The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-03-11
WAVE OF HATRED.

WAVE OF HATRED.
The appalling wave of hatred
against the Catholic Church has
been gaining in strength and in
lmpetuosity during the past four
or five years. Seventy-five years
ago the Know Nothings and kin
dred organizations vented their
venom on the Church by public,
concerted and violent demOnstra-
lions. In the east religious riots
were common and frequent. The
chief causes of these outbursts,
however-hatred of Catholic i'm
migrants and distrust Of their
growing power in the political
field-have long since become
practically extinct, but the Church
like her Divine Spouse stands ever
before the world a public rebrke
to the RIGHTEOUSNESS and loose
morals Of the world. The Cath
ohc Church by her teachings, by
her doctrines, by her Sacramento,
by her Saints and by her prelates
is ever a standing condemnation
OF the ways Of the world. God
and Mammon, God and Moluch,
are ever at variance. Mammon
and Moluch can not destroy God ;
hence they exert themselves to the
utmost to impair Gods kingdom
on earth. The citadel will remain
intact "even to the consulmmation
OF the world" but the outer for
tlfications are ever subject to con-
tlnuous assault on the part Of the
baffled fiends from without. Here
and there an outpost may be wiped
out, but the fallen sentinel is i'm
mediately replaced.
During the past few years the
warfare has been Of different
character. Instead Of violent out
bursts intended to stir up the null
tltude as a whole and to ravage
and destroy, the enemies of the
Church have adopted new tactics.
Filthy and envenomed minds have
taken possession Of the Augean
stables of envenomed and filthy
publications. The poisoned and
pestilential vapors that arise from
these cess-pools Of iniquity find
grateful and ready lodging in
minds imbecile by nature or weak
ened by a steady diet from I'M
savory quarters.
The psychological effect Of this
steady dripping of immoral poison
into diseased minds is to evoke in
such minds mental images that are
distorted, and that would be gro
tesque were it not that contem-
plation of such hideous images
frequently leads to an effort to
cause them to materialize.
In the decade that has elapsed
we have witnessed the spectacle
OF Catholic priests shot down in
cold blood, attacked with poison
and with knife: Catholic Churches
looted and fired; Catholic prelates
threatened and menaced; whilst
the climax of these orgies is reach
ed in the bloody and lecherous de-
bacle that has been going on Just
across our southern border, and
that has indirectly, at least, been
sanctioned by our present spine
less national administration.
The priest whose thread Of life
was so suddenly snapped last Sat-
urday night by the bullet Of
weak-minded creature is the latest
testimony to the hatred that actu-
ates those whose mental pabulum
is derived from sources under the
direct control of Satan himself.
The enemies of God thought
they had destroyed the Church of
God in the first three centuries.
Bollmgbroke and Weishaupt and
VOltaire sang the funeral dirge of
the Church less than two centuries
ago. Proudhon then, and lola
and Carducci more recently have
used their pop-gun artillery
against the impregnable rock
which is Peter. Every sentinel
who is dropped in his tracks is
but proof of the hatred Of God s
enemies and of their enraged i'm
potence to harm the Church her
self.
1t were useless to hope for free
dom from all persecution, for that
is the heritage left us by Christ.
May the day soon dawn, however,
when such heinous and unnatural
attacks as this recent one will be
blotted from the annals of modern
civilization.