Romanism, A Menace to the Nation – By Jeremiah J. Crowley
CHAPTER I. WHY I WITHDREW FROM ROMANISM.
Contents
I was born and reared in the Roman Catholic Church; trained in her doctrines and polity; and ordained a priest in 1886. I was a priest in good standing up to 1907 (twenty-one years), when I retired voluntarily from the priesthood. For six years previous to my retirement I waged a crusade against the evils of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and while thus engaged challenged publicly, in speech and print, this Hierarchy to disprove the charges in Part II. of this volume, and also to prove that I was not, during that time, a priest in good standing. A copy of the challenge appears at the very beginning of Part II. That challenge was never accepted.
I now reiterate the challenge made in former editions of Part II. and elsewhere, as to the truth of the facts there stated. If the additional facts stated in Part I. are also true, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is doubly condemned and will be so judged and denounced by all right-minded men. If any of my alleged facts are proven false, I am ready to abide the consequences.
The Vatican method “the conspiracy of silence” should not be permitted to shield any one affected by the charges made in this book. Silence may sometimes be golden, but in this instance it indicates guilt.
I want my readers to understand that I am not assailing the plain Roman Catholic people. They are the victims of a religious system, foisted upon them by the accident of birth. They are living up to the light they have. God grant that the sunlight of truth may soon flood their pathway! I sympathize with them, I admire them, and I love them.
When I wrote Part II. I was a loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church. At that time I would gladly have died for her. I wrote it to save, if I could, the Roman Catholic Church and to protect the Public School. My facts were carefully weighed and my arguments were prayerfully presented. The protestations of fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church which are contained in Part II. and in my other writings were made in good faith. I now unreservedly withdraw them.
I wrote Part II. with the further object of inaugurating a crusade for the emancipation of the Roman Catholic people by purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood. I have reason to believe that my book has emancipated thousands of Roman Catholics. I know that it has emancipated me I am no longer a Roman Catholic. For its preparation I was compelled to study thoroughly the history of the Roman Catholic Church, a subject which is purposely neglected in Roman Catholic schools. An extensive reading of secular history naturally followed. The age-long story of papal, prelatical and priestly corruption astounded and confounded me. I began to see the papacy in a new light. The question of Dr. John Lord haunted me, “Was there ever such a mystery, so occult are its arts, so subtle its policy, so plausible its pretensions, so certain its shafts?” (Beacon Lights of History, Vol. V., p. 99.) I gradually awakened to the fact that I was believing in unscriptural doctrines and championing a religious system which was anything but the holy and true church of Jesus Christ.
THE PAPAL MEDAL.
THE PAPAL MEDAL.
This is a facsimile of both sides of the medal struck by Gregory XIII. in commemoration of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the obverse is the head of the Pope, with the Latin inscription reading, “Gregory XIII., Pontifex Maximus, the First Year.” On the reverse is a representation of the killing of heretics by an angel who holds in one hand a sword and in the other a crucifix. The Latin inscription reads, “The Slaughter of the Huguenots, 1572.”
Rome claims that she did not approve of the massacre of the seventy thousand Huguenots. Why, then, did the bells of the papal churches in Rome peal out joyfully when the news of the slaughter was received by Pope Gregory XIII.? Why did he have the above medal struck to commemorate the event, and why did he order Te Deums to be sung in the churches instead of Misereres or de Profundis? Why did not the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was at Catherine’s court, raise a voice of protest against the crime? No, Rome can not exculpate herself from this, one of the greatest crimes that ever stained the records of sinful humanity.
Fear not that the tyrants shall rule forever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith ;
They stand on the brink of the mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death :
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their scepters I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity. Shelley.
The gruesome history of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the archdiocese of Chicago in particular, “the conspiracy of silence,” the threats of excommunication issued against Revs. Cashman, Hodnett and myself, threats and attempts to murder me, the continued neglect of the pope to answer my letter to him as set forth in the preface to Part II. (in which letter I asked for an opportunity to give names of clerical offenders and the proof of their misconduct), the refusal of the pope to pay any attention to the petitions and charges which had been sent to Rome by myself and a score of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago, touching the immoralities of the clergy all these combined to undermine my loyalty to the papacy, and were large factors in causing my ultimate utter loss of confidence in the integrity of the pope and his cabinet. It was only a step from loss of faith in the authorities of the Church to loss of faith in her unscriptural doctrines.
In the summer of 1907 I found myself in such a state of mind regarding the Vatican system, and so out of sympathy with the unscriptural doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that there was nothing for me to do but to withdraw from my crusade and await the end of the revolution which was going on in my soul. Shortly thereafter I closed my office in Chicago and went to the Pacific Coast, where I engaged in business. In a few months my mind was at rest. Romanism had sloughed from me just as completely as it had from the Very Rev. Father Slattery and from the Caldwell sisters, founders of the Roman Catholic University, Washington, D. C.
