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1776 lines
116 KiB
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1776 lines
116 KiB
XML
<xml><p> 28 page printout</p>
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<p> Reproducible <ent type='ORG'>Electronic Publishing</ent> can defeat censorship.</p>
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<p> This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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**** ****</p>
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<p>Edited by E. <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent></p>
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<p>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL No. 19</p>
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<p> THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p> THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES FAR MORE HARM THAN GOOD</p>
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<p> by Joseph McCabe</p>
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<p> HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
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GIRARD -- : -- KANSAS</p>
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<div> **** ****</div>
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<p> CHAPTER</p>
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<p> I Progress in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and Non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Countries ..... 1</p>
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<p> II The <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> always in the Rear .... 8</p>
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<p> III The Wicked World Educates <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> ......... 14</p>
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<p> IV The Contrast of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and Priest-Ruled Countries .. 19</p>
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<p> V The Monstrous Attempt to Restore <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent> ... 25</p>
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<div> **** ****</div>
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<p> Chapter I</p>
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<p> PROGRESS IN CATHOLIC AND NON-CATHOLIC COUNTRIES</p>
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<p> Throughout these ten booklets, in which I have shown that the
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<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is the natural ally of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent>, and
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<ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>, I have asked the reader to see it as primarily a vast
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economic corporation, the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>, fighting for
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survival, in an age in which educated people despise its doctrines
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and all informed people loathe its methods. Whether any, or how
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many, of this monstrous regiment of cardinals and bishops, priests
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and monks, sincerely believe the medieval sophistication of ancient
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<ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> and oriental superstitions which they profess is here
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entirely irrelevant. We are studying <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> as an institution
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because we are trying to understand its action throughout the
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world.</p>
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<p> It admits that it seeks wealth and power but insists that this
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is only in order that it may more effectively promote what it calls
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the spiritual and eternal interests of men. With that pretext also </p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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1
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p>we are not concerned. The apologist will hardly expect us to admit
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that it entered into an alliance with (in this order) <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>,
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and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y because it believed they would help it to look after
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the soul's of men. Such a plea would raise a broad grin from
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<ent type='GPE'>Cologne</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent>. Those nations sought wealth and power; so did the
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Bleak International. They meant to secure and protect this wealth
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and power by a regime of bloody tyranny; and the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
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International, which has for 800 years relied upon that method,
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needed it more urgently than ever. The bandits wanted the
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international influence of the Vatican to help to dupe the world
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about their designs; and they promised it a very large share of the
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spoils of victory by annihilating its critic's and recovering its
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lost provinces for it.</p>
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<p> After what we have seen that is as obvious as the Empire State
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Building. Men of the <ent type='GPE'>Munich</ent> mentality as regards <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>
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petulantly exclaim that it is a monstrous charge. Yes: and the war
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and the Pope's share in it, the debasement of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> by priest-ridden traitors, and the horrors of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent> hell
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are a monstrous reality. If these narrow-minded folk who think
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themselves so superior to prejudice were to look facts in the face
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they Would see that we accuse <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of doing only what it has
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done over and over again since the Albiginsian Massacre and the
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founding of the Inquisition 700 years ago. They would find that the
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<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> is not the only spiritual army that has
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prostituted itself for gold in our time.</p>
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<p> In 1937 there was a Parliament of Religions at <ent type='LOC'>Calcutta</ent>. The
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report of the proceedings in two fat volumes makes a materialist
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like myself blush. Representatives of all the world's religions and
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sects joined enthusiastically in the good work, and the speeches
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glitter like <ent type='ORG'>Woolworth</ent> jewelry with nice phrases about the
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spiritual and the <ent type='ORG'>Ideal</ent>, the sins of men and the wickedness of the
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world, the lofty morality by which these folk are going to save the
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race. As you will remember, the Japs had by this time completely
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enslaved and debauched <ent type='GPE'>Manchuria</ent> and the north of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and they
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were openly gathering for their next orgy of brutality. And not a
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single one of these <ent type='NORP'>Asiatic</ent> word-spinners of the hundred beautiful
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religions said one single word about it. One foreigner, a <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>
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professor, ventured to say ten very mild words about it.</p>
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<p> If you want to know why, though of course nobody did at the
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time, it was not simply because people who live on these shining
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heights find it difficult to see the common earth. It was mainly
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because the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> Buddhism was doing in
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<ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> just what the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> priests were doing in Europe and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.
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We must not offend our <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> fellow-citizens.</p>
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<p> Some of my readers will remember that in 1937, while these
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spiritual folk were having their jamboree in <ent type='LOC'>Calcutta</ent> and the
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world-press was following their beneficent work with admiration. I
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published, through <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent>, a booklet with the title
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Imperialistic <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and its Aims. I described how by that time the.
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criminal plot of the Japs was so far from being secret that scores
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of patriotic societies, some with millions of member's, publicly
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boasted of it and gloated over realistic pictures and panoramas
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exhibited in the stores of the cities, of the destruction of the </p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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2
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p><ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n fleet. I gave the evidence that the <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> priests and
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monks, 150000 strong, had been bought by the government and the
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capitalists and were conducting an intensive campaign all over
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<ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> to create a Fifth Column for the "<ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> Liberator's."
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They had been bought in cash, just as the Vatican had been bought
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by <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, and, like the Vatican, they looked for even greater
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profit when the job was done.</p>
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<p> They earned their pay. Not only did they work up the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent>
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people to a fanatical enthusiasm for the plan of making themselves
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rich by exploiting a third of the world but they created nests of
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traitors from <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Indo-<ent type='GPE'>China</ent> to the <ent type='LOC'>Persian Gulf</ent>. There were
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10.000 <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> quislings in <ent type='GPE'>Rangoon</ent> alone and there were others in
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key-positions all over <ent type='GPE'>Burma</ent>. Ceylon teems with them. For ten years
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the work has proceeded under a very thin disguise of <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent>
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concern for the spiritual interests of men. Yet in a Parliament of
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Religions held at <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> in 1939 <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> had been emphatically
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warned that these <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> priests had already grown fat on
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imperialist gold.</p>
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<p> While disreputable atheists and materialists like <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent> and McCabe, who told the world the truth, were very properly
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ignored by all respectable folk these spiritual gasbags, who
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blinded it to the realities of life, where loaded with <ent type='ORG'>laurels</ent> and
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dollars. It is nice, and so profitable, to be profound and
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spiritual!</p>
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<p> However. Immense as is the work which I bring to a close with
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this booklet I have no space to enlarge, upon even so important a
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side-issue as the corruption of Buddhism (which was quite willing
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in every age to entertain a business proposition) by the fine
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imperialist's of <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. It is enough that "our two great religions"
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have made a mockery of every compliment, that every long-haired
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idealist in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> had lavished upon them. They have prostituted
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themselves to the <ent type='ORG'>Butchers Union</ent>, while atheistic <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, upon
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which most of these idealists have poured abuse for the last twenty
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years, has won a splendid tribute from a disillusioned world. But
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I have still an important point to make in regard to <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of
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<ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> to complete the explanation of its behavior.</p>
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<p> In his recent work, 'You Can't Be Too Careful,' H. G. <ent type='ORG'>Wells</ent>
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says: "The most evil thing in the world today is the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
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<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." It is also one of the most respected things in the world
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today, especially in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. But there is no mystery about the
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respect, the power, even the adulation which it enjoys. It commands
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about 10000000 votes, nicely bunched together for the most part
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in certain states and at the disposal of the priests. It has
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$4000000000 invested, an income of about $1000000000 and an
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army of about quarter of a million paid agents of one kind or
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other. It has a very large press and radio-service. It has about
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5000000 auxiliary troops, open fanatics and secret intriguers,
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sworn to promote "the welfare of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>." It has immense
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opportunities of rewarding loyalty, from a Papal Knighthood to a
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job as janitor. It has a control of editors, politicians, writers,
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libraries, cinemas, radio programs, owners of halls and theaters,
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professors, booksellers, even the police, the public school's,</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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3
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p>parole-boards, the mails, etc. It has . . . But maybe that will do.
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What we had better ask is what excuse is made for themselves by the
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politicians, professors, and others who chant the praises of "the
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venerable <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>."</p>
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<p> You know it. They reply that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> does good -- oh, an
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enormous amount of good: so much, in fact, that it is one of the
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foundations of the state. In a recent book (Mission to <ent type='GPE'>Moscow</ent>),
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which the pious Mr. <ent type='PERSON'>Gollancz</ent> spreads in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, Ambassador <ent type='PERSON'>Davies</ent>,
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discussing the vices and virtues of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, says that with all its
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faults it must not be classed with <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, as a
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totalitarian state. Phew! Are there still folk who talk like that?
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However, what Mr. <ent type='PERSON'>Davies</ent> mean's is that the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n state is, and
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the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> state is not, "based upon the altruistic principles of the
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<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion." If that is true of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> -- if you will
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pardon the supposition -- how far more true it must be of the
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<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n civilization with its 100000 parsons and its more
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brilliant exhibition of those principles. And of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>es which
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render this inestimable service <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is immeasurably
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the greatest: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that regards all the others with
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contemptuous tolerance and pronounces them rebellious and
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ineffective offshoots of the age-old <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> on which the sun never
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sets.</p>
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<p> In western stories, of which I am fond, I often read in
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descriptions of cow-town of the "false front" of the bank. the
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saloon, and the store. The phrase fits the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> In <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>,
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for it is, to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns, the false front of the international Papal
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<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. That is why so many <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns hesitate in face of the most
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conclusive evidence to admit the charge we bring against the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
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International. Why, they say, this is <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that first raised
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the banner of religious freedom on <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n soil: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that
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gave even Europe the idea of democracies: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that
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periodically provides the whole world, in Papal encyclicals, with
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a guidance on problems of the hour which the press reproduces in
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letters of gold: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that gathers 350000000 happy and
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virtuous folk, without distinction of class, color, or odor, under
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its <ent type='PERSON'>White</ent> mantle: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> that promotes culture and exerts an
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inflexible moral rule over the nations.</p>
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<p> That is the false front. In these 20 booklets I have taken you
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behind it and shown you the real <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. Its apologists lie
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outrageously about it. They lie about its political and ethical
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principles, its history and its law, its numbers and its quality,
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its plots and its open action. They dare not allow the press today
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to let the world know the truth about the social condition and the
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action of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> in a score of countries from <ent type='GPE'>Bolivia</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>.
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I have proved all this.</p>
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<p> In my long literary career I have written books in strange
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conditions -- in the smoking rooms and <ent type='PERSON'>Marconi</ent> cabins of liners, in
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crowded apartments-houses or on the sunny beach, in the bed-rooms
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of hotels of all grades -- but I never before wrote, as I have
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written these 300000 words, on a battlefield. The National
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Library, in which I delve for material, is charred and battered and
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almost deserted and the books for which I call come to me sometimes
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disfigured by fire or water or fail, and evermore fail, to come...</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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4
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.
