THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 14, Issue 24, 14 June 1906, Page 3

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

ITS PLACE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

(Br ars qbaob archbishop redwood)

11. As Catholics we cannot remain indifferent to the universal life of the Umrch. We rejoice at her victories we glory in the powerful expansion of her action throughout the universe. But what al>out France? Is it true that the Church so vigorous and thriving bund 1 * r6St Qt the WOdd iS theie agcuisin S and mori ° My reply may seem a paradox, but it expresses my conviction and I belike it to be the statement of sober truth. Nat only is the Church in France not moribund, bub, at no period of French history, has she h6ld so large a pJace in the country as at present The \ery enemies of the Church seem keenly alive to this fact. They say the Church is agonising, and yet they fo~ years are mobilising against her all the forces of a great nation ; they say she is agonising, and yet she fills almost exclusively the deliberation of their parliament, which almost assumes the aspect of a council, so nmch does the religious question dominate and absorb all others ; they say she is agowising and yet the papers in their pay and at their command are ■daily clamoring that unless she is strangled, she will suddenly rise and in.vade all things,; they say she is agonising, and yet they are afraid of her as of a power in\incible. They have, no doubt, piled up ruins and committed huge crimes: Gcd's name they have banished from dfficial speeches and school-books ; God's name they blaspheme with shameless and re\olting cynicism ; they have expelled the image of Christ the Redeemer from schools, hospitals, courthouses, streets, squares, and even cemeteries ; whatever bears the name of Christ they have assailed ; soldiers, employees, professors, they have either cashiered or flung aside into oblivion, arresting and marring their legitimate careers; they ha\e cast adrift from their homes or sent into exi:e (he -eligAous Ordders of both sexes ; they h a ve closed the Catholic schools ; in a word, before the separation was officially declared, it existed already in fact. Yet, in the midst of such ruins, there is less call fur lamentations th; n for hope. Yes, ho;e : the past warrants the futuie The Chuich in the course of ages has had mcie powerful persecutors whom she vanished ard more \iolent persecutions which she overcame. 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her. . . Beheld, I am with ycu all days, even to the consummation of the world.' Hope • this hope is drawn from the very ruins heaped up by santanLc rage. Towards 1875, a man, now dead, who had been a life-long persecutor, once said to Cardinal Mermillod, who was vainly trying to fit him to appear lefore his M a l er : ' There will be waged against Catholicism a war so clever and powerful that' if it emerges victorious 1 myself vv ill » believe in its divinity." Well, that war is now raging, it has made many victims, and has to-day reached its fiercest intensity. Has it stopped the action cf the Church ? Has not the Church re-opened her schools well-nigh as fast as they were closed ? lias she not continued to tend the siak either in the hospitals, or, if expelled fiom them, in other places ? Have not the religious Orders set up their institutions close to the French frontier ? Seminarists have been thrust into 'barracks In the hope of destroying their priestly vocation ; did they not, as soon as tbeir barrack term was over, re-don the cassock almost to a man. To thus repair her ruins, to thus guard and develop her works, in the very height of the storm, proves the Church to have stiicken such deep root in France that no force can eradicate her. Hore : for France cannot do without the Church. The loathsome, polluted tide of immorality is invading the whole country ; there is a srrioms and alarming conflict between capital and labor which may drag society into an atrocious civil war ; the Churrh alone can stem that tide and avert that civil war. Such is the opinion of the ablest and soundest French thinkers. Paul Bourget wrote in the preface of his complete works ' that the lc ng inquiry he had made into the moral ailments of Franco had led: him to recognise that 10-d>ay Christianity is the only condition of cure and health.' Tame, the freethinker, agrees on this with Bourget, the convert. "By his conscientious and candid historical studies h<? was Induced to state that Christianity is good, ' that to-day

it is the best auxiliary of the social instinct,' and that it alone can -hinder the race ' from retrograding towards its mud-flats.' fa

Hope : for if the Church is necessary for France is not t jrance largely necessary for the Church ? All the disasters just enumerated are nhe doings of a mere handful of sectaries ; they are not the work of France. Ihe soul of France is yet deeply Christian, and we have just lately heard her cry of horror and faith at the sacrilegious tampering wiih her churches. France is perhaps, the most generous subscriber to every good work • prance most generously gives herself to every noble Christian cause. She is still the champion of good and the soldier of God throughout the world : out of «000 missionary priests, France provides 6000, and out oi 35,000 missionary women, 30,000 are French. Can wo believe that the Church which gives such a superabundance of life is herself well nigh lifeless ?

