In conclusion, it is proper that I should say a word to you upon the
attitude of the Church, at the present moment, in the face of the
forces of the Organized Atheism of the world. That organization has
now arrived at the perfection of its dark wisdom, and is making rapid
strides to the most complete and universal exercise of its power. It
has succeeded. Through it the Church is despoiled. The Vicar of Christ
is a prisoner, and has been so for over fourteen years. The religious
orders are virtually suppressed in nearly every country of Europe.
Freemasonry is supreme in the governments of France, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Switzerland, and works its will in nearly all the republics of
Southern America. It rules Germany, terrifies Russia, distracts Belgium,
and secretly gnaws at the heart of Austria. Everywhere it advances with
rapid strides both in its secret movements against Catholicity and the
Christian religion generally, and in open persecution according to
the measure of its opportunity and power. No hope, humanly speaking,
appears on the horizon to warrant us at this moment to look for a change
for the better. But God has promised never to desert His Church. That
promise never can be broken. When the darkest hour comes, it is not for
Catholics to look for dissolution, but for life and hope. The crisis
in the conflicts of Christianity is the hour of victory. This has been
realized more than once since the combat began between Atheistic Masonry
and the Church. What hour could be darker than that which saw Pius VI.
taken prisoner to France in the white heat of its Revolution, and dying
abandoned and forsaken in the dungeons by the Rhone? The Temporal Power
after an uninterrupted peace of nearly four centuries, during which the
disturbances common to it in the middle ages, had absolutely ceased,
passed at a blow and apparently for ever. Rome’s treasures of art and
religion were carried in triumph to grace the capital of Infidelity,
or scattered throughout the earth. The Cross and Keys were without a
defender, and the tricolour floated in triumph over the palace of the
Popes. The crisis had arrived when God’s promise should be realized. In
the twinkling of an eye, a strange force, under a strange commander,
Suwarrow, descends like lightning upon Italy. The power of the Revolution
passes like an uneasy morning’s dream. Rome belongs to the Pope, and
Pius VII. sits calmly, as if nothing happened, upon the throne of his
banished, I may add, martyred predecessor. Another event more strange
occurs. The temporal power falls again, and the legions of the strongest
potentate Europe had seen since the days of the Cæsars holds it as the
heritage of his only son. The Pope is once more a prisoner—for years a
persecuted circumvented prisoner. Napoleon mocks at his feebleness, and
laughs at his predictions. The temporal power of the Popes was, he says,
but never will be. The condition of the world is changed—the Empire
returned. Is it so? The crisis has come for the hundredth time. The
very cardinals are taken from the side of the Pontiff. He is alone in
the power of his base tormentor as much as St. Peter on Montorio was in
the power of Nero. Things cannot be darker. The light must dawn; and it
does. In a month, God’s elements blast the power of the tyrant; and while
millions applaud the return of the Pontiff to the Chair of St. Peter and
to his power at Rome, Napoleon passes to his solitary dungeon in the
midst of the waters, to ruminate on the verification which in his case,
as in the case of every persecutor of the Church, attends the predictions
of Peter. In our day, the Atheistic Conspiracy is as determined as ever
to destroy, but it is wiser. Slowly it has surrounded God’s Vicar. It
has taken care so to master the councils of every European country
that help to him, when it assails, may be impossible. Under pretence
of guaranteeing his independence, it has stolen from him everything.
His trustiest servants are torn from his side, stripped, despoiled,
degraded, scattered. His resources have been astutely lessened to the
lowest possible point. A prisoner of the Infidels, as much as Pius VI.
or Pius VII. in the strongholds of France, under the appearance of being
free, he is really bound hand and foot and rendered completely impotent.
His power is cancelled under pretext that his city is necessary to the
unification of Italy. No other city will suit Italian jealousies as the
capital of the new nation. And who will sacrifice the welfare of the new
nation to the wants of the Pope? Astuteness is now the characteristic of
the Revolution, determined and callous as ever. But hope again appears.
To the persecutions of Pius IX., many and grievous as they were, God
opposed a Pontiff simple as a dove in the snares of the spoiler. He took
away from the ruffian hands of Masonry its only real argument. But now
when all is gone, help appears in the person of another Pontiff, whose
greatest characteristic is wisdom, and whose wisdom, slowly but surely,
is telling upon the nations. No Pontiff has been more firm in maintaining
the rights of the Holy See, violently wrested as he found them, by the
force and upon the pretexts used by Freemasonry. Despoiled of everything,
he has, nevertheless, drawn together the scattered strength of the
Church. Commencing with the foundation of all Christianity, its teaching,
he has caused philosophy to be so purified, and so based on sound
principles, as to be in reality a true handmaid to theology and a deadly
foe to rationalistic, Atheistic, and infidel theories of whatever kind.