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p>But you can guess all that. I say that in spite of all this these
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twenty booklets are from beginning to end just statements of fact,
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on incontestable evidence, and they prove that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
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is, if not "the most evil thing in the world," certainly the most
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treacherous and mendacious.</p>
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<p> It may seem that I have reserved to the last the question
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which will seem to many the most important: the question what the
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<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is worth to the world on a balance of services and
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disservices. But I have been replying to that question all through.
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Many folk say that they do not care what <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> did in the 4th
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Century, or the 13th or the 16th; and there is so much blood and
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dirt on the pages of medieval history that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s often
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encourage that feeling, or they would at least like you to believe
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that the services they claim -- usually by a gross perversion of
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history -- to have rendered were due to a noble spirit which is
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ever fresh in <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>, while those immense splotches of blood,
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those vast areas of servile squalor, and those equally vast areas
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of priestly and monastic corruption were just temporary and local
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foulings of the garments of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> in the mud of a wicked
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world. If you fancy that that childish stuff is really not written
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today dip into any <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> book that deals with these matters.</p>
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<p> We might leave the past of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> in its smelly historical
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tomb if <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists would let us, but they will not. They
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lie heroically about its history, and it is vital to an
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understanding of the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> that we should know that
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its writer's lie habitually. In this connection their lies take the
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shape of claiming that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> rendered massive services to
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civilization, and it is largely on the ground of these fictitious
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services that they demand consideration today.</p>
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<p> Moreover, <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> boasts, and on the whole justly, that it
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never changes. It is a strange boast in a world that decidedly
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grows in wisdom and sheds innumerable errors as it advances, but it
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does at all events justify us in judging what <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> does today
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by what it did in <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent>, when it was perfectly free to
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carry out its principles. When modern <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s are stung into
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indiscretion they use just the same language as medieval <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s did,
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as we found Plus XI doing in his open letter to Cardinal Gasparri
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in 1929. The Canon Law, which is kept in a dead language so that
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priests alone can read it, makes the same monstrous claim of a
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power over life and death as the medieval <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s made. The
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bestiality which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> encourages in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> today is
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the same as <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s encouraged a century ago in the whole of <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>ern
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Europe and in all Europe during <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent>.</p>
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<p> No, it is folly to ask us to let dead <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s bury their dead.
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This work, however, is concerned with <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> today, and there
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is so much to be said about it that I have to avoid history or
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confine my short excursions into it within the strict needs of my
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present task. So to the question whether <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> has done good
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in the past and the race is indebted to it I just say bluntly that
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practically every claim it makes is fictitious, as I have
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exhaustively shown in earlier works, and on balance we must say
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that it has retarded the advance of European civilization by many
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centuries.</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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5
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p> I must say a little more than this in regard to what I call
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the modern period. I believe that when scholarship and literature
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are again free, when the disgraceful power over them of the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
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International is broken, historians will date the beginning of the
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modern age from the outbreak of the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution, The broad
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ideal of a just life was then clearly formulated. The revolutionary
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armies carried it, with their symbolic tricolor, as far as the
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southernmost tips of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and Napoleon's,
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armies bore the ensign of at least a liberal civilization to the
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bounds of Europe. <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> were for a time more advanced
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than <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>. Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> throbbed with a new passion.</p>
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<p> From that age to ours the outstanding event of history has
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been the long-drawn battle for those ideals, and <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> has
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throughout been on the side of our enemies. Ever since the bloody
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shambles it countenanced, if it did not inspire, in <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent> in 1794
|
|
the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> has allied itself with every power, however
|
|
corrupt and brutal it was, that took the field against those who
|
|
were fighting for the elementary rights of man, for freedom and
|
|
democracy. What has happened in the last ten years is simply that
|
|
the Vatican, which had been compelled for half a century to profess
|
|
in <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> countries that it was reconciled with the new age --
|
|
in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> alone the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> has the effrontery to
|
|
claim that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> is the actual source of modern ideals --
|
|
became convinced that it had found more powerful allies than ever
|
|
in the fight against liberalism, and the war which began in 1798
|
|
and in one country or other (especially <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>) has been almost
|
|
continuously maintained, has entered upon a new and terrible phase.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> That is the key-idea that you must keep clearly in mind if you
|
|
want to understand the relation of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> to the world-war. It is an idea of crucial importance in estimating the world-situation but no journalistic oracle in <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States dare say
|
|
it, while what we may call the literary and ethical oracles who,
|
|
discuss the more profound aspects of the situation will put forward
|
|
any fantastic theory, from the growth of materialism to the
|
|
diversion of the <ent type='GPE'>Gulf Stream</ent>, rather than risk offending <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
|
|
and injuring their own prestige and circulation, by telling the
|
|
plain truth. That this is the plain truth I have shown, as regard's
|
|
the last ten years, in these 20 books and for the earlier phase in
|
|
larger works, The True Story of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and The
|
|
A peal to Reason Library.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> A third work would be of very considerable use to the modern
|
|
reader, especially in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, where, apart from the one or two
|
|
brushes with <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, the historical development has encouraged a
|
|
real cultural isolation from Europe as fir as our present theme is
|
|
concerned. An <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n writer who visited me some years ago
|
|
confirmed me in my suspicion that there is no good and adequate
|
|
work available on the mighty struggle in Europe in the 19th Century
|
|
against the clerical-royalist-capitalist attempts to kill what
|
|
survived of the best ideals of the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution. For that
|
|
matter there is today no work published in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, for it would
|
|
have to tell the ghastly truth about <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>, and in both
|
|
countries the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> uses its new power, not merely to
|
|
exclude the truth from literature and education but to see that
|
|
false versions of the story of man from 1789 onward are imposed </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
6
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>everywhere. In the absence of such a work I can but reiterate that
|
|
from 1794 (in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>) until its present alliance with
|
|
Fascism (in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, for instance) <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> has allied
|
|
itself with brutal oppressors and enemies of freedom, as I have
|
|
abundantly proved in earlier works, and sum up the evidence given
|
|
in this series of booklets in regard to the last ten years.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> It is useful to take a broad view before we look at the
|
|
situation more closely. The alleged service of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in
|
|
promoting civilization can be very soundly tested from this broad
|
|
viewpoint. Just glance at the leading countries of the world and
|
|
note in each case what we -- the great majority of men and women in
|
|
the best-educated countries -- would assign as the grade of its
|
|
civilization and what proportion of the people the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
|
|
claims to control; and to allow for the present appalling confusion
|
|
or violent distortion of conditions we will survey the world as it
|
|
was in 1939 and regard only countries where the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is
|
|
substantially represented.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Granting that total wealth or size is not of itself a
|
|
criterion of civilization there would be general agreement to name
|
|
these ten countries as having attained the highest rank: <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent>
|
|
States, Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent>. In none of these countries
|
|
does the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> command the allegiance, of more than one-sixth of the population except <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>. where its members and
|
|
political representatives are one-third of the whole -- still not
|
|
enough to have Influence on the general character -- and <ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent>,
|
|
where, however, the constructive class is (or was until 1935)
|
|
mainly skeptical (and probably still is). <ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent> is, in any
|
|
case, the one, power whose place in this list would be disputed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> There would be general agreement to put these countries at the
|
|
lower end of the scale; <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, Eire,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent>, and most of the smaller <ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Republics. In these
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> claims the great majority of the people and certainly as
|
|
regards the constructive forces they are <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries. They
|
|
are all <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>, as none of the above ten are, but, for the moment
|
|
I am looking at what by general agreement would be called their
|
|
grade of civilization. The place of Hungary might be disputed, but
|
|
it is only little more than half <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and its dictator is not
|
|
a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> as a whole was in the highest class,
|
|
but events have shown that the progressive qualities were in non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Bohemia, and that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> is at the level of
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. I have omitted <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, which on the ground of recent
|
|
accomplishment (reduction of crime and illiteracy, social
|
|
legislation, etc.) I should be disposed to put in the first class,
|
|
because its place would be warmly disputed. But one thing is not
|
|
open to dispute: whatever progress has been made in the last 20
|
|
years was due to an anti-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> body of statesmen and supporters.
