Notice: Undefined offset: 12 in /hermes/bosnacweb05/bosnacweb05at/b2516/ipg.jamesjpnnet/wp-content/plugins/sgr-nextpage-titles/inc/mpp-template.php on line 71

Notice: Undefined index: in /hermes/bosnacweb05/bosnacweb05at/b2516/ipg.jamesjpnnet/wp-content/plugins/sgr-nextpage-titles/inc/mpp-template.php on line 71

Notice: Undefined offset: 12 in /hermes/bosnacweb05/bosnacweb05at/b2516/ipg.jamesjpnnet/wp-content/plugins/sgr-nextpage-titles/inc/mpp-template.php on line 71

Notice: Undefined index: in /hermes/bosnacweb05/bosnacweb05at/b2516/ipg.jamesjpnnet/wp-content/plugins/sgr-nextpage-titles/inc/mpp-template.php on line 71

CHAPTER XI ROME EVER AND EVERYWHERE THE SAME.

Cardinal Martinelli in 1902, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C., made a most interesting statement to me. I said to him, “Your Eminence, if the Catholics in this country numbered about seventy million and if the Protestants numbered about ten million, what would you do to the Protestants?” His reply was this, “Oh, Christ, I’d crush ’em!” “To crush ’em” is the spirit and design of Romanism in all its attitudes toward “heretics.”

No wonder Rome boasts that she is ever and everywhere the same. Her real attitude toward non-Catholics is the same to-day everywhere as it was in the days of the Inquisition, and yet some people say “the Roman Catholic Church is not as it was fifty years ago it is more liberal.” Is it?

Few have any idea of the crafty efforts which Catholic ecclesiastics make to hoodwink non-Catholics. Priests, bishops and cardinals cultivate a spirit of seeming liberality on purpose to win the esteem of the very people whom they hate, so that these people will be made unwilling to countenance any opposition to the movements of Romanism. The greatest victory which has been won by the Roman Hierarchy in the British Empire and in the United States lies in the fact that it has succeeded in making it unpopular for any one to impugn its utterances or policies.

“What is the smooth game in all this that is going on between the Vatican and England? Simply this: England is the stronghold of obstinate heresy the citadel of Protestantism. Therefore the Church of Rome is using every means at her command caresses, cajolery, threats, flatteries to bring proud England back into subjection to her yoke. Listen to Rome’s own confession from the mouth of Cardinal Manning: ‘Surely, a soldier’s eye and a soldier’s heart would choose by intuition this field of England for the warfare of Faith…. It is the head of Protestantism, the center of its movements, and the stronghold of its powers. Weakened in England, it is paralyzed everywhere; conquered in England, it is conquered throughout the world. Once overthrown here, all is but a war of detail.’ ” The Heretic, Berkeley, California.

The keen eye of the Vatican has, for years, been turned toward the British Empire and the United States. She is working the same wiles and witcheries, playing the same smooth, oily, ball-bearing, noiseless game with both countries. Through one of her organs (The Tablet, London) she complains as follows:

“Prussia, not a Roman Catholic country, has an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; Russia, a minister Resident; England and the United States alone -among Great Powers remain without an accredited representative to the Holy See.”

Mark the word accredited. England always has a backstairs representative; for example, Sir George Errington filled that office at the Holy See, to the detriment of Ireland and the Irish race during the Parnell Movement; and for aught we know, the United States of America has a backstairs representative at the Vatican to-day. Her late secret clerical agent there is at present a prominent bishop in America. Rome’s secret representative at the Capitol at Washington, D. C., is none other than the Papal Delegate, who has been recently promoted to the Cardinalate, as due reward for his “signal services” to his Lord the Pope, King of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell. Her chief Jesuitical agent at Ottawa, Canada, is the Papal Delegate to the Catholic Church in that country.

I know and assert without fear of successful contradiction that the Vatican system the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has a grip upon all the departments of our Government, from the President to Department Clerks, including Legislative, Judiciary and Executive Departments, both Federal and State and the accommodating politicians, Catholic and non-Catholic, particularly the latter, are to blame for it all.

