The ghosts of bigotry; six lectures

Contents

Lecture Page

I. —Ghosts in General .... 7 II. — The Gunpowder Plot ... 55

III.— The Popish Plot 120

Preface

«5

THE following lectures are an attempt to give in popular form the main features of the treatment meted out to the Catholic Church in England and America by English Protestantism. They were written after a four years' campaign against the A. P. A. in California had ended in the break-up and disappearance of that organization. The Catholic Truth Society of San Francisco published them in pamphlet form under the title ^^Ghosts." The plates, however, were destroyed in the fire of 1906, and, as there have been many calls for them since that time, they are now reprinted in a more permanent form. Experience showed that the original title did not sufficiently indicate their scope, so they are renamed ^'The Ghosts of Bigotry."

THE GHOSTS OF BIGOTRY

I.-GHOSTS IN GENERAL.

WITH this series of lectures we inaugurate the work of a Catholic Truth Society. A Catholic Truth Society is an organized effort to spread the truth concerning the Catholic Church, both among Catholics and non-Catholics. It is in religion what in politics is called "a campaign of education." We Catholics believe we have the truth. We believe we have those teachings which God deemed best for the instruction of mankind. We believe we have those doctrines, to teach which He sent His only Son from heaven. We believe, therefore, we possess that truth which is necessary for humanity and is able to satisfy all the needs of humanity. If our belief is real, we must wish to spread this truth. If we love our kind, if

The Preaching Office of the Church.

we wish them well, if we would give them comfort, hope, peace, we must bum with the desire to tell them the good tidings which alone can satisfy their souls.

For this purpose was the Church established, and with the commission, ^Treach the Gospel to every creature," she has gone up and down the world. This is not the place to speak of her unceasing and manifold activity. She preaches from her pulpits Sunday after Sunday. Her churches, day by day, are silent invitations to the passers-by to lift up their hearts. She preaches in her works of charity and beneficence. She preaches in the lives of her members, the lives of the thousands of simple and lowly God-fearing men and women who bear her name; in the lives of her sisters and priests who stand fearless before the plague or the yellow fever and go down to death rather than permit a single soul to appear before its Maker without the healing of the Sacraments and the strength of the Body of Christ.

In those ways, and in a thousand others,

Her Methods Change With the Times.

the Church is ever preaching the Gospel. Since her Founder's death there is no age which has not rung with her deeds ; there is no land which has not been full of her labors. You may ask, therefore, What is the need of this new crusade? What is the need of this organized effort to spread Catholic truth? Are not the ancient ways sufficient? Why should we train our feet to new paths?

Our answer is: Our crusade is no new venture, but that it is an ancient method adapted to modern needs. This world of ours is like the great ocean— ever in a state of change. The changes themselves, it is true, are few, but they are ever returning one on the heels of the other. The tides of this month are like the tides of last month. The storm of a week ago is like the storms of years gone by. Wave is like unto wave, and calm is indistinguishable from calm. Yet wave and tide, calm and storm create the unceasing change that makes the ocean the image of instability.

The Message Is Always the Same.

It is even so among men. There is nothing new under the sun, said the wise man, and what has been, the same shall be. Political changes, commercial changes, changes of opinion, in manners, in dress, all have a small orbit and are constantly returning. But amidst all those changes the word of God stands unchanged and unchangeable. The Church which has the commission of preaching remains unmoved amidst the vicissitudes of times and things. In that she shows most like to God. Thou in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish but Thou shalt continue; and they shall all grow old as a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed. But Thou art the self same and Thy years shall not fail.

But though the unchanging word which the unchanging Church preaches to the world is always and at all times one, the manner in which it is presented to the ever-changing peoples must be manifold.

She Preaches One Way in Catholic Lands.

The Church must meet man on his own level and speak to him in a language which his heart can understand. If he will not listen to the truth when presented to him in one way, the Church must cast about until she finds a way which will be acceptable. Her methods, therefore, will differ from time to time and from country to country. In Catholic lands, and among Catholic peoples, the solemn round of praise and sacrifice by which her year is sanctified is a perpetual instruction for her children. They grow up in a Catholic atmosphere, and, unconsciously, as they learn their mother tongue they learn their mother religion. The pictured saints that look down upon them from window and niche and wall in their churches become their teachers, and the practices of private and public life knit into their bones the faith of their fathers.

