THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 2, 10 May 1873, Page 5

THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY.

Wfc continue our publication cf the pastoral letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, assembled in Dublin on the 21»t and 22nd of January, 1873, to their flocks, which Was read on February 3rd of this year in the different Churches and Chapels of that Archdiocese : —

" If to all that has been done against the Church in O-ermany we add the laws enacted in the Spanish Cortes, to complete the impoverishment and enslavement of the illustrious clergy of Spain ; if, further* more, we observe the acts of the civil Government in several of the Helvetic Cantons, in which the State presumes to issue decisions upon Catholic dogmas, to usurp the episcopal jurisdiction over parishes, to expel religious bodies, to provoke to schism ; if we consider how in Belgium the bishops are forced to refuse Christian burial to the departed children of the Church, in consequence of the desecration of Catholic cemeteries by the action of civil authorities, we have one vast picture of persecution, in which the brutal tyranny of Pagan Some is combined with the malicious cunning of Julian the Apostate, and the petty meanness of the Low Empire, in one grand assault against the liberties of the Catholic priesthood, in the hope of putting an end, if it were possible, to the very existence of the Church of God upon earth.

" A third phase of persecution remains, which, while it invariably accompanies the open assaults upon the Christian faith, and the violent usurpation of ecclesiastical authority, of which we have hitherto spoken, presents itself also in countries where either of the former methods might be held to be impossible or inexpedient. The leading principle of this species of persecution is to weaken as much as possible the influence of the Catholic Church upon men, by narrowing in every way her field of operation, aad by restricting her especially in her action upon the family and in the school, which are the two chief elements of society. To this principle we may trace as to its source the entire system of legislation on marriage and on education. " Modern legislation on marriage is, in several conntries, a strictly practical rendering of the 65th Proposition condemned in the Syllabus, which says : ' The doctrine that Christ has raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament cannot at all ba tolerated.' It is intolerant in the' highest degree : it will not allow that the marriage contract between Christians is a sacrament, and hence it will not admit -that the Church has any Divinely given rights with respect to it. The institution of the Divorce Court is the natural consequence of the introduction of the so-called civil marriage, and the natural result of both 19, not only the profanation of the great sacrament, typifying the union ot Christ and His Church, but the loss to society of all that purity of feeling with which the graces of nineteen centuries of Christian faith had sanctified the nuptial stale. Besides, once the maintenance of the unity and indissolubility of marriage has been made dependent on the caprice of human legislator liable, as they are, to be swayed by the worst passions of coiTupt human nature, who can say that the hideous doctrines of the Communists, more foul than those of Mahomet, may not yot be legalized even in countries once the centre of Christian civilization ? And under a system through which the very ! springs of individual, domestic, and civil life have been poisoned, what place will be left, in a degraded and brutalized society, for the Spouse of Chrkt, the Holy Church of God ?

"But the supreme effort to weaken the Church's influence is made on the educational field, by banishing religion from the schools, whether of higher, middle, or primary instruction. In a pastoral letter which we addressed to you a few months ago, we endeavoured to set before you at some length, dearly beloved brethren, the dangers which threaten your faith from pernicious systems of education. The experience of every day that has since passed has but strengthened the convictions we then expressed, sanctioned the warnings we then gave, and rendered us more determined than ever to straggle to the last, with all the energy of our hearts, helped by the grace of God, against every system of un-Oatholic education, no matter from what source it may come, or by what patrons it may be recommended. It is chiefly for the consideration of difficulties arising on this all-important subject of education that we are now assembled ; but we reserve for a future occasion the resolutions we have adopted, confining ourselves at present to express our deep regret that the generous grants lately

made by the Legislature, in behalf of education, have been accompanied -ty. 'conditions which have, up. to. the present time, deprived' many meritorious^ teachers of> the long expected rewards of their labors — rewards which. should have been made dependent on their certified efficiency. Without faith it is impossible to please God ; and what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his- own sohl ? Tliese are, in brief, the eternal truths which mus£ 'govern our conduct in this matter, which directly concerns the eternal salvation of our flocks, and amid all difficulties and perplexities with which the question is surrounded, the-. heavenly simplicity of these words of God will be ' a lamp to our feet, and a light to our ;path ; ' •nd the ' law of His mouth will be good to us above thousands of gold •nd silver.' (I) . "On the other hand, with. a uniformity whiph reveals a plan of United action and obedience to the same word of, command, the infidel party in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Spain, in Australia, in America, and in. countries, nearer home, has put forth a scheme of universal education, the essential feature of which is, that it shall be gratuitous, secular, and compulsory. ..-' "What chiefly. recommends these three qualities of the modern educational system ia, however, that they ensure the exclusion of wßp^r „ .. ...„,.