Every trap is being laid to ensnare Germany, the British Empire, the United States, and other non-Catholic countries, in papal schemes. In fact, the plans of Pope Leo XIII. and, therefore, of the Papacy, with reference to America, were thus tersely expressed in a letter from the Vatican (see New York Sun, July n, 1892):

“What the Church has done in the past for others she will now do for the United States.”

In a recent pamphlet issued by the Roman Catholic University of America at Washington, D. C, under the title “The Roman Catholic Mission Movement in America,” they say: “Our motto is, We come not to conquer, but to win. Our purpose is to make America dominantly Catholic.”

The Very Rev. Francis C. Kelley, D.D., LL.D., President of the Roman Catholic Church Extension Society of America, uttered the following in a recent address on “Church Extension and Convert-making:”

“Without a doubt, if American Protestantism were blotted off the religious map of the world, the work of the so-called Reformers of the fifteenth [sixteenth?] century, within fifty years, might well be called dead. Protestantism in the United States is a great source of missionary activity in foreign countries. The different Protestant organizations in the United States spend seven millions of dollars per annum in foreign missions, or almost half the spendings of all the rest of the non-Catholic world. Protestantism, then, really may be said to stand or fall on American effort.

“From a strategic point of view, America the United States of America is our best missionary field.

“Again, how many are fond of calling this a Protestant country! Is it? We deny!

“We who hope for a Catholic America have as yet come only to the end of the desert…. Only has it been given to some among us to enter the land of Canaan and gather souls, grapes so sweet and beautiful as to fill us with hunger for other fruits that await the coming of our successors. They will go, Joshuas, to the Jordan, to Jericho, to Hai, and to Jerusalem, and then only will the details of the work become clear. The little chapels the Church Extension movement will build shall be their fortified camps, and the men whom you [Paulist] Fathers of the Apostolate will send shall be advance-guards to point the way to the new and fertile fields that abound in the Promised Land.”

The Very Rev. Kelley and his missionary gangs, including General Secretary, Field Secretary, and retinue, travel throughout the western, middle west, and southern States in two private Chapel Cars, which are carried at the expense of the stockholders of the roads over which they are hauled. A vast majority of these stockholders are non- Catholics, and they are defraying the transportation expenses of a propaganda which would blot American Protestantism off the religious map of the world.

The patriotic (?) Archbishop Ireland, in presence of Cardinal Gibbons and a large number of prelates, priests, monks and nuns at Baltimore, Md., said in part as follows:

“The Catholic Church is the sole living and enduring Christian authority. She has the power to speak; she has an organization by which her laws may be enforced…. Our work is to make America Catholic. Our cry shall be, ‘Gods wills it,’ and our hearts shall leap with crusader enthusiasm.”

To secure the good will of non-Catholic politicians, Democratic and Republican, in the ignoble work of making America Catholic, that noted American conjurer, Cardinal Gibbons, surpassed himself in a recent interview given at Philadelphia, while attending the Pallium celebration of Archbishop Prendergast, the champion poker player of Pennsylvania. A summary of the interview appears in The New York Evening Sun in its issue of Feb. 12, 1912:

“GIBBONS ON TAFT.

“CARDINAL BELIEVES THE PRESIDENT WILL BE RENOMINATED.

“PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2. That President Taft probably will be renominated by the Republicans is the belief of Cardinal Gibbons, who made a statement to this effect this afternoon prior to leaving this city for Baltimore. The Cardinal characterized Theodore Roosevelt as the ‘most popular man in the country to-day,’ but said that Mr. Taft, ‘being in the saddle,’ would undoubtedly win the nomination.

“In a short interview his Eminence declared that Mr. Taft deserves recognition for what he termed his honest, sincere efforts to serve the country. He said that in considering the election the Democrats must be considered, as they have lots of available Presidential timber.”

I fancy I hear Cardinal Gibbons saying, “American citizens, find the P! Heads I win, tails you lose.”

