Chapter VIII. Monasteries Are Often the Abode of Criminals, and Nunneries the Slaughter Pens of Virtue.

When I was living beneath the folds of the black banner of Catholicism, I sincerely and devoutly believed that to shield a Catholic criminal was a righteous and Godly calling, as I believed that to prevent the civil law from taking hold of the criminal career of a Catholic official, for his short-comings, was but an act of Godly justice.

I also believed that anything that was done between the walls of a Nunnery was sanctified by the approval of those who were higher in authority in the Catholic Church than myself; therefore, the things which I now realize are both criminal and immoral, as well as utterly detestable, I at one time considered righteous, simply because my education had been confined to the narrow channels of bigotry, and the effulgency of Biblical knowledge had never penetrated my Romish-inspired perceptibilities.

I believe that I will make many assertions in this chapter that have never been made before, but there will not be an assertion made but what is true; however, there will be many that will arise from the trenches of Catholicism to denounce the truthfulness of them, but I know whereof I speak, and I defy any mortal man to successfully dispute what I may state.

This chapter will relate to monasteries and nunneries, which in olden times were called “asylums.”

These asylums are used by Catholicism to scuffle criminals of their following into, in defiance of law and justice, as these asylums are notorious among those who are on the inside workings of this creed, as to places where Catholic criminals can be concealed without fear of having the civil law bring them to justice, as these places are a retreat for Catholic criminals who are pursued by the ministers of justice, and where, so long as they remain, they cannot be arrested; but in order to elevate these “asylums” to the plane of religion, they, are called by different names which aremisnomers, and are only raised to the level of religious institutions to cover up the infamy of their actual missions, as Catholicism has learned that as long as she can throw around and about herself a religious glamor, that she is permitted to go ahead and violate the laws of man without molestation.

The “asylums” of olden times were intended as retreats for those who were persecuted for their religious belief, but the mission of these institutions became useless, under the splendid and godly progress of Protestantism, as Protestantism planted her banner of enlightenment under the glorious leadership of Martin Luther, and such institutions were done away with, but Catholicism turned these asylums, which were once a protection to the persecuted followers of Christ, and converted them into an abode for Catholic criminals.

There is scarcely a man or woman in America but what has heard of Wm. Morgan, who lived at Batavia, in Western New York, who, it was claimed, wrote an expose of Freemasonry, and who, the Catholic Church claims, was killed by the Masonic fraternity for writing this expose.

The fact of the matter is that this book was prepared by the Catholic Church for electioneering purposes, and it served their scheme well and truly.

It is history that Morgan disappeared very suddenly, and the Catholic Church gave it out that he had been killed by the Masonic fraternity, which is untrue, as Wm. Morgan was spirited away, and the trick was turned by Catholicism.

“Wm. Morgan” became the issue for the campaign, and it was narrated around that Morgan was conveyed in a carriage from Batavia to Niagara by Freemasons, and there drowned in Lake Ontario.

A body was produced near the mouth of the Niagara River, but a friend of Wm. Morgan, who knew him well, by the name of Mrs. Wm. G. Barr, denied that the body that was found at the mouth of the Niagara River, was that of Morgan, and a devout Catholic remarked at the post-mortem examination that “It was a good enough Morgan until after the election.”

A rigid investigation was made and no one was ever convicted of murdering Morgan.

The result of the election was that Catholicism carried her point. The Catholic Church had turned by this excitement the eyes of the world towards Freemasonry, and claimed that Morgan’s fate was caused by the Masonic fraternity.

When I came to America, I was given instructions in regard to secret societies, and the Morgan case was gone over with me in detail, and I was given “The Bulls” of three popes, which excluded all members of Freemasons from the Catholic Church, and all who belonged to the Masonic fraternity were denied even a Christian burial by the Catholic Church.

I was told by a priest, who was in good standing, that the Masons had in their meetings a literal devil concealed in a box, and that when they would meet, they would stick pins in a picture of some supposed “traitor” and shriek out in their madness: “Die like Morgan!”

Mrs. Wm. G. Barr was called to identify the supposed body of Wm. Morgan, which was found at the mouth of the Niagara River.