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y must be left out of account unless we go back to pre-<ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>
|
|
days, but even then Catholic's were a one-fourth minority and they
|
|
are In large part responsible for the triumph of <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>sm and ruin of
|
|
the country. In <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> the forces are about equal, and the grade
|
|
of civilization corresponds.</p>
|
|
|
|
<div> </div>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
7
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> You will see the full significance of this if you recall that,
|
|
as I said, all these countries entered upon the great race, as we
|
|
may call it, of the last 150 year's with much the same equipment of
|
|
ideals. The <ent type='ORG'>Revolutionary</ent> and the <ent type='ORG'>Napoleon</ent>ic armies, beating a path
|
|
for <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> literature, made those ideals familiar from <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> to
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent>, and Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> was awakened from one end to the other by
|
|
the echoes of the struggle. Even <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> had quite a notable body
|
|
of <ent type='NORP'>Deists</ent> and humanitarians (<ent type='PERSON'>Robert Emmet</ent>, Wolfe Tone, and many
|
|
others) amongst its educated men in the last years of the 18th
|
|
Century. It has none today or not one who dare open his lips, and
|
|
the country remains, with all its political and religious pride,
|
|
poor, squalid, ignorant, and of inferior general character. in
|
|
other words, every country in which the influence of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> was
|
|
paramount failed to advance in the path that was indicated by those
|
|
new ideals of civilization which we all regard as sound. But the
|
|
countries in which <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> had no such influence or where, as in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, it lost its power, joined the predominantly Protestant
|
|
countries in advancing to the higher rank. That is the first reply,
|
|
and it is perfectly sound from the sociologleal angle, to the claim
|
|
that the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> promotes civilization.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Chapter 11</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL ALWAYS IN THE REAR</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> In this general survey I have repeatedly referred to the
|
|
ideals of freedom and democracy. For most of us these are partial
|
|
expressions of the modern spirit, the demand for justice, which, in
|
|
alliance with the advance of science, has lifted the ten countries
|
|
I named to the highest rank. The attempt of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers in
|
|
various countries to represent them as mere political claims, or
|
|
even as a liberalism, that the world has tried and found wanting,
|
|
are mere excuses to cover the Vatican's alliance with Fascism or
|
|
the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> Encyclical of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Quadragesimo</ent> Anno. It must be
|
|
understood, however, that I have not assigned these 20 nations
|
|
their place in the scale of civilization on that test. If one
|
|
proposed to do this it would be simple and accurate to say that all
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries are now <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> and all <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> countries are
|
|
non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. But it is more convincing if we apply a broader test
|
|
of civilization.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist would define the service of his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
|
|
by saying (first and chiefly) that it defends the family, that it
|
|
trains all people whom it can influence in general moral character,
|
|
that it preaches and insists upon justice, individual and social,
|
|
and that it is zealous for education and philanthropy. And since,
|
|
he would say, the family is, according to very many if not most
|
|
sociologists, the foundation of the state, the particular zeal and
|
|
rigorous measures of his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, which distinguish it in an age of
|
|
growing laxity, must especially recommend it to the statesman and
|
|
the social student.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='ORG'>Piffle</ent>, as usual. The <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has three distinctive
|
|
features in its teaching about the family. First, it insist that
|
|
its priests, monks, and nuns shall not marry and shall not have any
|
|
recognizable families; and since the implication of this is that
|
|
sexual commerce has some sort of taint even where it is licensed</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
8
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>one does not see how we can speak here of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> guarding this
|
|
particular foundation of the state. Secondly, it alone amongst the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es -- in fact, it shares this distinction only with a few
|
|
groups of the lowest savages on earth -- forbids divorce; and since
|
|
this harsh restriction of human rights has either, as in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
countries, to be alleviated by the general use of mistresses or
|
|
brothels, or it amounts to a positive deterrent from marriage, we
|
|
again fail to perceive any service, and no statesman of any of the
|
|
leading civilizations has any respect for <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>'s teaching on
|
|
this point. The law of divorce which now exists in every
|
|
civilization except those of lower grade that are subject to the
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is based upon the collective recognition of social experience
|
|
and upon a mature adjustment of the rights of the individual and
|
|
the needs of the state. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> opposition to it professes to
|
|
be based upon some words of an ancient <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> prophet of which we
|
|
have two contradictory versions in the records and which other
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es, of equal scholarship and greater sincerity,
|
|
find compatible with divorce. It is in any case really based, as I
|
|
showed, on the fierce determination of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s of the early
|
|
Middle Age's to get complete control of life. On such frivolous and
|
|
anti-social grounds does this particularly strident claim of the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> to render human service rest; and our contempt deepens when
|
|
we find <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> playing fast and loose with its "indissoluble
|
|
marriage" when its own interest or profit is involved, as I showed
|
|
in my analysis of the clauses of the Canon Law and the practice of
|
|
the Papal Courts.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Thirdly, the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> boasts that it renders a
|
|
unique service to the state because it is the only <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> or
|
|
institution that condemns, and very fiercely condemns birth
|
|
control. The <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> is as usual, out of date. For the
|
|
last ten years it has shared that distinction with the criminal
|
|
leaders of the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> people. They wanted
|
|
soldiers and the excuse of over-population to cover their
|
|
imperialist greed. The <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> wanted more contributors
|
|
to its <ent type='ORG'>treasury</ent> and, as priests have admitted, to beat rival
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es by outbreeding them. The clerical opposition to birth
|
|
control is, in fact, such an obvious piece of priestcraft and has
|
|
so little foundation even in their own weird and wonderful theology
|
|
that they confess (as I quoted), the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> laity in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> are
|
|
to an alarming extent ignoring their sulphuric orders and
|
|
restricting their families: which makes their "social" argument
|
|
look rather anaemic.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The apologists have recently been encouraged by the appearance
|
|
of a new school of opponents of birth control whose leaders and
|
|
statements are not religious. These professors and their learned
|
|
lady friends recognize that the old opposition was based upon a
|
|
demand for as many soldiers as possible and that the industrial and
|
|
professional markets are, in normal times and in capitalist
|
|
countries, already overcrowded. They say that the really sound
|
|
scientific plea is that the birth rate is so far falling out of
|
|
balance with the death rate that there will soon be a debilitating
|
|
preponderance of old folk over young. They do not take into account
|
|
the fact that science and common sense are steadily raising what we
|
|
may call the vitality-period of men and women. I could write
|
|
caustic pages on my own recent experience in being rejected (as one</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
9
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>in senile decay) from all departments of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> national
|
|
effort by men whose laziness, short hours, and easygoing methods
|
|
are notorious, But I have space only for one point. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> has
|
|
practiced birth control for more than half a century almost as much
|
|
as <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> does today. But it was not old men who let
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> down. It was a few <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> old men, who were pushed into
|
|
office by these priests who are so concerned about the vitality of
|
|
civilization, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> adventurers like <ent type='PERSON'>Laval</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Bonnet</ent>, and
|
|
younger statesmen who were seduced by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> mistresses.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> In short, all this rhetoric about <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> marriage and the
|
|
social welfare is hypocritical claptrap, and every statesman and
|
|
social student knows it. Every state finds in time its equilibrium
|
|
on grounds of experience in sex-matters. Sex-laws and restrictions
|
|
that are based upon ancient philosophic's or religions, ultimately
|
|
upon more ancient taboos and superstitions, merely distract
|
|
attention and hamper the social activity. Apologists for them have
|
|
to repeat outdated and thoroughly exposed statements about the ruin
|
|
of older civilizations by vice. Five year's ago most folk would
|
|
have said that the two most vigorous nations were the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and
|
|
the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n, and both enjoyed an advanced degree of sexual
|
|
freedom. Today we should say that <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> are the most
|
|
vigorous nations. But according to the priests the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n people
|
|
are only restrained from a monstrous parade of sex, in their books,
|
|
pictures, and theaters, by the severe paternal cheek of the clergy,
|
|
while <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> has always had a liberal divorce law and for quarter
|
|
of a century has denied that marriage is a sacrament and birth
|
|
control a sin.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> For reasons -- reasons of self-interest -- which I discussed
|
|
in an earlier book <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists have always put this sex and
|
|
marriage-business in the forefront of their statement of claims. It
|
|
more or less excises the absurd official virginity of their
|
|
priests, monks and nuns: It evokes a golden echo in the hearts of
|
|
rich widows and spinsters: and it really does mark a distinction
|
|
between <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> and "the world." In theory, that is to say. And
|
|
not only is the theory itself an antiquated ethic rehabilitated for
|
|
priestly purposes, so that those who profess to lead civilization
|
|
are far in the rear of modern thought, but in practice <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
|
|
are no more "moral" than other folk. I leave it to my readers'
|
|
knowledge of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n life what the situation is in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, saying
|
|
only that I have a very extensive familiarity with the best
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n fiction of a realist character and that I have made
|
|
extensive inquiries during the two years (at intervals) I have
|
|
spent in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. But for "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries" you may take as
|
|
typical the pleasant exaggeration which <ent type='PERSON'>Byron</ent> wrote when he saw a
|
|
statue of <ent type='GPE'>the Virgin Mary</ent> in a <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent> city: "Well do I ween the
|
|
only virgin there." He had probably made inquiries.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Apologists obstinately insist that <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> girls are remarkably
|
|
chaste," though I have for 30 years given proof and bitter
|
|
complaints of English <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s (including leading priests) that
|
|
the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> girls are sent to <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> to drop their burdens and keep
|
|
down the record of illegitimate births in Eire. A <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> attorney
|
|
writes me, or wrote me 30 years ago when I took up the question,
|
|
that the same complaint was made in the New <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> States. <ent type='PERSON'>Sanger</ent>
|
|
says in his History of Prostitution (1919 edition) that on personal</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
10
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>interrogation of 2000 <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> prostitutes he found that 977 (706
|
|
of whom had been born in <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent>) had had <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> parents, and had
|
|
been brought up as <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Times (May 31, 1924)
|
|
quoted <ent type='PERSON'>Canon Hughes</ent>, one of the highest <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities,
|
|
saying that 60 percent of the prostitutes of <ent type='GPE'>Liverpool</ent> -- one of
|
|
the most <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and most vicious cities in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> -- were <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>
|
|
and only 30 percent English. Ten years later another <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
expert, Mrs. <ent type='PERSON'>Ellison</ent>, stated in a book that the situation is the
|
|
same in the cities of <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Glasgow</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Newcastle</ent> (big centers
|
|
of <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> immigration). A leaflet on the subject issued by the
|
|
Protestant Truth Society (<ent type='NORP'>British</ent>) gives a mass of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
testimony and replies to the charge that illegitimacy is 3.4
|
|
percent in Protestant <ent type='PERSON'>Ulster</ent> and (for the above reasons) only 0.7
|
|
in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Connaught that it was at the time 9.30 in <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>,
|
|
14.89 in <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, 15.67 in <ent type='GPE'>Bavaria</ent>, and 50.00 in <ent type='GPE'>Guatemala</ent>. Since
|
|
emigration was checked the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> have not boasted so much. I quoted
|
|
an editorial in the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Times (June 12, 1937) describing a
|
|
disgraceful official record of sex-crimes in <ent type='GPE'>County Clare</ent> which is
|
|
in Connaught!</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> This chastity-talk is not only outdated from the ethical and
|
|
sociological angle but it supported by a remarkable variety of
|
|
untruths. And if it is suggested that the real service of the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> lies in promoting morals or character in the broader sense
|
|
the reply to just as devastating. This plea is just a relic of the
|
|
old and purely rhetorical assertion that a religious basis is
|
|
required for sound conduct. The sufficient reply is that, I have
|
|
repeatedly shown, the general level of character in the leading
|
|
civilizations has risen in the same proportion as <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> influence
|
|
has decayed. For the moment we are not concerned about cause and
|
|
effect. The fact is enough. As my friend Mr. E.S.P. <ent type='ORG'>Haynes</ent>, a
|
|
distinguished <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> attorney, has written -- and he is approvingly
|
|
quoted by <ent type='PERSON'>Julian Huxley</ent> in his Religion Without Revelation (P. 52):
|
|
"If morality did really depend on other worldly sanctions, the
|
|
religious changes of the last fifty years would by now have
|
|
dissolved society at large." What has happened is much the same as
|
|
with the old superstition that it is unlucky to pass under a
|
|
ladder. People now see that a good reason for not doing it is that
|
|
the man who does not keep clear of a ladder raised against a
|
|
building is apt to get drips of paint or bricks dropped on him. In
|
|
the same way they discover that sound moral law is a sanitation-regulation of the social life.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The irony of paying attention to the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>ist version of the
