CATHOLIC NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 242, 21 December 1877, Page 9

CATHOLIC NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.

In the Holy Name Cathedral. Chicago, as we learn from the Western Catholic, the Very Rev. Dr. McCullen, Vicar-General of the Diocese, delivered a practical and forcible discourse to parents on the duty of providing religious instruction and reading for their children. The speaker stated that many Catholics seemed to think that their whole duty to their children was performed when the children received First Communion. This wa9 a grievous, a most dangerous error. That is but the beginning, — not the end. The reverend speaker said he had recently met several young girls on the streets with books under their arms. Upon inquiry, he learned from them that they were returning from the public library, with novels. He looked at some of the books and found them to be translations of French trash — corruption. Thus, these young minds were being corrupted, or, at best, weakened, by the negliffence of their Catholic parents. These children should be sent regularly to Sunday school. Then their parents should subscribe for Catholic papers. They should economise in other directions, and place at least a few Catholic books on their shelves for the edification and instruction of the children whom God had intrusted to their guardianship, and for whose direction in the way of salvation God would hold them responsible. He did not wish to be impracticable, nor to be understood as suggesting that young, immature minds should be "crammed" with works of a character which children could not appreciate. It was necessary, in feeding the mind as well as the body, to be governed by the laws of reason, and to take into consideration its strength. Children, it is true, need light, entertaining, amusing literature. But this can be furnished to them free from silly sentimentalism or dangerous morality. As they grow older, the Catholic newspapers and magazines should be procured for them. Thus, their minds would be guarded against imbecile sentimentalism and moral corruption. When so advanced that their judgments may be trusted, many historical references and other books can be procured by them in the public library, which is. doubtless, of great service to those of fixed morals and sound judgment who know how to distinguish between tares and wheat, but which is a curse and a source of corruption to unguided, inexperienced children who are permitted to form their own mental and moral character on the basis of the amazingly large proportion of worthless and corrupting novels which can be found on its shelves. The reverend speaker concluded by appealing in most forcible and touching language to parents to take precautions which would keep their bright little boys from becoming street loafers, and their young girls from growing up in the false and impure air breathed from novels, whose only variation was from silliness to false morality. He called attention to the alarming number of Catholic children who were growing up not only in ignorance of faith and Christian morality, but also of that practical wisdom which can come only from the proper direction of the young mind. The sermon of the Vicar was a timely one, and was listened to with profound attention. It is to be hoped that parents will be guided by its sound advice, and that they will begin to support the Catholic journals and magazines of the country. Catholics are too willing to criticise newspapers nnd periodicals* which their meagre support keeps in a starving condition. If instead of buying the Harper* and kindred literature, they supported libeially the orarans of their own faith, and lifted them iuto a" position of security, if not of profit, they would find in them more of the enterprise which they now demand, but for which they do not think of paying.