During the past two years I have been urged to republish Part II. of this volume in the interests of patriotism and enlightenment. I now feel that the time is ripe to yield to this demand. I realize as never before the danger to which civil and religious liberties are exposed from Vatican machinations. That danger is not chimerical; it is actual and pressing. Among other things, the Hierarchy is determined to move aggressively to secure public money for the support of Roman Catholic schools. According to the press reports, the Rev. Thomas F. Coakley, secretary to Bishop Canevin, of Pittsburg, Pa., addressing two thousand delegates at the convention of the American Federation of Roman Catholic Societies, in August, 1910, demanded that the Roman Catholic Church be granted by the State the sum of thirty-six million dollars a year for the education of Roman Catholics.
Since I have abjured Romanism, it may seem to some that Part II. should be revised. But I deem it better to let it remain as it is, because in this shape the public will have the benefit of the work as it was written by a Roman Catholic priest in good standing, which I was at that time, and, indeed, up to the time of my voluntary retirement from the priesthood. And further, this present volume containing Parts I. and II. will give the public some conception of the successive stages of that mysterious, tumultuous and painful experience by which I have been led by Providence from Romanism to Christianity, from the prayer-book to the Bible, from the pope to Christ.
In the good providence of God I read very carefully the Gospels, and pondered prayerfully the words and the deeds of our Lord. I also studied that wonderful book of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles. I found that it contains the history of the first thirty years of the Christian church, that it is the only inspired church history which Christians have, and that the first Christians knew nothing of the sacrifice of the mass, the confessional, prayers to the Virgin and to the saints, purgatory, indulgences, priestly celibacy, or the primacy of St. Peter. Indeed, I learned in the Sacred Scriptures that whatever power and authority was given by our Lord to Peter was given equally to the other eleven Apostles, that Peter himself had a wife (Matthew viii. 14), and that even Paul asked if he had not the right to have a wife as did the other missionaries of the cross (I. Corinthians ix. 5) ; also that a bishop should have only one wife (I. Timothy iii. 2).
While I was engaged in the crusade against the corrupt Hierarchy alluded to in the opening paragraph, my friend, the Very Rev. John R. Slattery, President of St. Joseph’s Seminary for Colored Missions, Baltimore, Md., U. S. A., who had been chosen by Cardinal Satolli to edit his volume of sermons and addresses, and who had been most highly spoken of by Cardinal Gibbons, renounced his priesthood. He wrote an article entitled “How My Priesthood Dropped from Me,” which appeared in The Independent (a weekly magazine published in New York City) of September 6, 1906, p. 565. In it he said:
“In almost every case of a contested point between Catholics and Protestants, the latter are right and the former wrong.”
This article deeply affected me. Later, I had a number of interviews with Father Slattery in which I received corroborative evidence of the corruptions of the Hierarchy. I also received a number of important letters from him, one of which appears at the end of this volume. I became acquainted with the late Baroness von Zedtwitz, who, with her sister, the late Marquise des Monstiers- Meronville, had founded the Roman Catholic University at Washington, D. C. These ladies were born in the State of Kentucky. Their maiden name was Caldwell. They renounced Romanism during my crusade. On page 694 of this volume the reader will find a full account of the renunciation of the Roman Catholic faith by the Marquise. The Baroness published in 1906 a booklet entitled “The Double Doctrine of the Church of Rome.” In it she states:
“It is generally admitted that an ecclesiastical student when he leaves Rome [graduates at Rome], carries away with him little else than the papal banner, and has laid his primitive moral code at the feet of the infallible successor of St. Peter.”
This lady has been an honored visitor at the Vatican itself; and her words greatly impressed me. I had the honor qf meeting her in New York, and she astounded me with circumstantial accounts of prelatical duplicity and depravity which had come under her observation in the high places in the Hierarchy in Rome itself. From the Marquise I received the following withering letter concerning no less a personage than the Most Rev. John Lancaster Spalding, then Bishop of Peoria, 111., U. S. A., and now Titular Archbishop of Scitopolis, in partibus infidelium [in infidel parts], a warm friend of ex-President Roosevelt and President Taft, a Roman Catholic dignitary of international fame and an ecclesiastic for whom I had entertained profound respect when I first published Part II. :
“HOTEL SUISSE, ROME, “April 11, 1907.
“DEAR FATHER CROWLEY: I have just received your book [Part II.] and pamphlets, for which I thank you. I had seen and read the book last year in New York, and I shall have much pleasure in reading the brochures this summer. May Heaven reward you for your noble work in showing up the awful depravity of the Roman Church.
