MOMENT OF INTERRUPTION IN THE THREAD OF MY “FIFTY YEARS IN THE CHURCH OF
ROME,” TO SEE HOW MY SAD PREVISIONS ABOUT MY DEFENDER, ABRAHAM
LINCOLN, WERE TO BE REALIZED—ROME THE IMPLACABLE ENEMY OF THE UNITED
STATES—SHE WANTS TO CONQUER AND RULE THEM, IN ORDER TO DESTROY ALL
THEIR RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES AND LIBERTIES.
When it became evident, in 1851, that my plan of forming a grand colony
of Roman Catholic French-speaking people on the prairies of Illinois was
to be a success, D’Arcy McGee, then editor of _The Freeman’s Journal_,
official journal of the Bishop of New York, wrote me to know my views,
and immediately determined to put himself at the head of a similar
enterprise in behalf of the Irish Roman Catholics. He published several
able articles to show that the Irish people, with very few exceptions,
were demoralized, degraded and kept poor, around their groggeries, and
showed how they would thrive, become respectable and rich, if they could
be induced to exchange their grog shops for the fertile lands of the
west. Through his influence, a large assembly, principally composed of
priests, to which I was invited, met at Buffalo, in the spring of 1852.
But what was his disappointment, when he saw that the greatest part of
those priests were sent by the Bishops of the United States to oppose
and defeat his plans!
He vainly spoke with a burning eloquence for his pet scheme. The
majority coldly answered him: “We are determined, like you, to take
possession of the United States and rule them; but we cannot do that
without acting secretly and with the utmost wisdom. If our plans are
known, they will surely be defeated. What does a skillful general do
when he wants to conquer a country? Does he scatter his soldiers over
the farm lands, and spend their time and energy in ploughing the fields
and sowing grain? No! He keeps them well united around his banners, and
marches at their head, to the conquest of the strongholds, the rich and
powerful cities. The farming countries then submit and become the price
of his victory, without moving a finger to subdue them. So it is with
us. Silently and patiently, we must mass our Roman Catholics in the
great cities of the United States, remembering that the vote of a poor
journeyman, though he be covered with rags, has as much weight in the
scale of power as the millionaire Astor, and that if we have two votes
against his one, he will become as powerless as an oyster. Let us, then,
multiply our votes; let us call our poor but faithful Irish Catholics
from every corner of the world, and gather them into the very hearts of
those proud citadels which the Yankees are so rapidly building under the
names of Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago, Buffalo, Albany, Troy,
Cincinnati, etc. Under the shadows of those great cities, the Americans
consider themselves as a giant and unconquerable race. They look upon
the poor Irish Catholic people with supreme contempt, as only fit to dig
their canals, sweep their streets and work in their kitchens. Let no one
awake those sleeping lions, to-day. Let us pray God that they may sleep
and dream their sweet dreams, a few years more. How sad will their
awakening be, when with our outnumbering votes, we will turn them,
forever, from every position of honor, power and profit! What will those
hypocritical and godless sons and daughters of the fanatical Pilgrim
Fathers say, when not a single judge, not a single teacher, not a single
policeman, will be elected if he be not a devoted Irish Roman Catholic?
What will those so-called giants think of their matchless shrewdness and
ability, when not a single Senator or member of Congress will be chosen,
if he be not submitted to our holy father, the Pope? What a sad figure
those Protestant Yankees will cut when we will not only elect the
President, but fill and command the armies, man the navies, and hold the
keys of the public treasury? It will then be time for our faithful Irish
people to give up their grog-shops, in order to become the judges and
governors of the land. Then our poor and humble mechanics will leave
their damp ditches and muddy streets, to rule the cities in all their
departments, from the stately mansion of Mayor of New York, to the
humble, though not less noble position of teacher.
“Then, yes! then, we will rule the United States, and lay them at the
feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, that he may put an end to their
godless system of education, and sweep away those impious laws of
liberty of conscience, which are an insult to God and man!”
D’Arcy McGee was left almost alone when the votes were taken. From that
time, the Catholic priests, with the most admirable ability and success,
have gathered their Irish legions into the great cities of the United
States, and the American people must be very blind indeed, if they do
not see that if they do nothing to prevent it, the day is very near when
the Jesuits will rule their country, from the magnificent White House at
Washington, to the humblest civil and military department of this vast
Republic. They are already the masters of New York, Baltimore, Chicago,
St. Paul, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Cincinnati, Albany, Troy,
Milwaukee, St. Louis, San Francisco, etc. Yes! San Francisco, the rich,
the great queen of the Pacific, is in the hands of the Jesuits!
