Slattery on Moral Theology.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4, 25 January 1900, Page 4

Slattery on Moral Theology.

Slattery is himself significantly shy of accepting' challenges. But his handbills—some of which are before vs —contain noisy invitations to priests to translate into English before his audiences certain extracts from some or other manual of Moral Theology. Such challenges may appeal to the groundlings. The judicious will merely recognise in them a cheap and somewhat nasty mode of courting notoriety. The matters to which they refer are not legitimate subjects for discussion before public audiences. Even if they were, Slattery's character and history, his association with a proven impostor, the scandalous nature and the revolting methods of his crusade of lying, would prevent any priest or layman with an honourable record from mounting the platform at his meetings. As Mr. Winter remarked : J' An officer in the army whose epaulettes have been torn off for dishonourable conduct could not expect his brother-officers to meet him to discuss any question. So it is with the priests of the Catholic Church and ex-priest Slattery.' Samuel Butler puts the following further bit of practical wisdom into the mouth of Hudibras :—: — ' . . • That man is sure to lose That fouls his hands with dirty foes ; For where no honour's to be gained, 'Tis thrown away in being maintained.' ' The study of Moral Theology,' says Mr. Britten, ' forms an important part of the training of a priest. It involves a careful study of the Ten Commandments, and of the various obligations which they entail upon Christians. The priest is the physician of the soul, just as the doctor is the ucaler of the body ; and each, in the course of his training, has to study the various diseases as to which he may be consulted, and upon whi<-h he must, therefore, be prepared to give advice. Sins against the sixth (which Protestants call the seventh) commandment have to be studied like the others.' An idea of Slattery's slanderous and prurient misrepresentations on this matter may be gathered from the following summary statements :—: — 1. The title of his lectures 'to men only' is 'The Secret Theology of the Confessional.' Now there is no ' secret theology' in the Catholic Church for use either in or out of the confessional. Our text-books of Moral Theology and manuals for confessors are on the catalogues of prominent publishers, and may be purchased by anybody who is willing to pay for them. § 2. The text-books of Moral Theology are written in a dead language. They are thus —while by no means ' secret' —practically restricted to the private professional use of those for whom they are primarily intended. ' Slattery and those like him,' says Mr. Britten, ' translate the passages most unsuitable for general perusal into English, and distribute them broadcast.' Moreover, Slattery has, through ignorance or malice, mistranslated portions of these extracts from Moral Theology ; he has translated other passages not into their equivalent dignified English words, but into the most offensive language he could find; and by the use of blanks or lacuna he has in many instances conveyed the impression that perfectly innocent words (Buch as os, the mouth) would not bear translating. In most of this Slattery is merely following in the lead of a notorious disturber of the peace who created such mad excitement in England in 1867. Referring to this man's indecent pamphlets, a Protestant clergyman and historian, Rev. W. Nassau Molesworth says: 'It was evident . . . that if these documents were calculated to suggest evil thoughts when used for the guidance of men of education, they must do far more mischief when they were thrown broadcast, as they were by Mr. Murphy, to .women and young children.' || Test the logical value of Slattery's

« Com/iWe Refutation, p 5. Fulton says, in his 'testimonial' (p. 6), that Mt-Vuho Slattcrv was' trained in Rome.' The Madame says she was not, FultonsMTs Slattery was • a Baptist pastor.' Slattery, on the very same page, dome "this • but he tells us in his Secrets of Romish Priests (p. 64) that he was 'ordained a Baptist minister' at Philadelphia on October 20,1890. Fulton evidently knows very little about the Slatterys, after all. t The Mattery*, p. 12. C.T.S. J In his second challenge to Slattery, published in the Melbourne Southern Cross in June, 1899. § Herein they differ from the secret 'rituals' and lectures of the Orange Order which members are bound by oath not to divulge. li History of England, 1830-1874 vol. ILL, p. 326. Murphy's pamphlets were subsequently seized by the police and destroyed.