Though every milestone along the historical pathway of the Roman Catholic Church has been marked by its curse to humanity, yet there are, unfortunately, some non-Catholic bishops, ministers, editors and others who, on the plea of toleration, Christian unity, or for business or political reasons, do not like to hear the Roman Catholic politico-religious abomination criticized. In fact, they publicly commend Romanism and its Hierarchy, while priests, prelates and popes condemn them and theirs as “heretics” doomed to eternal damnation. Rome regards non-Catholics as “heretics;” she teaches, both in her churches and schools, that they are destined for Hell.

Here is Rome’s doctrine of fraternity, of toleration, of Christian unity! In The Western Watchman, organ of the pope and Archbishop Glennon, published at St. Louis, Missouri, we find Rome’s real attitude toward Protestantism in the following expression of fiendish hatred:

“Protestantism We would draw and quarter it. We would impale it and hang it up for crows’ meat. We would tear it with pincers, and fire it with hot irons. We would fill it with molten lead, and sink it in a hundred fathoms of hell-fire.”

In another issue of the same paper, December 24, 1908, we find the following editorial by its Editor-in-chief, Rev. David S. Phelan, LL.D., Rector of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, St. Louis, Missouri, and designated by Cardinal Satolli, “the dean and senior of the Roman Catholic journalists of the United States:”

“Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the Church authorities. The Church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that…. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition…. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it…. But will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute at all? Will she guarantee absolute freedom and equality of all churches and all faiths? The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behavior.”

The same papal organ, The Western Watchman, in its issue of September 28, 1911, contains the following:

“Protestantism is simply ruffianism organized into a religion. The first Reformer, Martin Luther, was the vilest blackguard of all time, in comparison with whom the Greek Thersites was a polished gentleman. All his associates in the sacrilege of sanctuaries and sacking of religious houses, were almost to a man men of the lowest character and beastliest morals. But who cares for their private lives? It is their public acts and utterances that concern us. These are public property, and they brand their authors as blackguards of the first water.”

And in an editorial in its issue of October 12, 1911, The Western Watchman confirms the declaration made lately in Cardinal Farley’s Cathedral by that international “lady-turner,” Jesuit Vaughan, of England, that Protestantism is dead:

“Protestantism in the United States has fallen to pieces; but what is more astounding, the ministers look complacently out upon the ruins…. All the money in the world will not bring back the spirit that is fled…. Even hatred of Catholicity is dead, and nothing now remains but the sombre duty of burying the dead.”

While Rome everlastingly hates non-Catholics, she constantly seeks their financial aid, both private donations and public moneys, to be used for her sectarian institutions. With unblushing coolness The Western Watchman, in its issue of December 16, 1909, declares:

“We do not think the Church in this country is overburdening herself with charities. She is winning her way to the hearts of the American people by her Christ-like beneficence; and the way from the heart to the pocketbook is very short, compared with the long road from the lip to the seat of pity. More Protestant money is finding its way into our charitable institutions than ever before. The duty of supporting our asylums and refuges will soon be borne in great part by people who have no affiliation with the Catholic Church.”

Here let me state that these moneys are, as a rule, unaccounted for and misused, as is the case in Roman Catholic institutions of Greater New York, where the diversion of large sums of public money paid to said institutions by the city for the support of its charges, is now being investigated by the City Comptroller in spite of the objections raised by the Catholic Church authorities and their reluctance to permit the accounts of these institutions to be audited. Cardinal Farley, who controls $60,000,000 worth of property between the Battery and the Bronx alone, through his attorneys, among them Eugene A. Philbin, has even declared that these Roman Catholic institutions would decline to receive any more children and would turn out those already placed there by the city rather than submit to an accounting for the public funds received by them. How beneficent! How Christ-like!

Let me throw a little light on Rome’s real attitude toward marriage.