From the very first days of the discovery of the gold mines of
California, the Jesuits had the hopes of becoming masters of these
inexhaustible treasures, and they secretly laid their plans, with the
most profound ability and success. They saw, at once, that the great
majority of the lucky miners, of every creed and nation, were going back
home, as soon as they had enough to secure an honorable competence to
their families. It became then evident, that of those multitudes which
the thirst of gold had brought from every corner of the world, not one
out of fifty would fix their homes in San Francisco. The Jesuits saw at
a glance, that if they could persuade the Irish Catholics to settle and
remain there, they would soon be the masters and rulers of that golden
city, whose future is so bright and so great! And that scheme, worked
day and night with the utmost perseverance, has been crowned with
perfect success.
The consequence is, that while you find only a few Americans, Germans,
Scotch and English millionaires in San Francisco, you find more than
fifty Catholic Irish millionaires in that city. Its richest bank (Nevada
Bank) is in their hands, and so are all the street railways. The
principal offices of the city are filled with Irish Roman Catholics.
Almost all the police are composed of the same class, as well as the
volunteer military associations. Their compact unity, in the hands of
the Jesuits, with their enormous wealth, make them almost supreme
masters of the mines of California and Nevada.
When one knows the absolute, abject submission of the Irish Roman
Catholics, rich or poor, to their priests; how the mind, the soul, the
will, the conscience are firmly and irrevocably tied to the feet of the
priests, he can easily understand that the Jesuits of the United States
form one of the richest and most powerful corporations the world ever
saw.
It is well known that those fifty Catholic millionaires, with their
myriads of employees, are, through their wives, and by themselves,
continually at the feet of the Jesuits, who swim in a golden sea.
No one, if he be not a Roman Catholic, or one of those so-called
Protestants who give their daughters to the nuns, and their sons to the
Jesuits to be educated, has much hopes, where the Jesuits rule, of
having a lucrative office in the San Francisco to-day.
The Americans, with few exceptions, do not pay any attention to the dark
cloud which is rising at their horizon, from Rome. Though that cloud is
filled with rivers of tears and blood, they let it grow and rise without
even caring how they will escape from the impending hurricane.
It is to San Francisco that you must go to have an idea of the number of
secret and powerful organizations with which the Church of Rome prepares
herself for the impending conflict, through which she hopes to destroy
the schools and every vestige of human rights and liberties in the
United States.
In order to more easily drill the Roman Catholics and prepare them for
the irrepressible struggle, the Jesuits have organized them into a great
number of secret societies, the principal of which are: Ancient Order of
Hibernians, Irish American Society, Knights of St. Patrick, St.
Patrick’s Cadets, St. Patrick Mutual Alliance, Apostles of Liberty,
Benevolent Sons of the Emerald Isle, Knights of St. Peter, Knights of
the Red Branch, Knights of the Columskill, The Sacred Heart, etc., etc.
Almost all these secret associations are military ones. They have their
headquarters at San Francisco; but their rank and file are scattered all
over the United States. They number 700,000 soldiers, who, under the
name of United States Volunteer Militia, are officered by some of the
most skillful generals and officers of this Republic.
Another fact, to which the American Protestants do not sufficiently pay
attention, is that the Jesuits have been shrewd enough to have a vast
majority of Roman Catholic generals and officers, to command the army
and man the navy of the United States.
Rome is in constant conspiracy against the rights and liberties of man
all over the world; but she is particularly so in the United States.
Long before I was ordained a priest, I knew that my church was the most
implacable enemy of this Republic. My professors of philosophy, history
and theology had been unanimous in telling me that the principles and
laws of the Church of Rome were absolutely antagonistic to the laws and
principles which are the foundation-stones of the Constitution of the
United States.
1st. The most sacred principle of the United States Constitution is the
equality of every citizen before the law. But the fundamental principle
of the Church of Rome, is the denial of that equality.
2nd. Liberty of conscience is proclaimed by the United States, a most
sacred principle which every citizen must uphold, even at the price of
his blood. But liberty of conscience is declared by all the Popes and
Councils of Rome, a most godless, unholy and diabolical thing, which
every good Catholic must abhor and destroy, at any cost.