He has caused the teachings of St. Thomas to assume more than at any
past period, their supremacy in Christian schools. He has mastered the
difficult, tangled web of European diplomacy. He has found out the true
wants of Christian peoples. He has satisfied them: and then, finally,
by his immortal Bull, _Humanum Genus_, he has dealt a death blow to the
progress of Freemasonry, and elevated into a system the means by which
the guides of God’s people are for the future, to save these people from
the evils of our days.
According to my humble ability, I have endeavoured as best I could,
this evening, to carry out the first part of the instruction of Our
Sovereign Lord, Leo XIII., who is for me and for over two hundred
millions like me, as much a Monarch, as if he reigned in the Quirinal
instead of Humbert II. That is, I have endeavoured to show you what
Secret Association was, and is, and ever will be, till the end. I am
persuaded, that if the evils of secret society plotting have succeeded
so far, it is mainly, because from one reason or another, the mask was
permitted to be worn by Freemasonry. Voices were raised, I know here and
there, now and again, against it, and against Secret Societies of every
kind; but they were either not heard at all, or, if heard, were very
soon forgotten. The utmost efforts of Freemasonry of every kind were
exerted to keep itself hidden, and that it had power to remain hidden
is looked upon by Monsignor Segur, and Monsignor Ketteler, and others,
as one of the most remarkable evidences of its real power. It had and
still has means to silence all who may proceed against it. It murdered,
as we have seen, in this very century, a free citizen of America, who
attempted to write a book in which only the least part of its secrets—its
absurd ceremonial, its grips, passwords and oaths, were revealed to “the
profane.” It threatened and used the dagger, or calumny, or bribery, or
whatever suited against those who attempted to expose it. Exposure is
its death—the death at least of its influence over its intended dupes
amongst Catholics. Therefore, comes the word of command to us all, from
the great Vicar of Christ—“Tear the mask from off Freemasonry;” and
consequently, it becomes a plain duty, a duty not to be performed in any
desultory manner, but in season and out of season, to expose Freemasonry.
The Supreme Pontiff, despoiled though he be, will find in the generous
devotion of the children of the Church who fear no power of man or demon
in the discharge of duty, not one but ten hundred thousand voices ready
for the task. Thank God! the labours of devoted, Christian men—bishops,
priests, and learned laymen—have resulted in enabling us to know the
real character of Masonry, and enabling us to “tear the mask” off the
horrible thing with ease. Nor is this confined to the Continent or to
ecclesiastics. The work has been nobly inaugurated already in our midst
by Mr. O’Donnell, M.P., and I trust will be continued by him and by
many more. The religious orders will, in the solitude of their cells,
make a special study of the machinations of the terrible sects, the
secular clergy in their Colleges and home retreats, and above all, the
Catholic press will not cease to expose the malignant hydra in constantly
recurring references and discoveries. The whole host of God is needed
to march and to act against the foe in the manner indicated by our Holy
Father; for the question is one of the salvation of the world, of the
spread of the Gospel, of the happiness of families and individuals, of
civil society, and of man. Surely upon such a movement the benediction
of Heaven will descend. The means to obtain that divine blessing are
also pointed out by the Holy Father. He says to those whom it concerns,
“unite the Catholic people in good societies and pious confraternities.”
He indicates, specially, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the
confraternity which practices the recital of the Holy Rosary. Father
Anderledy, the newly appointed General of the Society of Jesus, who
plainly says he speaks as he does with the knowledge and desire of the
Holy Father, asks the Fathers of his Society to renew the holy habit
of uniting those committed to their care in societies formed to honour
Our Lady. Behold, then, the true remedy for the ills that fall upon the
world. That world is rushing wildly, madly, away from religion and true
happiness. Who, under God, can be conceived more powerful to restore it
to reason than Mary the Virgin Mother of God, who amongst many other
holy titles, is honoured by the Church as the special dispenser of the
invaluable gift of Good Counsel, a gift She so wonderfully displayed in
Her holy life, and which She obtains for God’s people by Her powerful
intercession. She too is called upon in the liturgy of the Church, to
be glad and to rejoice, for that She alone has destroyed all heresies
throughout the whole world. Her power destroyed them singly in the past,
and doubtless will also destroy their united force and malignity, as
exhibited in Freemasonry and its kindred secret societies, in the future.
Societies in honour of God’s Mother cannot be too widely established. All
should be under Her benign protection, as is the Catholic Young Men’s
Society of Edinburgh. But there is one branch society of this Catholic
Institute which I cannot help singling out for special praise. It is the—