" The Catholic Church can never look with dislike upon a system of education, merely because it is gratuitous. R.She loves too well Him who said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not,' to allow any consideration of human interest to hinder the approach of the very poorest children to the sanctuary of her maternal bosom. If to be gratuitous be a merit.injeducation, then should religious schools' be admittedly the most perfect, the world has .ever seen, for they gratuitously give not only an education of the best kind, but they give also the unpaid, theunpurchasable service of holy men and women, who expend their energies arid telencs in teaching the poor of Christ without other reward than tbeinsults heaped upon them by the well-paid patrons of gratuitous education. . When the t novel systems of education •hall have produced teachers equal in silent, loving, patient unpaid labour, to the memoers of the religious congregations, then, but not till then, shall we believe the new-born admiration of gratuitous education to be sincere. But as long as gratuitous education means that Catholic parents shall be heavily taxed to pay enormous salaries to on army of inspectors and teachers, whose chief work it will be to slay the Catholic faith in the souls of children, we cannot but consider the cry for gratuitous education to be a piece of mocking hypocrisy.' And can! that education be called gratuitous in which a Catholic parent is forced 1 to pay for what he believes to be the moral ruin of his own child ?

"•lt is unnecessary to dwell upon the evil consequences that must follow to faith from the second special quality of the new school • namely, their secular character. 'Without Christian .schools,' say the Bishops of Germany, ' in which the Church can exercise the influence that belongs to her, there is no religious education. A school ■which is not in full harmony with the Church and with, the Christian family ia a most deadly foe of both j it is an anti-Church and an antifemily (school), which alienates the children from the heart of thoir parents and from the spirit of the Church, rendering them," in a fashion hitherto unknown in histoty, either irreligious, or, at best, indifferent to religion.'

"Finally, in open violation to the natural righta of parents and of the sacred rights of the Church and to leave to the rising generation no loophole of escape from anti-Christian influences, education must be compulsory. What a bitter satire on the v i unted liberty of the age is this, that the people must be compelled by fine and imprisonment to seceive educational liberty ! If the public opinion of the a»e be in reality enlightened, why should it be necessary to proclaim compulsory education as one of the great wants of society ? And if it be as unenlightened as to deserve for its persistent ignorance and severe treatment awarded to thieves and evil doers, what are we to thiuk of the pretensiona of those men who mako war on the Church in the name of the enlightened nineteenth century? These inconsistent compulsory educational la *a would have been unnecessary hod there been no fetters placed en the action of the Catholic Church. She binds her sacred ministers continually to impress on the minds oi parents, that the education of their children is a duty imposed on them by God himself in the sth Commandment of the Decalogue, and on the minds o£ children, that they are bound to devote themselves to such studies as may suit their state in this world, and prepare for eternity in the next. This is the sweet power of compulsion of which, the Catholic Church possesses the secret, and when she places it in hands of some meek brother or gentlo nun, whose hearts omptied of oil earthly affections, beat only with love of C!ni->t and His little ones she promotes the spread of education more efficiently than can ever be done by a penal code b.istling with finea and penalties. Wo cannot but look with alarm, on these growing attempts to substitute physical for moral ttompuJsioa in matters of such sacred importance. When the sense of naoral obligation has been awakened in the community, when men Have forgotten how to obey for conscience 1 sake when the jail and the police supply the chief sanction which ia to protect the law, the dUsolation of society is not far distant. And yet this will undoubtedly be the outcome of the system of gratuitous, secular, and compulsory -"''"tiriciu. frr U^^-rvQPal^oajyit^gJaa^u^hfiajvyhfire it ia not sup-