Popular opinion in the British Empire is just now being greatly stirred by the agitation caused by the “Ne Temere” decree of Pope Pius X., which is producing such havoc in homes where Protestants marry Roman Catholics. One of the unfortunate victims of this infamous decree, a heartbroken wife and mother, has made the following fruitless appeal to the Earl of Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant and Governor General of Ireland:

“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:
“I pray your Excellency’s assistance under the following circumstances: I am the daughter of a small farmer in County Antrim, and a Presbyterian. I was married in May, 1908, in a Presbyterian church by my own clergyman, to my husband, who was and is a Roman Catholic. Before our marriage he arranged with me that I should continue to attend my own place of worship and he his. After our marriage we lived together for some months at my mother’s house in County Antrim, but work called my husband to the west of Ireland, where I joined him, and we lived for some months there. Afterwards we came to Belfast; there my first child, a boy, was born in June, 1909. During all this time there never was any difference between us about religious matters, and our boy was baptized by my own clergyman. My husband, on Sundays, would take care of the baby when I was out at church. A short time before our second baby, a girl, was born in August last, my husband spoke to me about changing my faith; in consequence, he told me of the way the Roman Catholic priest was rating him, and I was visited on several occasions by this priest, who told me I was not married at all, but that I was living in open sin, and that my children were illegitimate, and he pressed me to come to chapel and be married properly. I told him I was legally married to my husband and that I would not do what he wished, and on one occasion my husband and I besought him to leave us alone that we had lived peaceably and agreeably before his interference, and would still continue to do so if he let us alone. He threatened me, if I would not comply with his request, that there would be no peace in the house, that my husband could not live with me, and that, if he did, his co-religionists would cease to speak to him or recognize him. When he found he could not persuade me he left in an angry and threatening mood.

“From this time on my husband’s attitude to me changed, and he made no secret to me of the way he was being influenced. Our second baby was taken out of the house by my husband without my leave and taken to chapel and there baptized. My husband also began to ill-treat me, and told me I was not his wife, and I was nothing to him but a common woman. I bore it all hoping that his old love for me would show him his error. But the power of the priests was supreme, and on returning to my home some weeks ago, after being out for a time, I found that both of my dear babies had been removed, and my husband refused to tell me where they were, beyond that they were in safe-keeping. I did everything a mother could think of to get at least to see my babies, but my husband told me he dared not give me any information, and that unless I changed my faith I could not get them. A day or two after this, on pretense of taking me to see my babies, he got me out of the house for about two hours, and on my return I found that everything had been taken out of the house, including my own wearing apparel and underclothing, and I was left homeless and without any means of clothing beyond what I was wearing. My husband left me and I could not find out where he went. I subsequently saw him at the place where he was working. He was very cross with me, refused to tell me where the children were or to do anything, and told me to go to the priest, in whose hands he stated the whole matter was; and also said that unless I was remarried in chapel I would never see the children. I subsequently saw the priest, who said he could give me no information, and treated me with scant courtesy. I have tried to find my husband, but have failed, and can not now get any information of his whereabouts, or of that of my babies, and I do not even know if they are alive. My heart is breaking. I am told the police can do nothing in the matter; although, if it were only a shilling that was stolen, they would be on the search for the thief; but my babies are worth more to me than one shilling. In my despair I am driven to apply to you, as the head of all authority in this country, for help. I am without money, and, but for the charity of kind friends, I would be starving. I want to get my children and to know if they are alive; and I have been told, kind sir, that if you directed your law officers to make inquiries, they could soon get me my rights. Will you please do so, and help a poor, heart-broken woman who will continue to pray for the Almighty’s blessing upon you and yours?
“MRS. McCANN.”

This is only one specimen of the havoc wrought by the “Ne Temere” decree of the present “Vicar of Christ.”

In order to give the reader an idea of what is taking place across the border in Western Canada, I quote from press reports of recent date as follows:

From the Pioneer, Vancouver, B. C., December 23, 1911:

“WINNIPEG, December 23. Rev. Father Comeau, resident priest of St. Mary’s Church here, has made the following statement to an evening paper in regard to the recent ‘Ne Temere’ case at St. Boniface, when he refused to permit a Catholic woman to see her Protestant husband unless they were remarried by the Church:

“‘Suppose a Roman Catholic and a Protestant wish to get married we will imagine the husband to be a Catholic. The parties are married by a Protestant minister. The moment the marriage is contracted the husband has forsaken the Catholic doctrine and can be no longer recognized as a true Catholic. The only way he can come back into the fold is by getting his legal wife to be married to him by a Catholic priest, according to the conditions of the Catholic Church; that is, that she will not interfere with the practice of the doctrine, and the children shall be brought up in the Catholic faith. ”

‘If the wife refuses and he insists on coming back to the Church, the husband must take a vow never to live with her ” again.’