|
|
old apologetic, which is the noisiest of them all, is that the
|
|
Papal <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> promotes sound character even less than the other
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es. Middle-class folk, to which class most writers
|
|
belong, argue on these matters in the most slovenly fashion. Their
|
|
acquaintance with <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s is confined to their class, and in this
|
|
they meet many <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> men and women of admirable character. So,
|
|
they lazily conclude, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism molds character. Middle-class men
|
|
who are not puritans have insisted to me -- two of them were
|
|
attorneys -- that they find <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> girls easier to persuade or
|
|
less in need of persuasion than other girls. But let us remember,
|
|
the nature of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> as I analyzed it. Of the 100000000 or so
|
|
adult subjects of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> at least 80000000 have not the least </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
11
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>resemblance to the middle-class <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n or <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. Half
|
|
of them are imperfectly civilized Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns (with <ent type='GPE'>Cuba</ent> and
|
|
the <ent type='GPE'>Philippines</ent>) and most of the remainder are illiterate or poor
|
|
and ignorant <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Slovaks</ent>, etc.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The general level of character in a nation is an elusive
|
|
factor but it is fairly determined, if we make allowances for
|
|
police-conditions, by the volume of crime. Criminal behavior in the
|
|
extreme form of unsocial conduct, and the number of criminals is a
|
|
good indication of the amount of unsocial conduct generally. If,
|
|
therefore, we find, as we do, that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries are more
|
|
criminal than non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, and that as a mixed country a quite
|
|
disproportionate number of the criminals are <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, we must
|
|
conclude that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> is no more effective in inspiring sound
|
|
social behavior than in securing the chastity about which it talks
|
|
so much.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> I have given a few statistics in book No. 13. As <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are
|
|
apt to contest this I may add a few more. In No. 23 of his
|
|
Questions and Answer (p. 87) <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent> gives, from a book by
|
|
a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> prison chaplain (Fr. <ent type='PERSON'>Leo Kalmer</ent>, Crime and Religion) a
|
|
most damning series of figures. The priest ascertained from his
|
|
colleagues the percentage of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in 36 <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
|
|
penitentiaries and the result extends to the whole of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> the
|
|
truth disclosed in the figure's I gave for <ent type='PERSON'>Sing Sing</ent> (48.50 percent
|
|
in <ent type='GPE'>Joliet</ent>, 46.92 in <ent type='GPE'>San Quentin</ent>, 57.31 in <ent type='GPE'>Auburn</ent>, 63.64 in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Wethersfield</ent>, etc.). Analysis by the Rev. L.B. <ent type='PERSON'>Lehmann</ent> brings out
|
|
the fact that in 28 states, in which <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are 17 percent of
|
|
the population, they are 33 percent of the criminals. The whole
|
|
article in <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent>' book should be read.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The only other mixed states for which exact comparative
|
|
figures are available are <ent type='ORG'>the Commonwealth</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> and the
|
|
Dominion of <ent type='GPE'>New Zealand</ent>. In the case of <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> the figures are
|
|
particularly interesting because the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has as much power
|
|
there as in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and is just as blatant in its claims. It is 36
|
|
years since I first reproduced the full figures relating to crime
|
|
and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism in that country, and I have brought them up to date
|
|
every few years. They are as damning as those of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, yet
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s continue to claim in the most brazen manner that they
|
|
guard the foundations of the state by promoting character.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='ORG'>The Queensland</ent> State Schools Defense Fund issued a leaflet
|
|
quoting the figures from the official publications. This showed
|
|
that in <ent type='GPE'>Victoria</ent> in 1936 the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> prisoners numbered 2164,
|
|
whereas since the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are only 18 percent of the population,
|
|
their ought to have been only 754 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> prisoners if their moral
|
|
quality was equal to that of non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s. In <ent type='GPE'>New South Wales</ent> they
|
|
had 454 prisoners instead of the 145 to which their percentage of
|
|
the population entitled them. In <ent type='GPE'>Queensland</ent> the disproportion was
|
|
the same. In <ent type='ORG'>the Commonwealth</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, mostly <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>, had three
|
|
times the number of criminals they ought to have had if they were
|
|
as good as and no better than their neighbors. As <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Queensland</ent> had just published a new demand for the preferential
|
|
treatment of their schools, the Protestants retorted humorously
|
|
that they ought themselves to receive preferential treatment in the
|
|
matter of taxation because they maintain extra police and jails to
|
|
look after <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> criminals.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
12
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> In 1937 Archbishop <ent type='PERSON'>Mannix</ent>, the bitter muddle-headed <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>man
|
|
who in his very <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> hatred of <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> used all the influence
|
|
of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> to induce <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent>n's to confine themselves to their
|
|
pleasures and dollar-making while <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> fought and suffered for
|
|
ideals -- until the hideous face of the Japs appeared on the
|
|
horizon and <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> cried frantically to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> for
|
|
help -- made one of his usual attacks on the public schools of
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent>. They were demoralizing even <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> boys. He said this
|
|
in <ent type='GPE'>Melbourne</ent> (<ent type='GPE'>Victoria</ent>). Shortly afterward's the Report of the
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Victoria</ent>n Children's Courts for 1937 was published. Of 973 child
|
|
delinquents it appeared that 582, or 37.4 percent were <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s; and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are only 18 percent of the population of
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Melbourne</ent>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> That is typical of the value, of these loudly-shouted claims
|
|
of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists. They know that none of the papers will test
|
|
the claims by statistical or historical facts, and that letters to
|
|
the press which do this will be suppressed as "offensive to
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s." The Protestant Watchman of <ent type='GPE'>New South Wales</ent> in 1941.
|
|
published, an analysis of the space given in the four daily papers
|
|
of <ent type='GPE'>Sydney</ent> to <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and Protestant affair's respectively. In a
|
|
period of three months the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s got 491 inches, the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> 280 (if we count out a large photo with the queen
|
|
in it), and the Methodists and <ent type='NORP'>Presbyterians</ent> 186. Is <ent type='GPE'>Sydney</ent> a
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> city? Far from it. The <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> controls only 17
|
|
percent of the population: <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> 40 percent: the
|
|
Methodist and <ent type='NORP'>Presbyterians</ent> 14 percent. But the arms of the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
|
|
Octopus are everywhere, strangling freedom and truth, from the
|
|
office of the cabinet minister or the trade union to the editorial
|
|
office and the public libraries.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Most countries do not now publish the figures of the religious
|
|
professions of criminals, and full figures of crime in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and
|
|
non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries are not so easily obtained as one would
|
|
suppose. Few sociologists or criminologists omit to mention the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and prominently, amongst the agencies which make for social
|
|
sanity and stability, but, though it will be understood that my
|
|
acquaintance with such literature is not complete, I do not know
|
|
one of them who dares to follow this up by examining the statistics
|
|
of crime and the profession's of criminals or the religious status
|
|
of the various countries.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The article "Homicide" in the Encyclopedia of the Social
|
|
Sciences has a little merit in this connection. It quotes Ferri's
|
|
table showing the reduction of it in recent times in five of the
|
|
leading European countries by giving the percentage per 100000 of
|
|
the population:</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y 1.0 in 1865-85 and 0.6 in 1906-10
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> 2.4 in 1827-31 and 1.4 in 1911-15
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>England</ent> 8.1 in 1856-60 and 0.7 in 1906-10
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> 9.4 in 1881-85 and 5.2 in 1911-15
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> 12.2 in 1871-75 and 4.1 in 1911-15</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, remember, was despotically ruled by the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> until
|
|
1870 and had an appalling record of crime to reduce. I may add that
|
|
crime doubled in a few years after the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s usurped power in it</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
13
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>and was not reduced when the Vatican made its corrupt bargain to
|
|
share the control. <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> were both predominantly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
in the last century when they had such a high record of the gravest
|
|
crime, and the modern sociologist scorns the excuse of "the hot
|
|
blood of the south." I question the figure for <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y, as there
|
|
was no "<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y" only a number of separate states -- until 1871.
|
|
Bodis (in Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics) gives this percentage
|
|
of trials for murder in 1876-84: <ent type='GPE'>United Kingdom</ent> 12, <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y 14,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> (still mainly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>) 23, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> 105, Hungary 107, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
|
|
134. Add these to the figures I gave in No. 13, and you get such a
|
|
reply to the claim that <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>ism promotes a high standard of
|
|
character that you wonder that any apologist has the effrontery to
|
|
make it.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> But all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s make it, and very emphatically, because it
|
|
is the only excuse they can provide for the politicians,
|
|
professors, and writers whom, in one way or other, they get to
|
|
praise <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> and denounce critics. If this claim is so
|
|
decisively disproved by the only exact test we can apply -- the
|
|
volume of crime in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> lands and the proportion of criminals
|
|
in mixed lands -- so decisively that no sociologist in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>
|
|
thinks it prudent to discuss the matter, where must we look for
|
|
even a plausible bit of color for it? The language of Papal
|
|
encyclicals and the gorgeous comments of apologists on them suggest
|
|
that there might be more sincerity in the claim that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> is
|
|
more effective in inspiring social justice. We will defer the
|
|
examination of this to the next chapter, but the reader will be
|
|
prepared to smile. Social justice in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent> as compared with <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent>, or <ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>! It sounds like a bad joke.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> But what other test can we apply? Is the great 'service of the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that it provided, or moved the authorities to provide, free
|
|
education for the children of the workers? See the table of
|
|
steatitic of illiteracy which I gave in No. 13 (p. 21). They are
|
|
more damning than the statistics of crime or illegitimacy. Our
|
|
search for these massive social services of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> begins to
|
|
remind us of that naughty definition of metaphysics -- looking in
|
|
a dark room for a black cat that isn't there. Let us, in order to
|
|
be quite just to our <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> fellow-citizens, approach the subject
|
|
in a different way.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Chapter III</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> THE WICKED WORLD EDUCATES THE CHURCH</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> This ghastly war and the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> conspiracy that led
|
|
to it interrupted an unsteady and unequal but very real and
|
|
Substantial advance of civilization in Europe and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. If my
|
|
readers are not tired of my giving proof of that, I am. I have
|
|
routed the <ent type='NORP'>Lippmanns</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Spenglers</ent> who Strangely persuaded so many
|
|
to doubt it. I have riddled the sophistry of the novelty-monger and
|
|
pseudo-idealists who ranted that in our race to get ahead we had
|
|
created a monster of the <ent type='PERSON'>Frankenstein</ent> order or had let the
|
|
cultivation of our intelligence outrun our cultivation of
|
|
character. The revelation of the share of "our two historic </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
14
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>religions" in drenching the planet with mud and blood ought to make
|
|
these prophets of the spiritual feel small, but I notice in the
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n press that they are as cocky as ever, and our Joads in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> orate at Empire Pageants. These people have nearly a
|
|
monopoly of the after-the-war planning which absorbs all our finer
|
|
spirits just now. They would return to just that distracting
|
|
activity of theirs under cover of which Japs and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s shifted
|
|
the attention of the world from the real evils that menaced it.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The world was making a very creditable progress on most lines
|
|
of a real advance of civilization, though it was checked by the
|
|
interests of wealth and religion, until the privileged folk and
|
|
their politicians were duped into thinking that the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Tang</ent>
|
|
(or yellows) were merely accumulating power in order to annihilate
|
|
the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>. This progress became appreciable about 1870, when the
|
|
United States settled down after <ent type='EVENT'>the Civil War and</ent> Europe
|
|
triumphed, in most countries, over the vicious clerical-royalist
|
|
reaction that had followed the fall of <ent type='ORG'>Napoleon</ent>. Briefly, the
|
|
period characterized not merely by an advance of from 1870 to 1914
|
|
was characterized, not merely by an advance of applied science
|
|
which more than doubled the wealth-reducing capacity of a nation
|
|
but by the employment of a very large part of the new wealth to
|
|
create systems of universal free education, an immense
|
|
multiplication of free libraries, the establishment in most
|
|
countries of fully <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> political regimes and the
|
|
enfranchisement of women, factory-legislation, schemes of old-age
|
|
pensions and health and unemployment insurance, sanitation, re-housing, and other measures which doubled the average expectation
|
|
of life, a considerable growth of temperance (or temperateness),
|
|
and great reduction of crime, the doubling (generally) of real
|
|
wages, the enormous improvement of hospitals and services for the
|
|
distressed, and the spread of an anti-war sentiment.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Some say that that is a materialistic conception of progress.