virtue, we must protect it with,our own souls, and in the souls of those who depend on us, from the pernicious influences of dangerous read. in K . When you know that a book, however remarkable, or a journal, however brilliant, l 9 openly or covertly hostile to the spirit of faith, let no weak diffidence of .public opinion induce you to run the risk of perusing it. And besides protecting, you must strengthen your faith. For this purpose, to prayer and to constant bearing of the Word of God you should add the reading of works written in defence and explanation of the Catholic dqctriue. Be not led away by the example of those who defend the. reading of dangerous books on the ground that. in these days it is necessary to know what is said againsc reliaiop. When men, the whole amount of whose Catholio knowledge ia limited to indistinct reccollections of the Catechism, learned by them in childhood, spend the best part of their lives over books in which infidelity parades its blasphemies, now with assumed gravity as scientific conclusions, now brilliant with wit and literary grace, is it wonderful that many should suffer the sad shipwreck of their faith ? The more tsr, seeing that while they unceasingly expose themselves to the influences hostile to faith, these unhappy persons sedulously avoid the sermons and other religious instructions which our Holy Mother the Church provides for her children. Finally,, we should avail ourselves to the fullest extent of all our rights as citizens to protest against the attacks made on the authority of the Church, and especially against the injustice done to us in the matter of education. *- *. - -* 1 * f *j *> i -. : . ./'.But, beloved, brethren," says St, Cyprian, we ought not in tb : » matter to overlook, the truth, nor should the shadow of this fett persecution so blind our mind and sense as to leave us without light to understand , the d.ivine ordinances. By learning the cause of these calamities we shall discover the remedy for our wound. The Lord has wished to try His .household, and as* long repose had corrupted the discipline which had, conic dowutousf.ora God, the Divine judgement has awakened our faith from a declining, and if I may so speaL , an almost slumbering ;state; and whereas we deserved yet more for our sins, the most, merciful Lord has so moderated all, that what hjv* passed seemed rather, a trjal of what wo were than an actual infliction Thus spoke St. Cyprian (»), when he sought to explain to his stricken flock tlje designs of Divine Proridence in permitting the terrible persecution of Gallius j and if the sins of the faithful, in the third pen> tury were not without their share in bringing sufferings on the Church, can we flatter ourselves in the belief that the sins by which we daily provoke the Divine anger have no part in earning the persecution that rages to-day. ' Long ago it was foretold,' says St. Bernard, speaking of the Church ' and the time of fulfilment, has now come ; behold, inpeace is my. bitterness most bitter: it was bitter when the martyrs were slaughtered, more bitter still when heresy raged, but most bitter at the present time on account ,of the morals of her own children, ... In the.se our days, is heard* the voice of the Church lamenting aloud: I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised ma: fhey. have despised me and dishonoured me by theishameful lives, , by their foul greed of grain, by filthy intercourse, Ly the business that walketh. about in darkness." Oh, this mother of oi'f souls mourns over .the guilt of those Christians who, not only amon" the disobedient Armenians in the East, but elsewhere, to the scandal of the faithful, dare, with sacriligeous hand, to rend by schism th-? seamless, r,obe of the Church's unity. How she mourns for the thousands who in Ireland render fruitless all her maternal care for the; • salvation, by their, .persistence in the awful crime of drunkenness, which is the fertile source of co much sin. Dearly beloved brethren, let Us no longer rauso our mother's tears to flow, or strengthen the arm of' her persecutors by our sins, but rather in the spirit of humility, and In a contrite heart, let ua strive to appease the anger of the God of Justice. The r,ains, the tempests, and the epidemic diseases wit'v which the world has been so continuallj visited, bear evident marka uf a chastisement from heaven, and make our present position and futui - prospects gloomy in the extreme. Let v-», then, hnmble ourselves under the powerful hand of God, and by frequent supplications to the Virgin Mother, and to St. Joseph, the protector of .the Univerea 1 Church, let us. endeavour to avert the calamities that impend over u-. And since the enemies of the Church have refused to allow tha Sacre« Host of our Divine Lord to be invoked by the victims of their pers cuting laws, how better can we show our grief for His injured honour and our grief for His suffering Church, than by the solemn consecra tion of Catholio Ireland to the niosc sacred Heart of Jesus. To this act of devotion and reparation we now invite you. The Heart of the Word Incarnate is the fountain whence flows the blood that cleansesus from all Bin. Let us place as a sign on our sin-stained souls the blood of the Lamb, and the exterminating angel of persecution will not be able ro hurt ua. Then shall we see the 'woe that shall come upou the nation that riaeth up agaitnt our people; for the Lord Almighty will take revenge ou them, in the day of judgment ho Vi'l visit them.' Then, shall be fulfilled £in our regard the Church's prayer that we may not be disheartened by .the tribulations which sh* may have to bear for our sakes ; they rather shall be- our glory, fo.> • none of us shall suffer aa a murderer, or a miler, or a thief, or t> coveter of other men's things; but if as a Christian let ua not b-j ashamed, but let ua glorify God in His name.' To the Sacred Hea* : of Jesus Christ, then, dearly beloved, we, your unworthy pastors, thh day commend your souls, so dear to Christ, who redeemed them Tilth His precious blood ; so dear to ua, who must so aoon give an account