A Blasphemer's Prayer

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9, 4 March 1909, Page 329

A Blasphemer's Prayer

When the saintly Archbishop of Paris, in 1871, was brought before Raoul Rigault, . one of the boldest of the communards, the vonerable prelate, addressing his accusers/said: 'Children, what do you wish to do with me?' 'We are your betters,', said Rigault, who was hardly thirty years of age; 'speak as if to your superiors. . Who are you?' The Archbishop, whose great charities had been known in Paris for a -generation, replied, 'I" am the servant of God.' 'Where does He live?' asked Rigault. ' Everywhere,' was the answer. . ' Very ,well,' said the Comrmuiard, ' send this bishop to prison and issue an order for the arrest of one" God, who lives everywhere." That order was never executed; but a few days 'later Rigault lay on one of the .streets of Paris : half his skull shot away; one eye a clot of blood; and*- the other, open, was glaring wildly into space, as if he saw the Being "Who cannot l>e arrested.

It is part of the regular stock-in-trade of the shallow "atheist to make irreverent^ gibes and jests at everything that is considered sacred; but so long as the universe continues to be ruled by a Supreme Being Who cannot he ' arrested, the path of the blasphemer will be a dangerous one to tread. The Rome correspondent of the Melbourne, Advocate, writing just after the recent disaster, says that Messina was a nest of infidels 5 and that, .the' very night before the earthquake began, a meeting of RadicalSocialists and- Anarchists was held in" the city, at which anti-Christian resolutions were passed. But the London Daily Chronicle and a number of other papers record still more significant incidents. Althotigh the office, the editor, and tlie staff of the ' comic ' paper, II Telefono, were destroyed at Messina, some copies of the issue which appeared on Christmas- Eve are still in existence. It contains a blasphemous parody on the Hymn then being sung throughout the city in the churches and a mock novena to the Infant Saviour. At the conclusion of this profane litany, the ' Bambino ' — the Christ-Child — is invited to send a general earthquake — a tutti un terremoto ! -The ' humor- • ous ' journalist prayed for an earthquake ; three days later he got it. The significance of the incident has impressed even the secular papers, and is delicately hinted at in the following temperate comment of the Daily Chronicle : 'It is much to the credit of the clerical papers that they do not make capital out of this revolting parody, do not point - a moral or adorn a tale with this horrible coincidence. Inasmuch as the singers of the hymn as well as the composers of the parody, were in fact -impartially crushed, they do not improve the occasion. But it -is impossible to prevent an impression of chastised blasphemy among the simpler of the survivors.' " -