The War Upon Religion / Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in Europe

by Francis A. Cunningham

SITUATION IN ROME TODAY.

On September 20 of last year, the fortieth anniversary of the breach of Porta Pia, an incident took place which betrayed the real character of Italian anti-clericalism. It was on that day forty years before that the Pope was deprived not only of his temporal dominions but even of his liberty. The Vatican became as a little rock, in the midst of a stormy sea whose waves lashed it incessantly. Since 1870 no Pope has ever left the Vatican alive. Even the dead remains of Pope Pius IX. could not be carried through the streets without molestations. This fact made it evident last year that the remains of Leo XIII. could not be brought safely from their temporary resting place to their tomb in St. John Lateran. To avoid all similar trouble Pius X. has chosen for his last resting place the crypt of St. Peter's.

In the beginning of the Piedmontese occupation excessive care was taken to show a good face before the world. The politicians and political measures of the new government were at least moderate. But as time went on the enemies of the Church became emboldened in their hostility. The confiscations of the early eighties encouraged the spirit of unbelief and outrage which was embedded by evil example in the minds of a new generation.

THE INSULT OF MAYOR NATHAN.

In 1889, the votaries of every manner of disorder, intellectual, religious, and social, celebrated the reign of anarchy by the unveiling, in the Campo dei Fiori, of a statue of Giordano Bruno, an apostate monk, who has thus become the patron of anti-Christianism in Rome. Every year thenceforth the anniversary of the taking of Rome has been made the occasion of insult and defamation against the Holy See and the Catholic religion. Last year, Nathan, the Jewish Mayor of Rome, carried effrontery to its extreme. In a speech delivered on the occasion of the 20th September he hurled abuse, calumny and insult upon the Holy See in a manner to call for protests from even the anti-clerical forces of the City. The Holy Father himself uttered a vigorous protest, which met with responsive sympathy from every part of the Catholic world. In Montreal, especially, a mighty meeting of twenty thousand Catholics voiced their indignation in the name of that Catholic city. Its effectiveness is evident from the fact that it forced a speedy though very lame explanation from Nathan himself, whose letter showed both his ignorance and his lack of acquaintance with the elementary notions of good breeding.

POPE PIUS X.

CHARACTER OF PIUS X.

Pius X. shines as an exemplar of indomitable Christian Faith, confronting the infidelity of a modern world. He has the faith of Leo I., which stopped the march of Attila against Rome; the unwavering courage of Gregory VII., who died in exile but triumphed after his death over his enemies. The crises which he faces are not new, and he meets them with the old weapons of supernatural manufacture which have proved to be the most effective against the enemies of the Church in all the ages which have passed. He is the true diplomat relying not on earthly defences, but on the promises of Christ to His Church.

The Latin statesmen who are opposed to him have found an impregnable barrier to their sinister designs. They may exult in a cheap, temporary triumph, but they have set loose to attain it the forces of disorder, and they will reap in time the deadly fruitage of their ill-advised plotting against the rights of the Church.