ASHAMED OF HIS FAITH

New Zealand Tablet, 5 July 1917, Page 27

ASHAMED OF HIS FAITH

No accurate standards or statistics are at hand (says America), but it seems probable that the most ignorant person in existence is the Catholic ashamed of his Faith. He is the unworthy scion of a house whose Founder is Christ, the King of Ages. Saints, sages, and emperors, the great light-bearers of knowledge and civilisation, are his brethren. In all that they have done in the furtherance of art, science, literature, and of the things that make life sweeter and happier, he can claim his part, for he is a member of that noble family. But he is ashamed of it. He is a “social climber.” Catholics, he thinks,, are usually poor and ignorant like his father, a good, pious Catholic, who came over in the steerage, and afterwards built up a fortune by dint of industry and frugality. Hence, he cannot afford to associate with them, or let it be known that he is a Catholic. He has other ambitions, and to marry his daughter to Van Swearingen Jones, the notorious son of a notorious father, but wealthy, and the _ sprig of a mushroom nobility, he is ready and anxious to forswear his religion. The phenomenon of the Catholic ashamed of his Faith is not unknown in this country, where wealth sometimes comes to individuals who cannot stand prosperity. Happily, however, Catholics of this despicable sort are comparatively few, while they who gladly forego wealth and social advancement when the price is religious indifference, are many. “He bore his religion like an order of knighthood, something to be proud of, to live for, to fight for,” was said of a Catholic publicist, who recently passed to his reward after many years of valiant service.