Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus.
And what is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the
rank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels
of the ecclesiastical machine? His Holiness, the Pope, sent over
a delegate to represent him in America, and at a convention of
the Federation of Catholic Societies held in New Orleans in
November, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered
himself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the
slave-code of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary
carpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples:
Human society has its origin from God and is constituted of two
classes of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively
represent Capital and Labor.
Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human
society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and
servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and
plebeians.
And lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second
representative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general
meeting of the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917,
declared:
One of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is
the spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic
Church must be ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be
ready to prevent the spread of Socialism and to work against it.
As I understand, you have a society of wealthy people in St.
Louis ready for such a campaign. You have experienced leaders who
are masters in their kind of work. They are always insistent to
show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the Church,
and therefore it will not fail.
This, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book,
which therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "Nihil Obstat"
of the "Censor Theolog.", and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes
Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici." No wonder that the
"experienced leaders" of America, our captains of industry and
exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be,
to make use of this system of subjection. A few years ago we read
in our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was
presenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its
war upon Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most
far-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said
that in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a
capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic
church that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy
was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and
railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you
watched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman
Hierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get
an expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any
newspaper of importance. The Associated Press does not handle
news unfavorable to the Church, and from top to bottom, the
politician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. Said
Archbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary
Sodality:
I'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the
church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.