The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
[14] We desire to call attention to another point which could not be
discussed in the foregoing article, and to which we can at present
only allude in the briefest manner. Large sums of money have been
granted by legislatures to universities and colleges which are
controlled by the clergy of different Protestant denominations, in
which they teach their religious opinions without restraint, and
which they make, as far as they can, training-schools for their
theological seminaries. Now, if the outcry against any grant of
public funds to schools in which the Catholic religion is taught is
taken up and sustained by Protestants, it follows that they must
advocate the total secularization of all institutions, without
exception, which enjoy any state subsidies, and, if they wish to
keep control of religious instruction in any of the above-mentioned
colleges, must refund to the state every thing which they now possess
by grant from the state, and give up all claim to receive any
further endowments. Catholics would never disendow or despoil these
Protestant institutions, even if they had full power to do it; but if
the party of infidelity ever gains, by the help of Protestants, full
sway over our legislation, the latter may prepare themselves for a
wholesale spoliation.
THE NEW ENGLANDER ON THE "MORAL RESULTS OF THE ROMISH SYSTEM."[15]
The reply of the _New Englander_ to our articles of September and
October last is bristling with the most palpable and absurd mistakes.
We call them "mistakes" through the utmost stretch of Christian
charity, for there is really no excuse to be made for them. We
cannot excuse them by allowing either their author or the editors
of the _New Englander_ the benefit of the plea of ignorance; for
they were bound to inform themselves on a grave matter which they
profess to treat of; nor that of haste and carelessness. They have
had at least three months for a reply, and were at liberty to take
three months more, if necessary; and to plead carelessness in such
a matter is equivalent to a confession of culpable negligence and
want of moral principle. They were bound by the principles of the
Christian religion not to exaggerate or convey in any way a worse
impression of their fellow-Christians than the exact truth would
warrant, according to the words of St. Paul, "Charity is kind,
thinketh no evil, ... is not puffed up;" which we might paraphrase
in this way: Is not pharisaically inclined to exalt one's self at
the expense of one's neighbor, or at the sacrifice of the truth. The
_New Englander_ has made use of every artifice; and, trusting to
the unsuspecting ignorance or uncritical spirit of the community,
of a shameful perversion of the truth to effect this unworthy and
unchristian object. We speak severely because it is time the public,
both Catholic and Protestant, should frown upon such practices, and
endeavor to approach Christian unity by the practice of the most
ordinary Christian virtues.
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