‘If, when reinstated as a Catholic, the man wishes to marry another woman, the ceremony to be performed by a Catholic priest,’ asked the reporter, ‘may he do it?’

‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we try and get the man to seek a divorce from the State first, because in the eyes of the law he is still married, and while the Church does not recognize it, we do not want to lay ourselves open to persecution. There is a way out and that is by having a secret marriage.’

” ‘Take this as an instance: I am sent away to a mission, a long way up in the country. When I arrive a man comes to me and says, “Father, I have committed a sin for which I am truly repentant. Three years ago I was married to a Protestant woman by a Protestant minister. Later we separated. We did not get a divorce, and now I am living with another woman. Will you marry us?”

‘I might say, “I will run the risk and marry you in the eyes of God.” I then get two witnesses whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret. After this they can never part, as there is no such thing as a divorce in the Roman Catholic Church. Then they are married in the eyes of God and the Church, although perhaps not according to the law of the State. If the former wife should get to know of the second marriage, I might be persecuted. One never knows.'”

The following editorial from the Weekly People, published in Western Canada, January 13, 1912, may help to enlighten the reader about the promotion of bigamy by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy:

“A CATHOLIC PRIEST PROMOTING BIGAMY.

“A cog must have slipped from the brains and the tongue of Father Comeau, the resident priest of Winnipeg, an interview with whom appears in the Vancouver Pioneer of last December 23. The interview is a ‘dead give-away.’

“Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the reporter for the Pioneer concerning the case of a Catholic who married a Protestant woman, and who, seeing his wife refuses to submit to the conditions of the Catholic Church, leaves her, and insists upon returning to his Church, and wishes to be married to another woman by a priest, Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the hypothetical case was that he would ‘get two witnesses, whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret,’ adding that he knew that if the former wife should get to know of the second marriage he ‘might be persecuted.’ Prosecution under the law the Father calls ‘persecution.’

“It is of no consequence to the issue whether the law is wise or not that defines bigamy, and enters the act in the criminal code. The only thing that concerns the issue is that a man, married under the law, and not legally, divorced, is, under the law, a bigamist and punishable as such if he marry again during his first wife’s life. Such is the law of the land in Winnipeg. All this notwithstanding. Father Comeau stands forth not only as a condoner, but as a promoter, of bigamy; and, not only that, he stands forth as an encourager of others to steep themselves in crime as witnesses who are to keep the secret.

“Again and again the Daily People has maintained, and proved the claim with facts, that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is not the priesthood of a religion, but the agency of politics ambushed behind religion….

“Again and again the Daily People has pointed out that, differently from other political parties, all of whom, whatever the new policies that they may advocate, submit to the existing policies until overthrown, the Roman Catholic political party starts by disregarding the existing policies and violating them,”

In Eastern Canada, where very many of the French Canadians are driven like dumb cattle by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, this infamous and ungodly decree is enforced, and happy homes are broken up by priests and prelates, Archbishop Eruschesi, of Montreal, the coming “Canadian” Cardinal, being the principal home and marriage breaker.

Let no one suppose that this “Ne Teinere” decree of Pope Pius X. is a dead letter in the United States the land of the free and the home of the brave; or that I have to confine myself to the British Empire for examples of its having been put into actual practice.

