The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-29
Catholic ThOught And Opinion
By REV. JOSEPH F. DONNELLY

Moscow the army report comes from the icy plains Of NnSslAs The weAn. ons are falling from the hands oi our soldlers," In the same Castle Of Eontalnbleau where he had made the Pope his prisoner Napoleon signs his abdlcatlon.
 POOR PROPHETS
 Looking back we see the Nevolu. tloneries of lUsO solAlns the pApal States hoping that by destroying the temporal power of the church they
 might better attack her spiritual power. They too fail.
 We see Bismarck in Germany, The church is In his way and she must be cNrbed. Her bishops arc exiled, the teaching orierS are bon. lshed, civil marriages become obllRa. tory but the faithful rally to the support of the church and the great Bismarck asks terms of Leo XIII.
 THE UNLEARNED LESSON
 Tn the year of sos Dlocletlan struck a medal inscribed, sTn mem. ory of vanished Christianity. T But the mighty Diocletian died and the Church of Christ still lives, In the year of l7si Voltalre cried out Tn thirty years the 0allilean will be dead" Exactly thirty years later voltaire and his hate died and the love of Christ stun lives. Tn 1904 Combes said: ~Give me three months and will finish with Christ" Tn three months Combes and his hate were dead but the love of Christ still lives.
 Despite the lesson written large in history the world has never learned that to prosecute the church is to give her greater glory, that to persecute the church is to give her new life and vigor, that love is stronger than hate. To her perse. cutors in the twentieth century the church can say: "Remember Nero and Domitian and Caligula. Re- member Napoleon and 0aribaldi and Bismarck"
 The day is in the future where the symbols of the dictators now ar. rogantly covering half of the earth will be remembered because they served as gibhets upon which the Church of Christ was crucitted for time, and from which when she should have died the church arose to win another of her strange vis- tories Today the church suffers, But today as always the church sui. fers only to rise to greater glory. THE PROMISED FULFILLED
 It will ever be thus. On the night before He died Our Blessed Lord promised hatred and persecution to His church. Looking down the long corridor of time he said to His faithful few whom He had gathered about Him for a last time: "rf the world hates you know you that it has hated Me before you, If they have persecuted Me they will persecute you also. But all these things they will do to you for My names sake" The church is the representative of the chaste, humble and charitable Christ, She is ever, must be ever, in the way of lust, greed. injustice and hatred,
 Amid the thunderous crashes Of the present only the faint-hearted fear for the church. When this barque of Peter was launched twenty centuries ago Our Lord promised to be with it until the end of time. Throughout those stormy twenty centuries mountainous seas have crashed against it and threatened to submerge, it but through the seq of the centuries 1t has sailed on stately and majestic in calm and in storm. Rocks have loomed up sud. denly before 1t and it was only the high courage of the helmsman strengthen by the poor prayers of his people these and a guiding power more than human have saved it from destruction.
 Today the helmsman has a strong hand, he has the prayers of his people, and God Is with His church.