PAGE FOUR
Published Weekly by
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
of the Diocese of Little Rock
309 WEST SECOND STREET
Entered as second-class matter March 21, 1911. at the postoflice at
Little Rock, A,'k., under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879.
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cHAN G'E'"O F A-DDR ESS
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CORRESPONDENCE
Iatler intended for publication in The Guardian should reach us
not later than Wednesday morning. Brief news correspondence is
always welcome. The kindness of the clergy in this matter is cordially
appreciated.
Very Rev. A. Stocker, O. S. B., D. D ................... Editor-in-Chief
Rev. Edward A. Flannery ......................... Contributing Editor
Rev. Gee. H. McDermott ............................. Managing Editor
All communications about "The Guardian" should be ,addressed to
the Rev. Geo, H. licDermott, 39 West Second Street.
OFFICIAL"APPROVAL
The Guardian is the official organ of the diocese of Little Rock. and
I pray God that it may be an earnest chaml)ion in the cause of right,
justice and truth and an ardent defender of the religion which we all
love so well. I exlcnd to it my blessing with the sincere hope that its
career lnay be long and prosperous,
JOHN B. MORRIS,
Bishop of ? ittle Rock.
Little Rock, Ark., December 4, 1920.
From the Ohio Waisenfreund we learn that'
Archbishop Pimenta has been chosen a member
of the Brazilian Academy, the first time that such
an honor has come to a Catholic bishop in that
country. On the occasion of his reception the
president of the society said in part: "Only peo-
ple of weak intelligence can underrate the ira-
portance of the Catholic influence in the social
development of Brazil. And in this Catholic in-
fluence the Brazilian episcopate has had no mean
share. Within recent years the prestige of Cath-
olicism has grown apace and promises to become
mightier from day to day."
0-O
A. G. Gardiner, former editor of the London
Daily News, declares, in a special cable message
to the New York Herald of November 21, that
public indignation is' rising rapidly in England
among the better elements over the shameful
atrocities committed by the Lloyd George govern-
ment against the Irish people. "The Peace With
Ireland Council," he says, "is mobilizing all that
is best in all the parties against this infamy and
is'arranging a monster demonstration throughout
the country. Labor is solid in hostility. But it
is the Liberal Party that has been struck to
fiercest anger--an anger that is intensified by the
fact that this unspeakable shame has been in-
flicted on the country by a man who once was a
Liberal. When the Liberal federation meets, the
Liberal forces of the country will join in crushing
condemnation of Lloyd George's treachery to
everything that liberalism holds dear."
Press reports have it that Lenine is increasing
the force of his •agents in.this country to exploit
the present situation of wide-spread unemploy-
ment in behalf of his revolutionary plans. Un-
fortunately a few strong groups of employers in
this country are working, by their campaign in
behalf of the open shop (which in reality is
aimed at the destruction of trade-unionism), into
the hands of the revolutionaries. In a statement
by the social department of the National Cath-
olic Welfare Council we read: "There is great
'danger that the whole nation will be harmed by
this campaign of a few groups of strong em-
ployers. To aim now at putting into greater sub-
jeetion the workers in industry is blind and fool-
hardy. The radical movements and d'isturbances
in Europe ought to hold a lesson for the em-
ployers of America. And the voice of the Ameri-
can people ought to be raised in the endeavor to
drive this lesson home.•"
O-O"
What we hear about the Czech Schism only
confirms what could be guessed beforehand, viz. :
that those priests did. not leave the Church be-
cause the Church was corrupt but because they
;were corrupt themselves. " The discipline of
Rome was too strict 'for them, and seeing an
opportunity to shake it off without forfeiting
their, living, the temptation was too great for
them. Here are the words of one of their spokes-
men (quoted froman article by E. Christitch in
America of November 20): "Earth would be a
Paradise if religions and ceremonies were done
away with. I do not believe in an Almighty God,
or in a devil, or in Providence. All this is a Lie i"
- Is it a wonder that men like these did not find
themselves at home in the Catholic Church? Nor
need the Church regret their exodus, for open
apostates are less dangerous than disguised
wolves within the flock.
fS-(
DOCTORED HISTOR Y.