3rd. The American Constitution assures the absolute independence of the
civil from the ecclesiastical or church power; but the Church of Rome
declares, through all her Pontiffs and Councils, that such independence
is an impiety and a revolt against God.
4th. The American Constitution leaves every man free to serve God
according to the dictates of his conscience; but the Church of Rome
declares that no man has ever had such a right, and that the Pope alone
can know and say what man must believe and do.
5th. The Constitution of the United States denies the right in any body
to punish any other for differing from him in religion. But the Church
of Rome says that she has a right to punish with the confiscation of
their goods, or the penalty of death, those who differ in faith from the
Pope.
6th. The United States have established schools all over their immense
territories, where they invite the people to send their children, that
they may cultivate their intelligence and become good and useful
citizens. But the Church of Rome has publicly cursed all these schools,
and forbidden their children to attend them, under pain of
excommunication in this world and damnation in the next.
7th. The Constitution of the United States is based on the principle
that the people are the primary source of all civil power. But hundreds
of times, the Church of Rome has proclaimed that this principle is
impious and heretical. She says that “all government must rest upon the
foundation of the Catholic faith; with the Pope alone as the legitimate
and infallible source and interpreter of the law.”
I could cite many other things, proving that the Church of Rome is an
absolute and irreconcilable enemy of the United States; but it would be
too long. These are sufficient to show to the American people that Rome
is a viper, which they feed and press upon their bosom. Sooner or later,
that viper will bite to death and kill this Republic.
This was foretold by Lafayette, and is now promulgated by the greatest
thinkers of our time.
The greatest inventor, or rather the immortal father of electric
telegraphy, Samuel Morse, found it out when in Rome, and published it in
1834, in his remarkable work, “Conspiracies Against the Liberties of the
United States.” The learned Dr. S. Irenæus Prime, in his life of Prof.
Morse, says: “When Mr. Morse was in Italy, he became acquainted with
several ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome, and he was led to believe,
from what he learned from them, that a political conspiracy, under the
cloak of a religious mission, was formed against the United States. When
he came to Paris and enjoyed the confidence and friendship of Lafayette,
he stated his convictions to the General, who fully concurred with him
in the reality of such a conspiracy.”
That great statesman and patriot, the late Richard W. Thompson,
Secretary of the Navy, in his admirable work, “The Papacy and the Civil
Power,” says: “Nothing is plainer than that, if the principles of the
Church of Rome prevail here, our constitution would necessarily fall.
The two cannot exist together. They are in open and direct antagonism
with the fundamental theory of our government and of all popular
government everywhere.”
The eloquent Spanish orator, Castelar, speaking of his own Church of
Rome, said, in 1869, “There is not a single progressive principle that
has not been cursed by the Catholic Church. This is true of England and
Germany, as well as all Catholic countries. The Church cursed the French
Revolution, the Belgian Constitution and the Italian Independence. Not a
Constitution has been born, not a step of progress made, not a solitary
reform effected, which has not been under the terrific anathemas of the
Church.”
But why ask the testimony of Protestants or Liberals to warn the
American people against that conspiracy, when we have the public
testimony of all the bishops and priests to prove it? With the most
daring impudence, the Church of Rome, through her leading men, is
boasting of her stern determination to destroy all the rights and
privileges which have cost so much blood to the American people. Let the
Americans, who have eyes to see and intelligence to understand, read the
following unimpeachable documents, and judge for themselves of what will
become of this country, if Rome is allowed to grow strong enough to
execute her threats.
“The church is of necessity intolerant. Heresy, she endures when and
where she must, but she hates it, and directs all her energies to
destroy it.
“If Catholics ever gain a sufficient numerical majority in this country,
religious freedom is at an end. So our enemies say, so we believe.”—_The
Shepherd of the Valley_, official journal of the Bishop of St. Louis,
Nov. 23, 1851.
“No man has a right to chose his religion. Catholicism is the most
intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself. We might as rationally
maintain that two and two does not make four, as the theory of Religious
Liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity.”—_New York
Freeman_, official journal of Bishop Hughes, Jan. 26, 1852.
“The Church is instituted, as every Catholic who understands his
religion believes, to guard and defend the right of God, against any and
every enemy, at all times, in all places. She, therefore, does not, and
cannot accept, or in any degree favor liberty, in the Protestant sense
of liberty.”—_Catholic World_, April, 1870.
