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Are You One Who Believes Any
of These Charges.
TINDER this headline a Romanist booklet,
which is being widely circulated, prints
a list of “these charges.’’
They are as follows:
That the Catholic church is a menace to Amer
ican institutions?
That the Catholic church seeks to destroy our
public schools?
That the Catholic church refuses to recognize
the marriages of Protestants as valid?
That the- Catholic church forbids her people
to read the Bible?
That Catholics adore or pray to images and
statues?
That the Catholic people owe temporal alle
giance to the pope?
That the Catholic hierarchy or the priesthood
dictates the politics of Catholics?
That Catholic sisters are other than the purest
women?
That young ladies are ever forced into the
sisterhoods, or kept there against their wills?
IF SO, THEN YOU HAVE BEEN TAKEN IN.
Let us calmly take up each of these charges
and see whether you have been taken in.
(1) That the Roman Catholic church is a
menace to American Institutions.
So great,a statesman as Sir Robert Peel
declared, in substance, that England would
be forced into another struggle with Rome,
if English liberties were to be preserved.
So great a thinker and moralist as Thomas
Carlyle, wrote one of his most powerful essays
to the same effect.
So great a historian as Fronde maintained
a like'position, and so did William Ewart
Gladstone.
Our American Institutions being derived
from England and our liberties reaching back
to the Great Charter, which was cursed and
annulled by Pope Innocent the Great, you
readily perceive that, if you have been taken
in, you enjoy the best of company.
Among the illustrious Americans who have
believed that the Roman Catholic church is
a menace to our Institutions, were James
Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel F. B.
Morse—Father of the Telegraph—Dr. Theo
dore Dwight. Dr. Josiah Strong, and Bishop
Hopkins, not to mention scores of others.
Why did Sir Robert Peel. James A. Froude,
and W. E. Gladstone consider the Roman
church the greatest menace to English
liberties?
Because THE ZJJF of the Roman Catholic
church forbids and punishes free speech, free
press, free conscience, free investigation, self
government by the people, the supremacy of
the State, and the free exercise of religious
worship. *
In his book on the Vatican Decrees of 1870,
Mr. Gladstone demonstrates that the English
Catholic is a man of di elded alley lance, and
therefore a citizen whose loyalty cannot be
depended on.
The Irish Catholics are demonstrating that
fact, right now.
They are citizens of Great Britain, repre
sented in Parliament, and enjoying the fullest
rights of Englishmen, but they hearken to
their priests who preach treason to them,
telling them not to enlist and fight for the
empire, ofwhich they are an honored and
favored part.-
This treason of Catholic Ireland is the chief
source of England's weakness in the Euro
pean War.
Dr. Josiah Strong devotes to this same
view of the Roman menace a. considerable por
tion of his book, “Our Country.”
With a clearness which makes it plain, and
a force which makes it unanswerable. Dr.
Strong shows that a Roman Catholic, obedi
ent to the pope and to papal law, cannot be
a loyal American citizen.
Any church whose members are placed in
|hat position of divided, loyalty, is a menace
THE JEFFERSONIAN
to Democratic principles and popular institu
tions e very where. '
t’bpe Leo XIII. in his “Great Encyclical
letters"—which you can buy, as I did, from
the Benziger Brothers, New York City—says
officially to American Catholics:
“It is unlawful to demand, to defend, or
to grant unconditional freedom of thought,
speech, writing, or worship."
This is but a repition of the Syllabus (or
short codification) of 1864, wherein Pope
Pius IX. set forth the unchangeable laws of
this foreign church.
How can you fail to recognize the dan
gerous character of a church, whose funda
mental laws seek to paralyze your brain,
bridle your tongue, control your pen. and
deny you the right to worship God according
to the dictates of your own conscience?
Furthermore, Pope Leo XIII. officially re
asserted the Roman Catholic doctrine, that,
“If the laws of the State are at variance with
the divine law (as codified by the pope) it is
a positive duty of Catholics to resist: to obey
is a crime.’’
Such a principle, held by 15.000.000 Ro
manists. in a country whose laws and institu
tions are so irreconcileable with the Code of
Rome, is the germ of civil war.
(2) That the Catholic church seeks to de
stroy our public schools.’’
The proof is to be found in the Code of
Roman Catholic law, wherein it is stated
that the Catholic church, not the State, shall
control education.
It would be tedious and useless to quote the
voluminous evidence accessible to all. That
evidence includes the sayings of the Popes,
the Cardinals, the Theologians, the Publicists,
and the high-priests.
Cardinal Gibbons gave out a press inter
view several years ago, in which he denounced
our public schools as one of the most dan
gerous developments of our modern de
generacy.