“If you ever have the opportunity to undeceive the world about that Svhited sepulchre,’ Spalding, of Peoria, I beg that you will do so in the sacred cause of truth. No greater liar and hypocrite walks the earth to-day. He is a very atheist and infidel, and I, who used to know him intimately, ASSERT IT. If today my sister and I are in open revolt against the Roman Church, it is chiefly due to the depravity of Bishop Spalding. Would that you could let his priests know that his asceticism is all bombast! A more sensual hypocrite never trod the earth. “A letter to this address will always reach me. “Yours sincerely, “[Signed] THE MARQUISE DES MONSTIERS.”
In the spring of 1907 the Baroness von Zedtwitz sent the following cablegram from Europe to Bishop Spalding:
“Bisaor SPALDING, “PEORIA, ILLINOIS, U. S. A. “Am aware of your efforts to shield yourself from exposure. When Catholics know the history of your hidden vices, as I do, you must flee Peoria. This I shall accomplish. “[Signed] BARONESS VON ZEDTWITZ.”
Rome, fearing exposure from the letters and charges of the Caldwell sisters, prevailed upon Bishop Spalding to resign the bishopric of Peoria, which he did in September, 1908. Rome, pursuing her usual policy in such cases, immediately promoted him to a nominal archbishopric which gives him the honor of the title without any subjects ; so that in case of exposure it could not be alleged that he is in actual charge of a diocese. However, he is still in politics, entertaining President Taft and ex-President Roosevelt at his home in Peoria, and belittling Governor Woodrow Wilson as a “schoolmaster” and therefore unfit to be President of the United States.
The abjuration of Roman Catholicism by these eminent women, and their charges against Archbishop Spalding, who had been their professed friend and trusted adviser, in whom they placed unbounded confidence, aroused my deepest horror and indignation. I kept saying to myself, “If such a prelate, the idol of American Catholicism and of liberal Protestantism, is an ‘atheist and infidel, a liar and sensual hypocrite/ is not the Vatican clerical system rotten, root and branch ?’
My reading, observation, meditation and experience gradually forced me to doubt the possibility of purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood, and ultimately led me to agree with the words written me by the Baroness von Zedtwitz :
“There is not, and never can be, modern Catholicism, and should ever the political necessity arise for purifying all religion, Catholicity would then and there be wiped off the face of the earth.”
During the crusade above mentioned, many priests of the Roman Catholic Church talked with me about the futility of ray efforts, saying in substance :
“Father Crowley, you are wasting your time and money in trying to purify the priesthood. The system stands for power and pelf. It can not be changed. Christ Himself, if there is a Christ, could not purify it.”
Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, the prominent pastor of St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago, the bosom friend and confidential agent of Archbishop Ireland, said to me repeatedly:
“The more I see and read of monks, nuns, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes the less am I a priest, and indeed the less am I a Roman Catholic.”
He also made this statement:
“While I believe the Roman Catholic Church will live forever, I believe the devil has his knee on its neck in this propaganda. I am prepared to prove all that I state, and if I can not prove it my proper home is the penitentiary.”
He frequently exclaimed :
“Oh, if the Roman Catholic Church would only uncover her scandals !”
Early in our crusade, in the first week of January, 1901, Revs. Cashman and Hodnett, representing a score or more of the prominent priests of Chicago, went to Washington, D. C., and personally filed charges of priestly corruption and crime against brother priests, including Rev. Peter J. Muldoon, with Papal Delegate Martinelli. Copies of charges had already been sent by registered mail to the Vatican. Rev. Cashman called to the attention of the Delegate several grave charges of clerical immorality. The pope’s representative shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said: “The Vatican pays no attention whatever to such charges.” Rev. Hodnett staggered back in blank amazement, and, making the sign of the cross, said: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of God, save the church!” Rev. Cashman then asked: “Should not the standard for a Christian bishop be at least the equal of that for Caesar’s wife, above suspicion?” His Excellency Martinelli replied, with a cynical shrug: “Not necessarily; by no means.” Rev. Hodnett then fairly screamed : “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of Purity, save the church! Tom [Rev. Cashman], get your hat, let us get out of here! They are going to burst the Catholic Church in America!”
The last word of Revs. Cashman and Hodnett to Monsignor Martinelli was this: “If Muldoon is foisted upon the archdiocese of Chicago, look out for scandal!” Monsignor Martinelli replied: “That is a threat.” Rev. Cashman responded: “It is simply telling you what is going to happen.” Monsignor Martinelli then asked: “Will you stand by the written charges?” Revs. Cashman and Hodnett answered in one voice: “Quod scripsi, scripsi.” [What I have written, I have written.]