By doctored history we mean history written
with a partisan purpose. Personalities and
events are disinfected to let a given cause appear
in a more farm:able light than it deserves in
reality. This may lie done by a suppression of
Sruth or by a statement of 'falsehood, the "latter
of which is evidently the more serious fault of the
wo.
'That history, both civil and ecclesiastical, has
.been written in this manner cannot be gainsaid.
;And if this reproach is sometimes made against
Catholic church-historians, they, as compared with
THE GUARDIAN, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1920.
i i ii
Protestant church-historians, certainly show to
no disadvantage. If, therefore, a Catholic were
visited with this taunt, Your Catholic histories
are not telling the truth, he might answer with
the retort, What about yours? This would end
the dispute, because probably neither one nor the
other could go further in his argument. But
while a retort may be a ready method to get rid
of an impertinent intruder, the question really
remains to be settled whether there is any ground
for the impeachment of Catholic church-histo-
rians before the bar of historical truth. For one
wrong" does not neutralize another, and though
others lie against you, you are not justified in
lying back against them.
This train of thoughts has been suggested to
us by an article of the Rev. William Henry Kent,
0. S. C., in The Catholic Historical Review of
October. With him we distinguish between his-
tory and history. One might write a history of
the great men of a country, the men whose
achievements have marked the progressive stages
of a commonwealth, remaining silent about less
glorious episodes and even about some blemishes
that attached to the private lives of these great
public men. Such a history is true, as far as it
a'oes, and serves a legitimate purpose, viz., to fos-
ter patriotism in the reader. A sinilar method
with a similar purpose may be pursued by a
church-historian.
Agafn, a text book of history, which is neces-
sarily compendious, as it cannot mention all the
good things each historical character has done,
is not bound to divulge all the incidental evil. A
fair proportion of lights and shades is all that
can be expected from a historian working under
the indicated limitations. If therefore in either
of these two cases a. Catholic church-historian
does not tell the whole truth, no fair-minded per-
son will accuse him of prevarication.
But when there is question of history for his-
tory's sake, then its aim is to furnish as faithful
a portrait of past times as the most painstaking
researches can compass. As Father Kent says,
some Catholic historians--not, however, in con.
trast to Protestants have shown an unworthy
pussillanimity in facing the sometimes ugly facts.
Such conduct is not to be condoned in a historian.
Catholic historians, ought to remember that there
are, according to Christ's own prediction, good
and bad fish in the net of God's Kingdom, as there
is cockle amidst the wheat. Nor did the inspired
writers who wrote the history of God's chosen
people of the ancient covenant suppress the often
humiliating truth. Neither has the Church of
the New Covenant or-its rulers been promised
impeccability. If one of the twelve original
Apostles failed, we cannot be surprised that some
of the later apostles fell short of the spirit of
heir vocation. S.
PLIABILITY OF MIND.
In the Biblical World of September Shailer
Mathews discusses the subject of "changing one's
religious mind." He says that, on the one hand
frequent changes of mind betoken a vacillati'ng
character, while, on the other hand, the'reluct-
ance to change it on the presentation of new evi
dence is neither honest nor creditable to a Chris-
tian. As a general proposition this statement
may go unchallenged. But in its practical appli-
cation it has not the same meaning and scope for
all Christians.
Let us begin with some distinctions. The atti-
tude of the mind towards a proposition of reli-
gion, say the Existence of God, may be denial,
doubt, surmise, opinion, or certitude. He who
denies it refuses his assent, he who doub*ts it sus-
pends his assent, he who surmises it inclines his
assent, he who has an opinion about it embraces
the proposition though with a misgiving of being
possibly mistaken, he who has certitude embraces
the proposition without the least fear of being
mistaken.
Now it starLds to reason that a change of mind
from denial upward to certitude is a laudable
thing and cannot honestly or virtuously be re-
fused in the face of ex, idence. You cannot hon-
estly deny or doubt what you know to be so and
not oherwise. And this is precisely the meaning
of evidence. That in science there are things we
know to be so and not otherwise, is plain; for
instance, the multiplication table or the laws of
physics and chemistry. To change one's mind in
regard to these scientific facts once attained
would be a retrogression from truth to error.
