he
found the young Irish peasants with
whom he wrestled and ran chaste. and
the young Irish Protestant gentlemen
whom he met in the drawing room UNI
chaste.
True Reran, brought up with
priests and for a priest. declares that
he has never found any influences pro-
ceeding from the priesthood but influ-
ences of goodness. and that he does
iOI KNOW Dl any experiences OF MS own
what a bad priest is.
True, George Sand. an advanced un-
believer. says of the priest-instructed
nuns who brought her up that these
ladies eXemplified everything that is
beautiful in religion
True, Father Hyacinthe notwith-
standing his religious break with them.
used to send his son to the neighboring
Jesuit school, doubtless because. as
Matthew Arnold reports after eXamina-
ton, he had found that the Jesuit
schools were fully equal to the govern
ment schools intellectually and greatly
superior to them morally. which goes
far TO explain government animositv
against the schools of that order and
of all orders.
True. Pere Hyacinthe has written to
me Indignantly denying the foul charge
against the confessional put into his
mouth by Shiniquy. and slavishly
echoed by Lansing. True. in falling out
with his friend the old Catholic arch
bishop of Utrecht. who insisted on re-
curing confession. he has nothing to
say against the confessional in itself
or against the eminent morality of the
Dutch Old Catholics who strictly OBJ
serve the Roman discipline concerning
the sacrament of renance.
True. Llorente. by overwhelming
statistics, found in his History of the
InqUisition. has pulverized into ridicu-
lous impotence Limroch's abominable
accusation against the Spanish confess
sional an accusation which he says.
has no truth, even if confined to bad
priests.
LAS to New England. Colonel Higgin-
son. we know the soul of dispa ssionate
accuracy, remarks that the Irish Cath
Ollie immigration has distinctly raised
the standard of chastity, the very point
especially attacked by The foul
mouthed and foul-minded demagogues
who go about like The devil before
them. seeking what mischief they can
&c in rending society to pieces. Who of
us has any more hesitancy in commit
ting his young children to the care of
an Irish than of New England girl?
The present writer's childhood was
largely passed under the care of the
Irish and in the neighborhood of Ameri-
can Catholic women-the latter nieces
of a bishop-and he need not say that
he never heard from the most careless
of them a breathing that could faint
the mind of a child
THE two most perfect domestics of
whom I know, aunt and niece, both of
them now for many years in the service
of a kinswOman of mine. maintain their
excellence. in my cousins judgment.
chiefly by steady attendance at mass.
by steady attendance at the sodality,
except when Christian charity keeps
them at home with their aged mistress
and by weekly resort to confession. like
the pope himself.
Beyond the Deep.