Romanism, A Menace to the Nation – By Jeremiah J. Crowley
CHAPTER VII. THE POPES AND THE BIBLE.
Contents
It would require a large volume to contain even part of the evidence manifested, both by declarations and by acts, of Rome’s persistent policy to suppress all knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures. In the early centuries, and long before printing was invented, all manuscripts containing any translation into the vernacular from the original tongues was prohibited under the severest penalties. As. early as 860 A. D. Pope Nicholas I. put Bible reading under the ban. Gregory VII., known in history as Hildebrand, in 1073 continued the ban, and Innocent III., in 1198, issued a decree that all who read the Bible should be put to death. In 1229 the great Council of Toulouse passed a decree forbidding either the possession or the reading of the Bible; and the famous Council of Trent, 1545-63, did the same. In England, in the fourteenth century, any one who was found with Wycliffe’s Bible, that “organ of the devil,” incurred the penalty of death. In the reign of the “Bloody Mary” tons of Bibles were used as fuel to burn the martyrs, and it was said that “no burnt offerings could be more pleasing to Almighty God.” Pius VII. in 1816 denounced Bibles as “pestilences;” and Leo XII. in 1825 as “traps and pitfalls.” Pius VIII. in 1830 declared printingpresses from which Bibles were struck as “centers of pestiferous infection;” Gregory XVI. in 1844 condemned Bible Societies, and ordered the priests to tear up all they could lay their hands on. Pius IX. surpassed all his predecessors in the employment of abusive language to vilify Bible Societies, and under his authority many were banished from Tuscany for reading the Bible. It was also during his pontificate that Francesco Madai and his wife were imprisoned for ten months and then sent to the galleys for reading the Bible.
Coming down to our own generation, Leo XIII., an astute politician, having to play the game in England and America, Italy being lost, was well aware that he could not afford to defy Protestant opinion openly and publicly. And so he issued an encyclical which seemed to reverse the policy of his predecessors by permitting the laity to read the Bible. But every one knew, who had the necessary means of information, that this encyclical was insincere and hypocritical. For immediately on its issue secret instructions were given to all the priests to do all in their power to prevent the sale and distribution of the Bible. And so all other decrees, edicts, statements and permissions to the same -effect which have been issued since have been equally treacherous and insincere. To sum it all up in one word, I may give the statement of a distinguished priest who said: “The day in which the priests and Catholic believers give themselves to the reading and study of the Bible, that day will be the last for the Roman Church, for the priests, for the monsignors and for the papacy.”
The Paulist Fathers is an Order well known in the United States. Its special mission is to convert Protestants to Romanism and they boast that they are making more than 35,000 converts a year.
The following letter will show who are the managers and directors of this Order; what are its aims and purposes; what it has already accomplished, and the final goal which the Order proposes as the object of its endeavors; namely, to “make America dominantly Catholic.” The letter reads as follows and certainly requires no comment. It speaks for itself; and speaks loudly and alarmingly. Here is the letter. Read it and ponder it:
DIRECTORS OF THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
MOST REV. J. M. FARLEY, D D., VERY REV. E. R. DYER, S. S.,
Archbishop of New York, President St. Mary’s Seminary,
[Cardinal] PRESIDENT. Baltimore.
MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, REV. MATTHEW A. TAYLOR.
Archbishop of St. Paul.
RT. REV. MATTHEW HARKINS, REV. WALTER ELLIOTT,
Bishop of Providence, R. 1. of the Paulist Fathers.
VERY REV. A. P. DOYLE,
Secretary-Treasurer.
Represented by:^THE CATHOLIC= Under Its Auspices The
The Missionary MISSIONARY UNION Apostolic Mission House
Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.
“WASHINGTON, BROOKLAND STATION, D. C, “Feb. 6, 1912.
“My DEAR FRIEND: How near at hand do you think is the time when America will be dominantly Catholic? Things move on with rapid strides these days, and the recent creation of three American Cardinals has brought the Church once more to the forefront. The dominant note in the address of the Holy Father as well as in the replies of the Cardinals is the hope of wonderful progress among English speaking peoples. They have all spoken of the ‘era of convert making.’ All this indicates a marvelous advance along the lines whereon the Missionaries of the Apostolic Mission House have been working these twenty years.