Archbishop Glennon, of St. Louis, Mo., U. S. A., the warm friend of President William H. Taft and ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, annulled the marriage of Mr. John A. Howland and Mrs. Helen O’Brien Howland because they were married by a Baptist minister, and he compelled Mrs. Howland to sign the following un-American and un-Christ-like apology, which was read in the churches and published in the press of America and other non-Catholic countries:

“St. Louis, MISSOURI,
“October 29, 1910.
“To THE REVEREND PETER J. O’RouRKE,
“Pastor of St. Mark’s Church,
“Page and Academy Avenues.

“Dear Father: In submission to the obligation laid on me by His Grace, the Reverend Archbishop, of publicly repairing the scandal I have given, as a requisite for absolution, I confess to the world as a Catholic I was married by a Baptist minister on August 26, 1910. I ask the pardon of God for my sin- and- the prayers of the -faithful for the grace of – ; sincere repentance: Sincerely, “HELEN O’BRIEN.”

Think of the awful crime of being married by a Protestant minister!

In the Metropolitan Province of New York, presided over by Cardinal Farley, the story of the following case in the diocese of Trenton, N. J., directly ruled by Bishop McFaul, a Krupp gun of the Hierarchy, should arouse the millions of people who were born outside the pale of Rome, and, consequently, “illegitimate,” according to her decrees and teaching, as’ well as those who are living in “concubinage” because they have been married by non-Catholic clergymen, Justices of the Peace, or Judges of the Superior Courts. The King and Queen of the British Empire, the Emperor and Empress of Germany, President and Mrs. William H. Taft, ex-President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, Governor and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schiff, and their children, are among the millions who have been declared by the “Vicars of Christ” to be “illegitimate,” “heretics,” etc., whom the cardinals, old and new, have solemnly sworn “to combat with every effort.”

I can understand how sincere non-Catholic people treat with silent contempt the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that “outside of Rome there is no salvation,” but I can not understand how they can complacently suffer the insult from the pope of Rome, who, with the quintessence of audacity, decrees and teaches that all those who are born of marriages contracted outside the Roman Catholic Church the “One True Church” are “illegitimate,” and that all parties A MENACE TO THE NATION. 179 having contracted marriage as above stated are living in “concubinage.”

The case set forth in the following letter will serve as another example of Rome’s real attitude toward non-Catholic marriages:

“PERTH AMBOY, NEW JERSEY,
“February 3, 1912.
“MR. JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY, New York City.

“Gentleman: I respectfully ask for your advice in a very important matter. “Stephen Dagonya, a Roman Catholic Hungarian, married a Hungarian girl, a member of my parish. The ceremony was performed by me in our church. When a child was born from this wedlock it was taken to Rev. Francis Gross, priest of the local Hungarian Church, who said to the party that a marriage performed by a Protestant minister or Judge is entirely null; the father and mother have to remarry before him in order to get a lawful marriage. However, he baptized the child and he issued a certificate of baptism, in which he declared that the child was ‘illegitimate.’ He added also that ‘the parents are living in concubinage.’ He affixed to it his signature and the seal of the Church. The certificate with two other similar ones is now with Mr. Charles M. Snow, editor of ‘Liberty/ who wants to make photos of them.

“As the father of the child is very desperate on account of the behavior of his priest, will you kindly advise him what to do under these circumstances. Has any priest any right in this country to declare that a marriage, which is lawful in the eyes of the country and according to the conscience of the party, was concubinage and the fruit of such marriage was illegitimate?

“Thanking you in advance for your valuable information in this matter, I am
“Very truly yours,
“[Signed] L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church.”

My reply to the above letter was as follows:

“CINCINNATI, OHIO,
“March 29, 1912.
“REV. L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church,
“Perth Amboy, N. J.
“Rev. and Dear Sir: Your letter of Feb. 3, 1912, addressed to my late residence in New York City, has just reached me, and I hasten to reply.

“While in Washington, D. C, some weeks ago, I saw and read the certificates to which you refer in your letter; and now that you have asked me personally to advise the ‘desperate’ husband and father, Stephen Dagonya, as to what he should do under the circumstances, I would suggest that the Rev. Francis Gross be prosecuted for criminal libel, and that this be made a test case in the interests of humanity. However, knowing the powerful and iniquitous influence of Rome over the Civil Courts, particularly when the plaintiffs or defendants possess slender means, I would suggest that a public appeal be made for adequate funds to thoroughly prosecute the case, to the millions who have been and are now indirectly charged by Rome with living in ‘concubinage’ or with being ‘illegitimate.’

