Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 16, 6 May 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

The Boundary.

The Boundary Commission is hard at work. Irish papers say that the Commission has made a tour, extending over some days, along the border counties; It is thought significant that during ' this tour the commissioners kept - , . ■ - • *■ quite close to the line of the existing boundary. The inference from this procedure is that nothing more ; than mere -rectification is intended, It is pointed out that rectification would give no relief to the Catholics in Tyrone and Fermanagh. From the very start Catholics have been : opposed to partition. Business men and others among the Protestants are beginning to realise that partition involves many evils and inconveniences. Rev. J. W. Hamilton, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, hopes that the day w ill come when there will be no partition in Ireland. The best opinion in the North dislikes partition and would be glad to see the day when North and South could work together without any friction about boundary questions, commerce, or boycotts. He paid a tribute to the authorities in the South of Ireland, and went on to say: “I wish that the Northern leaders would do more in the way of encouraging and admiring the good work done in the South. The Moderator evidently thinks that Sir‘.Tames Craig and Lord Londonderry wish to see Ireland united. If they wished that they would pack up all the tawdry paraphernalia of their Punch-and-Judy show and go back to their employers in London with the request that they be set up as a make-believe government elsewhere. The North and South would not be long in shaking hands after that.

Birth Control in England.

V'Archbishop Keating of Liverpool warns Catholics against a new birth control offensive which is now taking place'in the North of England. He says that young Catholics in the region affected arc beginning to frequent clubs ostensibly run by the Labor Party, but actually in the hands of men whose ultimate objects arc repudiated by responsible leaders of the Labor Party. Having established a hold upon a poor neighborhood by means of dances and similar amusements, organisers of these clubs give instruction to the ignorant and curious on certain matters without reserve, and advocate birth control. The Regis-trar-general’s report shows that the birth rate of England and Wales is 20.8 a thousand, the lowest ever registered in a peace year. Catholic, centres, however, show good returns, indicating that Catholic morality is an effective barrier to race suicide. Liverpool, the most Catholic of the large cities, showed 26.6, births for every thousand inhabitants..

A Tribute to Catholic Missionaries.

England was civilised by men. who believed in conquering the world by renouncing it. In' the grey dawn of Anglo-Saxon civilisation the monks ' . penetrated i into the swamps and marshes and transformed them into rich, agricultural lands. They came to establish Chris-

tianity among a strange people, and they taught those people to make the work of the hands express and illustrate the faith in the heart. They gave effect to the words of the sacred writer, “ Whether you eat or drink, or whatever else you do, do all for the glory of God.” That in this respect the passage of time has worked no change in them may be gathered from the testimony of Mr F. C. Linficld, a Primitive Methodist, who writes thus in > the ‘Methodist Times*: “ Catholics win, first in the splendidly definite character of their doctrinal teaching, and, secondly, in their attention to what may be called, not exactly technical education, but certainly craftsmanship. All their scholars are taught some useful craft—agriculture or something of that sort. It is absolutely a dead end to teach these boys and girls merely to read and write and count, and leave them alone.”

“The Sea Hawk.”

A pictorial representation of Rafael Sabatini ’s book, “The Sea Hawk,” is rnwr going the rounds of New Zealand picture theatres. The story is set in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and one of the effects of the picture is to create the impression that Protestant England w T as a veritable paradise to live in, while Catholic Spain - was a land of tyrants and barbarians. An English ship at sea is shown, and the best of good-fellowship is seen to prevail between officers and crew. Then a Spanish ship, bound for Italy with the Infanta aboard, is displayed, and here we are shown the slaves chained to the oars while they arc lashed unmercifully by a savage ruffian who walks up and down the galley watching lost any slave should steal a second’s rest from his dreadful tbil. The Infanta and her suite look down with 7 unconcern upon the agony of the'slaves, ahd by the lady’s side stands a burly priest who appears to take a keen delight in the flogging. This particular scene evidently is staged first to create the impression that the Church had no compassion for the wretched, and secondly to give the Infanta an opportunity of saying that the stench from the slaves’ quarters offended her. On leaving the theatre one could hear remarks on every side from spectators derogatory of Spanish character, and several threw out their chests and thanked their stars that they were born of a race that had no black past to live down; which shows how history, especially recent history, is neglected in these days. It is this ignorance of history, this blind, arrogant pride of race coupled with a- contempt for and ignorance, of every other race, that turns the populace into frenzied jingoes whenever the power s': that be .feel,, that a war would be good for business. 1 : , L C'^ %

Sabatini Reviewed.