Notwithstanding these charges, Cardinal Martinelli came to Chicago to consecrate Rev. Muldoon, and in an interview which appeared in The Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1901, he said in part as follows :
“Officially I have heard absolutely nothing of this opposition [to Rev. Muldoon]. I am told that the newspapers are much concerned about the matter. Am I right?’ And the Italian laughed softly and allowed his eyes to twinkle with subdued merriment.”
The charges were unheeded, and the candidate, Rev. Muldoon, was duly elevated and consecrated, the Papal Delegate, Cardinal Martinelli himself, acting as consecrator.
What induced the pope to override the protests? What caused Cardinal Martinelli to “laugh softly?” Was it “the cash in his fob?”
The death of Archbishop Feehan of Chicago, July 12, 1902, created an enviable vacancy controlling some fifty million dollars. During the latter years of Feehan’s reign, the Muldoonites had control of the archdiocese and its funds, owing to the disability of the Archbishop, which was caused by excessive drink. Instead of taking steps to keep the Archbishop in a normal state, his close “friends” among the Muldoonites actually encouraged him in his unfortunate weakness. Hence on his death they found themselves practically masters of the situation. Caucuses were held by day and night ; representatives were sent to Rome with unlimited funds some for the pope as “Peter’s pence,” and some for the cardinals as “honorariums” for masses for the living and the dead, not forgetting a special memento that the Holy Ghost might direct them in their selection of a successor to Archbishop Feehan. The pope and cardinals, in accordance with their usual custom, kept this profitable archdiocese vacant for several months in order to give other aspiring candidates a chance to “come and see them” also.
The only obstacle to the complete fulfillment of the sinister designs of the Muldoonites was the publicity given at home and abroad to the charges made and filed by some twenty pastors and myself against Muldoon and his clerical supporters, including Papal Delegate Martinelli, Cardinal Gibbons, and other members of the Sacred College of Cardinals. At this very time our charges were being aired in the public press. Typewritten copies of Cashman’s “poems” were freely circulated and mailed to the pope and his cabinet, the Sacred College of Cardinals, including “Slippery Jim” and “the Dago.” Rome knew full well that Cashman received his inspiration from Archbishop Ireland and his “gang” of ecclesiastics, who hoped to see Archbishop Ireland landed Archbishop of Chicago as the preliminary step to a “red hat.” She feared further exposures, and even a schism, of which, indeed, Archbishop Katzer, of Milwaukee, warned Leo XIII. if he dared promote Muldoon to the archbishopric of Chicago.
Under the circumstances, the pope and his cabinet, notwithstanding the liberal “honorariums” which they had received, did not dare to hand over a graft of some fifty million dollars to Muldoon and his supporters.
This is the story in brief on which the following “poems” of Revs. Cashman and O’Brien were based, and is the principal reason why Archbishop Ireland was not among the recent “American” cardinals. ‘
Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, Permanent Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois, and one of the treasurers of our crusade fund, wrote me, in part, as follows :
“Our great trouble in Chicago is that our archdiocese, the greatest in the world, is governed, not by an Archbishop, or Bishop, but by one [“Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient”] who would like to be one or the other, or both ; one who has too many irons in th.e fire ; one who controls both Church and State ; one who suspends priests to-day and policemen tomorrow; one who alternately distributes parishes to aspiring pastors and boodle to hungry politicians ; one who can give Chicago a mayor or a bishop, and secures uniformity of action by holding both under his thumb. This is our Pooh-Bah, our factotum, our power behind the throne. No wonder, then, that City Hall methods dominate our ecclesiastical administration. In Chicago we have not one City Hall, but two, both adopting the same standard of morality, both applying the same system of rewarding friends and punishing enemies, and both holding in like contempt every principle of morality and justice.”
The suspension of policemen has particular reference to the summary dismissal of Officer Neilan from the Chicago police force, because he stated that he had frequently found priests in houses of prostitution, and that of the many he found there, “Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient,” and his boon clerical companion, Rev. Flannigan, were the worst offenders. Concerning them Neilan exclaimed, “I know that they are a pair of pimps, and Father Crowley is telling the truth,” was not the only Catholic policeman who had honestly and openly expressed himself concerning the immorality of the priests, but an example must be made of some one, and he w6 the victim. The lecherous ecclesiastics of Chicago were compelled to have recourse to this summary method of punishment in order to warn and silence a large body of men, who, in the discharge of their duties, frequently found priests in brothels, and sometimes in such a state of drunkenness that they had to lock them up over night or send them home in carriages. Why were they not booked, tried and punished like other American citizens guilty of similar misconduct?
Some days after his dismissal Neilan was found dead with a gun beside him. He was supposed to have committed suicide brooding over his dismissal, and the priests declared it was a “visitation of Divine Providence” for his having dared to expose “Ambassadors of Christ.” Did he commit suicide, or was that fearless and outspoken officer of the peace murdered in order to seal his lips ? Officer Neilan is not the only person who met with sudden and mysterious death during the crusade.