challenges by applying them to portions of the works of Luther and certain early Reform* rs-," 1 of Rev. Laurence Sterne, Dean Swift, etc. ; to medical works •. nay, even to many texts which we could point out in the Sacred Scriptures themselves ; and you will at once involve him in a-weeping charge of immorality against the Reformers, against the whole medical profession, against even the Written Word of (iod ' And mark ye. good masters all • those very brief portions of Catholic Moral Theology which deal with the crying sin of unchastity are simply th» application ot the Word ot God and the print']''"- of *Ye na'Mral Irv t^ ar '!1l! 1l-i' mport tint Tint line of human conduct. :*». In hi, >'.-•'/ ;' Ifo^ii- 1! /'■■■" <' (pp. :'" W) «!att<rv di tinctly conveys the impression that the whole substance of Moral Theology deals with the subject of unchastity. He also (p. :?2) expressly states that the investigation of this particular subject occupies ■ tliree or tour ycirs' of a student's life The insinuation and the direct statement are both equa'ly false. In the n>«t place, a relatively very biief poition of Moral Theology in demoted to this matter.f We can only characterise as a wilful and deliberate falsehood the statement that the study of the sixth (Protestant seventh) and ninth (Protestant tenth, first part) commandments and of the duties and obligations of the married state occupies ' three or four years.' In Thurles College (where Slattery was educated) the study of these subjects occupies only a very brief portion of a few days in a theological course of three or four years % In Maynooth the number of days which were partially devoted to such study was eight. § In the Pontifical Seminary. Rome, and in St. Sulpice, Paris, as we can testify from personal knowledge, it is much briefer than this. The Royal Commission of inquiry into the management and government of Maynooth College —the chairman of which Commission, Lord Harrowby, was a Protestant —said of this matter in their report: ' The subject [sins against chastity] is always treated of in a learned language, and every security is taken which piety and prudence can suggest, that it shall be handled with reverence and reserve, and in no spirit of licentious curiosity. We are here bound to say that we have no reason to believe, from the evidence of any party, that these studies have had practically an injurious effect upon the mind and character of the students.' || 4. Every Catholic man and woman, every Catholic youth and maiden, every Catholic priest in this country, will join with us in a vehement denial of the accusations which this profi ssional liar launches for money against those who are faithful to what the Anglican Bishop Dr Short terms 'this most scriptural duty' of ' the confession of particular sins.'*; Slattery's lectures and pamphlets are, in fact, brutal, cowardly, and outrageous cahunnie* against the virtue of every priest and of every Catholic woman who practices her religion ; and he practically accui-es husbands, brothers, and sons w Tith conniving at habitual immorality on the part ot wives. sisters, and mothers. There is no place in the vsoild \>here the ' devout female sex' are more faithful and frequent in the practice of confession than in Slattery's native country. Ireland. On the t j.priest's theory they ought to be therefore hopelessly and abominably corrupt and reprobate. As a matter of fact and common knowledge they are the crowning glory of the Green Isle, the purest womanhood of any nation on this planet. We could readily fill pages of this pamphlet with evidence of this. But we will content ourselves with quoting the single testimony of a hostile English Protestant writer, James Anthony Fronde, the author of a book which, in the words of Ijecky, ' is intended to blacken to the utmost the character of the Irish people, and especially of the Irish Catholics.' 1 And yet in the course of one of his lectures in New York in 1572 he said . ' He did not question the enormous power for good which had been exercised by the modern Roman Catholic priest. ... In the last hundred years impurity had been almost unknown in Ireland This absence of vulgar crime and this exceptional delicacy and modesty of character were due. to their everlasting honour, to the influence of the Catholic clergy.' '•* Protestants denounce the Slatterys. There is still, unhappily, a large class who. partly from bigotry but chiefly from a love of pruriency, support the foul apostolate of persons of the type of Slattery and his sham ■ ex-nun.' But, thank God, there is a great and fast-growing body of the Protestant clergy and laity who give such rambling adventurers the fronted shoulder. And there are not wanting other signs which go to show that the time of the passing of such, unfortunates is near at hand. Slattery and his female companion have been ignored or exposed by leading newspapers in every country which they have afflicted with their

" For instance, h- <',ipiinini^ Ihibulomcu Ixcleuai; also Luther's TabU-Talk.o t For instance Lehmkuhls rheoloitttt M-<r,ilu devotee (ti fh cd.) to thesmntters only .'.» p tgi s out of a total ot 17JU unit lined in the work ; Caster, mans edition ol lain s i unipindium 17 pages out ot 8()(i : (iurv s Comp<niliuin with Ballenni s not. s (Rome 1^1). 71 p igos out ot J!'88 ; St. Liguori - Thenhxiia j»/or«/M-rParis. lhii.'i volsi, J(i7 pigc-. out ol ,W<?>l. 'Iho thrco first niLii.io.i-d are standard colli gi U \t-books. - We have thw imni stvirtl priest-, idm-iKd in Thurles who are now m the diocese ol Dmudin. § Report of her Ma,, si, s Commissioners to inquire into the man i,.-- 'lioni and goveminent ol thc(\,l\.r, ol Mj> uooth. published m LS'm a- a i'aili.imentary Blue Book, p i.,"> |ilbid. See Tk' .y unr^ b\ Mr. Button, X S.U., p. Id. «T lli</onj of the LA'tn'i ot l.iujlatul, Mh ed . p. 112 ' Leckv re'ei's to I'roude's Lnylnh m J/elaml. See Uiky s Inland in the Ihghttvnth Cent <ii », vol 1 p. 13, note. -' The noted Vrishj toiian ( lorgvm in, Pi wit on ihittir known is ' lan MacLaren'; s'n.l to m Aiueru- in mtu \ lew er in lh l'S that among the admirable qualities oi tlie liish people is that moral purity which is one ol the glories ot the <J ithohe Church vi lieland.' Even the Slattery woman trips accidentally into the truth shi s,i\« in a pamphlet or hers (p. :!(i) that on the question ol the crime ot fccticido and abortion " the position taken up b> the Church of Home is correct, fahe throws, all the protection she cau around tho unborn babe, whilst wo tlnd in our Churches women calling themselves Christians mid yet victims of this deMlish habit. See also Dr. LetllngweH'b work on llleyitimacii, Mulhallb Uictwnanj of Statistics, art.' Births.'