It is otherwise in countries which are not Catholic. There everything tends to draw them away from the Church, and to obscure her teaching. Hence she cannot

II She Uses Other Means With Non-Catholics

rest content with what we may call the dead weight of public opinion, for public opinion is against her; she cannot rest content with the mere internal force of Catholic life, because Catholic life is chilled and weakened in an uncongenial clime. Therefore, she must return to her ancient methods, when the world was all before her, a harvest yet unreaped. She must return to the constant and uninterrupted proclamation of her mission. She must become again a prophet crying in the wilderness, ^Trepare ye the way of the Lord." She must become again a witness going out to all the people, and giving testimony to the truth as revealed by Christ Jesus.

Such is the condition of the Church in this country. We are growing great in everything which makes for material power; but we are growing weak in everything v/hich makes for moral power. If I should say that the American people is an irreligious people I should be circulating a calumny. If I should say that the

She Must Preach to the American People.

American people is rapidly becoming a churchless and creedless people I should be saying what all admit. How long a churchless and a creedless people can remain at heart a religious or a moral people is another question. Suffice it to say, that history records no example of a lasting case. Either truth or superstition, in some form, must prevail. If Moses remains too long on the mountain the people will make them the golden calf.

Catholics believe that they have the whole truth which Christ revealed. They believe that the American people needs this truth, for, as Archbishop Spalding used to say, ^^A great nation needs a great religion." The question, therefore, which confronts us is. How is the American people to be reached? We have special facilities in our favor, we have special difficulties to overcome. To take advantage of- those facilities, to provide against those difficulties, is the Church's task. The situation is novel; it is not new. Like the prudent householder, she has in her store

She Must Reach Them By the Old Methods.

new things and old. She is now where she was in the third century — face to face with a mighty civilization which was hungry for God, and yet distrusted the messenger of God.

In those days the Church relied on the preaching of the Word of Truth. She had then, as now, the same Sacrifice, the same Sacraments, but she hid them away from the gaze of the pagans. She jealously excluded the unbaptized from her churches, for her rites were the bread that the children of the household alone might share. But if the unbeliever might not come to her, she went to the unbeliever. She preached to him of God and of the Christ and of the necessity of a revelation.

The same must be our plan now. For all practical purposes we might as well have in force the ancient rule which allowed none but Catholics to enter our churches during divine service. How few they are who come from among our separated brethren to see for themselves and to hear what we have to say, only those

Because We Have Again the Old Conditions.

know who, Sunday after Sunday, look on the same familiar faces in the pews. Therefore, if they do not come to us we must go to them. If the truth of God is worth anything, it is at least worth this trouble from those who value it.

Such is the first reason for* a Catholic Truth Society. The world has changed, but the change is only a return of old conditions. The means which were successful in the first spring shall be successful in the second spring. The Church is the same, the truth is the same — only the methods of presenting that truth are altered with the times.

Perhaps one of the most salient features of the organized effort to spread Catholic truth, known as the Catholic Truth Society, is that it is an organization of the laity. In Catholic theology the task of preaching the Gospel was laid upon the Apostles, and by the Apostles given to their successors. St. Paul sums up the teaching of the Church in the pertinent queries, ^'How shall they call on Him in whom

The Mission of the Catholic Laity.

they have not believed? Or, how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?" Therefore, the Bishops, as the successors of the Apostles, in their own -dioceses, and the Pope, as the successor of the chief of the Apostles, in the whole world, are the divinely ordained preachers of the Gospel, .and they commit that charge to those whom they judge fit. But this oversight does not mean that there is not on each of us the obligation of making our religion known. It means that we are not to set up altar against altar, and that all things should be done in seemly fashion and with one mind. Hence on the laity, too, rests the duty of giving a reason for the faith that is in them. And when the laity are organized, as in this Catholic Truth Society, by the Archbishop of the diocese, who, and who alone, is responsible for the teaching of the faith pure and undefiled, there is no break with the i6

Their Opportunities of Spreading the Truth.

traditions of the Church, nothing opposed to Catholic habits of thought.

