The Pope – Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue
Subject: The Pope—Foe of Mankind. Part VII. Indulgence hucksters and other grafters of Papalism and Jesuitry still busy.
Contents
Still busy at his old stand, as if Savonarola had not died or Luther lived, is the pope; his Jesuitical agents not less so in the sale of indulgences and in other forms of grafting. Pope Pius X, instigated by impecunious Roman shopkeepers, by greedy cardinals and avaricious courtiers, has just proclaimed another “Universal Jubilee” of which we read in the Journal and Tribune, Knoxville, Tenn., March 30, 1913 :
Marking Christianization of the Roman Government will be elaborately celebrated by the Vatican.
Celebration in Part Also Will be a Protest Against a Celebration by the Italian Government.
Rome, March 29th.—Thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the globe are assembled in this city to witness the opening of the series of celebrations which the Vatican has arranged to commemorate the sixteenth centennial of the proclamation of the edict of Milan, known as the Peace of Constantine, which marked the Christianization of the Roman Government. On the surface this celebration, which will extend over the whole year, is supposed merely to be a fitting remembrance of the adoption by the Emperor Constantine, following his victory over the pagan general, Maxentius, just outside of Rome, of Christianity as the official religion of the State. No secret, however, is made of the fact that back of the celebration are two other motives. In the first place, this commemoration is intended as a protest of the Vatican against the celebration by Italy two years ago of the fiftieth anniversary of its unification, a celebration which was highly offensive to the Vatican because it commemorated an event by which the Vatican was deprived of its temporal power.
To celebrate the anniversary of the unification of Italy the Government had arranged exhibitions on a magnificent scale at Rome and at Turin, but owing to the outbreak of the war with Turkey, the prevalence of a cholera epidemic and other unfortunate conditions the celebration proved a failure and attracted but few visitors to Italy. One of the motives in arranging the “Constantine Year” celebration by the Vatican was to prove to the world how much greater is the temporal power of the Vatican than that of the Italian Government. Judging from the number of pilgrims already assembled here and the many thousands who are either on their way to Rome or have made their plans to visit the city at some time during the celebration year, the Vatican bids fair to make a good showing. Although the commemorative celebrations planned will all be held in this city, some of the principal anniversaries will be observed by Roman Catholic Churches throughout the world.
The illness of the pope will probably prevent him from taking part in the services and ceremonies scheduled to take place within the precincts of the Vatican, but there will be enough pomp and spectacular display of a magnificent order to satisfy even the most exacting sightseeing visitors. Should the condition of the pontiff improve he may, by his presence, lend greater importance to the religious ceremonies in the Vatican, to be held in April. The traditions of the Church will, of course, exclude the pope from all celebrations held outside of the Vatican precincts.
The series of commemorative celebrations will begin to-morrow with a solemn eucharistic procession, passing from the catacombs of Saint Domitilla to those of Saint Callixtus and then to the church and catacombs of Saint Sebastian, where a Te Deum will be sung and the blessed sacrament administered to the pilgrims.
From April 6th to 13th, inclusive, a solemn Octave will be celebrated at the Church of Saint John Lateran, with exposition of the “Acheropita.” During the Octave the mornings will be set apart for the reception of pilgrims of Young Men’s Christian Associations, Arch Confraternities, congregations and religious orders; with a sermon every afternoon by a bishop and benediction by a cardinal, culminating in a pontifical high mass on April 13th, celebrated by a cardinal in the presence of the pontifical court, the diplomatic corps accredited to the holy see, and the high dignitaries of the Church in Rome.
On April 20th there will be a solemn commemoration at Saint Peter’s on the same scale of magnificence as the feast of the Prince of the Apostles, with the exposition of the relics of the passion of the Savior, which are kept at Saint Peter’s.
On April 27th there will be a celebration and pontifical mass at the patriarchal Basilica of Saint Paul, on the Ostian Way. May 2d, 3d, and 4th there will be pontifical masses in the Church of Saint Croce, in Gerusalemme, and on the night of May 4th an immense electric cross will be inaugurated on Monte Cavo, eighteen miles from Rome. In May, June, August, and December other commemorative celebrations of an impressive character will be held at the papal chapel at St. Peter’s, the Church of Saint Agnes, the Church of Saint Laurence, the parish church of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, the cathedral of Albano, and the Church of Saint Mary Major, where for three days the holy image of the Blessed Virgin, known as the “Borghenia,” will be exposed to the view of the visiting pilgrims. There will also be special services and celebrations at that same church on each of the three days, December 6th, 7th, and 8th, which will close the series of the celebrations.