A woman of Cashman’s parish was supposed to have poisoned herself. She had supplied Cashman with important information concerning the proposals made to her in the confessional. Rev. Cashman named the person by whom he said “her mysterious death could be explained;” and Bishop Muldoon in a recent interview named to me the person “to be blamed for her death.”
The Very Rev. Daniel M. J. Dowling, Vicar General of the archdiocese of Chicago, died suddenly and mysteriously June 26, 1900, a few hours after a reunion dinner with brother clergymen. His sudden but timely removal was strikingly in accordance with the murderous methods of Pope Alexander VI. [Rodrigo Borgia], and other “Vicars of Christ.” Dowling’s death removed a serious obstacle to the promotion of certain Chicago Borgias. The press said he “quietly passed away from heart disease.” Bishop Muldoon, in my interview with him, last referred to above, told me that Dowling died from diphtheria. Was he poisoned at that reunion dinner at the Holy Name Cathedral?
Why was there not a thorough post-mortem investigation of these sudden and mysterious deaths? Rome does not believe in ante or post mortem investigations.
Other deaths have been unaccounted for in the archdiocese of Chicago, and the history of the Catholic Church there is a blot on civilization and Christianity. Still Archbishop Quigley endeavors to placate the Catholic people of Chicago by declaring that the priests and prelates of New York are fifty per cent, worse than those of Chicago ! ! ! This high standard of priestly corruption and crime in the archdiocese of New York may explain Archbishop Farley’s recent promotion to the Cardinalate, ranking him with Princes and Kings, and consequently placing him above plebeian Prime Ministers and Presidents ! ! !
Among the many affidavits filed at Washington and Rome against Bishop Peter J. Muldoon and other members of the Hierarchy, was one by Rev. Daniel Croke, then Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois, and since promoted to St. Cecilia’s parish, Chicago, charging Bishop Muldoon with gross immorality. This affidavit was placed in the hands of the Right Rev. James Ryan, Bishop of Alton, Illinois, and mailed by him to the Vatican. The Vatican ignored it because moral delinquencies are no bar to ecclesiastical preferment in the Roman Catholic Church ; indeed, they are a necessity and an advantage.
During the crusade we also filed with the proper ecclesiastical authorities an expose consisting of 198 pages of printed matter, including Court Records and charges against Archbishop Feehan, Bishop Muldoon. and other Catholic Church dignitaries. This was but one installment of what was filed by the protesting priests. It was edited by Revs. Cashman, Hodnett, Galligan and Smyth, prominent pastors of the archdiocese of Chicago, and myself, and its cost was met by my Roman Catholic clerical supporters. Among those who cooperated are the following priests :
SOME OF MY ECCLESIASTICAL CO-OPERATORS IN THE CRUSADE,
Very Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, permanent rector, St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois.
Very Rev. Hugh McGuire, permanent rector, St. James’ parish, Chicago, and Consultor of the Archdiocese.
Very Rev. Michael O’Sullivan, permanent rector, St. Bridget’s parish, Chicago.
Very Rev. Thomas F. Galligan, permanent rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, rector, St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett, rector, Immaculate Conception parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael Bonfield, rector, St. Agatha’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael O’Brien, rector, St. Sylvester’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. William S. Hennessy, rector, St. Ailbe’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. John H. Crowe, rector, St. Ita’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Andrew Croke, rector, St. Andrew’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Daniel Croke, rector, St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois.
Rev. Michael Foley, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Dixon, Illinois.
Rev. William J. McNamee, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Joliet, Illinois.
One of the charges in the above-mentioned expose is as follows :
“Is Your Eminence aware that within the past few months [July 8-12, 1901], in this archdiocese [Chicago], there was held what in this country is denominated a spiritual Retreat, being an occasion especially set apart for the assembling of the priests of the Diocese for holy meditation, religious lectures, and acts of devotion; that these exercises were held in St. Viateur’s College (the only diocesan seminary), located at Bourbonnais’ Grove, Kankakee, Illinois, under the personal supervision of the Archbishop’s Vicar General and in the presence of Bishop-Elect Muldoon ; that all throughout the period of retreat, which lasted four days and nights, in the college building where the exercises were held, there were kept for sale, and sold, day and night, to the priests present, barrels of beer and whiskey, which in open and notorious fashion, to the scandal of all devout men, were served out in the same manner as I am told is common in ordinary bar-rooms, by the religious brothers of the college, some of whom were in training for the holy priesthood ; that shameful scenes of intemperance resulted, even to the point of intoxication among a number of those who were actually participating in the holy services. To such outrageous lengths did this unseemly conduct prevail that the temperate and devout were actually kept in fear of bodily injury and compelled to secure themselves at night behind bolted doors. Is the scandal thus wrought against God’s Church chargeable to him who exposes it or to those who, having the power and being charged with the duty of correcting it, nevertheless encourage and wink at the iniquity and make their choice of associates among the evil-doers? The like scenes have occurred repeatedly in previous years during the presence and supervision of the Archbishop himself. Is it conceivable, Your Eminence, that such things shall be permitted in silence and no voice raised in protest?
