ROMAN CATHOLIC IMMIGRANTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27212, 15 October 1949, Page 8

ROMAN CATHOLIC IMMIGRANTS

Sir,—Despite the weight of vituperation heaped upon me in the use of such terms as “ semi-lunacy,” ” deliberately malicious falsehoods," and “anti-God- education," etc., my head remains unbowed. My opponents would no doubt desire that any intrigues of that body of Catholic Action perhaps known as “ The Movement ” be kept shrouded in secrecy, but I should have thought that Catholic publications and statements would be considered reliable authority for making what thev now deem it expedient to allege as being deliberately and maliciously false. Such authority may be itemised as hereunder:—The official Catholic Dictionary, America, 1946. The Otago Daily Times, September 23. Dr Panico and His Grace Archbishop (now Cardinal) Gilroy in respect of methods of applying Catholic Action. If only the truth is permissible it may not be inappropriate to quote the following portion of the American Jesuits open attlck on the democratic institutions of the USA: “How we Catholics have loathed and despised the civilisation which is now called democracy. American Catholics are being asked to shed their blood for that particular kind of secularist civilisation which they have heriocally repudiated for four centuries.. The Catholic revolution will begin when we decide to cut loose from the existing social order. fAmerica Mav 17th, 1941.) Or again, when another cleric stated he would seek, even by yiolent means, and would be in power within the next decade- “We predict that the National Socialists of America, organised under that or some other name, eventually will take control of the Government of this: continent. We predict, lastly, the end of democracy in America. (Father Coughlin, in "Social Justice, September 1, 1939, a Catholic publication banned as seditious.) In 1941 a Franciscan compared Father Coughlin as a “ second Christ ” (New York, July 29, 1941). In 1936 Bishop Gallagher on his return from a visit to the Vatican to discuss Coughlin’s activities, declared: “Father Coughlin is an outstanding priest, and his voice is the voice of God® Said Father Edward Brophy.a «Christian Front leader, June, 1942. “We must get strong and keep organ*S Knowledge truth may help us to be less confused regarding world-wide nolitical upheavals and activate us to fignt for those basic Christian truths and those principles of freedom which find should remain, our precious heritage.I am, etc.. Vigilant.

[This correspondence is closed. —Ed ODT.]