A Good Suggestion.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 48, 27 November 1902, Page 1

A Good Suggestion.

At the meeting of the Catholic Truth Society of England the hon. secretary referred to the difficulty experienced in refuting slanders respecting the Church in distant countries in the absence of any organised means of communication with our co-religionists in those lands. The International Catholic Truth Society of America, with its headquarters at New York, is doing good work in this direction, and it has correspondents in many parts of the world, so that it is in a position to explode many of those baseless fictions which are generally the creations of obscure atheistic organs, but ate given currency and propagated by anti- Catholic newspapers in English-speaking countries. In addition, there are individuals in every community whose sense of right and justice is so obscured by prejudice that they will stop at nothing, so long as they keep within the law of libel, in their attacks on Catholics. Our coreligionists in New South Wales and Victoria are just now receiving considerable attention from this class of persons, who imagine that they are helping the cause of religion by reviling their neighbors. Our Melbourne contemporary, the ' Advocate,' makes some useful suggestions as to the means to be adopted in dealing with such people. It says : ' But although the statements by these people are largely discounted by the intelligent section of the public, there are times when, with an audacious disregard of truth, these bigots put forward certain specific statements, bolstered up by such circumstantial detail, that it is not to be wondered at if occasionally people rub their eyes and wonder in a half-frightened manner if, after all, the Pope and the Jesuits are not successfully plotting to overthrow the British Empire. Occasionally, too, some renegade Catholic, ostracised for misconduct — a weed thrown over the Pope's garden wall — lends the aid of an envenomed tirade against the religion of his fathers, and is duly rewarded by crowded audiences of "women only," or "men only," who freely contribute shillings in order that they may listen to the obscene imaginings of these adventurers, males and female.'

, On such occasions as these, it is, we think, extremely desirable that there should be some established organisation which would be immediately ready to do battle in the interests of religion and truth. It would be as unreasonable as it would be undesirable to expect the revered prelate who guides the destinies of the Church in Victoria, to be perpetually resenting the attacks and refuting the oft-times loathsome falsehoods that are being circulated against the Church. 'Tis true, his Grace is at times called upon to measure swords with men in some degree worthy of his steel, and as these gentlemen will probably remember with telling effect. But that the Archbishop or the clergy should notice every slanderous utterance and every coarse misrepresentation by the small fry of Orange bigots, would be simply unthinkable. This journal may fairly claim, without the suspicion of egotism, to have taken a large share in the defence of Catholic faith for nearly half a century, and it is universally acknowledged that within its own sphere it has always rendered prompt and efficient service in such emergencies as those to which we have alluded. But a Cath-

olic journal, no matter how efficiently conducted, cannot meet at all points the slanderous attacks of bigots, and it is this thought that suggests the necessity for a defensive body of intelligent Catholics who would promptly deal with the slanderers in the columns of the daily press, which gives such sympathetic countenance to the most rabid assailants of the Church. Much good might also be done by the diffusion of sound Catholic literature at a moderate price, which would do much to convey the truths of Catholic doctrine and practices to the minds of well-meaning Protestants, and thus prevent many from being led astray by the ignoiant and. we very much fear, at times dishonest fulminations of low-grade Protestant zealots, who have been so much in evidence of late.'