The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-01-09

towns before they were attacked, as
is usually done in warfare. 2. Are
they sure Of protection at this time,
and are they assured by the Mexican
government that such a terrible per-
secution will not take place again?
/. 1t is almost impossible to get
any true account of what is happen
ing in Mexico, because of the con-
spiraey of silence that is kept up by
the American press. Independent wit
nesses, however, tell us that the series
of internecine conflicts that goes by
the name of the Mexican civil war, is
not conducted according to any known
rules of warfare. There is no respect
for non-combatants as a rule. The
best that is done is to give just one
hours notice to depart; but this of
course is not enough. Even in places
where no resistance whatever was
offered to the bands of ruffians that
held the towns, the same outrages
were committed; and then when they
had glutted their passions, they babe
their victims depart. OF course, the
priests and nuns and other non-com-
batants were entitled to stay in their
homes and the bandits had no right
to Danish them any more than they
had any right to outrage them before
hunting them away. 2. Nobody is
sure Of protection in Mexico now.
There is no such thing as a Mexican
government. There are about q dozen
warning factions, whose leaders spend
whatever time is on their hands after
outraging religion and morality in
calling one another every name they
can think Of. Villa, CarranZa, Villa
real and the rest of them have no
idea what government or civilization
means. They fight among themselves
about everything except just one and
on that they are all agreed, namely,
that the Catholic religion must be
blotted out. AS you are aware, they
have the open backing Of their own
kind in this country, and the more
respectable section OF the press must
bear a share of the responsibility for
encouraging them, both by silence
about their deliberate policy of crime
and outrage, and by actually holding
up the very worst of the ruffians to
our admiration as patriots" and ire
formers" A ''reformer," according to
some Americans and some American
newspapers, is one who attacks the
Catholic Church, no matter what he
wants to put in its place, or even if
he aims, as the Mexican patriots
and "reformers" actually and avoWed-
ly aim, to establish Atheism.
Why is it that the Protestant peo-
pie seem to think that the priests
don't want the Catholic Iaity to read
the Bible?
They think this because it is taught
10 many of them as part of their re-
ligion. They cannot, or will not, see
the difference between reading the
Bible with due submission to the au-
thority of the Church, into whose
charge the Bible was committed by
our Lord, and reading it, as they want
Catholics to do, for the express pur-
pose of rebelling against that author
ity and finding excuses for rebellion.
The founders of the three or four hun
dred sects that call themselves Protes-
tant, first found difficulty in some
Christian doctrine, or got into their
heads queer notions of their own; they
then searched in the Bible for texts
that might seem to support their own
novel opinions. They then persuaded
their followers that those novelties
really came out of the Bible. In time
the Church pointed out the error and
condemned it. 1t was easy to persu-
ade the deluded followers of the
founders of the sects, that the Church
in condemning their misinterpretation
of the Bible, was Condemning the Bible
itself. But the principal reason for
the persistence of this calumny
against the Church, is to be found in
the fact that non-Catholics will not
consider that the Church is bound tc
protect the Bible from the treatment
which has produced the swarm Of sects
which scandaliZe the heather anG
make the infidels sneer at the Chris
tan name: and they will not bear in
mind that the Church must guard hel
children from the fate of the deludeG
multitudes who hear so little of any
kind of Christian or Bible teaching in
their churches nowadays. Hence they
misunderstood the attitude Of the
Church. Then, too, there are many
itinerant lecturers who do not care {
row of pins for the Bible, but who
see q chance of making money BY
pandering to the ignorant prejudice:
of nom Catholics by repeating the stale
old calumnies which helped to estab
lish Professionalism in the beginning
and which form principal part o
what is called religious instruction
by many of the sects today. Bene
dict XIV was not a month on the papa
throne before he advised the Catholics
of Italy and, through them, of tn,
whole world, to spend part of eacl
day reading the Gospels. 1t woult
take a forty-two centimetre Howitze
to drive that one notable fact int
some heads; the steel fertilization
of Liege and Namur were soft com
pared with the prejudices that SOM
people imbibe against the Churcl
from their infancy. 1t remains tha
we keep hammering away; the fact
will sink in, in the long run, ever
though the campaign of calumny b
continued as vigorously as ever.