|
|
Most men and women in 1914 would have said that they did not care
|
|
a damn what you called it but that -- if they read a candid account
|
|
of life before 1870 -- the world, in spite of its lingering
|
|
defects, was a very much better place to live in. But let me again,
|
|
in passing, point out the humbug of this "spirit" and "matter"
|
|
business.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> I have just been reading, dreary as the occupation was, one of
|
|
those numerous recent works on the beauty of modern high-brow
|
|
Buddhism and how it will save the world. Out of the mush of
|
|
Verbiage I picked the general statement that the <ent type='ORG'>Supreme</ent> aim of
|
|
Buddhism is "the extinction of suffering." Funny. That is exactly
|
|
the supreme aim of atheists and materialists. I pointed out years
|
|
ago that progress is not to be judged by some misty goal in the
|
|
clouds but by the success of a nation in reducing suffering. And
|
|
while a certain number of people in every generation can be
|
|
persuaded to lessen the risk of suffering for themselves by
|
|
despising the wicked world and its wine, women, and song, and
|
|
retiring to a semi-nudist colony to contemplate their navels --
|
|
which seems to be Buddhism -- it seems to us atheists and
|
|
materialists far better to remove or reduce as much as possible the
|
|
sources of suffering (disease, poverty, war, ignorance, etc.) for
|
|
millions of people.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
15
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Talking of our navel-contemplators, I fancy you will find a
|
|
little irrelevance well worth inserting here. I do not know whether
|
|
you ever came across a priceless book published nine years ago by
|
|
Professor T. O'<ent type='PERSON'>Conroy</ent>. It ought to have been reprinted in 1938 and
|
|
scattered by the million over <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, at the time, when the Japs
|
|
were spending millions a year in lying propaganda. O'<ent type='PERSON'>Conroy</ent> lived
|
|
in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, teaching in one of the leading universities, for 15
|
|
years. He married an aristocratic <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> lady and was more
|
|
intimately admitted to <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> life than any other white man. And
|
|
in 1933 he wrote this scalding indictment of the nation, showing
|
|
that for corruption, cruelty, and unscrupulousness the Japs could
|
|
not be beaten. Buddhism, he shows, fully shared this corruption,
|
|
though it was at that time -- the government had not yet invited it
|
|
to prostitute itself to the national greed -- a fat, indolent, and
|
|
useless body. But what I want to quote is an illustration of its
|
|
corruption which he gives (pp. 87-8) and which, sensational as it
|
|
is, like the similar revelation in <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> monasteries, I have not
|
|
seen reproduced or referred to since in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n literature or
|
|
journalism.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> A few mile's from <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> was a large and rich monastery of what
|
|
was understood to be the very strictest sect of <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> monks.
|
|
They were so holy that they closed their doors against the wicked
|
|
world and wanted to be alone. But in their extensive grounds there
|
|
was a home for feeble-minded women, tended by the good monks, and
|
|
a rumor spread in <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> that numbers of these unfortunates were
|
|
just unwanted wives whose husbands paid the monks to take them
|
|
over. A <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> paper organized a raid in 1928, and though the police
|
|
at once suppressed it, published an amazing story. The <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent>
|
|
monastery was a colony of sadists, just as the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Franciscan</ent>
|
|
friars were found to be colonies of sodomists. When the raiders
|
|
burst in they found the monk-keepers gambling and squabbling with
|
|
blood-splotched paper money, while the women, half mad or half
|
|
dead, lay about, mutilated, exhausted, fouled with the monks'
|
|
excrements. Women were chained even in the temple, and rape, sexual
|
|
mutilation, and ignominy were but a few of the foul performances
|
|
that took place." And this is the second greatest "spiritual"
|
|
religion of our time: the religion over which our idealists and
|
|
scorners of materialism go into ecstasies!</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Like the monasteries in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> provinces of <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y and
|
|
the more <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> republics of <ent type='LOC'>South</ent> and Central <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and the
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Philippines</ent>, these <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> monasteries -- O'<ent type='PERSON'>Conroy</ent> says that
|
|
decent <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> priests told him that 60 to 80 percent of their
|
|
body were corrupt -- illustrate what is always likely to happen in
|
|
medieval conditions; that is to say, wherever the monastery is
|
|
surrounded by a drowsy or drugged population of believers free from
|
|
the taint of heresy. It was the normal condition of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
monasteries throughout <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent>, and it lingered, as in
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, and the
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Philippines</ent>, wherever this parasitic <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> atmosphere lingered.
|
|
This is the first broad proof that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> was taught sense and
|
|
virtue by what it calls the wicked world or the materialistic age.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> An examination of the progress and the causes of social reform
|
|
in each country would clinch this proof, but obviously a
|
|
satisfactory treatment of that subject would require a large
|
|
volume; and, as it is one of those inquiries that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> does</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
16
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>not like, no historian or sociologist has taken it up and there is
|
|
no work to recommend to the reader. I have, as some readers will
|
|
know, not only given a large amount of material for the study in
|
|
previous works but have written one in which enough of the evidence
|
|
is condensed to satisfy any candid inquirer (How Freethinkers Made
|
|
Notable Contributions to Civilization, <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent> Co. 1938).
|
|
In this work I examined the record of progress, particularly during
|
|
the last 100 years, in respect of the struggle for freedom,
|
|
education, social and political rights, the emancipation of woman,
|
|
philanthropy, and general improvement, and I showed that, while in
|
|
those days religious folk, though by no means so lenient to
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s as they now are, at least thought them an immeasurably
|
|
larger and more respectable body than freethinkers, yet fully one
|
|
half the pioneers in all reforms were freethinker's and none were
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> You wonder what <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists, loudly claiming that the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> leads in progress and civilization, say to that. The answer
|
|
is: Nothing, as far as I can discover. I have several times quoted
|
|
a very popular apologetic work, published under the patronage of
|
|
heads and professors of several <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n universities, entitled The
|
|
Calvert Handbook of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Facts. It ought to say "of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
Rhetoric" or "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Lies." It makes the usual generalized claims
|
|
but, as <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> must have exerted this mighty influence on
|
|
progress and civilization through definite individuals, the leaders
|
|
of chief workers in reform-movements, I look for the names of these
|
|
-- and find none. There is a lot about <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> relatives of
|
|
Presidents, rich <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> men of business, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> diplomatists,
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> judges, and so on, but for every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> named as a
|
|
worker in reform-movements I will undertake to name a hundred
|
|
skeptics.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> There is in the book an article on <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s who contributed
|
|
to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n civilization in particular or civilization in general.
|
|
It names <ent type='PERSON'>Sobieski</ent>, whose monument is <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, Ferdinand and
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Isabella</ent>, whose monument is <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and the discoveries of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>,
|
|
who would have gone to the stake if they had not professed
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>ism. That covers the later Middle Ages. Then we have a Father
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>White</ent>, who is said to have set up the first printing press (from
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>England</ent>) in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, another who was great at shorthand in its
|
|
infancy, another who invented a balloon; and another who (getting
|
|
the idea from <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>) built the first railroad in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. Two or
|
|
three are credited with naval and military distinction, and there
|
|
is the usual bunch of great <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scientists (Pasteur, Fabre,
|
|
etc.) most of whom were skeptics. There are the men who wrote
|
|
"<ent type='GPE'>Maryland</ent>" and "The Conquered Banner," the architect of the <ent type='PERSON'>White</ent>
|
|
House, the man who sold the estate for it, and the man who planned
|
|
the city of <ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> (a "majestic plan"). There you have the
|
|
sweepings of three centuries, from Europe as well as <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. They
|
|
do not represent a small body of <ent type='NORP'>Quakers</ent> or still smaller body (at
|
|
that time) of freethinkers but the biggest religion in the world.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Did anybody ever say that no <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> ever won any sort of
|
|
distinction, even in shorthand, ballooning, or writing songs? We
|
|
are familiar with <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s writing any sort of tripe for their own
|
|
hypnotized people, but this sort of thing is written for non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns and has the patronage of <ent type='PERSON'>Nicholas Murray</ent> Butler </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
17
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>and the President of <ent type='ORG'>the Carnegie Institute</ent> of Technology. The
|
|
great work for civilization was achieved from 1870 onward. How many
|
|
of these illustrious <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s fall in that period? Only the
|
|
balloonist as far as I can see. We may admit that gas and hot air
|
|
are entitled to clerical respect, but what the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist,
|
|
claims is the inspiration of our progress in education, the
|
|
reduction of social service. How many of crime, and poverty, and
|
|
suffering these brilliant men figure in those fields? Not one.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Let us try another way. As the Jesuits are supposed to have
|
|
inspired <ent type='GPE'>Jefferson</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Adams</ent>, who loathed Jesuits and their creed
|
|
as much as <ent type='ORG'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent> does, perhaps it will be claimed that it
|
|
was the subtly compelling influence of Papal encyclicals that
|
|
permeated the world and somehow fired large bodies of men and women
|
|
(mostly skeptics) to devote their lives to ridding the world of its
|
|
medieval evils and miseries. This would be very singular when we
|
|
reflect that of those who are supposed to be the closest readers of
|
|
the encyclopedias, the priests, not one -- unless you want me to
|
|
count Father <ent type='PERSON'>Coughlin</ent> -- figures in the long list of reform-leaders, and not one <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> layman is found in any list of, say,
|
|
the hundred leading social workers of the 19th Century. The
|
|
influence of religion on leader's of reform is one of those studies
|
|
which our sociologists carefully avoid, though most of them give
|
|
religion a high-place in the list of inspirational agencies, but I
|
|
have made the research elsewhere, and the grotesque scratchings in
|
|
the byways of history of the Calvert Handbook confirm me. The Papal
|
|
encyclicals moved the world to great deeds and through atheists and
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Quakers</ent>! Really, apologists ought not to advertise so blatantly
|
|
what they think of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> intelligence.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> But what are these grand encyclicals (or "to the whole world")
|
|
letters of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s on social matters. Even a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> would beg
|
|
me not to go too far back, so let us begin about the beginning of
|
|
the modern progressive period. Pius IX (of "Blessed Memory," the
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer always adds, though <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> who knew him have
|
|
written some funny things about him) opened the series in 1864 with
|
|
the encyclical <ent type='ORG'>Quanta cura</ent> and the <ent type='ORG'>Syllabus</ent>. Your apologists now
|
|
never mention it. He, having still at that time the reactionary
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> emperor to protect him against the wicked <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>, scorched
|
|
the whole reform-movement with the choicest Papal invectives. He
|
|
put "liberalism," which we now call pink tea, on a level with
|
|
Satanism, which is several notches lower than rape.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Then came the great encyclical-writer <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>. He was as fond
|
|
of writing encyclicals as <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>ill is of writing speeches. Two of
|
|
them are still gorgeously praised -- and falsely interpreted -- In
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> literature. But just keep your eye on the dates
|
|
and the historical background. <ent type='PERSON'>Leo</ent> won the tiara in 1878, when the
|
|
reform-movement was full on in Europe. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> he knew only as a
|
|
raw outpost of civilization -- I suspect he knew it mostly from
|
|
Dickens's Letters and <ent type='PERSON'>Martin Chuzzlewit</ent> -- and he had many a brush
|
|
with its bishops, but he did follow social and political movements
|
|
in Europe. Yet it was not until thirteen years after his accession
|
|
that he issued the first encyclical which the most ingenious
|
|
apologist can call socially inspiring. He had not been silent. In
|
|
1878 he had issued an encyclical cursing Socialism root and branch.