REV. WILLIAM J. McNAMEE.
REV. WILLIAM J. McNAMEE.
Rev. McNamee, during our crusade, labored day and night procuring affidavits against lecherous priests and prelates and photographs of them when they were not saying their prayers. The picture of a prominent Chicago priest, “Rev. No. 13, A Ballad Singer,” with one of his best girls, on page 451, was obtained by McNamee. Among other incriminating documents procured by this clerical “Sherlock Holmes” were most shocking affidavits made by respectable Catholic women against Rev. C. P. Foster, “Rev. No. 23, A Debauchee.” These affidavits, together with others, were filed with the pope and Cardinals Martinelli and Gibbons. Rev. McNamee placed certified copies of same in the hands of Archbishop Quigley, soon after the latter’s promotion to the archbishopric of Chicago, with the result that the debauchee priest was promoted by Cardinal “in petto” Quigley.
Archbishop Quigley when recently promoting this Rev. “Sherlock Holmes,” says in his papal organ, The New World, of October 15, 1911 :
“We heartily congratulate Rev. Father McNamee on his appointment as memorable [ ?] rector of St. Patrick’s Church in this city [Chicago]. The magnificent farewell reception and presentation of a purse tendered to Father McNamee by the parishioners of St. Mary’s Church and the citizens of Joliet evidence the high esteem in which Father McNamee is held by the people of Joliet.”
Was this promotion of Rev. McNamee the price of his good (?) will and silence? Bishop Muldoon calls him the “sleuth of the Crowley crusade.”
Since their conversion to Muldoonism, Rev. McNamee and his ehum, Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, have been qualifying for mitres under the areful supervision !’ Archbishop Quigley.
“Since when, Your Eminence, has it become a crime against the Church to expose men who are violating her sanctuary ? By what authority has it been proclaimed an offense for a priest, a pastor of Christ’s flock, to employ all the strength that God has given him to protect that flock from ravening wolves ? Shall I see the priest’s gown cloak a lecherous drunkard and not seek to tear away that sacred garb, late, my ecclesiastical superior, charged with even graver responsibilities in that behalf than an humble priest, halts in duty, shall I shelter myself behind such excuse and hesitate to do my part in the cleansing work? When has the Church of the living God, the God of truth and justice and purity, ever suffered when her sons have spoken truth, wrought justice and denounced impurity? The blood of John the Baptist was surely shed in vain if a priest of God must keep silence when lust and intrigue find favor in high places, and when to the drunkard’s hands are left the ministrations of the Holy of Holies.”
A score or more of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago jointly and severally filed at Washington and Rome at least one hundred documents containing grave charges against many of the leading members of the Chicago Hierarchy. Some of these documents were sworn to, but the Vatican paid no attention to them. We filed grave charges our opponents filed great checks I mean bank checks.
This explains why Rome remained silent and why we felt constrained to gain publicity for our cause through the press; but in this we were sadly disappointed for the time being, as the press was muzzled on Saturday, July 20, 1901. We realized then that some extreme measure must be adopted in order to unmuzzle the press, and consequently we had recourse to the following fearless and open method, which proved quite effective in removing the papal muzzle.
In a few hours we had printed several thousand large placards on which appeared in large type the following words :
“The blasphemy of the twentieth century will be hurled in the face of God Almighty and the Catholic people of the archdiocese of Chicago when Muldoon is made bishop on next Thursday.
“Read Father J. J. Crowley’s letter of resignation and his exposure of Archbishop Feehan and his demoralized clergy.”
Professional bill posters rode around in open carriages putting up these placards on the outside walls of nearly every Catholic Church in the city of Chicago between the hours of three and six o’clock Sunday morning, July 21, 1901.
On the same morning a leaflet hurriedly set up, consisting of four printed pages, making specific charges, with names, against eighteen of the leading members of the Hierarchy of the archdiocese of Chicago, were scattered among the Catholic people, already stunned by the posters, as they were leaving their churches. Some of those who were not fortunate enough to secure a copy offered as high as five dollars for same. On Monday, July 22, 1901, the press of Chicago and of the country told the story in brief.
