Catholic Problems in Western CanadaDaly, George Thomas
Religion
Catholic Problems in Western Canada
Daly, George Thomas
Catholic Church -- Canada
A few years ago there appeared in the "Cosmopolitan Review," under the
glaring title "Blasting at the Rock of Ages," an article which startled
the intellectual world. It was a crude and biting exposure of the
intellectual license and unhealthy moral atmosphere of the great American
universities. To follow the author of this powerful indictment in the
proof of his facts and statements would be beyond the scope of this
paper. Only we would advise some of our near-sighted Catholics who
through that snobbishness which money often gives them, have a sort of
worship for non-Catholic universities, to read this indictment. In
giving them a glance of the "inside of the cup" it may change their
opinion.
Dr. James Henry Leuba, professor of psychology at the Bryn Mawr College,
Pennsylvania, gave out to the public the answers he received from
sociologists, biologists, psychologists and teachers of universities and
other institutions in the United States, as regards their belief in the
existence of God. More than fifty per cent. admitted that they had no
belief whatever in the existence of God; forty per cent. denied the
immortality of the soul. The great majority, said Dr. Leuba, were
university teachers and none could compare with them in influence over
the rising generation. (Cfr. Archeological Report 1917--published by
Ontario Government.)
When subversive theories based on an absolute materialistic conception of
life, and from which God, Divine Providence, Christ, Christianity are
systematically excluded and ridiculed as myths of by-gone days; when, we
say, such theories are rampant in the halls of our modern universities,
should we be astonished to see outright infidelity, political socialism,
religious anarchy, stalk the length and breadth of the land? "Impurity,
obscenity, moral corruption in many forms, with the ever consequent
cynicism and pessimism, forerunners of moral decadence, destruction of
the original, creative, shaping, joyous, confident energies of society,
come daily more boldly to the front of the stage and defy criticism or
mock at the archaic sanctions of yesterday. One does not need to peruse
the great modern historians of Roman morals to foresee the results of
such an educational debauch, when allowed time enough and the working of
its own, unholy but intimate and inexorable logic." (Mgr. Shahan--at the
Catholic Educational Convention, U.S., 1919.) Sow the wind, you will
reap the whirlwind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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