Her husband, Wm. G. Barr, was an old dry goods man and once ran for governor of the State of Kansas, but was defeated because his wife had declared “that Wm. Morgan’s body had never been discovered at the mouth of the Niagara River, and further declared that it was a ‘fake,’ pure and simple, and gotten up by Catholicism in order to villify the Masonic fraternity.”

I had always been of an investigating turn of mind, and the stories that were told to me in regard to Wm. Morgan did not sound right, so I took the train for Topeka, Kans., where Mrs. Wm. G. Barr lived, and this is the story that she related to me in great emotion:

Mrs. Barr told me that she was a friend of Wm. Morgan, and that she was called to identify his body, but instead of finding the corpse of Wm. Morgan, on the seashore, she found the body of some one else and not that of Morgan, and she further told me that Wm. Morgan, before his disappearance, had written her that he was persuaded by a number of Catholic priests to leave the Masons, and that he, to his sorrow, had followed their advice, and that these priests had written a book, and insisted that he should publish it, but he never did give his consent, and stated that he never would; however, the book appeared, and the fact of the matter is that it was a clumsy forgery by the priestcraft of Catholicism.

This book appeared in print, and Wm. Morgan became frightened, as he realized that should the country at large believe that he was the author of this book, he would be considered as a traitor, and he became frightened and did not know what to do, and about this time two Catholic priests approached him, and persuaded him to leave the country, and they took him to “a Trappist monastery,” near Montreal, Canada.

He remained there quite a time, and left Canada and went to Asia, and he was seen and identified in Asia years after Catholicism had declared that he had been murdered by the Masonic fraternity.

I do not remember of ever reading this history before, and I am under the impression that I am the first man–in fact, I know that I am the first man who was for thirty years a Catholic priest that ever gave this information to the public.

Now, if a monastery in Canada would be turned into a lie and a deception in order that the Catholic Church might carry out her diabolical and cunning schemes, what can we expect of other monasteries?

If this history attaches itself to a monastery like that in Canada, what must be the condition of the monasteries and nunneries of nations which have not the enlightenment that Canada has?

I desire to call to the attention of the reader a little history that is not exceedingly old, and which every boy and girl is acquainted with, as it has transpired in the past ten years–yea, later.

It was in the afternoon of a December day, in 1900. A boy, Edward Cudahy, Jr., was walking to his father’s mansion and was invited to step into a buggy and was informed that he was under arrest. This boy was then and there abducted, and this abduction became known by the boy remaining away from his home that night.

The police and detectives of Omaha and the detectives from Chicago and other cities were busy on the case day and night. Days and weeks passed and nothing came to light except letters from the ones who had kidnapped this boy, asking for a ransom of $25,000, and stating that if this sum of money in gold was not forthcoming, that the boy’s eyes would be put out and he would forever lose his sight.

This last threat startled the poor, heart-broken mother, and as the time approached for these devils to put into execution their threat, this poor frantic mother insisted that her millionaire husband, Edward Cudahy, Sr., give up the $25,000 and save her precious boy’s eyesight.

Her husband resisted as long as he could, but at last took the $25,000 in gold and stepped into his buggy, with the signal lantern, and drove to a certain spot, designated by Pat Crow, who is the one who abducted Cudahy, and with this $25,000 bought his boy’s liberty, and this boy was brought from that cottage on Grover street, unhurt, and Pat Crow made away with his $25,000 in gold.

Cudahy was called up a number of times by telephone and was threatened that if he did not withdraw the reward that he was offering for Pat Crow’s arrest that there would be something awful befall him; but he resisted and would not withdraw his offer of reward, consequently this made it necessary for Pat Crow and Eddy McGehee, alias Burns, to leave the country.

These men were known in Omaha, St. Joe, Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago, not only by a number of their ilk, but also to the police forces, consequently the nets of the law were stretched all over the United States for these abductors.

On December 28 it was reported from La Salle, Ills., that Pat Crow was arrested. Kansas City police promised his arrest before sunset, but he was not arrested.

There were 80,000,000 people looking for Pat Crow, but he took a Pullman sleeper and traveled to New York, and from there sailed on a first-class ticket for Europe and spent a good time in London, from whence he went to South Africa and played a deceptive role in the English-African war.

Now, I am going to relate something that will make one’s blood boil with indignation and the cold sweat stand out with the clamminess of death, but what I tell you is true.