“In case of an adverse decision in the lower Courts, through the influence of Rome, the case should be appealed, and, if needs be, carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, over which Chief Justice White, a Jesuitical Roman Catholic, presides by the favor of President Taft. And in case of an adverse decision by that august body, through the influence of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, I would suggest that the case be brought before Congress without delay, and if necessary before the bar of public opinion, as Rome, through her Jesuitical decrees, policies and practices, is undermining the inviolability of the home and the peace of nations.

“Rome hopes to gain complete political control of our beloved country through the cunning political influence of her four ‘American’ Cardinals at the corning Presidential election. Therefore, immediate exposure must be made of her in the Civil Courts and otherwise, if the liberties of this country are to be preserved.

“I shall be able to take the matter up with you personally in the near future. Believe me, “Very sincerely yours,
“[Signed] JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.”

Listen to the following story of what occurred quite recently in Washington, D. C.:

A young man of that city, a Protestant by birth and education, age, twenty-eight years, had been paying his honorable attentions to a young lady, age, twenty-two years. His courtship was successful and the pair agreed to be married. The young lady was a Roman Catholic. Her faith in that Church and its priests had been weakened by a number of circumstances, and especially by the fact that upon one occasion when she went to confession she was met in the Confessional box by her then pastor, who smelled very strongly of intoxicating drink. She went home and told her mother about it, adding that “his breath smelled perfectly awful.” However, she continued a member of the Church up to the time of her marriage to the young gentleman above referred to.

The marriage was performed in Washington, D. C., September 16, 1911, in a Protestant church and by a Baptist minister. Within a week, September 22, 1911, the young bride received a telephone message from her sister, asking her to come over to her parents’ home. She went, and her sister told ‘her that she had received a letter from her mother, who was- then at Colonial Beach, in which her mother expressed the desire that she go to see her late pastor, Rev. P. J. O’Connell, St. Vincent’s Church, South Capitol and N Streets, Washington, D. C. The young bride said that she had no desire to see Rev. O’Connell, but that she would call on him “to please mama.” Accordingly, she immediately went to see the priest.

After some preliminary and formal conversation about indifferent matters, the priest asked her:

“Have you yet had your vacation?”

“Yes,” replied the lady, “and during my vacation I was married.”

“Married! Married! And who married you?” asked the priest.

“A Baptist minister,” replied the lady.

“You are not married! Why did you not come and consult me about getting married?”

She said, “I did not care to.”

The priest then asked her, “Did you not hear the rules about marriage read from the altar about two years ago?”

She said, “I do not know whether I did or not.”

He said, “Why did you not come to me and find out?”

She replied, “I did not care to know.”

The priest then angrily exclaimed: “You are not married! You are the same as a woman who walks the streets,” and added, “You are the same as a woman that a man would take to a room in a hotel and live with; you are the same as a woman in the ‘Division.'” (The Division in Washington, D. C, means the same as is understood by the Red Light section in other cities.)

Here the lady burst into tears, and the priest, thinking he had her “going,” added in great anger and terrific tones, “You are not married, and if you should die to-morrow morning your body would not be allowed to be brought inside of a Catholic Church.”

The lady had now quite recovered herself, and replied defiantly, “I know that, and I do not care.”

The priest now opened another view of the subject. He remarked, “You could leave that man to-morrow morning and marry some one else, because you are not a married woman.”

The lady answered, “I will not leave my husband, and if I did I would have to go to the law for a divorce and not come to you.”

The priest, finding himself baffled in all his efforts, continued, exclaiming, “You are not married! You are not married! The idea of such a thing! You are not married!”

The young lady now told the priest that she was well aware that she was not married according to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, but that she was legally married and that was sufficient for her, and defied the priest to deny that her marriage was lawful.