As I have said, our times have their own advantages and their own drawbacks. It is to make use of one of those advantages that the Catholic Truth Society organized the Catholic laity. In this country men of all creeds meet on the common basis of their citizenship. In the ordinary walks of life Catholic and non-Catholic are thrown into close contact. They discuss every question in the heavens above, in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth. Not the least infrequent of those discussions is on the subject of religion. Non-Catholics who would not think of entering a Catholic church or of speaking to a Catholic priest will eagerly question the Catholic laity concerning the teaching and practices of the Catholic Church. Such an opportunity should not be lost. If any one should know about the Catholic Church surely Catholics should. It is not good taste to force religious subjects into a

How Newman Wished the Laity to Act.

conversation, but it is not good policy to be silent when your Church is under discussion. Nearly fifty years ago, in a time of great excitement in England on the subject of the Catholic Church, John Henry Newman wrote words which are true of Catholics, especially in these times and in our own country. He said:

There is a time for silence, and a time to speak; the time for speaking is come. What I desiderate in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is; it is one of those ^^better gifts" of which the Apostle bids you be ^^zealous." You must not hide your talent in a napkin, or your light under a bushel. I want a laity not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand; who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, wellinstructed laity; I am not denying that

i8

The Laity the Measure of Catholic Spirit.

you are such already, but I mean to be severe, and, as some say, exorbitant in my demands; I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory. I have no apprehension you will be the worse Catholics for familiarity with these subjects, provided you cherish a vivid sense of God above and keep in mind that you have souls to be saved. In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit — they saved the Irish Church three centuries ago, and they betrayed the Church in England. Our rulers were true — our people were cowards. You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents, and to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the sat-

His Lesson on the Need of Self-Reliance.

isfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense of whatever cast of opinion. And one immediate efifect of your being able to do all this will be your gaining the proper confidence in self, which is so necessary for you. You will then not have the temptation to rely on others, to court political parties or particular men; they will rather have to court you. You will no longer be dispirited or irritated (if such is at present the case) at finding difficulties in your way, of being called names, in not being believed, in being treated with injustice. You will fall back upon yourselves; you will be calm, you will be patient. Ignorance is the root of all littleness ; he who can realize the law of moral conflicts, and the incoherence of falsehood, and the issue of perplexities, and the presence of the Judge, becomes, from the very necessity of the case, philosophical, long-sufifering and magnanimous. — ^^ Present Position of Catholics in England/' Led. IX, No. 4.

The Catholic Truth Society cannot create such a laity, but it can organize it

The Mission of the Printing Press.

and encourage it. Then, there is a second advantage, as great in its way, if not greater. The American people reads. Perhaps its reading is not deep, but it is wide; moreover, it is impartial. The people will read anything that is readable, no matter what it treats about. Every fad, every humbug, every political measure, every social dream has its expounders, has its readers — why not the old Church that gave printing to the world? We hardly realize what a powerful engine the printing press is. The Church has never despised it; from the beginning she employed it. She employs it now, but in our country not enough. To help in some way to spread Catholic Truth among the people by means of Catholic literature, this, too, is the end of the Catholic Truth Society.

Such are some of the advantages which will favor the work of the Catholic Truth Society. There are, however, disadvantages against which we must strive —

Americans Ready to Hear All Claims*

and this brings me to the subject proper of this lecture, ^^Ghosts in General."

When the prophet of a new political measure comes before the people, men are willing to take him for what he is and discuss his arguments for what they are worth. They are willing to examine the case as he sets it forth and, although they may not agree with him, they give the measure a fair hearing and accept or reject it on its merits. They extend this courtesy to every one who comes before them and claims to have something worth talking about. A new medicine or a new machine, a discovery in morals or a discovery in religion— all claim an attentive audience, and they get what they claim. But there is one society which comes before American non-Catholics and appeals to them in vain. The Catholic Church is in the midst of them-^a fact too potent to be denied, an energy too strong to be ignored. She makes lofty claims to their attention. In a world of clashing and conflicting sects she declares that she holds the truth once

Except Those Put Forth By the Church.

delivered to the saints. To those who are tossed about by every wind of doctrine she offers the shelter and security of the Rock of Peter. To those who are perplexed with the riddle of existence she holds out the key that unlocks all mysteries. In an age of doubt she stands for faith. In a land given up, above all lands, to things material, she is the witness of the Unseen. Closer and closer her children throng round her. Deeper and deeper, day by day, grows their devotion to her. As she walks through the land, glorious cathedrals, great churches, schools, colleges and universities, hospitals and asylums spring up where her feet have trod. And all this comes to pass not from State aid but from, the munificence of the poor. The ages of faith are renewed and the widow's cruse of oil is not diminished.