• v y,y ,° U ,Wlll, Wlll Say: Arc not the French people drifting wholesale into infidelity, ghing up their religion? r\o ; that assertion is far too sweeping Very lame portions of France are still profoundly Catholic besides, the multitude ever follows an elite, a chosen leading few ; the multitude is e\«ntually fickle and wavering going hither, and thither, quick for good and for evil according as they are fc»d. The multitude in France is made up of many varied elements. First, you have I atnolics of sound conviction and faithful practice ■ we can leave these out, they are ours for every species of good work. Then you have the wicked hypocrites who once professed Catholicism, when public opinion and the fashion of the day faired it, while all the time their hearts were hostile to it. Their spiritless acticn was a hindrance to the Church, for they cooled the fervor and corrupted the spirit of the Cathclic body and thwarted its work : better frank and open foes than crafty hypocrites. Again, you have the ignorant who swerve to the light and to> the left awarding to the impulse received, unconscious whither they are led ; these require to be instructed. Further, you have the men of good faith steeped in [prejudice who fancy they are doin^ good by their persecution of Catholics : these need -to be enlightened. At>o*e all, you have the timorous such men a s wnl come to their parish priest and say : ' Father, you see t-ha>t the attendance at Sunday Mass is falling off. We are not lad, you know, but we are afraid.' Afraid of what-? Of vain and vague phantoms, afra'd because they feel themselves weak versus the ' powers that be,' aHaid of public opinion, afraid of the Government, which mh>ht crush them. Such people must be reassured, they must be shown that above mere brute force and numbers stands a nobler, higher, safer force, the force of right, justice, and charity

Again, that elite, that chosen leading few able to sway the multitude, has come mto existence A numerous generation ot young men has risen: lawyers engineers, doctors, workmen, employees, professors, 'etc etc. They h a \e at last understood that life was not given to- be flittered away in selfish pursuits, in sterile and degradiog pleasure", but was bestowed 'by God for the Interests of God. Quietly in their homes and clubs such young men are acquiring that fund of knowledge out of which they will educate the multitude and dispel prejudices ; they are intioducing themselves into public meetings, or organising meetings on their own account, they le-ad the moi ement destined to bring back the people to Jesus Christ who lo\es them so dearly. Such are some of the grounds of our hope. 111. But what are men's duties towards the Church in the hour of persecution ? First, lil<e the Apostles, they must pray : VSave us, O Lord, we perish.' No matter what devotedness you display, no matter what efforts you rna.'.e, if Jesus does not help, you will fail. Now He will surely help you if you pray ; your prayer is the signal for His assistance ; He seems to sleep, but His heart is awake. Becaise he Jmew this need of Clod ami this force of prayer, our Holy Father, Pius X., writing lately to Cardinal Richard of Paris, recommended him io pray and to get prayers s-aid ; and in accordance with request most of the other French Bislo'is had recourse to prayer last Christmas when, they renewed the consecration of their dioceses to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. '

But the apostles were not satisfied with prayer alone ; they worked. As long as their nautical knowledge seemed sufficient to weather the storm, they trimmed the sail or plied the oar : they called upon our Lcrd for a miracle only in the last extremity, when e^ery human effort was unavailing. So ovght Catholics to do. Strengthened by prayer and the presence of Christ, tnov oueht to be up and doing. To foM their arms and expect a saviour to rise from some vague and unknown quarter is tempting God and

courting failure. Their Saviour is at hand,— it is themselves. They must act as men and Christians. As men they have political rights, let them beware of losing a single one of them. They are electors, let them never fail to vote at all elections. Ta-day abstention is a crime. It is also a strict duty to vote only fo.r the candidate who gives satisfactory guarantees both social and religious. It is a gross and most pernicious error in pulblic- life tr. think: that only the private individual is subject to the laws of morality, whereas the public man is emancipated from their control. A vote is a human act, and therefore amenable to the laws of morality ; it is an avt the more binding on conscience, as its effects are more far-reaching than the acts of private life.

Again, Catholic men are generally eligible as well as electors. Some are suitable candidates for the various elections, legislative, municipal, and others. Such nuen should not, on the plea of humihty, or love of ease, or the fear of probable failure, evae'e the duty of soliciting the electors" sjiha'ges. It is because Catholics have been too long shy " and holding aloof that their adversaries have held them cheap and negligible quantities.

As men, Catholics exercse an influence of more or less importance. This influence they should use in their homes, their offices, their factories, and Uie circle of their friends. It is so easy to utter a timely word to dispel a prejudice, enlighten a mind, po nt out a way of conduct. You are the father of a family : Be careful to send your children to a Catholic school, keep all infidel a-nd immoral boo\s or bad newspapers out of your house. "He would hardly be wrong, 1 said Leo XIII. with his great authority, ' who would attribute the excess of evil and the de, lorable state of society princinally to the bad press." Such books and papers should never cross the threshold of your house, should never be read by yourselves It is amazing how deluded people are on this point, what license they allow themselves, what harm they do themselves, how much they offend God. You are not allowed, as a rule, to read what attacks religion and outrages morality. You are a good public speaker. I)( n't be afraid to pulblicly defend your faith. You are a good writer : use your pen, write. The press is the {*uten of the world, and if Catholics ihave not a good, able, and valiant press to defend them, they are doomed to be perpetually worsted.

But to render yoßr action efficacious and fruitful, you must be downright, sincere, practical, whole-hearted Catholics. Yoi are not ( hrisiians only by Paptism, you must discharge the outward duties of a Christian iife. You are Christians when you have the spirit of Christ. No.v Jesus is truth, hnl'iiess, and love; be therefore men of truth, holiness, and charity.