|
|
Next year he had imposed the medieval "philosophy of Aquinas on the</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
18
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world. In the following year he had thundered at the
|
|
world, which was reforming its marriage-laws, that divorce was a
|
|
mortal sin (except in the ingenious form in which rich <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
|
|
can get it from <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>). In 1881 he pointed out, apropos of the
|
|
assassination of the Tsar, that these appalling outrages were due
|
|
to the decay of religion (not, of course, to the bestiality of the
|
|
Tsarist regime), and in 1884 he put <ent type='NORP'>Freemasonry</ent> Under the ban. In
|
|
1885 he issued the <ent type='PERSON'>Immortale Dei</ent>, which <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> still applauds as a
|
|
fine <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> appeal; and I have shown that it is nothing of the
|
|
kind. In 1888 he savagely attacked the claim of religious freedom
|
|
and liberty of discussion. It was not until 1891, when he saw
|
|
Socialism gaining ground rapidly at the expense of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>, that
|
|
he issued the one encyclical, Rerum novarum, which <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s claim
|
|
to give a lead in social reform; and the only "revolutionary"
|
|
sentence in it was the statement that the workers must have a
|
|
living wage. (which he refused to define), which had been a
|
|
platitude of liberal literature for half a century. And in his last
|
|
beautiful messages to the world he retracted this and died
|
|
sputtering the most reactionary sentiments.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> I pass on the next two <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> does not quote them. They
|
|
were stuffy and ill-informed reactionaries all their lives. And in
|
|
1931 the late <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, or the present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> writing in his name issue
|
|
the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> encyclical <ent type='ORG'>Quadragesimo</ent> anno which the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n hierarchies dare not translate into English! It opened the
|
|
blatantly <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>, conspiratorial, warmongering career of his
|
|
"holiness" Pius XII.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Need I point the moral? The <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> was throughout the whole
|
|
period the enemy of progress of the rights of the people. It was
|
|
just compelled for a time to temporize because it looked even to
|
|
these owlish <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> priests as if democracy had won its war and
|
|
the world was adopting the liberalism in social matters which the
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s scorned. Yet even when concessions had to be made to check
|
|
the leakage of millions of workers from <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> they took only
|
|
the feeble form of saying that if the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> people really insisted
|
|
on having a republic they might, provided it kept the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> established by law and that capitalists must grant their
|
|
workers a "just wage," which it was left to them to determine.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> What do I mean then, you will ask, by saying that the wicked
|
|
world educated <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>? The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s apparently, never were
|
|
educated in sound views of social ethics. What I mean is that in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> a social-<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>
|
|
movement (without the capital letters) spread in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world
|
|
after 1900. Quite bold books appeared, and there were "social
|
|
experts" and all sorts of novelties. What was the inspiration?
|
|
Evidently it did not come from the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent>. Had local hierarchies
|
|
and their <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>s and <ent type='PERSON'>Williams</ent> a finer appreciation of the
|
|
implications of the faith than the Holy-Ghost-inspired Pope's and
|
|
all the great theological geniuses of <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent>?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Enough of this nonsense. The plain truth is that after leaving
|
|
it to non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s for a century, when the work was heart-breaking
|
|
and the penalty often death or jail, to break the paths of social
|
|
and humanitarian reform, the local <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> in some
|
|
countries concluded that in the interest of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> they must </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
19
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>join in the work. It was a death-bed repentance. But the patient
|
|
recovered. That is to say, the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>, which for a
|
|
time had despaired of life on the old lines of privilege and
|
|
autocracy, saw a new hope in the rise of Fascism and became
|
|
convinced that it was going to conquer the world. So the death-bed
|
|
confession of sin was torn up in <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> and in all countries that
|
|
passed under the pirate-flag, and it is only in one or two
|
|
countries like <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, where democracy may survive and
|
|
may even regain the world, where in any case <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are a
|
|
minority and must behave like the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>California</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Oregon</ent>,
|
|
that one still hears how freedom and democracy are grand old
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> ideas conveyed to a wicked and despairing world by the
|
|
august, and fearless, and un-compromising encyclicals of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Chapter IV</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> THE CONTRAST OF <ent type='GPE'>RUSSIA</ent> AND PRIEST-RULED COUNTRIES</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> While the services rendered by <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> to civilization are
|
|
as hard to find as the black cat in a dark room, the services it
|
|
rendered to the repulsive forces which have attempted to wreck
|
|
civilization are as plain as the peaks of the <ent type='ORG'>Rockies</ent>. The
|
|
alliances contracted by the Vatican with <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y
|
|
are events of recent history like the New Deal or the Atlantic
|
|
Charter. The dates and terms of the agreements are public property.
|
|
But one service requires special consideration: the organization of
|
|
the entire resources of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> to engender hatred of <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent>
|
|
in general and of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> in particular.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> This service began, explicitly as far as the documents I have
|
|
seen tell us, in 1936, though the Vatican had begun its furious
|
|
attack upon <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> and even, in effect, its appeal for a crusade
|
|
against it, much earlier. From 1919 to 1924 the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was, we saw,
|
|
straining, every nerve to get on friendly terms with <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>
|
|
so as to bring under his control the Orthodox <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> when its
|
|
leaders were scattered. The <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns repeatedly detected the
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> clergy in treachery and in 1924 closed the country against
|
|
missionaries from <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. So in December of that year Pius XI, who
|
|
had hitherto in great charity kept in check his hatred of
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent>, attacked it in his <ent type='EVENT'>Consistorial Allocution</ent> (December 18)
|
|
and called the attention of all "heads of "governments" to the
|
|
danger of it. He, in fact, coupled Socialism with <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> as
|
|
equally dangerous. In 1931 he, we saw, ordered all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> states
|
|
(in encyclical <ent type='ORG'>Quadragesimo</ent> anno) to adopt the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> state and
|
|
sternly forbade <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to take up either Socialism or <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent>.
|
|
He said that <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> had brought "massacres and ruin upon <ent type='LOC'>Eastern</ent>
|
|
Europe." This attack on <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> seems to have been taken up or
|
|
fostered by his representatives everywhere, as on December 30,
|
|
1932, the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Daily Worker said that "the clergy of all creeds
|
|
and denominations are, with religion as their pretext following the
|
|
lead of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in his call for a crusade against the U.S.S.R."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The direct and more pointed attack began, however, in 1936,
|
|
shortly after the outbreak of Franco's rebellion in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. We must
|
|
remember that <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y were not at that time open allies
|
|
of <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> had not declared their attitude </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
20
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>to what everybody still called a rebellion. But there was no
|
|
reserve at <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. In a blistering and most untruthful attack on
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent>, which he represented as the aggressor in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
|
|
spoke of it as a force that was attempting to subvert established
|
|
order of every kind from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, from <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> to <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>." From this year onward he appealed repeatedly for "the
|
|
extinction" of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and, as we
|
|
saw, "he holy cry for blood was taken up in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> section of
|
|
every country.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> When the <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>n crisis, which might be called the
|
|
first stage of the world-war, arose in 1938 the service that the
|
|
Vatican and its <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> in every country had already
|
|
rendered the imperialist thugs by this propaganda was apparent.
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Joint</ent> action at once by <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> would have
|
|
strangled <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>ism in its cradle and put a cheek to the ambitions
|
|
of <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. But <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> was under obligation only to support <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>,
|
|
and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> was persuaded by its <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> politicians and military
|
|
leaders, the present <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> crowd, that <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> could not be trusted
|
|
to keep its word: in reality, that active partnership with so
|
|
disreputable a power and helping it to cheek the strength of
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y must not be undertaken by <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. As late as 1940 <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>
|
|
generals of the stuffy <ent type='NORP'>Tory</ent> type were saying: "We may have to ally
|
|
our selves with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, but God forgive us." That contemptuous
|
|
attitude the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> fed in every country for ten
|
|
years, to the very great profit of the bandits.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> We admit the double root of this hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, or the
|
|
capitalist and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> roots, but we have to recognize this
|
|
difference: that the capitalists, who make no pretence of moral
|
|
principle, are honest opponents of a dangerous rival system,
|
|
whereas the priests, who profess to be the moral saviors of a
|
|
wicked world lie about their motives and by their action run the
|
|
risk of bringing upon civilization precisely that ruin which they
|
|
untruthfully accused the <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> of contemplating. The Pope's
|
|
outburst in 1936 which I quoted in an earlier book and which was
|
|
clearly written by the present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> as Secretary of State, was a
|
|
tissue of untruthful charges. Instead of trying to "subvert
|
|
established order of every kind" by "an un-parallel confusion of
|
|
forces so savage and cruel as to have been thought utterly
|
|
incompatible" -- whatever the last phrase may mean -- <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> had by
|
|
1936, as the whole world knew, wrought a miracle of the creation of
|
|
order out of chaos. In 1923, as a result of the European War, the
|
|
<ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent>, and the great famine, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> had been reduced to a
|
|
condition of disorder and misery which had not been seen in Europe
|
|
since the end of the Thirty Years War (1648). The restoration began
|
|
in earnest a few years later, and by 1936 the most respected writer
|
|
of <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> reported, with a few reserves, that the
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> government had, especially in regard to the reduction of
|
|
crime and the establishment of social order, won a remarkable
|
|
victory.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Apologists in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> had generally, to be less wild than the
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in their indictment of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, but they were reckless enough.