, lt would be well if those who , are content to learn history from the movies were to read Father Dunne’s review of Sabatini in a recent

issue of ‘America.’ The learned Jesuit, while giving Sabatini credit for being “.the only writer of to-day who can make the past mors X on- ** .'^MfiSiinteresting than the present, ”, says . that ( hp 1 lacks historical training, ; and that manee has not made an historian., 5 “Sabatini,” he says, “has some natural sympathy for the Borgias of Italy, but he has none for Torquemada of Spain. Even ! the iS very preface here looks awry from crooked understandings. It is obfuscated by the smoke and \ soot of a vision of the sky that looks only through a chimney. To pass the ■ judgments contained in the preface, the author should have given all his energies for • years to history and not divided them by romance. o-Not only is his vision! crooked, it is colored. He wore glasses when he wrote this preface : and they were a jaundiced yellow. Most of f the past has been religious persecution, he'tells us. But he does not know most of the past or he would not tell us this. The text fares no better. Again it is his : guileless, acceptance of his sources. His chief authority, Llorente, was from his own admission, a traitor to his country and bent and blinded by prejudice. And facts? No justice, to omit his word ‘inexorable. One example. The latest- re- ; ) t i v ili Hi-fi f searches into the activities of the ill-starred ' *••. “.i : t . » Spanish Inquisition have demonstrated that in the Archbishopric of Saragossa not a single death for heresy can be laid to the doors ,of the inquisitor St. Peter Arbues... From Sabatini ’s chapter in this connection, the reader judges that burnings were of every , week occurrence. A careful perusal, therefore,? of ‘Torquemada ’ and ‘Cesare Borgia’ leave But one conclusion: the pages of the former are discolored by false representation; those: of the latter are spotted with error and inexact statement; the chapters of both gape and yawn with wide lacunas of unsound historical judgment.” -'.Voi’'■--■cm ndT-

The End of the Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan, suffering from the effect of over-much publicity, is ' now fading into another organisation to be called ‘‘ American Krusaders.” In other words, the / Klan is about to change its name. People do riot like to be cited as members of an organisation notorious for murder and outrage, even when they do not object to murder and outrage so long as the latter can be made to pay. Moreover, rumor has it, that there has-been much heart-burning among ' Klansmen■ over the division of the loot, a circumstance that gives the lie direct to the mistaken belief that there is honor among thieves. The Klan is an example of the methods of the cheap-jack salesman on a large scale. America, like every other country including our own, was a profitable field for unprincipled rascals who filched easy livings from the stupidity of simpi ©tons. But these gentry only appeared in a district periodically, like' the measles or thte ’flu. Still, they served as a ' guide to what . was hoped would prove a gold mine if th(Hfscheme were carefully handled;' they 'gave point to the assertion that a fool l is born * every minute; and they helped * enterprising thugs to conceive a plan by which all the

bigotry and ignorance as yet unexploited I could be made to yield a golden harvest unI surpassed even on Wall Street. The villainy | had to be organised on national lines in so A a, fashion that no part of the ]' Country would be left untapped and no j "boob" left "untrimmed." A dash of ro- ; mance was added to the programme, and r 'middle-aged" parties, wide of girth and soft of j pate, were tickled at the thought of gaiivaritI ing in a night-shirt, committing outrages upon people who were unable to defend themselves. It was ;a; groat game while it lasted. Too late, however, »the*" muddle-headed ones dis- | covered -that all they were to get out of the | business was an approving smile from the I Worshipful Grand Cyclops for heroically f sand-bagging Catholics, . Jews, and Negrps*. j The Klan boasted that its ranks were open I to hundred-per-cent. Americans of Protestant I persuasion. , The ' name of all others was "mud." But the shrewd Ku Klux leaders, having relieved the hundred-per-centers of t-their spare" dollars, now make provision to "> collect : the easy money in possession of the q t "Rubes" of foreign extraction. Like " Wallihgford, they have commenced "cleaning ->; : up." Hence, the new organisationor rather, the old organisation with a brand-new name—t proposes to enrol the foreign born in a society dedicated to the Government of the United States of America, its Constitution and constitutional freedom, and the "Protestant I 'Christian religion, upon which our Govern- ; ment is founded." All the exclusive privij leges of membership, which permit a member J to contribute to the support of loafers with ;, glib tongues and to swell the pockets of schemers, may be had for a tcn-dolar bill. | A Catholic exchange informs us that "Mem- | bers of Congress and other Washingtonians ! received a royal proclamation inviting them ] to join the 'Chivalric citizenry' of the 'Royal ! and Beneficent Domain' of the 'Knights; of •i the Flaming Sword,' a rival of the Ku Klux Klan now being advanced by William J. Simmons, one-time promoter of the Klan." I] It is announced, however, that William finds •-ij the dollars slow in coming for his new veni\\ ture. »' / -.. ..> ..' ■ ■■ •■■■• ■ \\ German Bishops and the Moral Code. ;' Those who take pleasure in lewd spectacles and dangerous occasions seek to disarm*, criti- ;., cism by saying that to the pure all things are pure. Judges, police magistrates, and other | .persons having occasion to investigate tho results of these innocent frolics say that there is nothing pure about them. One cannot throw \ oneself into, a cesspool and emerge from it ! free'' from filth. It would be a good thing for I the world if parents and guardians took, to heart the words of the German Bishops, who 4 recently published a list of Christian principles aimed at eliminating the evil of im- % morality. 1 Their pronouncement says:— .■Ay-'' "Culture of the body is good, but culture fl of the spirit is higher, and culture of the ' body must be in accord with Christian principles; it must never violate modesty. | ~ ; £ "The sexes must be separated in gymnastic classes, and classes must be directed by teachers of the same sex as their members.

