His Catholicity.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 52, 25 December 1902, Page 2

His Catholicity.

Mr McCarthy was cute enough to see that if his book had to depend for its sale on nothing but its own merits it would fall very flat and so he adopted the ingenious though unscrupulous scheme of posing before the world as a pious and orthodox Catholic in full communion with his Church so that, professing as he did to speak of Catholic affairs from within, he would be accepted by the Protestant public as an honest and reliable if unwilling witness to the abuses he so violently condemns. Accordingly at the very beginning of his book he loudly proclaims his Catholicity. 'lam a Catholic, 1 he writes, « l am an Irishman ; I have a right to speak.' Again and again he puts forward this claim, speaking of himself continually as a Catholic, or as a Roman Catholic, and referring repeatedly to the priests as our Roman Catholic priests in order to further reassure those who, on reading his diatribe, might not unnaturally be disposed to be sceptical. A very few extracts from this precious book will serve to show our readers precisely what sort of a Catholic Mr McCarthy now is. It is not too much to say that his work is one elaborate, though at times incoherent, attack not only on the Catholic priesthood but on all the most sacred doctrines and practices of the Church. Thus he maintains that the Papacy was founded not by Christ but by the decree of a dissolute Roman Emperor; that the doctrines of the Mass and the Sacramental system, as preached in Ireland, have denied the efficacy of the one real sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, unless followed up by make-believe sacrifices, repeated as the price of sin for a pound sterling, and that bequests for Masses are an attempt to buy off the Almighty and are the most objectionable form of charity. He describes Catholic observances as useless, as mummery and mystery and unintelligible gibberish ; Mass itself as unedifying and unsatisfactory ; and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, perpetual adoration, and religious processions as mere idle demonstrations, ostentatious formality, and religious curiosities. A sermon by Father Kane on Transubstantiation is described by this self-styled ' Catholic ' as so much ' unnecessary and threadbare trash.' The simple country people hearing Mass appear to him' herded together like animals, coughing, sneezing, expectorating, all eagerly impatient for the brief formal Mass to be over.' Of the practtce of Confession Mr. McCarthy writes : c It sets a premium upon vice by the ease and frequency with which it can be forgiven. It explains why every country which professes the creed is in a state of stagnation. 1 As our readers know anyone who thus rejects the express teaching of the Church ipso facto ceases to be a Catholic. If Mr. McCarthy is, as he claims to be, a Catholic, he is a Catholic of much the same stamp and standing as Maria Monk, Chiniquy, or the precious Slattery himself.