|
|
The old lies about the massacre of priests and the persecution of
|
|
religion flourished in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> literature from year to year; in
|
|
fact, there is good ground to believe that the official </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
21
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>representatives of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> demanded assurances on the latter point
|
|
when they began to negotiate with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> about military aid. The
|
|
conspiracies in which some of the leading <ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent> were involved
|
|
were eagerly snapped up as proof that the country was ruled by a
|
|
murderous bureaucracy, whereas we now have the weighty assurance of
|
|
Duranty (with a reserve in one case) and Ambassador <ent type='PERSON'>Davies</ent> that the
|
|
men were certainly guilty. <ent type='PERSON'>Davies</ent> himself repeats a perennial libel
|
|
in saying that the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns are lamentably inefficient as compared
|
|
with the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns and the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>. He has had the cruel experience
|
|
of seeing his book appear, with this reproach, just at the time
|
|
when the world had proof before it daily of the relative efficiency
|
|
of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n military machine.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> There are two plain reasons for the sacred fury of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>
|
|
against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and the first is entirely discreditable. It is
|
|
because the attack upon <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> brought the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> into
|
|
line with wealth and privilege in accordance with its old and
|
|
unwavering tradition. For an attack upon the <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> political
|
|
system <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> has no ground whatever since it declares that it
|
|
never interferes in politics. And when it plans its attack on
|
|
economic ground's it recognizes that it can make no distinction
|
|
between <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> and Socialism, since the degree of socialization
|
|
is not a matter of moral principle. But its claim that any moral
|
|
principle at all is involved is ludicrous. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> is very eloquent on
|
|
the moral right of private ownership: he is, in fact so sure of it
|
|
that he says a Socialist government would be a violation of moral
|
|
law, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns would be justified in rebelling against
|
|
it. <ent type='ORG'>Piffle</ent>. A people has a right to choose its economic form just
|
|
as well as its political regime. The apologists who talk like this
|
|
are simply saying to the world's capitalists: The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is
|
|
your friend so help to protect it from further decay.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The second and stronger reason is the tremendous loss which
|
|
the spread of <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> had inflicted upon the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. I gave
|
|
the facts in the first book. The press and most writers conceal
|
|
them and leave the fierce hostility of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> not very
|
|
intelligible and cover up the vast amount of harm that the Vatican
|
|
did by spreading it's hatred over the world, yet <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> itself is
|
|
much more ready to admit this motive than to talk about its support
|
|
of the capitalist system. It, of course, does not speak of losses.
|
|
With its usual complete indifference to truthfulness it invites the
|
|
world to unite against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> because it "attacks religion." All
|
|
criticism of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> or telling the people the truth
|
|
about its history and its aims is "an attack" but criticism by the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of other <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es or philosophies is, however acrid and
|
|
untruthful it may be, just a kindly warning to the world of the
|
|
dangers that surround it.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> We may readily admit that for many years the <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> government
|
|
gave every assistance to the voluntary organization that opened the
|
|
eyes of the people, but this official cooperation had ceased at the
|
|
time when the Vatican was shrieking about attacks on religion, and
|
|
in the other countries (<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, etc.) in which the advance of Socialism and <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent>
|
|
detached tens of million# from the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> there was certainly
|
|
no official encouragement of the movement. The mechanism of
|
|
propaganda was a substitution of facts for lies, of knowledge for </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
22
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>ignorance. The policy of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> when the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> reaction began
|
|
in each country sufficiently proves this. It closed the schools,
|
|
suppressed freedom of discussion, and strangled literature; and it
|
|
filled the jails with the men and women who had been most prominent
|
|
in exposing the clergy, and it had, and continues to have,
|
|
thousands of them labelled <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> and shot.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> We talk about the blindness of men in the red haze of war, but
|
|
the third year of this most terrible of all war's has been, to the
|
|
intense mortification of the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>, a year of
|
|
illumination. Self-interest has, of course, helped the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns to surmount the prejudices that have been pumped into
|
|
them by press, pulpit, literature, and the cinema for 20 years, but
|
|
it will hardly be questioned that the magnificent conduct of the
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n people has been the main fact that opened the eyes of folk
|
|
to their great qualities and the soundness of their system. Right
|
|
until the hordes of <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> tanks, set free by the absence of any
|
|
opposition on the western front, were within a few hours run of
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Leningrad</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Moscow</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Britons</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns were whispering that of
|
|
course the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n people would not fight with real devotion and
|
|
the requisite energy for a government that usurped power, treated
|
|
them despotically and mercilessly, and robbed them of their
|
|
previous religion. Novels, the class-books of so many millions,
|
|
still circulated in which the <ent type='ORG'>Commissars</ent> and leading officials were
|
|
represented as sadistic monsters who lived on champagne, caviar,
|
|
and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> virgins.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> History has rarely seen such a revulsion of sentiment, such a
|
|
triumph over two decades of priestly and aristocratic slander, as
|
|
has happened in the last six months. <ent type='NORP'>Conservative</ent> leaders now speak
|
|
in public about "our noble <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n ally," and deputies from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
|
|
who only six months ago were admitted at the back doors, so to
|
|
speak, are received with royal hands. And it is only in the last
|
|
few months that the press or most of it -- many papers still crab
|
|
at <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and frown on the popular enthusiasm -- has supported the
|
|
change of heart. In <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> most of the cinemas still treat <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>
|
|
as a power which it would be indecent to obtrude upon the notice of
|
|
a <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> people. Bands at Anglo-<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n functions are forbidden
|
|
to play the <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> national anthem, and rich if small
|
|
organizations continue to publish the old libels. But, the facts
|
|
have for the vast majority of people swept away the long-standing
|
|
prejudices as the first warm rains of spring wash away the snows.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The next step will be for the public to reflect how it has
|
|
been systematically duped over a long series of years. The share of
|
|
the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> in this has been so conducted that most
|
|
people are unaware of it, but the truth slowly emerges and <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>
|
|
shudders. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, we saw, already puts out rumors that in his
|
|
intimate circle he, from the first, drew a sharp distinction
|
|
between what he blamed in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which was virtuous on the wrong
|
|
grounds, and what he blamed in <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. But no one has
|
|
read a line in which he gave a straight moral condemnation of the
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s and the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s -- he never blamed more than their
|
|
interference with <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> and the attempt to annihilate <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> -- whereas the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities themselves translated
|
|
and circularized the vicious, vitriolic speech on the <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> of
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which he delivered on September 14,
|
|
1936, (The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> Terror).</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
23
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Into whatever contortion the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> is driven in
|
|
the next few years the world is confronted today by a situation
|
|
which sets in a glorious light all that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> cursed and casts
|
|
a shade of ignominy and cowardice upon all that he blessed. <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>
|
|
shines, and even <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> wins honor and admiration: the two chief
|
|
countries in which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had seen the activity of the devil:
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, the Land which his shining <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> crusaders were going to
|
|
deliver from bondage and misery, is a country of spectral forms and
|
|
general mourning, a land in which innocent men face the firing-squad daily, while the priests wax fatter, and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
"nobles" and politicians do actually carouse in <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> as the
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Bolshevik</ent> leaders were represented by the Pope's agents as doing in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Moscow</ent>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, we saw on the authority of a writer whom <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s had imprudently recommended as veracious, is a country in
|
|
which priest-ridden jailers use the vilest tortures that were used
|
|
in the ages of faith: in which decades of Liberal work for the
|
|
education and elevation of the people have been trodden under foot,
|
|
and the dictators are richly rewarded by <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> because they declare
|
|
that they are ruling <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> on the lines of the Pope's beautiful
|
|
(but untranslated) encyclical.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, dragged at the heels of Hitler's bumping chariot, is in
|
|
so pitiful a condition that it wins the sympathy of its <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>
|
|
enemies. From his own Vatican windows the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> looks out upon a
|
|
people that in a very high proportion curses the man whom the
|
|
Vatican, by a sordid bargain, confirmed in his usurped power.
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>London</ent>, the bombed and ravaged city, is gay with confidence, well
|
|
fed, richly entertained at nights, reflecting the summer sun on the
|
|
faces of its citizens. <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is beggared and dejected, despised and
|
|
bullied by the men who invited it to share the conquest of the
|
|
world.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> is sullen and simmering. The myth that it was
|
|
somehow ruled against its will by a posse of <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Atheists</ent>, and
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Freemasons</ent> and would, under such men of piety as <ent type='PERSON'>Laval</ent> and Petain,
|
|
flock cheerfully to the churches, is exploded. From <ent type='GPE'>Normandy</ent> to
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Savoy</ent> people sigh for deliverance from the regime of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism
|
|
and dishonor, rusticity and penury, which has been forced upon
|
|
them. The <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> people have provided most of the $10000000000
|
|
worth of loot that the blond beasts, whom the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>
|
|
persuaded the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> to admit, have dragged in <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> cars on
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> petrol into <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y. Never since its earliest history has
|
|
proud <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> fallen so low as it is today, and it shudders to think
|
|
that it may not have reached the end of its humiliating surrender.
|
|
No people in the world today respects <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> -- except priest-ridden Quebec.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> lies under an almost impenetrable cloud, earning its
|
|
dry bread only by working for the master whom it has for quarter of
|
|
a century hated more than any other on earth. <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> has perished.
|
|
It is again the despised southern fringe of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Reich</ent>. The
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Croats</ent>, who were persuaded by their priests to betray their
|
|
country, fight the men to whom they betrayed it because they were
|
|
the Pope's allies. The <ent type='NORP'>Slovaks</ent> who were similarly persuaded to
|
|
complete the ruin of the country in which they had, enjoyed freedom</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
24
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>and social welfare now melt away on the battlefield of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>.
|
|
Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, the huge conglomeration of states which at the wave
|
|
of Pacelli's white hand declared itself <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, once more, is
|
|
rent and bewildered. The Pope's allies, the people find, had
|
|
plotted to ruin them and now hang about their shares with murderous
|
|
intent. And <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, on whose success the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had
|
|
gambled the whole security of his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, seem to have reached the
|
|
peak of their victories and have begun the decline that leads to
|
|
the pit in which the fully developed strength of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
|
|
and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> is bound to bury them.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Chapter V</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> THE MONSTROUS ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THE MIDDLE AGES</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> The treacherous irruption by night of <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> into the war has
|
|
transformed it into the phenomenon which has been forecast, with
|
|
heavy foreboding, for 20 years -- a world-war. Almost the entire
|
|
civilized world is now involved in it. A few powers -- <ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent>,
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Turkey</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent> -- are genuinely neutral, but,
|
|
however clearly we may understand the difficulties of their
|
|
position, no one regards it as an honorable distinction. The rest
|
|
of the civilized world is divided into countries which live under
|
|
the most hated emblems the world has seen for many centuries -- the
|
|
Swastika and <ent type='ORG'>the Rising</ent> <ent type='LOC'>Sun</ent> (for <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> writhes under the former of
|
|
these) -- and countries which are sworn to bring them down to the
|
|
dust.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Apart from Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, which is, as I said, distracted
|
|
between its Papal assurances and the discovery of the perfidy and
|
|
brutality of the Pope's allies, all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries fall in the
|
|
first category. Their national flags where they still have any,
|
|
are, if not deeply stained with dishonor, generally regarded with
|
|
contempt or a pity that is tinged with disdain. There can be few
|
|
more miserable statesmen in the world than Eugene <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, or His
|
|
Holiness Pius XII. Ten years ago he pledged his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> to a belief
|
|
in the ultimate victory of <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. In the ruin
|
|
of all liberal, as well as Socialist and <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent>, ideals which
|
|
they would effect no strong voice would be raised in protest,
|
|
against his alliance with a bestial greed that sought to attain its
|
|
end's by brutality almost without precedent in history. His
|
|
gauleiter and his gestapo would, as always, loyally support the
|
|
Vatican policy. The end justifies the means. As to the mass of the
|
|
faithful, when did any large body of them ever rebel when <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> were united in their policy? And in the
|
|
glorious extension of the power and wealth of <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent>, the
|
|
annihilation of its deadliest enemies, which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> anticipated
|
|
from the victory of Swastika and <ent type='ORG'>the Rising</ent> <ent type='LOC'>Sun</ent> few <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s would
|
|
be in a critical mood.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> In the second stage of the war, when the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s, finding
|
|
nearly all Europe in their power and confident of Subduing the
|
|
remainder, began to disclose their real sentiments about <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> --
|
|
which the Vatican ought to have learned from <ent type='PERSON'>Mein Kampf</ent> 20 years
|
|
ago -- and proposed to share the world with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> only, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
|
|
had a new dream. It suited the interests of the Vatican just as
|
|
well as it was to the interest of <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y that <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>ern Europe </p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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25
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.