Constantine was never a Christian. He was a great imperial statesman, who, seeing that the old Roman pagan systems, dating from Romulus and Remus, 750 years before Christ, had lost hold of the populace, re-paganized the new form of religion called Christian, and made it the official cult of the Roman Empire, for which he founded a new capital on the Bosphorus, bearing his own name—Constantinople. He, and not the pope of Rome—there was no such person or official then known—was the head of the Church. He established bishops or ” overseers’ ‘—there were no “bishops” before Constantine—to correspond to civil officers, known as ‘ ‘ exarchs. ‘ ‘ Both exarchs and bishops were appointed by Constantine alone. No pope or College of Cardinals then to distribute fat episcopal sees to Italian and other priests hungry for gold !
Constantine called the Council of Nice, and appointed the officers who presided there. The papacy as now known was unknown utterly to the Council of Nice, an almost exclusively Eastern gathering. The Bishop of Rome had a standing in Constantino’s religious system equal to that of the Bishops of Constantinople and Alexandria —that and nothing more. Nor would he have been for a moment allowed to assume any higher rank.
The papal figment that Constantine deeded temporal control in and over Rome to the bishop of that city has no historic ground whatever to support it. It is one of the many forgeries used, centuries after, to justify papal thefts of territory and papal usurpations of spiritual authority.
Jubilees are of enormous monetary value to the papacy and to papal agents. The railroads, traction lines, and maritime transportation agencies all over the world, especially in America, derive enormous profits from Jubilee or other pilgrimages. To St. Anne de Beaupre, near Quebec, hundreds of thousands of credulous people are every year brought by rail and by boat, yielding enormous profit to transportation companies. Jubilees, therefore, pay big premiums to non-Catholic capitalists, who must in turn “whack up” when the priest passes around the hat for a papal collection. How the scheme works locally The Catholic Telegraph, March 20, 1913, explains:
Those who are unable to come to Rope may gain the same indulgence on the condition that they visit six times during the period mentioned churches in their own countries designated by their bishops. Special concessions are granted to travelers, religious of both sexes, foreigners, and those who are sick or who are otherwise prevented from making the visits to the churches.
That the papalists of the United States scent the graft in this Jubilee is, by The Catholic Telegraph, March 20, 1913, proven:
To Celebrate Constantine Centenary. Philadelphia, March 17th.—Preparations are almost completed for a fitting participation by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in the world-wide celebration of the sixteenth centenary of the granting of freedom and peace to the Church in the Edict of Milan, proclaimed by Emperor Constantine in the year 313.
The committee in charge of the local celebration consists of Bishop McCort, Rt. Rev. Msgr. James T. Trainor, V. G. ; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Nevin F. Fisher (secretary) ; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Philip R. McDevitt, superintendent of parish schools; Very Rev. Henry T. Drumgoole, LL. D., rector of the Seminary, and Rev. William J. Higgins, S. T. L., rector of the Cathedral
The following program has been arranged:
Novena of thanksgiving in all the Churches, to end on the Feast of Pentecost, May 11th.
Pontifical Mass in the Cathedral on Thursday, May 8th.
Children’s celebration in the Cathedral, Friday, May 9th.
Solemn services in all the Churches on Pentecost Sunday; collection for the Holy Father.
Public celebration in the open air at the Seminary, Overbrook, Pentecost afternoon. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament by Archbishop Prendergast.
What a time of feasting for the “holy fathers” all over America and elsewhere this jubilee season! Every Church having its own celebration, there will be, in 1913, a period of clerical dining and wining the very anticipation of which gladdens heart and tickles stomach of voracious Roman cleric. How the liquor dealers will profit by the heavy orders for supplies needed to keep up the fires of priestly spiritual zeal!
How butcher and baker and every kind of caterer will flourish on profits yielded by clerical patrons during this busy papal season of “prayer and mortification” but more busy will be pot and pottle, rum and red-light activities.
What is an indulgence? No such word is found in the New Testament. Not Tertullian, nor Origen, nor Augustine ever speaks of such a doctrine as that of the Roman Church of today. Even Thomas Aquinas knew little of this doctrine of Indulgences as it developed in the era of Alexander VI, the coarse, licentious brute of the papacy (1492-1503), and Leo X, the cultured epicurean pontiff, reigning from 1513 till 1529.
What are, I ask again, Indulgences! No words of my own shall I employ. Let me present photographic copy of page 37 of the “Catechism of Christian Doctrine, prepared and enjoined by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore,” and published by ecclesiastical authority.
