The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1913-09-12
ARCHBISHOP IRELAND'S ANSWER.

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ARCHBISHOP IRELAND'S ANSWER. "
Editor Marc Atkinson in the Crosby Crucible
has timely editorial on the revival of religious
fanaticism in the last few years which has had for
it's target the Roman Catholic church. It lays the
blame at the door of publications such as the
notorious Menace, narrow-minded clergymen and
laymen Of opposite creeds who have charged the
Catholic church with every crime in the catalogue
from high treason down to pernicious activity in
city and village politics.
The country has had such spasmodic waves Of
unreasonng prejudice BEFORE but if it is true that
it is now experiencing one it is safe to say that it
will be short-lived. Broad-minded men are more
common now than they were decade or century
ago. The great majority of those who think
grant every man the right to his religious belief.
You cannot convince them that the Easements of
Catholic churches are filled with firearms, that
Catholics drill in secret in the dead hours of the
night, that they are preparing to make shambles
of the homes Of their neghbors or anything of the
kind-and for the best reason in the world-they
know better.
The churches of this country every one, are
the bulwark of civilization, they are the refin-
ing influence that makes society what it is and
they are entitled to the fine measure of respect
and reverence which they receive. The Catholic
church is not the least of these. We may honestly
differ on doctrines on creeds and on dogmas, but
the time is remote indeed when those differences
will ever result in any such dire consequences as
some Of our fanatical friends would have US be-
lieve are impending. Ignorance is not confined
to any church or to any creed It is at the bottom
Of all such movements and ignorance cannot long
endure in the enlightened twentieth century. That
is why anti Catholic societies have never progress
sed far and why they will not attain greater sue
cess in the future. Archbishop Ireland has writ
ten book that every man, regardless of his relig-
ious belief, should read. 1t is 'The Faith of Our
Fathers" Cardinal Gibbons has written another
"Catholic Faith and Practice" that every man
should read-and read impartially. They will
go far, to dispel some highly erroneous impress
sions of the Catholic church which have been
handed down to us for generations the relic of
another day and another age, when men did not
have the opportunity for enlightenment that is
theirs today.
Covering these questions Archbishop Ireland
one of our grandest Americans in recent speech
at Milwaukee said:
of Rome is ambitious of temporal rule over Ameri-
ca, of planting here the yellow and white instead
OF the Star Spangled Banner; that priests and
bishops are active agents in his yearnings that
Catholics dream of the day when his command in
civil and political matters will sway the White
House and the capitol; that to this intent assoc-
atoms are nightly befitting themselves, by san
culinary oaths and secret drilling Of arms to murd-
er their fellow citizens, and, in the name of a
foreign potentate, take forcible possession of the
land OF the brave and the home of the free T
aude to such wild lucubrations of diseased brains
only to ask in unanswered wonderment how such
follies can be thought out and acted on, even by
handful of men, in the twentieth century in
America. But, Of course, the insane are ever with
US, and all the insane are not put into safe-keep-
ing"