He did not mention the Barroom nor the
Demon rum. nor even the Red-light district,
and the White Slave traffic; but he catalogued
Divorce, and Public Schools as twin Devils,
although he has had nothing to say about the
Catholic divorces in the family of the rich
Drexels of Philadelphia and the rich Crokers,
of New York.
The priests will not allow Catholic parents
to send their children to the public schools,
but they crowd these public schools with every
Catholic teacher they can get a place for:
and if the Protestants reject a Catholic
teacher, saying she has no business in the
public school, the priests roar like bulls of
Bashan, all the way from Florida to Canada.
If the public school is fit for the Catholic
teacher, why isn't it fit for the Catholic
pupil?
(3) “That the Catholic church refuses to
recognize the marriage of Protestants as
valid."
The proof of that is to be found in the
decrees of the Council of Trent. (1545-1569.)
Every pope since that time has maintained
the same position. Pope Pius IX. re-pro
claimed it. in 1872 and 3, in his official Dis
courses.
You can secure the book, in Italian, by
ordering from the Benziger Brothers. New
Ybrk.
These D iscorsi Pio Nona are included in a
series of volumes, and the set will cost you $lB.
Pope Pius said that Protestant marriage
is no marriage at all, but “filthy concubinage"’
legalized by the State.
Thus the Roman church not only arraigns
the Protestants, but also the State, for it
makes the State a guilty party to the crime
of “filthy concubinage.”
(4) ’‘That the Catholic church forbids her
people to read the Bible.”
The proof of that, also, goes back to the
Council of Trent, although I could carry it
much farther, if necessary.
Catholics have been murdered by the
Church, for having a Catholic Bible in the
house. Others have been subjected to awful
punishment for reading the Book, not under
the instruction of a priest.
The Catholic. William Tyndale, was mur
dered by the Roman church, because he turned
the Latin of the Bible into English, so that
the church’s “people" could read it.
The Catholic. John Wycliffe, was cruelly
persecuted for the same crime against the
church, and he owed his life to the powerful
protection of John of Gaunt, son of King
Edward 111.
But what better proof could you want than,
the Introductory notice In the Catholic Bible
itself?
The Douay translation fronr-the Latin Vul
gate. is the official Catholic Bible.
I have two beautiful copies, one dated 1855,
and the other. 1860.
In both these copies there is a translation
of the Decree of the Council of Trent, wherein
“The Catholic church forbids her people* to
read the Bible."
“Her people" are admonished that they
must not read even the Douay version, except
by permission of a priest, and under his
direction.
Therefore. if you have been taken in. on
this subject, you can lay the blame upon the
Catholic Bible.
(5) “That Catholics adore, or pray to
images and statues.”
What better evidence can we produce than
that of our own eyes? Don't we see them
at it ? Are not their images made in the
same shops that manufacture the idols of the
Hindoos?
Ask any traveler that has been to Spain,
Italy. Austria, or South America.
Ask any American who has been to Mexico.
(Consult Dr. Eager’s up-to-date book. ••Ro
manism in Its Home.")
(6) “That the Catholic people owe tem
poral allegiance to the pope.”
This point is fully covered in my discussion
of the first.
Pope Leo XIII. says in his Encyclical
Letters:
"Civil Society must obey his (the pope’s)
power and authority."
Civil society means the State, as distin
guished from the church, and the pope’s clain
to rule civil society is a claim to the •’ter
poral allegiance" of "the Catholic people."
(See p. 150. Encyclicals, Leo XIII.)
This pope further announces the histo
policy and doctrine of Rome, that "It is t
duty of all Catholics to bring back all ch
society to the pattern of Christianity which
we (the pope) have described."
Consequently, we see the Knights of Co
lumbus waging war upon free speech, even
to bloodshed, in Chicago, in Patterson, in
Newark, in Haverhill, in Philadelphia, and
in Marshall. Texas.
We see the Knights of Columbus endeav
oring to bring about the union of Church ami
State, by securing State support for church
schools and charities, and by the establish
ment of courts of law which sentence boys
and girls to church institutions.
We see the Knight? of Columbus trying to
breach the highest law of the land and to so
“abridge the freedom of the press," so that no
citizen shall be at liberty to tell the truth on
Romanism.
We see our highest law violated, and free
dom of worship abolished in the Army and
Navy where the Catholic chaplains—luring
been made officers of the ships—order the
crew to the Romanist service, as a matter of
military discipline.'
(7) “That the Catholic hierarchy or the
priesthood dictates the politics of Catholics.”
If this is not true, why did the papal Am-
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