The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
the "Apes" as an official utterance of the Pope. It appears that
a Catholic young lady officiated as bridesmaid for a friend who
was married in a Protestant church and according to the rites of
that religion. Therefore his reverence proceeded to have a
cataleptoid convulsion and cut fantastic capers before high
heaven. It was entirely within his sacerdotal province to
administer a reprimand. He could, without transcending the
proprieties have advised the Catholics of his diocese to refrain
from officiating at Protestant marriages in future. He did
neither the one nor the other, but proceeded to issue a mandate
which, reduced to the last analysis, means simply that a marriage
not consummated by the Catholic church is no marriage at all, but
simply concubinage born of lust and wickedly sanctioned by human
law. He forbade Catholics, under pain of his dire displeasure,
even witnessing Protestant marriages or attending as mere
spectators at Protestant funerals. Archbishop Cleary has
flagrantly insulted every non-Catholic wife in the world. He cast
the baleful bar-sinister on the escutcheon of every child born of
non-Catholic parents. With all due respect to his holy office,
Archbishop Cleary is one ass. He is a brute who should be taken
out and bastinadoed. Of course due allowance must be made for the
fact that he is a Canuck. Canada is but half-civilized. It is
still "loil" to old England, the strumpet of nations, the
governmental harlot of history. It continues to take its manners
and customs from the old country. It is to the Queen's apron
strings like an idiot's scalp to the belt of an Apache squaw.
Whenever John Bull whistles it comes a running like a half-grown
spaniel at the call of a stable-boy. It has never mustered up
sufficient sense and sand to set up for itself. It is the red
bandana upon which Britannia blows her protrusive bugle. It is
the cuspidore into which she voids her royal rheum. We could not
expect much even from a Catholic archbishop in such a country. In
fact, the Canadian Catholics, like the Canadian Protestants, are
so narrow between the eyes that they can look through a key-hole
with both eyes at once. Their heads are small and ill-furnished.
The winters are so long that the sap cannot rise to the top--it
stops at the belly-band and there coagulates. Canadians of any
faith are scarce so broad in the religious beam as Texas
Baptists, who believe that unless a man be treated to a
sanctified plunge- bath by some acephalous shouter he is headed
direct for hell. Still it is something of a shock to hear even a
Canadian archbishop branding four-fifths of the people of this
world as bastards. It makes one ashamed of the genus homo to hear
him forbidding Catholics attending the funerals of their
Protestant friends. One cannot help asking, What of marriage and
motherhood during the long ages before St. Peter became Pope? Was
Eve a concubine and Sara a slut? Has Archbishop Cleary an hundred
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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