But is there a final certitude, even on this earth,
also in matters, of religion or faith ? If so, there
may be a state of the religious mind where
change would be neither hor.est nor creditable to
a Christian. Now, Catholics believe that there is
such a state of certitude in matters of re!igion,
because their faith comprises the tenet of the in-
fallible teachifig authority of the Church. Pro-
testants, on the contrary, waive the claim of the
infallibility of their churches and proclaim the
principle of private judgment as the right of each
individual Christian. Hence, while they may be
certain about the Bible as the word of God, they
can, in accordance with their very principles, have
no final certitude about its interpretation, • And I
it is the interpretation that matters. For, after
all, it depends on the interpretation whether you.!
get themird of•God out of the Bible or not. For
Us Catholics the infallibility of the Church guar-
antees the correctness of the interpretation, and
as far as the Church's authentic interpretation
has covered the field of divine revelation our[
mental certitude is fixed and unchangeable.
From this it follows at once that a Protestant
may become a Catholic without doing violence to
the principles of his religion, tie is professedly
a searcher after religious truth. Private judg-
ment is his native right, and, as we said above, his
church does not claim to be his infallible guide.
Hence if a Protestant,by reading the Scriptures
with his private judgTaent, has come to recognize
the Catholic Church as the true church and joins
it, no one can blame him for this move without,
at least implicitly, both denying the right of pri-
vate judgment and asseling the infallibility of
the denomination from which he has withdrawn.
A Catholic, on the contrary, by leaving his
Church, violates a fundamental principle of his
religion. He is truly an apostate, while this name
in no way belongs to a Protestant convert to the
Catholic Church.
So much, then, we have from this discussion
that a Protestant, to be true to his religion, must
ever' be ready to change his religious mind, while
a Catholic, to be true to his religion, must have
an absolutely settled religious mind as far as it is
imbued with the authoritative teachings of his
Church. Whether this position of the Catholic is
objectively correct depends on the question
whether the Church is really infallible. It can-
not be our present purpose to enter into argu-
ments on this subject. But does it not seem ante-
cedently plausible that God giving a revelation to
mankind would make his gift perfect by giving
with it an official interpretation? So did the
Fathers of this country not only give us a Con-
stitution but a Supreme Court also to interpret
it. Without the latter the Constitution would
have become a source of confusion and disruption,
as has been the case with the Bible wherever the
authority of the Church has been set aside.
S.
O-O.
FUTILE PREA CHING.
John S pargo, who writes glorious Enffli,h and
who till recently belonged to orthodox Socialism,
recently started a controversy in a more or less I
Protestant publication whether or not preaching
was useless. Immediately he was answered by
Lyman Abbot and a few less known members of
the non-Catholic clergy. We Catholics are inter-
ested in the debate merely because it emphasizes
points upon which our Church has been always
strongly insistent.
To begin with Spargo•scouts the idea that the
Christian church was ever established to suggest
schemes of economic or political alleviation.
When clergymen stand in the pulpit and pretend
to advise experts in the pews on the ways and
means of remedying all the ills that flesh is heir
to the chances are that ministerial words fall on
deaf, if not scoffing ears. The Shantung situa-
tion, coal strikes, the League of Nations, and for
ourselves we might add the death of MacSwiney,
"might be appropriate themes for journalistic com
ment, but as pulpit subjects they hardly fit into
the command that the gospel must be preached to
all the people.
From which we derive the Catholic, as opposed
to the non-Catholic, idea of the Christian religion.
The Protestant" Reformation was based on the
supposition that the faith of Christ was purely"
intellectual, appealing to one faculty in the soul of
man. So preaching, not service or ceremonial,
was accentuated, at .the expense of that rounded
out ritualistic observance which speaks to all the
powers of the human spirit. So today when a
question is raised about the worth or futility of
preaching it 0nly stresses the fact that outside of
Catholicism the appeal to the intellect constitutes
the substance of the faiths foreign to our belief
and when such approaches fail nothing remains
to induce men and women to adhere to Christian
worship. Whereas in our Church, no matter what
the character of. the preaching may be, the Great
Sacrifice and the sacraments retain the people
faithful to the practices of their religion. F.