“The Catholic Church is the medium and channel through which the will of
God is expressed. While the state has rights, she has them only in
virtue and by permission of the Superior Authority, and that authority
can be expressed only through the church.”—_Catholic World_, July, 1870.
“Protestantism has not, and never can have, any right, where Catholicity
has triumphed. Therefore, we lose the breath we expend in declaiming
against bigotry and intolerance and in favor of Religious Liberty, or
the right of man to be of any religion as best pleases him.”—_Catholic
Review_, June, 1865.
“Religious Liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried
into effect without peril to the Catholic Church.”—Rt. Rev. O’Connor,
Bishop of Pittsburgh.
“The Catholic Church numbers one-third the American population; and if
its membership shall increase, for the next thirty years, as it has the
thirty years past, in 1900, Rome will have a majority, and be bound to
take this country and keep it. There is, ere long, to be a state
religion in this country, and that state religion is to be the Roman
Catholic.
“1st. The Roman Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of
securing Catholic ascendancy in this country.
“2nd. All legislation must be governed by the will of God, unerringly
indicated by the Pope.
“3rd. Education must be controlled by Catholic authorities, and under
education, the opinions of the individual, and the utterances of the
press are included, and many opinions are to be forbidden by the secular
arm, under the authority of the church, even to war and
bloodshed.”—Father Hecker, _Catholic World_, July, 1870.
“It was proposed that all religious persuasions should be free and their
worship publicly exercised. But we have rejected this article as
contrary to the canons and councils of the Catholic church.”—Pope Pius
VII., _Encyclical_, 1808.
Every one knows that one of the first and most solemn acts of the
present Pope Leo XIII., was to order that the theology of St. Thomas
Aquinas should be taught in all the colleges, seminaries and
universities of the Church of Rome throughout the whole world, as the
most accurate teachings of the doctrines of his church. Well, on the
30th of Dec., 1870, I forced the Rt. Rev. Foley, Bishop of Chicago, to
translate from Latin into English, before the court of Kankakee, and to
swear that the following law was among those promulgated by St. Thomas
as one of the present and unchangeable laws of the Church of Rome:
“Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must
bear with them, till, by a second admonition, they may be brought back
to the faith of the church. But those who after a second admonition,
remain obstinate in their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but
they must be delivered to the secular power to be exterminated.”—St.
Thomas Acquinas _Summa Theologia_, vol. 4, p. 90.
[Illustration: LEO XIII.]
After the Bishop had sworn that this was the true doctrine of the Church
of Rome, expressed by St. Thomas, and taught in all the colleges,
seminaries and universities of the Church of Rome, I forced him to
declare, under oath, that he, and every priest of Rome, once a year,
under pain of eternal damnation, is obliged to say, in the presence of
God, in his Breviarum (his official prayer-book) that that doctrine was
so good and holy, that every word of it has been inspired by the Holy
Ghost to St. Thomas.
The same Bishop Foley was again forced by me, before the same court of
Kankakee, to translate from Latin into English, the following decree of
the council of Lateran, and to acknowledge, under oath, that it was as
much the law of the Church of Rome to-day, as on the day it was passed,
in the year 1215:
“We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that exalts itself
against the holy orthodox and Catholic faith, condemning all heretics,
by whatever name they may be known, for though their faces differ, they
are tied together by their tails. Such as are condemned are to be
delivered over to the existing secular powers to receive due punishment.
If laymen, their goods must be confiscated. If priests, they shall be
degraded from their respective orders, and their property applied to the
church in which they officiated. Secular powers of all ranks and degrees
are to be warned, induced, and, if necessary, compelled by
ecclesiastical censure, to swear that they will exert themselves to the
utmost in the defence of the faith, and extirpate all heretics denounced
by the church, who shall be found in their territories. And whenever any
person shall assume government, whether it be spiritual or temporal, he
shall be bound to abide by this decree.
“If any temporal lord, after having been admonished and required by the
church, shall neglect to clear his territory of heretical depravity, the
Metropolitan and Bishop of the Province shall unite in excommunicating
him. Should he remain contumacious a whole year, the fact shall be
signified to the Supreme Pontiff, who will declare his vassals released
from their allegiance from that time, and will bestow his territory on
Catholics, to be occupied by them, on condition of exterminating the
heretics and preserving the said territory in the faith.”