Yet, in spite of all her claims, of all her offers, of all her deeds, she cannot obtain a hearing from the non-Catholic body of American citizens. Any other society can be put on trial and can be assured of a fair

Because to Some She Is a Dead Issue.

verdict — her case is already judged. Even those who claim to be tolerant and broad-minded, and have convinced themselves that they are tolerant and broad-minded, put her aside with a contemptuous shrug. ^^Catholicity is a dead issue," they say, ^^a worn-out superstition. Civilization has tried the Church and found her wanting. She may have had her uses among the barbarians of a thousand years ago, or among the barbarians of to-day, but we have outgrown her tutelage. What message can she have for this age? None. Impossible! Absurd!" And they close their ears lest they may hear, and they turn to the betterment of the condition of decayed dogs, or to a scientific examination of mediumistic slate writing, or to the Buddhists or to the Theosophists, or to any clue, no matter how faint, that promises to lead them to spiritual truth, and they refuse to hear her voice who alone has the tidings of salvation.

There are others who, when they hear her claims, shudder at the very name. "Is

To Others She Is the Mystery of Iniquity.

she not Antichrist? Is she not the mystery of iniquity? Is she not the scarlet woman drunk with the blood of the saints? To listen to her would bring a curse upon us and ours. She is like that heathen Circe whose voice steals away the senses of men. Let us therefore stop our ears lest we be destroyed. We have seen the fate of this one and that one who dallied with the temptation and fell into her snares. They left the brightness and liberty of Protestantism, and went into the darkness and slavery of Rome. They were bewitched. No man in his sane senses could have done it. Therefore they are insane. Let us keep away from her. Let us never look upon her face. Let us never listen to her voice. She is an accursed thing, even as our fathers told us, and our only safety is to fly when she draws near."

There are others who hear her challenge and answer it back boldly. ^We know you of old," they say, ^^friend of tyrants and enemy of the people. History tells how you have always been on the side

To Others She Is the Ancient Enemy.

of wrong, never on the side of right. Here in this free republic, by some mysterious chicanery, you have gathered around you the ignorant and the vicious. You have only one purpose. You would destroy our liberties, overturn our schools, and erect on the ruins of the capitol the throne of your Pope. We have no need to listen to you or to examine )^our claims. The report of you has come down to us from our fathers who went out of you and were saved. Your blighting influence is on every land. Compare Spain with England, compare Portugal vv^ith Germany, compare Mexico with these United States. Here your aim is to bring back the darkness of the Middle Ages. Therefore, by trickery and fraud you have got possession of all the political offices; you have your Jesuits in the Cabinet; your secret societies are armed and drilling, you are only waiting for the opportune moment to crush out Protestantism and Liberty together. Listen to you! Hear your case! Let there be no truce with

Newman Paints the Prejudiced Man..

treason. Let there be no compromise with dishonor."

If, by any chance, the case of the Catholic Church is set forth in public, and they cannot help but listen, think you that they lay aside their prejudice? Newman described the state of affairs in 1851. His description is true of 1897. You, yourselves are acquainted with the facts. Judge then the accuracy of the description :

However, we will suppose the prejudiced man in a specially good humor, when you set about undeceiving him on some point on which he misstates the Catholic faith. He is determined to be candor and fairness itself and to do full justice to your argument. So you begin with your explanation : You assure him he misconceives your doctrines; he has got a wrong view of facts. You appeal to original authorities, and show him how shamefully they have been misquoted; you appeal to history, and prove it has been garbled. Nothing is wanted to your representation; it is triumphant. He is silent for' a moment, then he begins

The General Anti-Catholic Temper.

with a sentiment, ^ What clever fellows these Catholic are!" he says, ^'I defy you to catch them tripping; they have a way out of everything. I thought we had you, but I fairly own I am beaten. This is how the Jesuits get on; always educated, subtle, well up in their books — a Protestant has no chance with them." You see, you have not advanced a step in convincing him.

