The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-11-24
THE ITCH FOR CONCESSIONS

fault on both sides" And the editor
of that day smiled wanly as he cor
rected the spelling and dropped the
into an asbestesace copy
box. Prominent Catholics have not
changed IA great deal since that primi-
tive period They are diseased, and the
disease is described very accurately
by the great Dominican historian
Denifie, in his Luther and Luther
DOM: "They have" he writes, "the
itch for concessions.
Think With the Church.
| suppose the same truth may be-
expressed in Ignatian language by
saying that these people have never
really learned to think with the
Church Critical of the Church, they
are very tender of heresy. They do
not like fast days Tin this | too am d
prominent Catholic'') or beads, or
popular devotions. They pass by the
humility of the Little Sisters of the
Poor and the heroic Sisters of the
Good Shepherd, to aid associations
which, while they may directly oppose
the work of the Church, are fashion
able They see no reason why
some smooth professor, ignorant for
all his degree and university chair,
may not attack the Church and the
things dearest to Catholic hearts;
, that is freedom of thought and
speech; besides it is done with such
excellent grace; but the Catholic
apologist who answers the fool ac-
cording to his folly is 'ill-bred." Be-
cause Catholic magazine refuses to
play fast and loose with the canons
of common-sense and with the Sixth
and Eighth Commandments, they con-
slider it narrow" 'propagandist.' SO
| unlike the doddering Inlook, and the
subsidized New Democracy, which, in
4 deed, it is Their children il they
1 have any, never. see the inside of a.
Catholic school, which is "unrefined,"
/ but pass, poor creatures, from ungod-
/ ly establishments designed for the
entertainment of the nouveau richie to
the fashionable college, in which inn
morality is no concern of the authori-
ties, and indifference to all religion is
held to be the "open mind" without
which progress is impossible. They
favor mixed marriages for social and
| financial reasons; they smile on di-
vorce and tolerate polygamy. Their
names are on the list of no Catholic
society, but they probably make an
annual donation to the Y. M. G. a.,
which some of them declare ito be-
Iorganized and instituted through the
linterposition of Divine Providence" a
statement true only in the sense that
God can turn all evils to the adj
Vantage of the good. They patronize
the clergy when they do not, by in
4 direction, calumniate them, and fly for
cover at the first onslaught against
the Church. They mind earthly
things as st. Paul says. and what
they seek is peace; not that peace
which the world cannot give,' but
very decidedly, the peace which the
world processes to give. ITO gain
I substantial practical advantages,
writes Denif1e, in the preface to the
second edition of his great work on
Luther, sor to strengthen civic peace
between Catholics and Protestants, Oh
on other grounds, certain trend
(class) cannot resist the temptation
, at least to weaken, If not to give up
p Catholic principles, and to bridge oyei
II the gap, dogmatic and historical
which must necessarily separate the
\ Catholic Church from Lutherdom.
and from every heresy.
; fflnnsinnes : Z