“Catholics who shall assume the cross for the extermination of heretics,
shall enjoy the same indulgence, and be protected by the same privileges
as are granted to those who go to the help of the Holy Land. We decree
further that all those who have dealings with heretics, and especially
such as receive, defend and encourage them, shall be excommunicated. He
shall not be eligible to any public office. He shall not be admitted as
a witness. He shall neither have the power to bequeath his property by
will, nor to succeed to any inheritance. He shall not bring any action
against any person, but any one can bring action against him. Should he
be a judge, his decision shall have no force, nor shall any cause be
brought before him. Should he be a lawyer, no instruments made by him
shall be held valid, but shall be condemned with their authors.”
Cardinal Manning, speaking in the name of the Pope, said: “I acknowledge
no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; and I claim more than
this. I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the consciences of
men. Of the peasants that till the fields, and of the prince that sits
upon the throne; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy,
and the legislator that makes laws for kingdoms. I am sole, last,
supreme judge of what is right and wrong. Moreover, we declare, affirm,
define and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation to every human
creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff!!”—_Tablet_, Oct. 9, 1864.
“Undoubtedly it is the intention of the Pope to possess this country. In
this intention he is aided by the Jesuits, and all the Catholic prelates
and priests.”—_Brownson’s Review_, May, 1864.
“For our own part, we take this opportunity to express our hearty
delight at the suppression of the Protestant Chapel in Rome. This may be
thought intolerant; but when, we ask, did we profess to be tolerant of
Protestantism, or to favor the question that Protestantism ought to be
tolerated. On the contrary, we hate Protestantism. We detest it with our
whole heart and soul, and we pray our aversion for it may never
decrease.”—_Pittsburgh Catholic Visitor_, July, 1848, official journal
of the Bishop.
“No good government can exist without religion, and there can be no
religion without an inquisition, which is wisely designed for the
protection and promotion of the true faith.”—_Boston Pilot_, official
journal of the Bishop.
“The Pope has the right to pronounce sentence of deposition against
any sovereign, when required by the good of the Spiritual
Order.”—_Brownson’s Review_, 1849.
“The power of the church exercised over sovereigns in the middle ages
was not a usurpation, was not derived from the concessions of princes or
the consent of the people, but was and is held by divine right, and
whoso resists it, rebels against the King of Kings and Lord of
Lords.”—_Brownson’s Review_, June 1851.
The council of Constance, held in 1414, declared: “That any person who
has promised security to heretics shall not be obliged to keep his
promise, by whatever he may be engaged.
“It is in consequence of that principle that _no faith must be kept with
heretics_, that John Huss was publicly burned on the scaffold, the 6th
of July, 1415, in the city of Constance, though he had a safe passport
from the Emperor.”
“Negroes have no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”—_Roman
Catholic Chief-justice Tany_, in his Dred-Scot Decision.
“If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will
fall by the hands of the Catholic clergy.”—_Lafayette._
“If your son or daughter is attending a State School, you are violating
your duty as a Catholic parent, and conducing to the everlasting anguish
and despair of your child. Take him away. Take him away, if you do not
wish your deathbed to be tormented with the spectre of a soul which God
has given you as a sacred trust, surrendered to the great enemy of
mankind. Take him away, rather than incur the wrath of his God, and the
loss of his soul.”—_Western Tablet_, official paper of the Bishop of
Chicago.
All the echoes of the United States, are still repeating the same
denunciations against our public schools made by Mgr. Capel, a prelate
attached to the household of the Pope. That Roman Catholic dignitary has
not only passed again the sentence of death against the schools of the
United States; but he has warned the Americans that the time is not far
away when the Roman Catholics, at the order of the Pope, will refuse to
pay their school tax, and will send bullets to the breasts of the
government agents, rather than pay it. “The order can come any day from
Rome,” said the prelate. “It will come as quickly as the click of the
trigger, and it will be obeyed, of course, as coming from God Almighty,
himself!”
The _Catholic Columbian_, edited under the immediate supervision of the
Rt. Rev. Bishop of Columbus, Ohio, says: “Secular (government) schools
are unfit for Catholic children. Catholic parents cannot be allowed the
sacraments, who choose to send their children to them, when they could
make use of the Catholic schools.”
“The absurd and erroneous doctrines, or ravings, in defense of liberty
of conscience, are a most pestilential error, a pest of all others, to
be dreaded in the State.”—_Encyclical Letters of Pope Pius IX._, Aug.
15, 1854.