PREJUDICE.
It is difficult at times to figure how certain edi
tors despise the intelligence of the average reader.
What presently calls up the thought is the atti-
tude of the New York Times on the Irish situa-
tion. This journal, which re-echoes the sentiments
of its namesake across the seas, has had two long
and labored editorials on the disturbances in the
Emerald Isle which insult the' intelligence of any
rational peruser of the daily press. The awful
happenings of Bloody Sunday are dwelt upon
ith a minuteness of detail to influence the mind
of Americans hostilely towards the representa-
tives of the Irish Republic. Not one word is said
of the heinous criminality which turned machine
guns on an innocent crowd, to show that murder
is courtenanced by a government which pretends
to hold up its hands in holy horror against law-
lessness.
:It may be known o'the reader ,that a publica-
tion in New Yoik has f0"rmel': .commi, orig-
inally one hundred, but since increased, to find
the:•true conditions of the
situat%n.
Irish
Look-
ing through the list it will be found
Catholic prelates are included, while
all other denominations are numbered
score. Most of us thought that it was
jmT from the nature of names corn
committee. On the special investigating
tee David Walsh of Massachusetts is
Catholic, Irish descendant. The
however, discovers that it is gathering
foes to render a verdict in favor of
it not about the hour for the big
declare who owns them and why
are so futile and unimpressive?
g,
QUESTION
How do you explain that we give
priest to have him say Mass?
We know that the Mass cannot be
sold. Even though it could be bought
impossible to place a price, since the
finite in value. The Catholic makes
to the priest when he asks him to say
i his intention. This offering or
i tribution on the part of the faithful
!support of their priests. A priest muSSy:
!must be suported by those for
priest, to whom he is devoting all his
have the authority of Saint Paul:
dained that they who preach the
live by the Gospel." It is suitable
ful take occasion when asking a
at the hands of their priest to make
for their support. In order that
abuse, the Church has fixed the
person is supposed to give to the
asks him to offer a Mass for his
a priest accepts the offering or
bound in justice to say the Mass.'
Why is it that there is so little
Third Person o/ the Blessed TrinitY!
It is unfortunately true that therell
dev6tion to the Holy Ghost that
The Holy Ghost occupies in the
Church a position equal with thg
of the Blessed Trinity and all her
offered up in His Name as well as in'
the Father and of the Son. Every
the Sign of the Cross we call
Ghost, together with the Father and !
should have a special devotion to
son of the Adorable Trinity. In
salvation it is His distinctive work
souls of the faithful, souls that
the Father and redeemed by the
How can one figure whether he
his portion to the support o the
Each one is supposed to
port of the Church according to
your conscience troubles-you,
to your confessor, telling him
you receive each year and how
give to God. He will then be in:
advise you.
Will children dying without
punishment ?
.. Infants who die without
is called the pain of loss, that is,
admitted to the Beatific Vision of
the loss of the Beatific Vision is
terrible punishments in hell for
sinner, it will not affect the
the same way. Infants dying
will have the natural happiness
cording to their knowledge. Not
the supernatural • order, they
natural knowledge of God or a
sire for Him.
Was it ever a practice in the
to baptize by immersion?
In the early days the three
infusion and aspersion were
three forms is valid. In
mersion was generally employed,
held that infusion or aspersion
present Ritual prescribes that
poured on the head of the
This is a.matter of discipline
Church has full control.
Does a person have to have
marry? Is a person's
out by God?
Some calls to a particular state 1
providentially by God. For
left to our own. choice.
that God detenins for
life and thata person's
chiefly on this shelve:
erally held. "If this @ere
infinitely good, would
every man in a way which
derstood..In the Case of
Divine decree, logically
lions, which assigns to
While God knows what each
state of life he will folloW,
married will select, He leaves
of the individual.
in We
Unless .
of ci
far
