The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-12-26
PASTORAL LETTER.

The approach of the great feast of Christmas,
concentrating the birth of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ and the sacred union of the Second
Person Of the Adorable Trinity with our humanity,
impels me to invoke upon those subject to my
charge the blessing Of God the peace of the Lord
and the happiness of elect souls. From my Utmost
heart / invoke upon all the blessing called down
by the High Priest. Aaron on the tribes of Israel
The Lord bless you and keep you in his care;
the Lord show His face to you and have mercy on
you;
"The Lord show His countenance to you and
give you peace'-Num. 1926.
| deem it to be my duty in these perilous times
when so many around US ''have made shipwreck of
the faith" and fulfilling the will of the flesh and
not of God are walking after their own lusts
and pleasures" to encourage you in the language
of St Paul to Timothy, Hold fast the form of
sound words which you have heard from me in
faith and in love which is IN Jesus Christ"
We are living in a century and in a land from
which apostolic Christianity is disappearing, and
where. outside the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ
and the Word Of God are not preached in
the temples of worship. St. Paul, in his Epistle
to the Corinthians and in his pastoral letters,
makes it abundantly clear that the pulpit through
all ages should stand for Christ and Him cruel
fed" Christ is preached writes St Paul to
the PHILIPPIANS. land therein do | rejoice" ''We
preach not ourselves he again exclaims, "but
Christ Jesus "And daily in the temple and in
every house." writes St. Luke. "they (the disci-
ples) ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ"
Acts V, A. Il charge thee" writes the aged apos-
tie to his spiritual son. Timothy, Il charge thee
before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the
living and the dead. by his coming and his king
DOM preach the. word be instant in season and out
Of season. reprove rebuke exhort with all patience
and doctrine For the time will come when they
viii not bear sound doctrine; but according TO
their own desires they viii heap to themselves
teachers after their own lusts."
This prophetic language Of the apostle to the
Genties bears forcibly on conditions as they exist
today, on the impotence Of the multitude with
sound doctrine and on the deplorable attitude of
the pulpit in the presence of eminent danger. ST.
Paul reminds Timothy, and through him the
church, that time viii come-it is here now
when men viii listen only to such teaching and
accept such doctrine as please themseves-doc-
trines that will not oppose their individual opil-
ions nor condemn their sins, threaten punish
ment in the life beyond the grave.
If we apply the language Of st. Paul to con
ditions as they are today in the religious and moral
life around us we do that life no injustice. 1t
certainly is doing any violence to the state of
religious thought and the pitiabe departure of the
non-Catholic pulpit from sound teaching, to say
that both conditions are actually described by the
apostle in the letter he wrote to the Bishop of
Ephesus. Indeed, if be were writing from any of
our own life eenters he would not need to change
sentence.
The pulpit Of modern heresy is today perverted
into secular platform and from it the divinity
Of Jesus Christ, DEATH Judgment and eternal pun
ishment for shameful sin and crime are no longer
taught For the doctrines of Christianity and
the. supreme revelations of God to our race the
modern pulpit is feeding its hearers Gu diet of
pure secularism and sensationalism.
And that we may not be charged with unfair
ness or Misrepresentation, submit the titles of
so-called sermons delivered from the pulpits of
sectarian churches. and recorded in our Monday
morning newspapers from time to time The