“You should do all in your power to carry out the intentions of his
holiness, the Pope. Where you have the electoral franchise, give your
votes to none but those who assist you in so holy a struggle.”—_Daniel
O’Connell._
“Catholic votes should be cast solidly for the democracy at the next
election. It is the only possible hope to break down the school
system.”—_Toledo Catholic Review._
“It is of faith that the Pope has the right of deposing heretical and
rebel kings. Monarchs, so deposed by the Pope, are converted into
notorious tyrants, and may be killed by the first who can reach them.
“If the public cause cannot meet with its defence in the death of a
tyrant, it is lawful for the first who arrives, to assassinate
him.”—Suarez, _Defensio Fidei_; Book VI., chap. 4, Nos. 13-14.
“See, sir, from this chamber, I govern, not only to Paris, but to China;
not only to China, but to all the world, without any one knowing how I
do it.”—_Tambriorini_, General of the Jesuits.
“A man who has been excommunicated by the Pope, may be killed anywhere,
as Escobar and Deaux teach, because the Pope has an indirect
jurisdiction over the whole world, even in temporal things, as all the
Catholics maintain, and as Suarez proves against the King of
England.”—Bussambaum—Lacroi, _Theologica Moralis_, 1757.
The Roman Catholic historian of the Jesuits, Cratineau Joly, in his Vol.
II., page 435, approvingly says: “Father Guivard, writing about Henry
IV., King of France, says: ‘If he cannot be deposed, let us make war;
and if we cannot make war, let him be killed.’”
The great Roman Catholic theologian, Dens, puts to himself, the
question: “Are heretics justly punished with death? He answers: ‘St.
Thomas says: Yes! 22, question 11, Art. 3. Because forgers of money, or
other disturbers of the state, are justly punished with death;
therefore, all heretics who are forgers of faith, and, as experience
testifies, grievously disturb the State.’
“This is confirmed, because God, in the Old Testament, ordered the false
prophets to be slain, and in Deuteronomy it is decreed that if any one
will act proudly, and will not obey the commands of the priests, let him
be put to death.
“The same is proved from the condemnation of the 14th article of John
Huss, in the Council of Constance.”—Dens, p. 88, Tome II., Dublin, 1834.
“That we may, in all things, attain the truth. That we may not err in
anything, we ought ever to hold, as a fixed principle, that what I see
white, I believe to be black, if the superior authorities of the church
define it to be so.”—_Spiritual Exercise_, by Ignatius Loyola, founder
of the Jesuits.
“As for holy obedience, this virtue must be perfect in every point, in
execution, in will, in intellect, doing which is enjoined with all
celerity, spiritual joy, and perseverance; persuading ourselves that
everything is just, suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of
one’s own, in a certain obedience, should be moved and directed under
Divine Providence, by his superior, just as if he were a corpse
(_Perindi acsi cadaver esset_) which allows itself to be moved and led
in every direction.”—Ignatius Loyola, _Spiritual Exercise_.
“If the Holy Church so requires, let us sacrifice our own opinions, our
knowledge, our intelligence, the splendid dreams of our imagination and
the sublime attainments of human understanding.”—Pope Gregory XVI.,
_Encyclical_, Aug. 15th, 1832.
“No more cunning plot was ever devised against the intelligence, the
freedom, the happiness and virtue of mankind, than Romanism.”—Gladstone,
_Letter to Aberdeen_.
“The principal and most efficacious means of practicing obedience due to
superiors, and of rendering it meritorious before God, is to consider
that, in obeying them, we obey God Himself, and that by despising their
commands, we despise the authority of the Divine Master.
“When, thus, a Religious receives a precept from her prelate, superior
or confessor, she should immediately execute it, not only to please
them, but principally to please God, whose will is known by their
command.
“If, then, you receive a command from one who holds the place of God,
you should observe it as if it came from God Himself. It may be added
that there is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to
our superiors than by obedience to Jesus Christ, should He appear in
person and give His command.
“St. Philip used to say that the Religious shall be most certain of not
having to render an account of the actions performed through obedience,
for these, the superiors only, who command them shall be
accountable.”—Saint Ligouri, _The Nun Sanctified_.
“In the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ, the plenitude of
which resides in His Vicar, the Pope, we declare that the teaching that
the earth is not the centre of the world, and that it moves with a
diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and erroneous in
faith.”—Decree of Pope Urbain XIII. (signed) by Cardinals Felia, Guido,
Desiderio, Antonio, Belligero, and Fabricius.