So, while the meanest and poorest have the right to come before the bar of public opinion and demand a fair hearing, the greatest Church in the world, the Mother Church of Christendom, no sooner appears in judgment than the voices are raised, "Away with her! Crucify her! Crucify her!" That I am not exaggerating, your own experience bears witness. I do not mean to classify the whole non-Catholic world under the head of the vulgar ranters who a few years ago disgraced the name of Protestant. But I do mean that all have that temper of mind which renders them averse to examining the claims of Cath-

Stimulated By Old and New Charges.

olicity. With the illiterate, the calumnies that we sell for money permission to commit sin; that we are idolators; that priests are all bad and nuns all wicked; that murder and adultery and lying are favorite pastimes of ours; that we are guilty of fraud in our dealings with the people, and that we grow fat on the credulity of the ignorant — with the illiterate, I say, these calumnies take, and stand in the place of argument. With others, the charges that the priests are in politics, that we have designs on the school fund, that we put none but Catholics into office, are sufficient. With others, the belief that history tells how we were bloodthirsty and cruel in the past, and how we would be bloodthirsty and cruel now if we had the power, is both law and Gospel. With still others, the conviction that we are a survival of the unfittest, that we are an anomaly in the nineteenth century, that enlightenment must slay us — makes them indifferent to our reasoning. And so on — for a thousand arguments or one — through every walk of life,

The Haunted House and Its Ghosts.

through every class of society, but the result is the same. Ignore the Church if you can, fight her if you dare, speak well of her if you must, but never, under any circumstance, permit yourself to believe that she may be^ true and that her claims are worthy of examination by men of sense.

Have you ever heard of a haunted house? perhaps you have seen one. Nobody can tell what it is that distinguishes it from other deserted houses, yet even under the broad daylight it has an air of mystery and peculiar desolation. The windows are broken, grass is growing in the walks, the paint is peeling off the woodwork, the walls are discolored with mold, the trees about grow wild and into strange and fantastic shapes. Rumor runs that unearthly noises have been heard at the dead hour of night — shrieks and the clanking of chains. When friends are gathered round the fire, when jest and laughter follow fast, you may tell the story of the haunted house, and meet with incredulity ; but pass it in the night alone, when

But No Ghost Can Outlast the Dawn.

the trees nod and beckon in the wind, when the broken windows rattle in their frames, when the boards creak — no one knows why — and the bats whizz in and out of the deserted rooms — and there are few who will not at least whistle to keep up their courage. Why they are afraid none can tell. Why the house should be haunted there is no authentic reason. No one ever came nearer to the Ghost than the man whose brother-in-law's wife's grandfather was related to the man that saw the man that saw the Ghost. Yet the house is haunted; every one says so; every one is right. Have naught to do v/ith it.

Terrible, however, as Ghosts may be in the witching hours of night, when graveyards yawn, not one of them can bear the light of day. As soon as the dawn is grey in the sky the most pertinacious must flit away. Says the melancholy Dane:

I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

The Ghosts of Anti-Catholic Bigotry.

Awake the god of day; and, at hi§ warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine.

You may see now why I have entitled this lecture "Ghosts in General." To those who do not belong to her communion, the Catholic Church is like some haunted house. Dark and bloody deeds are done within its walls. Strange cowled figures, known as inquisitors, stretch the Protestant upon the rack and then give his tortured limbs to the tenderer mercies of the faggot and the stake. Popes, Jesuits, monks, cardinals, nuns, stalk through its rooms; shrieks and groans are mingled with unholy revelry and blasphemy against the Most High. The pious Protestant stops his ears and flies from the accursed spot. But when the sun rises all these ghosts hie them away. If the terrors of his midnight experience will permit him he may

Newman Describes the Flitting of the Ghosts.

now examine the house from garret to cellar. But unfortunately he will not. He knows enough about the house — catch him going there again! If he did, as Newman says:

The spectres of tyranny, hypocrisy and fraud would flit away with the morning light. There would be no more dread of being burned alive by Papists, or of the gutters overflowing with Protestant blood. Dungeons, racks, pulleys and quicklime would be like the leavings of a yesterday's revel. Nor would the political aims and plots and intrigues, so readily imputed to us, seem more substantial, and though I suppose there is lying and littleness and over-reaching and rivalry to be found among us as among other sons of Adam, yet the notion that we monopolized these vile qualities or had more than our share of them would be an exploded superstition. This, indeed, would be a short and easy way not of making Protestants Catholics but of reversing their ridiculous dreams about us — I mean if they actually saw what they so interminably argue about.