Priest Dempsey, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in St. Louis, was president of the “Emmet” celebration in the year 1902.

After a speech by Judge Ryan of St. Louis, and a most eloquent address by a priest, who had been a young Boer officer, he inspired Irish patriotism by an elegant appeal against “Old England.” He was indeed an orator who, by his recitation, held the audience for an hour. I was one who was nearest to him on the platform and congratulated him on his powerful speech.

After the applause from his Irish friends, as he had called them, he decided to leave with me for his hotel, and I was stopping at St. Patrick’s parsonage, so we both had to go in the same direction.

I had become interested in the fellow while he was delivering his speech and I became much more interested in him in our car ride, together, to the Lindell Hotel, and he invited me to stop off with him awhile at the Lindell Hotel, and we were soon engaged in all kinds of discussions, both religious and political. He was a “Dutchman” and had asked his government of Holland for a leave of absence to fight in the Boer war, which was granted him, and to prove the truthfulness of this assertion he showed me a wound on his breast which had not yet healed.

He remarked that he came “nearly” telling in his address at the “Emmet” meeting about the miraculous escape of Pat Crow to South Africa, and stated that if it had not been for the bad impression Pat Crow had made in America, he would have told of the trick that had been turned to gain him his freedom and rob some one in America of the reward that had been put on his head by Millionaire Cudahy.

The following is his story he told me as near as I can remember it:

“One night I was in Johannesburg, South Africa, and stayed with Pat Crow in the same room. I knew that it was Pat Crow and did not intend to have much to do with him, but he noticed me and I became interested in him, and he spoke to me about matters, and the millionaire’s boy being abducted, and the ransom that he received, and his escape to Africa.

“He remarked that I would realize from his name that he was an Irish Catholic, and stated that he had gone through the Catholic schools and was a ‘brother’ in the cloisters, and stated that this was his strong point in never being caught in his daring undertakings.

“He stated that when they received their $25,000 ransom from Cudahy that it was divided at the cottage where the crime was committed. He stated that it cost him quite a sum of money to stay with friends a few days in Omaha, but that he soon disguised himself as an inmate of the Jesuit College, a school for Catholic boys.

“He stated that he traveled on a ‘permit’ as Father O’Connor to Kansas City, and stated that from there he went to St. Louis, disguised as a Catholic priest, and that the conductors on the train spoke to him as ‘How do you do, Father?’

“When I arrived in St. Louis I went to St. Anthony’s Church, where you can obtain most anything from that saint. I rang the bell for confession. I confessed all kinds of things. I confessed to murder, robbery, kidnapping, and the Father Confessor was impressed with me because I was a ‘big fish’ in my line, and because I had done no harm to the millionaire’s boy. I told the inmates of St. Anthony’s Church that I wanted to make confession and do penance the remainder of my life.

“A brother came with the scissors and I received the ‘tonsure’ for the third time, which left only a circle of hair around my head, and no Pinkerton detective, or even Bertillion himself could have identified me.

“In a short time I left this St. Anthony Church in a ‘Catholic Habit,’ which disguised me as a Catholic official, and I went to Omaha and passed myself off as ‘Brother Clement from St. Louis.’

“When I reached Omaha I had no trouble in passing myself off as ‘Brother Clement.’

“After I had remained there awhile I excused myself and in my priestly robes I walked to the banks of the Missouri River and raised my buried treasure, as I had left a part of the money that I received from Cudahy buried near the river, and I took the train to St. Louis, and from there to New York, and from New York I took a German steamer to Southampton.

“I stayed in London two weeks and read in the papers all about Pat Crow. London was not the place for a man like me, as I had been there before, and they knew me; so I sailed for the diamond fields of South Africa, where I am now free, by the system of ‘asylums’ (which are Catholic monasteries) of the Catholic Church. Pat Crow wound up his story by telling me that if I ever needed to try this plan that I could do it, and stated that the Catholic Church was the refuge of criminals.”

Now, bear in mind, the reason that the Catholic Church is such a refuge for criminals is because no police or detective is ever allowed to cross over the door-sills into these places of Catholic refuge, where the worst chapters of crime never will be told, and where these criminals flee to avoid the punishment of their crimes.

This is the first time in the history of the world that this awful history in regard to Pat Crow and Catholicism was ever given to the reading public.

