SUPPRESSION OF CONVENTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 29, 15 November 1873, Page 13

SUPPRESSION OF CONVENTS.

r THB llluetrwus.Monsignor Nardi contributes an artieiebn this subject to the 'Yoce della Verita.' The reverend gentleman. replies;' to an article which had appeared ia the 'London Times' on the same subject Monsignor Nardi, in the course of the article," says :—" English • Pro:* .testants say that we Catholics, and, especially, we Italian- Catholics, are' superstitious. They alune behold the "sun, we, miserable creatures' walk in darkness. Wemay reply in words, through' the press,- or by' lacts, that we adore one G-od onlyj. they always, cry we are supersti- " Not to speak as they speak, but to render homage to the truth, rb may be permitted us to cry out to them that they are superstitious •j i y 'v at r fc we llope 80< adore God »' but ' fchere " a second national "7, before which they prostrate ■ themselves,- in 'fear and in - hope, and that idol is the 'Times.' Every morning after or before the Bible, it is the Times which tells them what to believe and what fo do"- it is the organ of the nation, the public opinion, the sole andWpreme truth, the ulnmum verbum." ■ . It quotes the 'Times' as follows:— "Each government in Europe " exercises the right of regulating the religious corporations. .. ' . As a general principle, the convents and monasteries were suppressed everywhere. . . The greater part of the religious are very 'poor: but on this very account they are a burden to the country, (Italy) not producing anything. The poverty of the poor surpasses the imagination of our country, so well supplied " This is the reply .— " How very docile are the twenty-six letters of the alphabet ! It is nob erery year nor every month, but every week that some one dies ot hunger in the midst of London, and its journals tell us so. •If on any occasion you go to those back quarters of the metropolis you will see what the poverty of London is. Poor people covered with rags, ■« exhausted with hunger, seek sometimes for food at the corners of the streets which a beast would refuse. Assuredly you will not find mendicants m the cities of England, because the' Police .immediately shut them up in the Workhouses as though they were convicts/ w -X g \ v ey are guilly of 110fchil 'g els « thau the crime of being poor.. We Catholics assist the innocent, but we do not imprison them, nor do we destroy the family, separating the husband from the wife, and both, from their children, just because they are poor. And even" our monks help as many as they can, and if the 'Times' has an honest correspondent at Rome, let it send him at midday to the door of any of our convents, even the poorest, and he will see the crowd of poor people who find there that bread and that soup which asked for" elsewhere would cost them imprisonment. This is the burden which the monks contribute to the population." "The kingdom of Italy," "io the limes concludes, " should fulfil its mission ; and it cannot go back or stop half way. The terrible examples of France and of Spain counsel a prompt and vigorous policy." aui Th f , exam P les of France aiad Spain! J3ul if Fiance au.d Spain had bloodshed and crimes aud misery, it was precisely after the abolition of the Convents. During half a century Spain, and during almost a whole century France, have passed from revolution to revolution, and the abolition of the Eeligious Orders did not assuredly mark a favorable date in the annals of the two unfortunate countries, no more than it marked those of any othe* ctfuutry. These abolitions are enormous injustices, are horrible abuses by iorce over right. They cannot be profitable, and thus necessarily they should be- noxious. Ihere is no serious writer on political economy, who does not lament the disappearance of convents, by which, amongst indefinite miseries, we have a terrible and increasing pauperism, agriculture neglected, fi i f e n- m the com P arativel y barren lands preferred by the monks, the telling of trees and the consequent inundation. But the more serious evils are not the economical but the moral evils. These great public robberies necessarily provoke imitation, aud they take away that sacred aureole which should surround property for the social good, and these offences against the Religious Institutions will rebound with infinite evil in the hearts of the people too much inclined already to brutal passions." '