MORE SLANDERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 119, 6 August 1875, Page 13

MORE SLANDERS.

It must be confessed the Catholic press have a hard struggle to refute the slanders and calumnies which crop up so frequently in the public journals, Last week we exposed the malicious misstate"H&aents of a mendacious bigot, who by a side-wind strove to propagate his falsehoods, and we find that our valued contemporary f the ' Melbourne Advocate' has been employed in a somewhat similar task. Past experience in New Zealand has afforded ample proof to Catholics of the absolute necessity for a journal in which to expose the wanton and untruthful attack* which are made upon • their religion and all they hold dear, but the following from the' 'Advocate' will more fully convince those who may be at all doubtful on the point : — In the ' Argus ' of Saturday last there is a scandalous review of a scandaloun work purporting to contain a story of the Holy Father's life. The author, Mr. Alfred Owen Legge, has succeeded in producing a work of fiction [that will be devoured with a keen appetite by many Protestants ; and but for the feeling of veneration Catholics entertain for Pius IX., they might possibly derive some amusement from the perusal of it. If they could for the time being divest themselves of that feeling, and calmly study Mr. i Legge' s book as a work of art, the task would not be altogether unprofitable. Whatever ideas it had entertained as to the powers and fertility of invention exercised by writers inimical to the \ Papacy, their notions on that subject would be considerably enlarged by an acquaintance with what Mr. Legge has accomplished in the field of literature in which, following the bent of his genius, he gives free rein to his fancy. In poetry and romance there arc splendid examples of the creative power of genius, but it has never before been so .brilliantly exercised in biographical history as it "is in " The Story of Pius the Ninth's Life," by Mr. Leggo, Wo had

ourselves proposed to illustrate how "wild and bold are the flights of his imagination, but as Father O'Malley did so very effectively on Sunday last> in a sermon the reverend gentleman preached at St. Francis' Church, we shall avail ourselves of his^ work. It will be seen that he does no justice whatever to Mr. Legge ; that he fully credits him with all he has accomplished in the domains of fiction, that the boldest flights of his imagination are acknowledged, and that, lest there should be any doubt as to the good faith of the author, he (Father O'Malley) proved conclusively that his story was by a fine fancy "woven, and in no degree founded on fact. Father O'Malley took for his text the words : " Sonora patrem tuum," Honour thy Father (Exod. xxi., 12). He observed that curious coincidences do sometimes occur. It had been known, for . weeks previously, that there was to be a collection throughout the Catholic churches on that day for the venerable head of the Catholic Church, and by one of these purely accidental, but still remarkable coincidences, there had appeared on the preceding day, in one of the secular papers, a review on a life of the Pope. The "life" teemed with falsehoods, and the review was penned in language which could not be supposed by *;he writer to be other than most insulting to Catholics. The man whom they reverenced above all others on earth was slandered by the biographer, and treated with studied disrespect by the reviewer. It was stated that Pius IX. had turned his thoughts fir<st to wedded life, but • having met with a repulse, had become a soldier and a gambler j and, finding no consolation in this dissipated life, had ended by entering the priesthood. All this was told with evident relish by the reviewer, and with a coarseness of language which might be suited to the columns of a secular journal, but which did not bear repetition within a sacred edifice. It was further stated that the Pope was an " imbecile ruler ;" and his minister, Antonelli, was described as " brigand born," and as " sending round the hat for Peter's pence ;" a remark which certainly heightened the coincidence. He (Father O'Malley) had often impressed upon the people the necessity of having a daily Catholic paper to defend the Catholic body from the daily assaults of bigotry and falsehood. He was aware that, unfortunately, the time had not yet come, but he hoped it would one day come. In the meantime, allowance must be made for the slowness with which people think ; the necessity must be kept constantly before them, in order that it might not be forgotten, but have time to sink into their minds. The slanders to which. I he had referred, and which he was about to refute, should surely make them understand, if they did already feel the want of a daily defence against daily assaults. Were it not for the accidental circumstance of his having to preach that day, the slanders would have had a week to live, whereas, if there were a daily paper, they might have been answered the next morning, How many who had read that vile article were beyond the reach of his voice ! How many (to their shame) did not read the weekly Catholic journal — the only one in the colony ! None but the blind could fail to see the enormous power of the Press for good or evil, and none but the foolish could behold that power, and neglect to range it on their side. It was the conscientious duty of a Catholic to have in his house a Catholic paper, and procure it as wide, a circulation as possible among both Catholics and .Protestants. How were simple Catholics to know but that some of the many falsehoods were true ; and how were Protestants to suspect that we were maligned, if there were no one to tell them ? Pope Pius IX. was born in 1792. In 1803, at the age of 11, he began to frequent the schools of the Scalopii. This word was a corruption of Fratelli delle souole pie — brethren of the pious or Christian schools : in fact (horrible to relate), Christian Brothers ! It was true that the rules of the Order in Italy were not in all points the same as in Victoria, but the principles and practices were quite as bad; and that was saying a good deal, seeing that the Christian Brothers in Victoria were surpassed in wickedness by only one other Order, the name of which he (Father O'Malley) did not venture to pronounce, lest he should make his auditors shudder. 1 After attending ithese wicked schools for five years, Pius (whose l name in private life was John Mastai Ferratti), at the age of ,16 (in 1808), entered an ecclesiastical seminary to study for the priest* hood. In 1809 he received tonsure (one of the minor Orders), and w.ent to Home to continue his philosophical and theological studies, ' and not to offer himself to Pius VII., as had been frequently stated, ; as a soldier. There was some fotindation for the rumour of his , having been a member of the .noble guard, for in 1810 Pope Piua VII. was carried off from Rome by the French generals Radet and 1 Miollis ; and in the confusion which followed, several seminaries t were closed, and the students had to return to their native towns, }■ and Mastai was among the number, Although he had received the i ecclesiastical tonsure, he could not become a priest, for he suffered from violent fits of epilepsy. In 1812 (the Pope Pius VII. being a prisoner in France, and the Roman army being incorporated with ' tho French, and officered by Frenchmen), Mastai, being of noble ' birth, was summoned by the French to enter the guard of nobles I at Milan ; but the same fibs which excluded him from the priestl hood procured his exemption from military service In 1814, the ■ aged Pontiff returned to Rome, the seminaries re-opened their ) doors, and Mastai began to freqiient the schools, though at first in ) lay dress (on account of his malady). G-od was pleased to deliver . him. In 1818 ho assisted in giving a "mission." Not .being as .' yet ordained, he, of course, could not hear confessions ; but he i preached, and he (Fathev O'Malley) ventured to say no one i preached like him. Such a splendid voice ! such a noble presence ! ■ such dignity of manner ! s^^ch earnestness ! The next year he waa I 'ordained a priest. , That men should lie was not surprising, but that they should ) lie so openly and so daringly was. In reality, the risk of detection i 1 was more apparant than real. It was a well-known fact that the 3 most daring robberies were often perpetrated in the open streets, I with consummate skill and coolness j the onlookers being top much