231. Remission, taking away.
232. License, permission to do some thing.
236. Applying, giving the benefit of.
236. Superabundant, mere than it wanted.
236. Treasury, a place for storing riches in.
237. Enjoined, ordered to be done.
231. Q. What is an Indulgence?
A. An Indulgence is the remission in whole or in part of the temporal punishment due to sin.
232. Q, Is an Indulgence a pardon of sin, or a license to commit sin?
A. An Indulgence is not a pardon of sin, nor a license to commit sin. and one who is in a state of mortal sin cannot gain an Indulgence.
233. Q. How many kinds of Indulgences are there?
A. There are two kinds of Indulgences—Plenary and Partial.
234. Q, What is a Plenary Indulgence?
A. A Plenary Indulgence is the full remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.
235. Q. What is a Partial Indulgence?
A. A Partial Indulgence is the remission of a part of the temporal punishment due to sin.
236. Q. How does the Church by means of Indulgences remit the temporal punishment due to sin ?
A. The Church by means of Indulgences remits the temporal punishment due to sin by applying to us the merits of Jesus Christ, and the superabundant satisfactions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the saints; which merits and satisfactions are its spiritual treasury.
237 Q. What must we do to gain an Indulgence?
A. To gain an Indulgence we must be in the state of grace and perform the works enjoined.
Two principal kinds of “indulgences” are countenanced and approved by Romanism—both costly for the buyer. The first is in liquid form. Witness subjoined photographic copy from The Catholic Telegraph’s advertising columns. The Catholic Telegraph is Archbishop Henry Moeller’s confidential and official organ:
Th« other form of “indulgence” is, perhaps, of a less spirituous, but not more spiritual character. It is a sale of corner lots in papal “Kingdom come” to all desirous of being “faked” and bled. Here is part of a papal proclamation, published in the selfsame issue of The Catholic Telegraph, April 10, 1913, in which the “liquid” indulgences are also announced:
No one can gain papal “indulgence,” liquid or gaseous, without pay, strictly in advance. Pius X claims to be a successor of the Apostle Peter. We have in the New Testament some letters of that goodly old saint. But nothing did he know, according to these letters, of “Jubilees” or “Indulgences.” No grafter, the original Peter.
Equally innocent of all “Indulgence” lore and learning was the Apostle Paul. Paul was a minister of Jesus Christ—not a barterer in divine graces or peddler of heavenly mercies.
God is sole Judge of sin and its punishment. God neither promises nor grants ” indulgences.” From Genesis to Revelation not a word of God’s granting any such thing as an “Indulgence” to sin or to sinners. Could God tell the murderer — “Pay a Carmelite, or a Dominican, or a Jesuit so much, and I will pardon you the one or two or three or five or more years of temporal punishment due your sin?” Could God tell adulterer and home destroyer—”Pay my monks their price and all your temporal sufferings are remitted?”
The very thought of the papacy’s thus debasing God’s mercies for filthy lucre is truly abominable. God is just and merciful. But His mercies, above all His w^orks, are given without pay and without price, not through “Leagues” of “Sacred Heart” or “scapulars” or beads” or otherwise, but because of His acceptance of a contrite heart’s sincerity.
The “Religious (?) Orders” live by their traffic in “indulgences.”
The Jesuits have complete control of the League of the Sacred Heart and the heavenly measures [Indulgences] thereto appertaining. The Dominicans hold in fee simple the Rosary Society. The Scapular Confraternity is the prize of the Carmelites ; and to the Franciscans has been made over, after a bitter fight with the Capuchins, the privileges of the Stations of the Cross.
Were it to happen that the Benedictines, for example, presumed to take a hand in directing the operations and dividing the enormous profits of the League of the Sacred Heart; or that the Jesuits encroached on the domain of the Rosary priests—which, by the way, they actually attempted, but got a reproof for their audacity — the wheels would hum in Rome. The Roman Congregations and the Holy Father himself would be petitioned by the aggrieved monopolists, and reminded that Pope So-and-so, in rescript such and such, transferred to them exclusive rights over this particular province of the graces of God Almighty. So watchful are they against being overreached by one another that Rome has equivalently extended to all the great orders privileges which originally were conferred upon only one. Thus, if the Jesuits have Ignatius water, the Benedictines enjoy a miraculous medal —think of Benedict’s disciples descending so low! If innumerable indulgences may be gained by visiting a Franciscan church on a special day in the year, equal indulgences may be won by visiting a Benedictine church on another, or a Carmelite church on still another ; if the Carmelites promise you a stunning aggregate of indulgences for wearing the scapular, the Dominicans assure you of even more marvelous ones by carrying the beads in your pocket. — Letters to His Holiness, Pope Pius X, by a Modernist, pp. 77, 78.