In consequence of that infallible decree of the infallible Pope,
Galileo, in order to escape death, was obliged to fall on his knees and
perjure himself, by signing the following declaration on the 22nd of
June, 1663:
“I abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the
earth around the sun.”
In obedience to that decree, the two learned Jesuit astronomers, Lesueur
and Jacquier, in Rome, only a few years ago, made the following
declaration: “Newton assumes, in his third book, the hypothesis of the
earth moving around the sun. The proposition of that author could not be
explained, except through the same hypothesis; we have, therefore, been
forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our entire
submission to the decrees of the supreme Pontiff of Rome against the
motion of the earth.”—_Newton’s Principia_, by Fathers Lesueur and
Jacquier, vol. iii., page 450.
“A Catholic should never attach himself to any political party composed
of heretics. No one who is truly, at heart, a thorough and complete
Catholic, can give his entire adhesion to a Protestant leader; for in so
doing, he divides his allegiance, which he owes entirely to the
church.”—_Univers_, the official Catholic paper of the Bishops of
France, Mar. 28th, 1868.
“Would he (the priest) be warranted in withholding any sacrament of the
church from a man by reason of his preferring one candidate to the
other! Absolutely speaking, he would; because a priest is not only
warranted, but bound to withhold, the sacraments from a man who is
disposed to commit a mortal sin!!”—Bishop Vaughan’s address to the
Catholic Club at Salford, England, Jan. 2nd, 1873.
“Our business is to contrive:
“1st. That the Catholics be imbued with hatred for the heretics, whoever
they may be, and that this hatred shall constantly increase, and bind
them closely to each other.
“2nd. That it be, nevertheless, _dissembled_, so as not to transpire
until the day when _it shall be appointed to break forth_.
“3rd. That this secret hate be combined with great activity in
endeavoring to detach the faithful from every government inimical to us,
and employ them, when they shall form a detached body, to strike deadly
blows at heresy.”—_Secret Plans of the Jesuits, revealed by Albate
Leon_, p. 127.
Henry IV., King of France, after being wounded by an assassin sent by
the Jesuits, said: “I am compelled to do one of these two things: Either
recall the Jesuits, free them from the infamy and disgrace with which
they are covered, or to expel them in a more absolute manner, and
prevent them from approaching either my person or my kingdom.
“But, then, we will drive them to despair and to the resolution of
attempting my life again, which would render it so miserable to me,
being always under the apprehension of being murdered, or poisoned. For
these people have correspondence everywhere, and are so very skillful in
disposing the minds of men to whatever they wish, that I think it would
be better that I should be already dead.”—_Sully’s Memoirs_, tome ii.,
chap. iii.
“Let us bring all our skill to bear upon this part of our plan. Our
chief concern must be to mould the people to our purposes. Doubtless,
the first generation will not be wholly ours; but the second will nearly
belong to us: and the third entirely.”—_The Secret Plan_, page 127-128.
“The state is, therefore, only an inferior court, bound to receive the
law from the superior court (the church) and liable to have its decrees
reversed on appeal.”—_Brownson’s Essays_, pages 282-284.
“The Jesuits are a _military organization_, not a religious order. Their
chief is a general of an army, not the mere father abbot of a monastery.
And the aim of this organization is: POWER. Power in the most despotic
exercise. Absolute power, universal power, power to control the world by
the volition of a single man. Jesuitism is the most absolute of
despotisms; and at the same time the greatest and the most enormous of
abuses.”—_Memorial of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena_, by
General Montholon, vol. ii., p. 62.
“The general of the Jesuits insists on being master, sovereign, over the
sovereign. Wherever the Jesuits are admitted they will be masters, cost
what it may. Their society is by nature dictatorial, and therefore it is
the irreconcilable enemy of all constituted authority. Every act, every
crime, however atrocious, is a meritorious work, if committed for the
interest of the Society of the Jesuits, or by the order of its
general.”—_Memorial of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena_, vol.
ii., p. 174.
In the allocution of Sept. 1851, Pope Pius IX. said:
“That he had taken that principle for basis: That the Catholic religion,
with all its votes, ought to be exclusively dominant in such sort that
every other worship shall be banished and interdicted!
