The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-11-16

w.
gress held last year in Madrid.
The ROSARY AND THE TURK
Victories Gained Through the Aid of
the Blessed Virgin-Need of Prayer
Now.
This is the third time in sixty years
that our Eastern brethren have found
themselves arrayed in their own de-
fence against the Turkish tyranny,
said the Reverend Canon Barry in a
recent sermon. The Battle of Lepan-
to was fought and won by a Catholic
expedition towards the evening of
October Z, 1871. 1t was the victory of
the Holy Rosary, and it shattered for
all time the power of the Ottomans at
sea. To whom, under God, was it due?
AS we all know, to the Dominican
Friar, st. Plus ", who united in his
alliance Spain and Venice, gave his
blessing to the fleet, ordered prayers
for it's success in Rome, and beheld
from a window in his Vatican palace
the triumphant attack on the Turkish
navy at the moment when it was TAX
ing place in Greek waters, hundreds
of miles away. He announced the
event to his attendants and gave the
signal for thanksgiving long before
the news could arrive in Rome.
It is on those mountain shores
washed by the Adriatic and Ionian
waves that the conflict has brok-
en- out once more between Moslem
and Christian. Even while speak
news is coming in of defeats, sure to
end in massacre, sustained by the
hapless Albanians-many of them
Catholics like ourselves at the hands
of these furious Paynim. Outrages in
Macedonia have long been the order
of the day. Christian Europe, as of
old, obeys political and worldly mo-
tives on which the Turkish Govern
ment speculates with confidence, even
the Austrians and Hungarians sup
porting an Infamous power because
they dread the advance of Russia upon
Constantinople. Yet we may be sure
that the Crescent is waning, the Cross
growing brighter, in that Eastern sky.
For the Christian people are multiply
ing, while the Islamite is dying off.
In all that makes for prosperity the
down trodden races are learning their
lesson. When we mark their steady
progress from the slaves they were
some hundred years ago we cannot
but rejoice with full heart Children
now born may live to see the last
days of the Turk in Europe. He has
| felt himself driven step by step back
wards from the Danube to the Bal
kans, from the Balkans to the Golden
Horn. IL compelled to grant Home
Rule under Christian governors in
Macedonia and in Old Servia, well he
| knows that his possession there is
at an end. The Turk can always fight;
he has never understood how to man
age subject people save by terror
and cruelty. Of civilized order, of
science, of economics, he has simply
no conception. It is owing to the
jealousies of the great Christian Pow
ers-in which, unhappily, France led
the way four hundred years ago, when
Francis I allied himself with the COM
mon enemy-that Palestine, Syria and
all Western Asia have lain PROSTATE
during centuries under this blighting
dominion. And those Powers may
still prolong the agony of Eastern
Christians for their own selfish pur-
poses. But they cannot stop the move
ment of history.
AS for us Catholics, our duty is
clear. These races, now menaced
from Constantinop1e, once Our Lady's
consecrated city, stand in the
hottest. forefront of battle, which they
could escape if they would only NUT
ter the three short words, "Moham-
med, prophet of Allah" whereby the
Mussulman is created: They will not
do it. Neither would their heroic
suffering ancestors. There was for
many years all over the West col
lection annually made i'm the churches
to ransom from Moorish slavery those
whom the corsairs took and sold at
Tangier or Fee in the public market.
We do not need such collections now.
But we do need to pray, and to in
fluence opinion wherever it is possible,
on behalf of these, our brethren. To
pray fervently, to think actively, and
to watch lest this British Government
should be led to make the mistake
into which it has fallen once and
again, Of defending the Turk while
permitting him to trample under foot,
to outrage and to murder, populations
marked so deeply with the Sign of
the Cross. If they show the tokens
Of an age-long servitude, let us bear
In mind w. e. Gladstone's pathetic
figure, which should be their apology;
they are the storm-assailed beach and
shore OF Christendom on which the
Mohammedan surges have rolled for