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THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
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<p>should have its industries destroyed. Big industries mean clotted
|
|
urban populations, free discussion, freethought, birth control, and
|
|
so on. The Vatican had seen that painful development in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>,
|
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<ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>. The <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> was
|
|
ready to join in the plot to de-industrialize those countries and
|
|
let <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y glow rich by a monopoly of industry, in Europe. Petain,
|
|
with the priests at his elbow, openly mumbles it, in his senile
|
|
honesty, and has within the last month closed down a thousand
|
|
industries in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. <ent type='PERSON'>Leo</ent>pold of <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> and his <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
satellites, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent> cheerfully send their skilled
|
|
workers to <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y or to the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n shambles. <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> would allow
|
|
a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> League of <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>ern Europe, and through <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> the 100000000 folk of Latin <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> would be drawn into
|
|
it. <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> promised the Subjection to the Vatican of all branches
|
|
of the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> and Oriental <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> promised a monopoly of
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> missions (if thoroughly <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ized) in <ent type='LOC'>the Far East</ent>. . . </p>
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<p> That these were the plans on which the Vatican worked I showed
|
|
on <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> admissions and by the plain testimony of facts in the
|
|
first ten booklets. Already the vast field of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> triumph is
|
|
a scorched earth. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is ill, silent, desperately watching the
|
|
last critical phases of a conflict that, unless it be won speedily
|
|
by the <ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent>, will inexorably be lost. From those windows of the
|
|
Vatican Palace which look out upon the world he sees only one flag
|
|
waving above the ruins unsullied: the <ent type='PERSON'>Hammer</ent> and Sickle. <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>
|
|
has won respect by the courage and endurance of her people but,
|
|
after a series of retreats that are rare in <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> history, has
|
|
still to, and doubtless will, redeem the honor of its flag. There
|
|
is a stain on the Stars and Stripes that has yet to be removed.
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. has made no large blunders but has met the initial impact
|
|
of an irresistible force and the loss of vast fertile provinces and
|
|
great industries and has begun its recovery with a devotion,
|
|
energy, and self-sacrifice that have torn the Pope's libels to
|
|
tatter's. Bring on your stage today representative figures of all
|
|
the Pope's peoples -- the pale and ragged <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, the gaunt
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>Spaniard</ent>, the illiterate and poverty-stricken <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent>, the
|
|
shame-faced <ent type='NORP'>Belgian</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>man, the hesitating Latin
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n -- and at the end of the file bring on a <ent type='ORG'>Bolshevik</ent>, and
|
|
listen to the judgment of the audience. What the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> cursed the
|
|
world blesses: what he blessed the world curses. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has lost.</p>
|
|
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|
<p> But, aside from the fact that in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
|
|
International is powerful enough to hide this truth from the mass
|
|
of people, remember that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has lost dozens of times before,
|
|
yet he has today more subjects than ever, immeasurably greater
|
|
wealth, and a new power in non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> A week ago a powerful <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> air-fleet bombed <ent type='GPE'>Cologne</ent>. I had
|
|
wondered how long it would be before this was done. Here was one of
|
|
the most vital and most vulnerable bottle-necks in Europe. Through
|
|
it passed practically all the war-supplies from <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>,
|
|
and <ent type='PERSON'>Northern</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. Thoroughly smash the railway through the city,
|
|
where it approaches the <ent type='GPE'>Rhine</ent>, and the great bridges, and you deal
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>y a terrific blow. But -- I once spent five or six weeks in
|
|
<ent type='GPE'>Cologne</ent> -- the cathedral is close to the railway and the bridges.
|
|
It was unhurt, and who will believe that the vital part of the
|
|
railway and the bridge which carries it over the river, which are </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
26
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>only a few hundred yards from the cathedral, were properly treated
|
|
if no bomb strayed across the square? I hear that, at the prayer of
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, our airman were told to run no risk of touching
|
|
the cathedral.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Why was <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> never bombed? There were times when this was
|
|
within our power, and it might have had a very considerable
|
|
influence on our fortunes in the Mediterranean area. H.G. <ent type='ORG'>Wells</ent>
|
|
asked me the other day if I knew why it was not done. I do not
|
|
know. These things are not put on paper, and if they were the paper
|
|
would never see the light. But there is a grapevine, and the
|
|
message went along it that through Roosevelt <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
|
|
threatened things, and there were <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> threats in
|
|
parts of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire, if we bombed <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> probably
|
|
patted his Papal friend on the back.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> However these things may be, remember that <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> has many times
|
|
in history seemed to be doomed because of its Papal alliances with
|
|
brutality, but it recovered. About 850 years ago the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>s
|
|
themselves drove one of the strongest of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s into exile for
|
|
such an alliance. In 1527 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> armies wrecked <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> as <ent type='NORP'>Goths</ent> and
|
|
<ent type='ORG'>Vandals</ent> had never done. Early in the 19th Century, a contemporary
|
|
tells us, Napoleon's generals, entering <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and carrying off the
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, decided that this was to be the end of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent>; and not
|
|
many years later <ent type='PERSON'>Macaulay</ent> made his foolish prediction that there
|
|
would still be a <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> when visitors from <ent type='GPE'>New Zealand</ent> came to see
|
|
the ruins of <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> I dislike prediction's, and indeed I have accomplished the
|
|
work which I set out to do in this series of books. I proved to the
|
|
hilt the indictment I brought against the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>, and
|
|
I have now shown that <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is of such a nature, so
|
|
dangerous in its structure and so feeble in its intellectual
|
|
appeal, that it is bound to look for such allies in every age. A
|
|
third line of evidence is found in Papal history, especially during
|
|
the last century and a half. Violence has always -- I do not know
|
|
if this was in the protocols given by <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> to <ent type='PERSON'>Peter</ent> -- been the
|
|
policy on which the <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> relied. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s merely
|
|
kept the weapon tucked under their cassocks during the few decades
|
|
between the death of feudal tyranny and the birth of totalitarian
|
|
tyranny. The leopard does not change its spots, but it may have
|
|
them white-washed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Nevertheless I may conclude with a glance at the future. This
|
|
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> horror shall and will perish. As I write there is
|
|
still time for a serious setback to <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, or <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, or
|
|
all three. I have never been tempted to underrate the ability of
|
|
the men who, behind the miserable tinfoil <ent type='PERSON'>Siegfried</ent> and his greedy,
|
|
friends, direct the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> effort or the cunning and lean energy of
|
|
the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent>. If this serious advance of the <ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent> does not occur in
|
|
the next few weeks we may breathe freely. Within, two further
|
|
months the retreat will begin. The end, this year (if <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> opens
|
|
a second front) or next, is certain.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> What will <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> do? Remember first that comparatively few
|
|
people know the story of its guilt. A few <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n papers have at
|
|
intervals reported Vatican events which suggested it. The vast
|
|
majority of the leading papers, both in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, never </p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
27
|
|
.
|
|
THE FRUITS OF ROMANISM</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>gave any news which gave their readers an inkling of the truth.
|
|
Fortunately, much had been reported -- the compact with <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>,
|
|
the Concordat with <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, the enthusiastic support of <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, the
|
|
diplomatic arrangement with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, and so on -- before the
|
|
bestiality of Fascism had revealed itself, and such facts as that
|
|
the only voluntary "crusaders" against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> are from <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
|
|
countries and the unconverted isolationists of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> play up
|
|
strongly to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> minority, give us a basis in the Public
|
|
mind for a proper education.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> It is therefore probable that there will not be the general
|
|
outcry against <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> that a man who has read the full evidence
|
|
would. expect. No other writer of influence has the courage and
|
|
honesty to warn the public, as <ent type='ORG'>Wells</ent> does, that instead of having
|
|
been reconciled with the modern spirit <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is as
|
|
dangerous an enemy of civilization as ever. One thing only would
|
|
cause <ent type='ORG'>the Church</ent> the deepest alarm: if the victory of democracy
|
|
were to put <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> and Socialism back in the places they
|
|
occupied years ago. Will this happen?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> It depends very largely upon <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. When the war is over the
|
|
isolationists will be amongst the loudest to demand that <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>
|
|
shall have a leading voice in the settlement of Europe and <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>.
|
|
Every sensible man will welcome the aid of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> in such a
|
|
restoration of Europe that, instead of sowing the dragon's teeth as
|
|
we did at Versailles at the close of the last war, we have every
|
|
guarantee that is humanly possible of a lasting peace. But the
|
|
terms of settlement that have been so far announced are ominously
|
|
vague, and we know only too well what "stability" means on the lips
|
|
of these folk.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> You will find, when the time comes, that the Vatican will make
|
|
a brazen attempt to secure a voice as one of the great stabilizing
|
|
forces. You will find <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s everywhere combining with the
|
|
reactionaries who want to plan the new Europe. They will want
|
|
<ent type='PERSON'>Leo</ent>pold restored, men like <ent type='PERSON'>Bonnet</ent> put in power in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>
|
|
firmly established in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, the royal
|
|
family propped on the throne of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and so on. By hook or crook
|
|
they will try to get <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which will have won the war in Europe,
|
|
excluded from the settlement. They will insist that religion be
|
|
"strengthened," knowing that <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>ism,, Buddhism, and <ent type='ORG'>Islam</ent> have
|
|
worked on the side of our enemies, and that <ent type='ORG'>Communism</ent> be taken at
|
|
the Pope's valuation. If the present generation tolerates these
|
|
things and does not insist on the guilt of every party being
|
|
stamped upon the mind of the world they will deserve their future.
|
|
The struggle for the rights of man which has reddened Europe with
|
|
blood for a century and a half will enter upon a new phase.</p>
|
|
|
|
<div> **** ****</div>
|
|
|
|
<p> Reproducible <ent type='ORG'>Electronic Publishing</ent> can defeat censorship.</p>
|
|
|
|
<div> **** ****</div>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
|
|
28
|
|
</p></xml> |