“You ask if the Pope were lord of this land and you were in a minority,
what he would do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend on
circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would
tolerate you; if expedient, he would imprison, banish you, probably he
might even hang you. But be assured of one thing, he would never
tolerate you for the sake of your glorious principles of civil and
religious liberty.”—_Rambler_, one of the most prominent Catholic papers
of England, Sept. 1851.
Lord Acton, one of the Roman Catholic peers of England, reproaching her
bloody and anti-social laws to his own church, wrote: “Pope Gregory VII.
decided it was no murder to kill excommunicated persons. This rule was
incorporated in _the canon law_. During the revision of the code, which
took place in the 16th century, and which produced a whole volume of
corrections, the passage was allowed to stand. It appears in every
reprint of the _Corpus Juris_. It has been for 700 years, and continues
to be, part of the ecclesiastical law. Far from being a dead letter, it
obtained a new application in the days of the Inquisition; and one of
the later Popes has declared that the murder of a Protestant is so good
a deed that it atones, and more than atones, for the murder of a
Catholic.”—_The London Times_, July 20th, 1872.
In the last council of the Vatican, has the Church of Rome expressed any
regret for having promulgated and executed such bloody laws? No! On the
contrary, she has anathematized all those who think or say that she was
wrong when she deluged the world with the blood of the millions she
ordered to be slaughtered to quench her thirst for blood; she positively
said that she had a right to punish those heretics by tortures and
death.
Those bloody and anti-social laws, were written on the banners of the
Roman Catholics, when slaughtering 100,000 Waldenses in the mountains of
Piedmont, and more than 50,000 defenceless men, women and children in
the city of Bezieres. It is under the inspiration of those diabolical
laws of Rome, that 75,000 Protestants were massacred, the night and
following week of St. Bartholomew.
It was to obey those bloody laws that Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of
Nantes, caused the death of half a million of men, women and children,
who perished in all the highways of France, and caused twice that number
to die in the land of exile, where they had found a refuge.
Those anti-social laws, to-day, are written on her banners with the
blood of ten millions of martyrs. It is under those bloody banners that
6,000 Roman Catholic priests, Jesuits and bishops, in the United States,
are marching to the conquest of this Republic, backed by their seven
millions of blind and obedient slaves.
Those laws, which are still the ruling laws of Rome, were the main cause
of the last rebellion of the Southern States.
Yes! without Romanism, the last awful civil war would have been
impossible. Jeff Davis would never have dared to attack the North, had
he not had assurance from the Pope, that the Jesuits, the bishops, the
priests and the whole people of the Church of Rome, under the name and
mask of _Democracy_, would help him.
These diabolical and anti-social laws of Rome caused a Roman Catholic
(Beauregard) to be the man chosen to fire the first gun at Fort Sumter,
against the flag of Liberty, on the 12th of April, 1861. Those
antichristian and anti-social laws caused the Pope of Rome to be the
only crowned prince in the whole world, so depraved as to publicly shake
hands with Jeff Davis, and proclaim him President of a legitimate
government.
These are the laws which led the assassins of Abraham Lincoln to the
house of a rabid Roman Catholic woman, Mary Surratt, which was not only
the rendezvous of the priests of Washington, but the very dwelling-house
of some of them.
That woman, gifted by God to be an angel of peace and mercy on earth,
was changed by those laws into a bloodthirsty tigress; for she had smelt
the blood which, everywhere, comes from the robe, the hands and the lips
of the priest of Rome.
Those bloody and infernal laws of Rome nerved the arm of the Roman
Catholic, Booth, when he slaughtered one of the noblest men God has ever
given to the world.
Those bloody and anti-social laws of Rome, after having covered Europe
with ruins, tears and blood, for ten centuries, have crossed the oceans
to continue their work of slavery and desolation, blood and tears,
ignorance and demoralization, on this continent. Under the mask and name
of Democracy, they have raised the standard of rebellion of the South
against the North, and caused more than a half million of the most
heroic sons of America to fall on the fields of carnage.
In a very near future, if God does not miraculously prevent it, those
laws of dark deeds and blood will cause the prosperity, the rights, the
education, and the liberties of this too confident nation, to be buried
under a mountain of smoking and bloody ruins. On the top of that
mountain, Rome will raise her throne and plant her victorious banners.
Then she will sing her Te Deums and shout her shouts of joy, as she did,
when she heard the lamentations and cries of desolation of the millions
of martyrs burning in the five thousand auto-da-fes she had raised in
all the capitals and great cities of Europe.