The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1911-09-30
only RELIGION
GAN BRING PEACE
Discussion of the Causes of War
and its Horrors not an Effect
i've Preventive.
Peace Will Never Come, Says Arch
bishop O'Connell, While Christ's
Message is Ignored.
What the World Needs is not Bonn
bastic Intellectualism but
Wholesome Faith.

Archbishop O'Connell has just re-
turned from an extended visit in Eu-
rope where, among other places, he
visited the Peace Palace OF The
Hague. The spectacle of grand pal
ace bearing such an attractive name
awakened a train of thought in the
archbishop's mind which is given i'll
an interview as follows:
II saw the palace of peace, which
is building in The Hague, and which
| believe is the gift of Mr.. Carnegie.
No doubt it will be magnificent
structure. No doubt, too, there will
be great many conferences and
gatherings under it's roof. No doubt
also the horrors of war will be dis
cussed and the causes of internation-
al conflicts analyzed and learnedly
dissected.
"But it is just as probable that
international peace will come from
such discussions and conferences as
it is that the corpse on the dissect-
ing table will come to life.
"The world had no need to wait
for the goth century Of the Peace
Palace at The Hague to know about
the causes oil war or the horrors
that follow in it's train. What the
world needs is not a knowledge. of
all these things.
81 went to the palace in The
Hague where the first peace confer
ence gathered at the invitation Of
the Emperor of Russia. AS l looked
about the room in which the repre-
sentatives of the Great Powers had
assembled ! reflected that they had
precisely excluded the one universal
moral power, the only one capable
of really understanding the true
causes of International discord and
of Offering the only efficient remedy
for it all, the Father of Christen-
dom, the Vicar of Christ, and l in
stantly recalled that in few brief
months after the conference had
made it's spectacular entrance and
exit thousands upon thousands OF
Russian soldiers lay dead upon the
fields of the Farthest East and the
Emperor Of Russia had other
thoughts to occupy him besides those
OF scientific inquiries and scholastic
theories about war and it's conse-
quences.
ooh! peace palaces, no matter
how beautiful they are, will never
make peace no more than the crum-
bling monasteries from which the
Real Presence has fed will bring
back to Germany the happiness and
the peace of Westphalia and the
provinces of the Rhine.
Governments may make laws,
but it is only religion than can pro-
tect even governments; and while
in the university and the school and
the palace of peace and the congress
of nations Christ's message to man is
ignored, men may teach and discuss
and dissect and analyze social evils,
but they will never heal them. The
world has had enough of Intellectual
and bombastic intellectualism, which
strives to reduce the sentiments of the
human heart to a science. What it
needs is the simple, wholesome faith
of the happy Westphalian peasant.
"What is it, after all, that has kept
the faith flourishing in Western Ger
many? What is it that has kept out
the cankerworm that has eaten the
heart out of other parts OF the same
country? 1t is the strong spirit of
Catholic organization. The great con-
:. crosses of Mainz and Cologne, which
have taught the people, not specula-
tive nonsense about wars and social
ills, but which have shrilled their
hearts with impulses of faith and love
and hope and true fraternity.
THAT is just what I expect Fedora
tion to do right here among us, and
with Gods lelp it will.
Church CoIIapses.