The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1918. NO-POPERY AND ITS METHODS

New Zealand Tablet, 16 May 1918, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1918. NO-POPERY AND ITS METHODS

fN his eloquent Pastoral Letter Cardinal Bourne calls attention to the fact that the enemies of the Catholic Church have taken advantage of the war and of the strained yhr and excited -feelings of the people to , Sfc k organise a particularly violent campaign T (of No-Popery in England. In ,America and in Scotland, according to exchanges, these peculiar patriots are also trying, at a time when union of all classes and creeds is essential, to inflame the worst passions of rancor and hatred and to help the Germans by spreading dissension among us. Three years ago the Orangemen proclaimed that they would kick the King’s crown into the Boyne and invite the Kaiser to rule them rather than allow the Catholic majority in Ireland to govern themselves. This year and last year the Orangemen all over the world, but especially in New Zealand, are playing the Kaiser’s game as well as if they were sworn servants of Germany, and it is clear that to win the war matters nothing to them if they can bring about a vigorous persecution of their Catholic neighbors. Here they are led by a man who in the words of a contemporary “is a particularly dangerous fanatic because of his glibness, his guile, and his low cunning,’’ who has given up preaching for the more profitable job of organising a persecution by pandering to the low passions of the most ignorant and weak-minded amongst us, and who still tours the country after being horsewhipped by a soldier whose dead sister he had defamed, branded as a cad by a magistrate and denounced in Parliament as a disgrace to Protestantism.

One of the papers which the No-Popery gang utilise in their policy of slander and lies lately asserted that it was dangerous to conscribe Catholics as they might shoot their fellow-soldiers. This same paper published as an example of what Catholics say and do a forged oath, purporting to be that taken by every Jesuit, and in another issue an oath alleged to be a Hibernian oath, both agreeing in that they were supposed to pledge Catholics to unlimited persecution and even murder

of Protestants. When Elliott goes on tour .it is not unusual to find a store opened by way of serving as a base'for his operations in one of the principal towns, and if one is curious enough to enter he will find there exactly the sort of literature which every decent man associates with the name of the calumniator of a dead nun, and if he asks for information he will receive exactly the sort of answer that one looks for from the most benighted and irrational body of men with which the earth was ever burdened. The other day a young university student went into the No-Popery magazine inquiringly, and in reply to his guileless questions received the explanation that they were out to destroy the power of Rome in this country. When he asked what was wrong with Rome, he got the following example of what Howard Elliott and his peers say they believe about the Pope: “If Sir James Allen passed a law here that the Catholics did not like they would write to the Pope about it. He would excommunicate Sir James and then it would he no sin for a Catholic to hill him.” . Besides information of this 'stamp one can also buy, if insane enough, the lies of Maria Monk, who is of course the typical protegee of the P.P.A. and its gentlemanly and decent advocates. As every Catholic knows, the Jesuits take no secret oaths, and the vows they do take may be had in the book of the institute,'a copy of which is placed in the British Museum for the inspection of the public. With regard to the forgery reproduced by the Elliott press in New Zealand, it can be traced back to one Robert Ware, a worthy ally of the perjurer, Titus Oates'? It has had a remarkable run among English Protestant papers of the lower- class, whence it has been taken by the XoPopery organs of newer countries were learning is at a discount and where the bigots can still impose on silly victims. In Germany, where scholars are numerous whatever else may be said of the country, the oath was laughed out of court almost on its first appearance, and has never recovered from the ridicule heaped on it. It was denounced in even the most bitterly anti-Catholic papers as such an utter and shameless fraud that no sane man could swallow it (which is perfectly true, and is also an indication of the,mental calibre of Elliott’s audiences). In Germany there is a society known as the Evangelische Bund —the equivalent of our Protestant Alliance. Unlike ours in being distinguished by the patronage of many scholars, it is also unlike the homebrand in that it rejected the oath as a “clumsy fabrication.” The official organ of this body, Das Tagil sc he Rundschau , told its readers that by accepting such rubbish they were only giving themselves away and making a laughing-stock of themselves. Enough is said about this weapon of the P.P.A. when we say that even Protestants consider it a mark of idiocy and stupidity to accept it or to attach any weight to it—a conclusion we see verified among us every day. A member of Parliament said he hoped no minister of any religion would soil himself by association with Howard Elliott. The true level of the P.P.A. may be guaged from the fact that, not only do ministers associate with him, but they lend their countenance to his low methods. We have said that the ravings of Maria Monk are also a favorite weapon of this agitator. It should be unnecessary at this hour of the day to refer further to that shameless person, but as we have been asked to say a word about her let us state briefly that (1) she was never a nun, (2) that on her mother’s testimony she was insane, (3) that the mother testified that .she was offered bribes if she would declare that the daughter had been in a convent, and that she refused to perjure herself even for thousands of pounds, (4) that this mainstay of the P.P.A. was a woman of evil life and a street walker, (5) that she Ijved in concubinage with one Hoyte, who was one of those fanatics who will not scruple to use any means in order to bring discredit on Catholics. Of Maria Monk’s confessions as of the Jesuit oath, one word is enough to say: such are the tools of Howard Elliott, who is allowed to speak as the representative of Protestantism in this country. We know he is not the representative of any decent person, but why do decent Protestants tolerate' assertions which blacken them as a body ? 1„

It was foretold of the Church that .all - manner of evil would be said of it. And from the day when the beast Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome the prophecy has been fulfilled in all ages. The pagans described the early Christians, as worshippers of monsters and cannibals. The heretics of : early years accused them of being traitors, sinners, servants of Antichrist, man-worshippers, and flesh-lovers. Henry the Eighth made lies an excuse for robbing, the Catholics of England and Ireland. And to-day we have Howard Elliott and the Jesuit oaths and the volumes of the ravings of a prostitute to bear out again the .warning that we should ever be persecuted because we are Christ’s. __ Look back on the persons who have led the attacks on Catholics. Recall the records of the shameless Achilli, of the Slatterys, of Maria Monk, and consider whether or no it is a matter for regret that we have not the admiration and the respect of such persons and their successors. “The lion rends his prey and gives no reason,” says Newman, “but man cannot persecute without assigning himself a reason for his act; his very moral constitution forbids contentment with mere brute force; and if he is to wage war with the moral influence of the Church, as good reasons fail, nothing is left to him but, to misstate and defame; there is no alternative.”