These posters and leaflets, while they appeared over my name, were prepared and dictated to me in Cashman’s home by Revs. Cashman and Hodnett in behalf of the score of priests. The expense of printing and posting was met by Rev. Cashman, who became one of the treasurers of the crusade fund.
Notwithstanding the political power of Rome over politicians and press, the latter is and will be insuppressible and ever ready to do its duty, if the people will only do theirs. But as long as the people remain indifferent and allow themselves to be muzzled by Rome, they should not expect the press to fight their battle.
Let the non-Catholic people awake and do their duty in defense of liberty, enlightenment and progress, and the press will be ready and willing to join in the battle against the common foe Romanism.
Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett said repeatedly:
“The charges we filed at the office of the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, and at the Vatican, I am prepared to swear, on my bended knees before the Blessed Sacrament, are true, and if our request for a canonical investigation is granted, we will prove them up to the hilt.”
I quote a few lines from a letter written me April 8, 1904, by a prominent Roman Catholic lawyer of New York City, a graduate of Georgetown (Jesuit) “University” at Washington, D. C. :
“Mv DEAR FATHER CROWLEY :
“Father Unan, of the Paulists, told me plainly you were not a bit out about the condition of the Archdiocese of Chicago; he says every one knows its condition. I fear you are much misinformed as to the attitude of a great many people towards you. You have more friends and believers in your cause than you imagine. The condition in the Church in your city [Chicago] is beyond description, more than one has told me.”
A prominent nun of the Convent of the Good (?) Shepherd, Chi’cago, said to a Roman Catholic lady :
“We have reason to know that Father Crowley is right. Many of the fallen women and wayward girls in this institution were led into sin and shame by priests.”
In passing, let me state that the Convents or Houses of the Good (?) Shepherd, numerous in non-Catholic countries, are Roman Catholic prisons, maintained partially by public tax, but without Federal or State supervision, where the Roman Catholic Hierarchy may confine their victims or other unfortunates, and where cruel punishments can be inflicted upon the inmates generally with impunity. In all so-called Religious Houses, male and female, there is no accounting for the sufferings of the inmates, their illness or their death. If not requested, no coroner’s inquest is held. The inmates are utterly shut out from light and life, and generally from the protection of the law. The masses of the people do not know that these things are taking place. If they did, there would be an awakening of indignation and action which would speedily put an end to such horrors.
Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, said to me, in one of my interviews with him, substantially the following:
“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church would never permit an investigation of its priests and bishops ; an honest investigation would burst the Church. The priesthood is so rotten we would knock the bottom out of the Church if we made the least effort to discipline the priests as you demand. I must admit that there are bad priests in Chicago, .but I can assure you that the priests in New York are fifty per cent, worse.”
Archbishop Quigley made similar admissions to Roman Catholic people who appealed to him for protection from bad priests and bishops; and yet with full knowledge of their villainy he has promoted many of. these wicked ecclesiastics, and, in order to do so with impunity, declared he would muzzle the secular press and intimidate the non-Catholic press.
During our crusade a strong Roman Catholic Laymen’s Association was established in Chicago for the protection of women from licentious priests ; but the Vatican refused pointblank to take any notice of their charges and appeals. (See pp. 390-394.) The Chicago Hierarchy also refused to heed a petition signed by fifteen hundred Roman Catholic women, praying for protection from drunken and lecherous priests. The following is a copy of their petition :
“CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, “JUNE, 1903. “THE MOST REV’D JAMES E. QUIGLEY, “Archbishop of Chicago.
“Most Rev’d Sir: We, the undersigned Catholic women, members of different parishes in this Archdiocese, respectfully call your attention to conditions prevailing in many of the parishes of which some of us are members, conditions so notorious that they have been the subject of newspaper comment and are still the subject of comment and criticism, both among Catholic and non-Catholic people. On your advent to your present high office in early March of this year the fervent hope was frequently expressed in public and private that you would rectify the flagrant abuses which are a scandal to our beloved Church.
“As one of our daily papers editorially expressed it : ‘It is idle to mince the matter, for, as every Catholic layman knows, the great trouble in the Chicago church has been caused by the clergy.’ [Quotation from an editorial in the Chicago Daily Journal, March u, 1903, the day after Archbishop Quigley assumed charge of the archdiocese of Chicago.]
“If this were known to Catholic laymen, surely the women of our Church could not be in ignorance.
“The priests who are evidently referred to in the above paragraph are still serving at our altars and performing all the sacred offices of our religion, unrebuked and undisciplined, so far as we know.
“We humbly and respectfully look to you for protection and redress. “Obediently yours.”