Catholicism teaches, and acts accordingly, that if a confessor forgives the sins of these criminals that God has taken away all guilt from their heinous crimes and that the civil laws have no right to punish these criminals after a Catholic priest has forgiven their sins, and on this damnable dogma, Catholicism bases her right for the existence of these “asylums.”

I want to give the reader a little history in regard to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Wilkes Booth, a Roman Catholic, was the assassin of President Lincoln. The Roman Catholic Church, under the mask of Democracy, was always believed to be responsible for this diabolical assassination. In fact, it is believed, and the belief is well founded, that through the “inquisition” in the City of Rome that a plot was laid to destroy the republican form of government of the United States, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was the first step, and the plotting on this side of the water was done in Catholic houses, adorned with crucifixes, religious saints, religious statues, religious relics, and rosaries, scapulars, holy water pots, and medals of Catholicism innumerable.

It was in the house of Mrs. Surratt, located in the very heart of Washington, D.C., that the officers of this government proceeded after the assassination of President Lincoln, and bear in mind that Mrs. Surratt was a Roman Catholic, and the occupants of this house were arrested. The ones who were arrested were; Mrs. Surratt, a Roman Catholic; her daughter, Anna, a Roman Catholic; Mrs. Fitzpatrick, a Roman Catholic, and Miss Hollahan, a Roman Catholic. Before the officers had left this house a light knock was heard at the door and a young man appeared in disguise, as he was dressed as a common laborer and carried a pick upon his shoulder; his hands were white and soft and he was also arrested, and his name was Powell, another Roman Catholic.

John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was a Roman Catholic, consequently the belief is undoubtedly well founded that not only the scheme to assassinate Abraham Lincoln was laid in the City of Rome by Roman Catholics, but was carried into execution by the same set in this country.

Booth, after the assassination, fled to Surrattsville to the hotel of Mrs. Surratt, and there a Roman Catholic woman had concealed a carbine. Mr. Surratt, at Washington, had warned the folks at the hotel that the weapon would be called for the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, which isprima facie evidence of the plot to assassinate Lincoln. After the assassination Booth fled, but on the eastern shores of the Potomac he was concealed in a Roman Catholic Church for nearly a week. As we relate this history, which is true, the evidence becomes more damaging against Roman Catholicism.

The finale of this national tragedy was that Herald, Powell and Mrs. Surratt were hung, and Dr. Mudd and O’Laughlin were committed to life-long imprisonment, and all of these were Roman Catholics.

The question now arises, How did John H. Surratt escape from the same fate of Herald, Powell and Mrs. Surratt?I will tell you! John H. Surratt escaped by the assistance of Catholic officials and went to Canada, and was concealed in a “Trappist cloister” near Montreal, and remained there until 1865, when, as a Priest, he went to Liverpool.

In the spring of 1866, Mr. Wm. H. Seward was informed by a Mr. King, at Rome, Italy, that John H. Surratt had enlisted in the Papal Guards, under the name of John Watson. He was arrested at Teroli, in Italy, but escaped by plunging down a ravine twenty-three feet deep.

He was wounded by the fall and crawled off to a monastery and remained there until he was healed and then resumed his flight. After his wounds healed, he went to Egypt, as he was not satisfied with Italy, and was there captured by our minister, Mr. Hale, and sent to America.

I could go on and on, giving you history of lesser importance that this, which occurs week in and week out, month in and month out, and year in and year out, and which is strictly connected with the Catholic Church, but what I have given you are truths, and indisputable truths, which should be evidence enough of the awfulness of monasteries of this and other countries, and a class of men who will commit such dastardly deeds in the monasteries would not hesitate to slaughter innocent virtue in the nunneries of this country.

I could give you history in regard to the nunneries that would make the cheek of virtue blush with shame, but to give you this history I would have to use language that I do not desire to use, as I want to keep the minds and morals of the girls of this country as pure as possible; but from this chapter, Protestant fathers and mothers must know what Roman Catholicism consists of, and Catholic fathers and mothers who are not everlastingly blinded by the false light of this damnable creed should rally from their lethargetic walks of debauchery and snatch their children from the Romish mire of degradation and place them upon the Protestant highways, which lead to the beauties of individual and collective greatness.