presence. Thus, in a recent issue, the Mttrc, the Anglic an organ of Victoria, said of the Slatteryw : 'They were a shanifless couple, and the Baptist sect, in our opinion, discredited itself very much in taking them up and allowing 1 them to prive their suggestive lectures in its chapels.' * They have boon denounced from the pulpit or in the l're'-s by prominent clergymen of various Protestant denominations, f In a letter to Dean Ljnch (now of Ilulme. Manchester) a genuine ex-nun, Mi^s Cusack —who kne.v the Cavan Convent of Poor Clares —roundly declares that- oyi'ry in Mr« Cr»rr,,+ j,f, { q fpj^n + Numerous public bodies have, in effect, passed votes of censure on the o^-priot nr«d his wife by refusing them the tt-c of their halls.§ Catholics are deeply grateful for these and such-like evidences of disgust which decent Protestants manifest towards those unfortunates of discreditable antecedents who. in Mr. Britten's words, 'make a living by pretending- to '"expose" matters of which they are grossly ignorant, or which they vvil'nlly misrepresent.' This friendly attitude of those outside our Fold is no doubt due in part to the honest shame with which respectable and clean-minded nonCatholics view both the matter and the manner of cru»ades like those of the Klatterys But this happy result has been enormously contributed to by the persistent distribution of pamphlets exposing the character of the iSlatterys, the Widdowses, the Ruthvens, the Koehlers, the MacXamaraa. the Shephards, the Hickses, the Chiniquys, and all their malodorous congeners. The free circulation ot tracts like this will hasten the coming of the day when professional lying and the preaching of pruriency in the sacred name of the God of Truth and Holiness will cease to be a profitable speculation. And when that day comes, the occupation of wandering calumniators like the Slatterys will be gone.

* Quoted by tlie Melbourne Advocate of January Ul, 1100. Among the socul lrp ipors that ignored the Sluttorvs or ret used to t-ike their advertisements were most o! the leading English and Scottish dailies , tto Melbourne and otlu r leading Australian dailies, with, as lar as we know at present, but one i.\( option . -md the respectable country I'reasof Australia. The roving pair wire denounced, in -words that are before tb by London T> uth. tho Texas hoiioclnii (edittd b\ the outspoken Freethinker, Dr Brinn). the Eastern Morning JPfeti ■> (Ilnll, England), the lln^r/i Mail (( r ->outh Wales', the fejdtuv /fii'Wm, and man) other now ~p ipeis vi note. I- For instance, by the Very Key. Arthur Pus, ,-C'.ist, Dl-ui of York, in a lettei to the locil Press during the Slattervs' visit to York , by Key T W. Holme- a prominent Dissenting minister at lei . bj the clergy at tho Anglu mCithidi.il Sulne\,on lulv ''. lK'i'i . by Rev B-irlov Sharp mdotlir I'iotesf ml ilirgv dining the Slatti 1v s" vfav m Melbourne. In Dailington and m otln 1 pi v es M it ti i\ could get no Protestant clergyman to ap]» n on his platlorm and at le i-t one (is we lealn irorn the ulasqow <)!<■. ;it i,i Febru ir\ 2t>. LV,l'!) v\ irnedhi< people to staj away from tho ex-pißstslu-tUUs. : Tk Va/t'rm,h\ Mi Britten X SO , p L'O ? r lhu~, in AusHali i, tho> were rohisid the üm of the Town Hall, ITawih.inii' (M. lloutn.'j the 'lo\\.i Hall, liinihwiik (Milbourni). the Mown II ill, O ikli it'll (Mi llioiuiie , ite In ntlul pi ici ~ a- at I'lilirm. *s! uti l v -i i t.ied the people s h ills !n hue m limit n s In cm rv n-tmi o tlu opposition to his -ipplicition w is based on the olhiisivt natuie ot his lc i tn us and the sect an in pission which tln> aiuu-t d.