“If all the Priests and laity would turn their faces to this one goal, what a tremendous impetus the movement would get! One of our great leaders recently said: and there is a burning truth in it ‘We must labor to gain the confidence, love and respect of the American people. This once gained, the Catholic Church in Her way to claim the American heart, may carry a thousand dogmas on her back.’
“Last year our Missionaries gave hundreds of Missions, and the record of convert-making is now away beyond the Thirty-five Thousand mark each year. Just think what this means! This estimate says nothing of the thousands of fallen-away Catholics that have been brought back to a good life.
“Come with us and share the glories of this work!
Sincerely yours in Xto.,
“CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
“A. P. Doyle, Treasurer.”
Let us follow up these Paulist Fathers a little closer and see some of the other things which they have been doing.
It was a trifling matter that these Paulist Fathers had prize-fights in the Paulist Church, Chicago, as one of their Church Fair attractions. It is not of much importance to mention that Rev. Peter J. O’Callaghan, head of the Paulist Fathers in the Middle West, President of the Total Abstinence Association of America, delegate appointed by President Taft to the Anti-Alcohol Congress at The Hague in 1911, and Commander of the Boy Scouts, was arrested on a charge of running gambling machines in his Church in Chicago for commercial purposes.
Of vastly more importance and of deeper and far wider reaching significance is what was done by the Romish priests across the seas. In last January (1912) a letter was received by a distinguished American lady from a friend in Italy, which stated that in the Fall of 1911, in the town of Forano, in Sabina, forty miles from Rome, the Romish priests collected all the Bibles they could lay their hands upon, carried them to the Public Square, piled them in a heap, saturated them with coal oil, set fire to the pile and reduced the Bibles to ashes.
It may be mentioned here that while the Romish priests were burning Bibles in Forano, and converting and baptizing 35,000 Protestants a year in the United States, Roman Catholic priests in South America were baptizing dogs at forty cents a head.
To give a further idea of the attitude of priests and prelates toward the Bible, as well as their influence over our Government and its officials, even in the Philippine Islands, I quote from Circular No. 32, S. 1908, issued by the Bureau of Education, Manilla, March n, 1908, addressed to the Division Superintendents of Schools, under the heading “Religious Teaching Forbidden”:
“It is not for the teachers in public school in this Catholic country, either to encourage the study of the Bible especially of the Protestant Bible among their pupils, or to say to those pupils anything upon the subject…. In view of the intimate personal relation of a teacher to his pupils, no religious instruction of any nature should be given by him at any time, even outside the schoolroom.”…
At the close of this circular, David P. Barrows, Director of Bureau of Education, Manilla, P. I., says:
“It is not believed that anything further can be added to make more clear the attitude of the department and of the administration on this point.”
Why did not the President recall this order as he did that of Mr. Robert G. Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, forbidding Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns, employed in Government schools for Indian children, to wear their religious garb and insignia of their faith while engaged in their duties within the schoolroom and in the grounds of such institutions?
I would like to ask the Paulist Fathers why their distinguished Episcopalian convert, Rev. Dr. Lloyd, once Bishop elect for Oregon, and his wife, returned to Protestantism not long after their much heralded conversion to Romanism? Is it not a fact that when the Paulist Fathers realized that Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd were about to withdraw from Romanism, being thoroughly disgusted with it, he (Lloyd) was Jesuitically placed in the Detention Hospital in Chicago, pending an order from the court for his removal to the insane asylum at Elgin, 111. He would be there to-day were it not for the exposure threatened by his noble wife, who, like him, had been scandalously shocked by the actions of priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. The story as told by Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd would startle the world and convince the public that Rome is ever and everywhere the same.
I would also like to ask the Paulist Fathers how many of their alleged thirty-five thousand converts a year return to their original faith as did Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd; how many Paulist Fathers and Seminarians leave their Religious (?) Congregation each year; also how many nuns, monks and priests, including the Jesuits, leave the Roman Catholic Hierarchy; and how many of the Catholic laity leave the Roman Catholic Church each year.
