WHAT IT COSTS TO BE A CATHOLIC.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 90, 16 January 1875, Page 10

WHAT IT COSTS TO BE A CATHOLIC.

Perhaps there are few Catholics who live in peace under tl£ United States, who ever stop to consider the sacrifices the people in many European countries have to undergo, simply because they profess the Catholic Faith. In Russia, to become a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, entails forfeiture of all estates, and prevents promotion in the civil or military sphere. In like manner, in other countries, pains and penalties await all who dare to cast aside the perplexities of Protestantism and take up the Crosß of our Divine Saviour. Even in America, wjith all its boasted toleration, the man who openly professes the Catholic faith is in a measure ostracised by those who are imbued with the spirit of Puritanism. The world, in a word, hates the Catholic Church, as her teachings are repulsive to those who follow the world, the flesh, and — as a consequence — the devil. Worldings cannot reconcile to themselves the teachings of that spiritual mother who tells all her children there is a spritual law which is far more imperative than the law of Mammom ; nor can it endure that Church which places the Cross of Christ above and beyond the sceptre of Caesar. In the creedless churches men learn that to be rich, powerful, and independent of religious scruples is the acme of perfection, and thus they intuitively are taught to hate the teachings of the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which tells us that t^ie poor are the people of God, that the number shall be exalted, and that self-abnegation is the solemn obligation of ie;rery Christian. The world tells its votaries that the religion of Dives is the true method by which to gain happiness, whilst the Catholic Church tells her children that to be good and perfect Christians they must be like Lazarus in spirit so that that the Son of God may take pity upon them and raise them up to the glory He has promised all who love and serve Him in faith, hope, and. charity. For these reasons and for others fully as potent, the worldlyminded look upon practical Catholics as men who are beneath them in intelligence, who are blinded to their own best interests because they believe in the teachings of the Church by which they are prevented from committing nameless crimes whose very mention pollutes the lips that gives them utterance, and who, moreover, are so circumscribed by the laws of God, that they turn away in disgust from what the world is pleased to call its pleasures. This is the spirit which in our days has cast the beloved Bishops and pastors into prisons where they are treated as the vilest criminals. Men whose heads are covered with the snow-white locks of age, whose blameless lives have been passed in performing those deeds of charity peculiar to the Catholic priesthood, are torn from the altar of God and thrust into prison because they have the courage to obey God,' rather than Caesar. For the libertine, the infidel, and the robber, there is freedom and justice ; but for the humble priest of God, the highest reward for fidelity to his faith is to wander an exile from his native land, or dwell in a dungeon within her borders. Nor will this persecution stop here. From the Bishops it will descend to the priests, and from them to the people, who ere long may expect to feel the iron-clad hoof of the hellish miscreants, who, under the name of progress and liberty, are re-enacting Pandemonium in Europe. Nor must we in America expect to be free from this scourge of Lucifer. It will come sooner or latter, and it behooves us*to be ready for the conflict, by noxu-ishing our faith,, by reliance on Divine Providence, by prayer andpenance, asthesearethe arms that God has proposed for our defence in every battle against the leo-ions of hell— come in- what shape they may. When heroic David went forth to face the huge Goliath he did not encase himself in the armour of this world, but he placed his sole reliance upon the power of God. In like manner should Catholics place implicit reliance upon the power of heaven to release them from every toil the enemies of God may seek to cast around them, and to keep in memory at all times the important truth it is better to obey God than man. — ♦ Catholic Sentinel.'

The ' New York Freeman ' says :—lt: — It is announced, in a public telegraphic dispatch to the European papers — whether correctly or not'we'do not know — that the- Duke of Norfolk, First Peer of the British realm, and by hereditary title Grand Marshal of the Court of England, is aboxit to renounce all his worldly titles and to enter the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, at Brompton — ptu*posing to enter Holy Orders. The Duke is about twenty-seven years of age, and has been marked, all his life, for his devotion as a Catholic. His hereditary titles and estates will pass to his brother, Lord Edward Bernard Howard, who has just reached his majority. The mother of the Duke of Norfolk is a sister of Lord Lyons, who some time ago was British Minister at Washington. The following are the professors appointed to ihe Catholic University College at Kensington :— Rectov : The Right Rev. Mgr. Capel, Domestic Prelate to his Holiness Pope Pius IX. ; Classics — F. A. Paley, Esq., M.A., Camb. ; Matheniaties—E. Butler, Esq., M.A., T.C.D. ; Oriental Languages and Hebrew— C. Seager, Esq., M.A., Oxon. ; Astronomy — R. Proctor, Esq., F.A.S. ; Chemistry — F. Barff, Esq., M.A., Camb., Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Academy ; Natural Theology — Rev. R. Clarke ; Natural Hi>tory — St. George Mivart, Esq., F.R.S. ; Literature — Dennis Florence McCarthy, Esq. Tho present may be a fitting moment to note down the progress of Catholicism in Great Britain within the last hundred years. Here are the statistics collected with great care : — In 1765, there were 60,000 Catholics in England and Scotland; in 1821, there were £03,000 ; in 1843, they numbered 800,000 ; in 1870, the number was 3,380,000. There are now in England 1,093 priests, 1,353 churches, 70 monasteries of men, 268 convents of women, 1,200 Catholic Schools. The house of Peers number 33 Catholic ; tho Lower House 87 ; nmnng the Privy finnnnillors there are 6 Catholics} tlae nobility