Bathing suits should not be permitted at these exercises, and exercises without clothing should not be permitted for class of either, sex. ■' .: I.•••■: J \f"ll'%J[ I! ' V'■;.:.• ' ; - "The public must never be admitted to gymnasiums for girls. ,; -' i^Bri 7 h^t^-^ "The sexes must be kept separate in swimming exercises and bathing, and attendants must bo of the same sex as the members of the classes. Exhibition; swimming of women , should be prohibited. "In the case of family bathing, the same rules of separation must be observed, with separate rooms for dressing. . "Physical and medical inspection of school children must be arranged so as to avoid all scandal; . -- " r V" "Sports must permit time for Mass and other divine services, and must never violate Christian feelings. "Dancing plays and exercises which are very popular now hold great danger because of their materialistic, pantheistic, and atheistic inclination. Some rhythmic exercises may be permitted, however, when the children are properly clad. :■■■■ . , .. -. "Society must come back to the simple old customs, without debauch and gluttony. "Modern dances, nearly all of bad origin, are threatening virtue and chastity. They cannot be suffered any longer, even in modified forms. "Literature, the theatre, motion pictures are in a bad way. The clothing worn is generally abominable. "Women must be the defenders of the old pure customs. Parents are responsible for the modesty of their children clothing. The Catholic press must observe its responsibility in all these matters." ■.-•■.-. ayfifteen Evils. Dr. John Eoach Stratton, an American Bap- ; tist pastor, listed as follows the evils of 1924, ; which he said were due to Modernism: — :, .1. Stolen in hold-ups, 2,650,000,000 dol. j 2. Squandered in swindling stock schemes, 6,000,000,000 dol. 3j Lost in forgeries by trusted employees, 100,000,000 dol. 4. Cost of crime—larger than the total cost of operating the United States Government in all its branches. 5. Tho worst divorce record of any nation .on,, earth, not even excepting Japan. ~. . 6. The transformation of churches everywhere from great spiritual and soul-winning centres into mere literary societies, social clubs, and forums for the promulgation of modernistic and infidel views. ■ 7. A half-million children and young people' • belonging to Protestant homes in Greater New 1 York who no longer attend Sunday Schools since the arrival of Sunday movies, joy-riding, end sports. 8. The breakdown of parental authority through the destruction of faith in the Bible as the authoritative word of God. 9. The consequent loss of obedience and moral idealism among our youth, resulting in such things as the Leob-Leopold murder. 10. Sixty-four per cent, of American school ! children proved dishonest by experiments,

conducted by scientists and school teachers working together, in which children were trusted money to make purchases, bringißgibacksthe change, etc. 1 « 11. The complete destruction of multitudes of American homes through the competition of commercialised 'amusements, the. movies, theatres, danec halls, etc..«,,:..., —. 12. The consequent flood of female flappers ind flirts, and male lounge lizards and cakoeaters. in.*fsx?Mh)'-irM ■»■••• ■ •S'ui 13. The decrease of the stronger and more successful elements of our society through the substitution of dogs 'for babies. 14. The surrender of civil officers to the •forces of lawlessness, indecency, and greed on stage, and screen by such things as the citizens'play jury. ; 15. The startling increase in our murder, records to the appalling total of 10,000 killings a year, a murder rate twenty-five times as high as the rate in England. Bishops and the Catholic Press. , The ' Catholic Herald of India' thus comments, on the death of Archbishop Meuleman of Calcutta: — "The death of our dear Archbishop affects the 'Catholic Herald' very deeply, by removing one who for the last eight years has stood by the paper as a faithful protector .in very critical moments. .And that protection was needed all those will know who have at one timei or another claimed the editor's head on a charger. "On March 22, 1922, there appeared in this journal an article under the heading 'A Bishop's Trials,' purporting to record the ordeal of a certain American prelate, Bishop Kane, in connection with the 'Catholic Booster,', a paper he had founded. The writer, a certain McGill, produced specimens of letters that reached the poor Bishop in shoals, complaining of the 'Booster's' Irish views, of the 'Booster's' plea for a negro clergy, of the 'Booster's' views on education, of the 'Booster's' views on seminary kitchens, of the 'Booster's * views on excursions into the crt of planting turnips. Of course, the article was but an allegory, Bishop Kane being none other than Archbishop Meuleman and the 'Catholic Booster' the 'Herald.' It wasn't that the Archbishop agreed with every opinion expressed in the 'Catholic Herald,' but it was characteristic of his exceptional broadmindedness that he should persistently defend the liberty of , the, Catholic press within reasonable limits,' though criticism never ceased to harass him. 'I don't agree with every- , thing you say,' he often remarked to the editor, 'but it is not because I am owner of • the paper, ; that I .should dictate every, word you write. What sort of a Catholic press do they want, I wonder?' The reader should not ' imagine that his was an exceptional case. ' Every/bishop in/the world, who happens ,to be afflicted with Ja,Catholic- paper in his diocese has more trouble' with his one paper than with twenty superannuated canons, and it is no i wonder that a number of them have ordered their" editors to confine their comments to the Penny -Catechism., Fortunately, Archbishop Meuleman was made of sterner stuff.