That the followers of Pope Pius X in America are very much in need of “indulgences” of some kind, official statistics prove. The Roman Catholic population of the United States proper is, according to reliable—not to Romanist—statistics, one-seventh of the whole. Romanists, however, supply America with forty-two per cent of her criminal population. The “Forty-third Annual Report of the Allegheny Workhouse and Inebriate Asylum of Pennsylvania, for 1912,” shows Romanism the fountain-head of crime in this country, and that its school system, from pauper parochial school to aristocratic convent and Jesuitized university, is a failure as begetter and propagator of moral health and civic soundness. There were, according to this official report, 3,674 inmates in the institution during the year 1912. These were religiously divided:
Roman Catholics 2,016
Methodists 529
Baptists 408
Presbyterians 291
Episcopalians 60
Jews 29
Other denominations 78
No religion 83
Thus the Roman Catholics, in one typical institution of its kind, stand 2,016 against 1,658 of all other or no religions denominations, a clean majority for Pope Pins X of 358!
The latest figures before me of the criminal population of the United States are those of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for 1908, given in The World Almanac for 1913. The total number of persons then in penal establishments in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Eico, was 148,550, of whom 62,391 were Romanists, when their proportion should have been, according to population, 21,223 !
But there is another point of importance to consider. The Negro population of the United States—about 11 per cent (the exact figure for 1910 is 10.7)—contributes far more than a normal quota to American prison population. In the absence of more exact figures on this head, let us estimate (the estimate is modest) the Negro criminal population at 50 per cent of the non-Catholic prison population of 86,159. We have thus left a white non-Romanist body of criminals of 43,079 in round numbers, as against a total of 105,471 criminals, inheritors of either the curse of Romanism or that of inferior Ethiopian blood.
A distinguished priest once made a statement to a younger clergyman, who had asked him at a Convent Commencement for information as to what became of convent graduates—a statement that seemed, at first, surprising. The younger clergyman knew well that there were very few, if any, Catholic young men in that section of means adequate to give convent brides the luxurious homes that a convent “education” inspire these girls to look for. He knew that these convent girls would, after leaving school, disclaim all toil and bread-winning effort, however honorable. What, therefore, he asked of the older man, became of such women? “Why,” the older man made answer, “they may go, after a time, to the maisons de joie.” That convent graduates fill American houses of ill-repute and thence go in large numbers to prison, American police and criminal statistics most indubitably demonstrate.
For Rome’s contribution of forty-two per cent of all our criminals, and about sixty per cent of our white prisoners, Protestants are extremely generous. Read the following, taken from United Canada, Ottawa, March 8, 1913:
The citizens of St. Paul, Minn., irrespective of religion or race, last week presented Archbishop Ireland with $100,000 gift for his new cathedral. The edifice will be finished by the end of 1914.
In tendering his thanks, in his own house, where the presentation was made, the aged churchman and statesman said in part:
“I am an old citizen of St. Paul. I came here in 1852, and for more than half a century I have labored among you. My first thought, when the cathedral idea was broached, was that the new edifice should be worthy of the city of St. Paul.”
The energy of Romanism in giving America forty-two per cent of all its criminals and about sixty per cent of all its white prison population will inspire Romanist leaders to call on Protestants to interest themselves in the Catholic University extension, now proposed, the said university owing its very origin to Protestant money:
For Catholic University at Washington Are authorized by trustees.
Special Dispatch to the Enquirer.
Washington, April 2d.—Washington was the temporary home to-day of the American Hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Assembled at the semi-annual meeting of the Trustees of the Catholic University were the three American Cardinals, Gibbons, Farley, and O’Connell. In addition there were present at the meeting Archbishops Prendergast, of Philadelphia; Messmer, of Milwaukee; Keane, of Dubuque, Iowa, and Riordan, of San Francisco, and Bishop Matthew Harkins, of Providence, R. I. The Trustees voted to authorize Msgr. Thomas J. Shahan to prepare plans and carry forward the building of new university structures. — The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 3, 1913.