Thereupon the priest left the room in a rage and the young lady went to her home.

She was at first reluctant to relate this interview to her husband, because she did not want him to know that her late pastor would presume to talk to her in such a manner. A few days afterwards, however, she did tell him. Upon hearing the story, her husband said that if he had been present one of the two would have been taken to the hospital, adding, “He had not better meet me on the street.”

Let no one suppose for a moment that the views here expressed are only those of an individual priest acting on his own responsibility. This is not the case. Such views are not private views. The “Ne Temcre” decree declares that marriages under the law of the land are invalid and that a Catholic going through this ceremony has not contracted matrimony and may be married again. Under the law of the land such a second marriage, without a decree of divorce, is the crime of bigamy, and Catholic priests and prelates are justified and authorized by the Church not only to pronounce such marriages invalid and to inform any subject of the Church of his or her right to contract a new marriage, but the priest is further authorized to become a party to the crime of bigamy by performing the second marriage ceremony himself.

The thoughtful reader will lay it to heart that the event which the foregoing story records took place in the city of Washington the capital of this nation; where President Taft presides and who has declared that there is a perfect consistency between earnest devotion to the Church and perfect obedience to the laws of the land; and further, that the event occurred in the archdiocese of Cardinal Gibbons, who poses par excellence as the great defender of “law and order,” and as which he has been eulogized by Theodore Roosevelt.

The annulling of marriages by Rome is not a rare occurrence. While she sternly denounces divorce as one of the greatest evils of the age, she frequently annuls marriages for the graft that is in it, or to show her disregard for the civil laws and marriage ceremonies performed by non-Catholic clergymen.

Priests and prelates have wrecked many homes and families. We even find them co-respondents in divorce suits; yet they continue to minister at the altar and in the confessional. Baroness von Zedtwitz declared shortly before her mysterious death that she would expose some of the crimes of popes, prelates and priests, were it not for the fact that such exposure would most assuredly break up many prominent homes, both in America and Europe.

In order to avoid scandal, protect the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of both sexes, and show contempt for the civil law, Pope Pius X. issued a Bull, “Motu Proprio,” which excommunicates any person, lay or cleric, man or woman, who shall without the permission of ecclesiastical authorities, summon any Roman Catholic ecclesiastic before a lay tribunal, either in a civil or criminal case. The main part of this Bull reads as follows:

“In these evil days, when ecclesiastical immunities receive no consideration, and not only priests and clerics, but even bishops and cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, are cited before lay tribunals, this condition of things absolutely demands of us to restrain by severe penalty those who can not be otherwise deterred from the commission of so heinous a crime against the religious character. Therefore, by this Motu Proprio we determine and ordain that whatever private person, lay or cleric, man or woman, shall, without having obtained permission of ecclesiastical authorities, cite to a lay tribunal and compel to appear there publicly any ecclesiastical person, either in a criminal or civil case, will incur excommunication, ‘lat “Pius PP. X.”

This recent decree of Pope Pius X. is a gigantic bluff to intimidate not only his “Catholic subjects,” but also the rulers and governments of non-Catholic countries and their subjects.

To many it would seem incredible that such things could happen in the twentieth century and under constitutional governments.

Why do not the rulers and governments of all non-Catholic countries step in to protect the rights of the people from such dangerous and infamous invasion by the pope of Rome, as did the Government of Russia which recently prosecuted Bishop Casimir Ruszkiewiez, suffragan bishop to the Archbishop of Warsaw, and Father Cisplinski on the charge of declaring a legal marriage null, and thus infringing civil authority? The result was a sentence of sixteen months’ imprisonment for both priest and bishop. The term is to be passed in a fortress and the bishop is to be deposed from his diocese.

Russia knows Rome and therefore nips her in the bud in order to prevent her gaining supremacy over civil authority. If the other non-Catholic countries had only done likewise, or would even do it now, Romanism would not wield the powerful, iniquitous influence which it does.

Why do not the Governments of the British Empire and the United States prosecute and punish according to law priests and prelates guilty of similar, and far worse, crimes?