surprised to interfere. Last year the Freemasons had had the audacity to expel the Pope from one of their lodges— which they coolly affirmed he had joined in the year 1824 or 1825, one of the three years he had. spent in Chili, in South America !! ! But if an instance of daring were wanted, it is not necessary to go out of Victoria. Before our faces, and in the teeth of our persistent denials, it was steadily maintained that the people were delighted with the new Education Act. The Acting-Governor had publicly declared it at the opening of Parliament. He had overlooked us as completely as if we did not exist ! The next charge against the Pope was that he had "sanctioned the slaughter of u his people." He had commenced his reign by setting at large a number of men who had been imprisoned by his predecessor solely on account of their " virtues." He exacted from them merely a pledge of honor not to renew their evil practices. They begged he would give them Holy Communion with his own hands ; they swore the most frenzied oaths they would never raise a finger against him, and they besieged him in his Quirinal Palace, and clamoured that he should come forth to the balcony and hear their demands, a number of sharpshooters being posted opposite, behind the statues of Castor and Pollux, to kill him as soon as he should appear ; and, in effect, they did kill one of his prelates. These lamb-like "subjects" were principally ruffians gathered from other parts of Italy than Rome, with whom, however, the scourings of Eome fraternised of course. During the absence of the Pope they got Mass celebrated by a bad priest, not that they cared for Mass, but that they dearly loved sacrilege ; and, during the evenings of Holy Week, there were namless crimes in the Church of St. Peter. And the Sacred Heart was defiled by prostitutes. And harlots were sent into the hospitals to pollute the souls of the sick and dying. And when the Pope was restored he was so unforgiving as to refuse to believe more the pledges of such men. The ' Times ' (a journal not given to overpraising the Pope) wrote as follows :—: — ox/ "It is a matter of history, however singular and unwelcome such an assertion may sound, that in the very hour of his flight and his fall, Pius IX. was, and is, more entirely and essentially pope and head of the Latin Church than many hundreds of his predecessors have been amidst all the splendour of the Lateen. Personally the deposed Pontiff has exhibited to the world no common share of evangelical virtues ; and, though his political abilities proved inadequate to execute the moderate reforms he had entered upon, from vnwoHUness of Us subjects, and the infelicity of these times, yet the apparition of so lenignant and conscientious a man on the Papal throne, in the midst of the turmoil of Europe, has forcibly struck the imagination and won the affection of the whole Roman Catholic population of Europe. Accordingly at a crisis when every other constituted authority has' been more or less shaken, and every other institution tried, the Homish hierarchyhas, in all countries where it exists, extended its influence and more displayed its power.—' Times/ 4th December, 1848.