Impossible to tell how much money Jesuit and other Romanist grafters reap every year from confiding “easy” Protestants and from superstition- worked Catholics. Here is just one of a thousand annual incidents:
The largest gift to the Jesuit Fathers of New Orleans was made last week by Miss Kate Mc- Dermott, in the donation of $100,000 for the erection of a magnificent new church in memory of her brother, Thomas McDermott, who died about a year ago. It will enable the Jesuits to complete the handsome group of buildings at present contemplated for the University of New Orleans. The McDermott family came from Ireland and amassed a large fortune handling sugar and molasses. Miss McDermott is the last of the family, none of whom ever married.
What Romanism does for any country under its sway is being every day made clearer. The monks in the Philippines stood for three centuries for disease and death. Read the following:
Such communications as that on “Anti-Vaccination” in to-day’s Courier-Journal would be amusing if they were not pathetic. It is worse than idle to argue against the efficiency of vaccination in this age. Wherever vaccination has been enforced the plague of smallpox has been practically abolished. The latest instance of this is in the Philippines. Says the Medical Director:
The plea of the anti-vaccinationists that compulsory vaccination is a violation of their personal rights is no plea at all. There is no such thing as a personal right to endanger the lives of others by disease, any more than there is a personal right to commit arson or murder. — The Courier-Journal, Louisville, March 27, 1913.
What the pope has done for Cuba, a dispatch from Havana to The Menace declares:
In Cuba the pope has not been hampered by Bibles or by evangelical Christianity.
For 300 years he has been supreme in this beautiful, rich land. He has had a magnificent opportunity to show to the world what his religion and Church can do for a country.
Here is what it did. When the adulterous union between the Cuban State and the Roman Catholic Church was severed, two-thirds of her citizenship could neither read nor write, and half her population had been born out of wedlock.
Until evangelical Christianity began to thunder at her doors, the Romish Church had made no effort to educate the masses. Her priests charged such exorbitant prices for their marriage ceremonies that the poor people could not afford it. As a natural result a system of concubinage became general. When Roman Catholic Spain’s domination of Cuba ceased, so large a per cent of her population had been born out of wedlock that on every marriage document the contracting parties had to declare whether they were the legitimate offspring of their parents or not. Girls reared in gospel lands had to be insulted by answering this question before they could get married in the then Roman Catholic Cuba.
Since the separation of the adulterous union of the Cuban State from the Romish Church it has all changed. Public schools and also evangelical schools now dot the land over, and civil marriage has been instituted, hence the per cent of illiteracy and illegitimacy is very rapidly decreasing.
Cardinal Gibbons attributes liberty and virtue and nearly every other good thing in the United States to the Catholic Church. Suppose he attempt to tell the American people why the pope and his Church never did do for Cuba what he claims it did for the United States ! While he is at it, he might tell them about the shortcomings of his Church in rich, beautiful, big Brazil and Mexico. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Roman Catholic fruit in Roman Catholic countries is very bad. It could not be worse.
This being Jubilee year, the Knights of Columbus are exceedingly busy in legislative halls and otherwise. So tells the Catholic Union and Times, Buffalo, N. Y., March 13, 1913:
The Knights of Columbus are being forced into politics by the people who have been making a mighty noise as to the separation of Church and State. In Colorado a bill has been introduced in the Legislature which, if adopted, as it probably will be, will make unlawful “the writing, printing, publication, circulation, or distribution of any false statement, matter, or thing purporting to be the ritual, ceremonial, or ceremonies, or part thereof, of any Church, religious society, organization, or corporation, or of any fraternal, beneficial, or secret society, organization, or corporation; and making certain testimony in respect thereto competent; and making violation thereof a felony, and providing penalty therefor.’ ‘ A similar bill has been presented to the Missouri Legislature. These bills are the work of the knights.
“Forced into polities” —excellent term, in truth, for Knight of Columbus! The Knight of Columbus lives on politics. It is the very breath of his nostrils; the choice nutriment of Ms body and soul. He has representatives in every legislative body from the Congress of the United States to city council of humblest town in the land. The Knight of Columbus is the agent for priesthood and prelacy’s dirty work. But the Knight aforesaid gets, for his salacious services, good substantial ” rake-off.”
Imperative duty, it should be, of all true Americans to put not only Knights of Columbus, but their masters—pope, prelate, and priest—out of politics. The Knights, their chiefs and guides, are the bane and curse of the Nation’s life.
France has put political Romanism out of business. So also have Italy and Portugal. Spain and Ireland are soon to do likewise. How long shall non-Catholic America, England, and Germany tarry in giving heed to the call of patriotism and social duty?
