The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-11
FATHER DONAHUE WRITES OPEN
 LETTER TO BOARD OF EDUCATION

"The young lady in question will breath more freely and if just a bit wise will perhaps pray for greater Ju diciousness and self-control In her lee lures on Catholicism in general and Iindulgences in particular To Miss IaalMour the decision will at least be source of surprise. The whole matter had narrowed itself to a question of personal verac1ty and 1t must oe edi- flying to the public to find the schol- astic gentlemen of the board So coolly dAtding against her.
 If the denial of Miss Sutherland has been confirmed so completely and so satisfyingly to the minds. of the board, why are they still worrying about the interpretation of history? Why this explicit warning to Miss Sutherland to confine herself relig- iously to her text books? If Miss Suth- erlanI Is so perfectly perfect and so | correctly correct as @ teacher, why dispatch warnings to her to hence { forth avoid all religious features ] which occur in her branch of study? l r hy? Why? But then, I suppose, when I look for consistency and logic | in the opponents of our faith I am ex- pecting too much!
 ! Tt may sound like irony, but may state pubhcly that the Catholic church may fear some things, but hia- tory is not one of them She dreads eternally narrowness of mind ignor- anoe and bigotry. Cardinal Newman, who was bred in the Protestant faith and lived in it's Hfe for A years was one to say that Protestants dared not read history We have no objection to the use of any fair text book and furthermore we invite the fullest study of history, but we insist that the teacher in these days of libraries and encyclopedias gather her information 1 in regard to the Catholic church from | the proper sources.
 i Tn regard to the old skeleton of ! the middle ages, or the dark ages, it | Is sad as well as numerous to note l that Bridgeport has made the discov- l cry that they were hopelessly lost to i culture. May I quote Gilbert Ches- l terton, who was born so far after the dark ages as to be as modern as the 1 local school board?
 T take in order the next instance offered: the idea that Christianity belongs to the Dark Ages. Here I did not satisfy myself with reading modern generalization; I read little history. And in history I found that 1 Christianity, so far from belonging to the Dark Ages, was the one path across the Dark Ages that was not dark. It was a shining bridge con meeting two shining civilizations. If 1 any one says that the faith arose in itrv,rN is simple: 1t didn't. It arose in the 1 Mediterranean civilization ia the full summer of the Roman Bmpfre. The world was swarming with sceptics i and p&Etheism was as plain as the sun, when Constantine nailed the cross to the mast It is perfectly true that afterwards the ship sank; but it is far more extraordinary that the ship came up again: repainted and glittering, with the cross still at the top. This is the amazing thing the religion did: 1t turned a sunken ship into a submarine. Ire ark lived under the load of waters; after being buried under the debris of dynasties and clans, we arose and remembered Rome. If our faith had been a mere fad of the fading em- pire, fad would have followed fad in the twilight, and if the civilization ever re-emerged (and many such have never re-emerged) 1t would have been under some new barbaric . flag. But the Christian Church was the last life of the old society and was also the first life of the new. She took the people who were forgetting
 how to make an arch and she taught them to invent the Gothic arch. In a word, thee most absurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have all heard said of it.
 How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages The Church was the only
 thing that ever brought us out oi
 them
 Another of the ghosts of the Dark Ages that seems to haunt the local educators is the religious fact of in- du1gences in the Church. May I in vite Miss Sutherland, or the learned members of the Board, to publicly give their notions of Catholic induI- gences? In case my invitation is accepted I feel quite certain thai their notions will be erroneous. and that the smallest child in St. Angus
 tines school will be able to correct their errors. It might be necessary
 however, to say that indulgences IT the middle ages were not "the pur- chase money of heaven" and that II
 the twentieth century they are not even clerical tickets to Eternity.
 l My purpose I feel in this instance will be plain to all fair minded and truly educated auditors. I am simply giving warning to those for whom 1t is necessary. In the Twentieth Cen tury we intend to apologize to no one for the faith that is in us. We will
 never quarrel with others who do not love Catholicism, sbut we shall insis
 that when they talk publicly of it they g will know whereof they speak. | might appear elevating, if not exact
 ly necessary, to conclude this letter with a quotation from another popu 1 lar author who finds great deal O.
 light in the supposedly Dark Ages:
 Have you ever noticed, says Belloc that all the Catholic church does i! g thought beautiful and lovable untl r she comes out into the open, and theI suddenly she is found by her enemies
 (which are the seven capital sins, an( the four since calling to heaven fo r vengeance) to be hateful and grind e ing? So 1t is; and it is the fine iron.
 of her present renovation that hos
 who were for ever belauding her pic g lures. and her saints, and her arch