Archbishop Quigley has neither rebuked nor disciplined his priests, but, on the contrary, he has followed the policy of popes, cardinals and bishops in promoting some of the very worst among them: for examples, Revs. No. 9, 10, n, 12, 14, 17, 22, 23 and 24. Though affidavits and abundant proofs were placed in his hands, charging “Rev. Xo. 12, A Wolf in Priest’s Clothing,” with an unmentionable criminal assault on a thirteen- year-old motherless girl at the very time she was receiving instructions for First Confession and Holy Communion, yet he (Quigley) forthwith promoted, and has lately repromoted, this clerical monster. By thus condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy Archbishop Quigley may become the next American Cardinal.
The latest information is that the pope has created another cardinal “in pectorc” or “in petto;” that is. in secret. I would not be surprised if it were the Czar of the Middle West, Archbishop Quigley, who, by condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy, is fully qualified to become a “Prince of the Church.” a “member of the Roman Curia, the official family of the pope.”
The Continent, a leading Presbyterian paper published in Chicago, in its issue of August 24, 1911, corroborates my statements as to Quigley’s qualifications :
“American Catholics are saying that the longwaited second American cardinal will be Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago. If Quigley is really the selection of the Vatican for the honor, the choice throws another deep shadow on the religious honesty of the cardinals at Rome. If their zeal was in the least for spiritual religion, Quigley is about the last American that they would desire to have as their associate in what they are pleased to call the ‘Sacred College.’ How religious the Archbishop of Chicago may be in his private life, The Continent would by no means presume to judge. But the whole tone of his public activity is the tone of political bossism and ecclesiastical tyranny. His administration of his archdiocese has exhibited a minimum of care for either public or private righteousness, and a maximum of determination to grip his own power and the power of his satellites on the life of Chicago and its environs. The appointment of Quigley as a cardinal means what has long been suspected, that the Vatican does not want an American cardinal not even as moderate an one as Archbishop Ireland but wants simply a Roman cardinal in America. That Quigley will be to the finish.”
The political power of the Roman Catholic Church in America was proclaimed to the non-Catholic politicians, in a speech delivered by Archbishop Quigley, May 4th, 1903, at the Holy Name Roman Catholic school, Chicago, and which appeared in part in The Chicago Tribune, May 5th, 1903 :
“In fifty years Chicago will be exclusively Catholic. The same may be said of Greater New York, and the chain of big cities stretching across the continent to San Francisco. . . . Nothing can stand against the Church. I’d like to see the politician who would try to rule against the Church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.”
CARDINAL FALCONIO
CARDINAL FALCONIO THE COMING “AMERICAN” POPE.
Cardinal Falconio, an Italian, Rome’s late chief secret service agent in the United States, has been recalled and rewarded for “signal service.” He is now Chief of the Secret Service Bureau at the Vatican, Dean of the “American” cardinals, and quasi American Ambassador to the Vatican. This Italian Franciscan monk claims American citizenship; and consequently Jesuitical expediency and hypocrisy not the Holy Ghost will inspire the Sacred College of Cardinals to elect Falconio the next pope an “American” pope ! ! ! This is a part of the plot and plan to capture America, and through America, to regain Temporal Power, not only in Italy, but throughout the world.
It is easy to see that we have a hard fight before us, and we should remember the advice : “The other fellow [the pope] is only a man, just as you are. Don’t let his spectacular displays and theatrical performances frighten you,”
This proclamation of Spiritual and Temporal Power by Archbishop Quigley, and his threat of political assassination, created a sensation throughout the country. The more Jesuitical members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, considering his announcement premature, set telephone and telegraph wires in action to hush up the scare, fearing it might arouse and enlighten the sleeping non-Catholics.
Subjoined are photographs of Archbishop Quigley’s palace, conservatory and stable, the stable alone costing the archdiocese $80,000, according to Revs. Cashman, Smyth and Hodnett. It is rather more elaborate than the stable of Bethlehem in which the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born.
Cardinal Martinelli, ex-papal delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America, in 1902 said to me in substance, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C. :
“We know there are many immoral priests and bishops, but still the laity have no right to interfere with the clergy; if the laity understand they have any rights, they will do in America as they once did in France during the Revolution, they will murder the clergy. In this independent country it would not be wise to let the laity understand they have any right to interfere in church matters ; and one of the principal things we have against you, Father Crowley, is that you are enlightening the Catholic laity of this country as to their rights ; the laity have no right to expose their clergy, no matter how immoral they may be ; the laity must be ignored; they must be crushed!”
Cardinal Falconio, late papal delegate, in 1903 said to me in the home of Archbishop Katzer at Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church is divine, notwithstanding the fact that there are bad priests, bishops, and popes, and I beseech you, for the sake of our Holy Mother Church, to sign that apology drawn up by Archbishop Quigley, whitewashing those whom you have exposed.”
Is it any wonder that I withdrew from Romanism?
