Every species and form of vice, crime, and corruption are paraded and presented under disguises, more or less specious or flimsy, of science, literature, religion, or art.
The old are divested of gravity and reserve, and the young have lost the freshness, the sweetness, the innocence, the candor, and the bloom which should belong to youth.
The burlesque is invoked with horrid incantation to degrade the reason, paralyze the understanding, and brutalize the imagination, and oriental lasciviousness to apply the torch of passion to the intellectual and moral ruins.
Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or, on the other, empty and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver to caricature the institutions and offices of our religion, and others to exhibit the grossest forms of vice and the most distressing scenes of crime and suffering.
The illustrated press has become to us what the amphitheatre was to the Romans when men were slain, women were outraged, and Christians given to the lions to please a degenerate populace.
It is obvious, then, if what we have said be true, that there is a great work for the Catholic voter to perform.
The Constitution and Declaration of Independence guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Catholic values his life that he may devote it to the service of the church, and, if required, offer it for her safety and honor; liberty, to be and remain Catholic, enjoy freedom in the exercise of his religion, and transmit this priceless inheritance unimpaired to his descendants; the pursuit of happiness, that he may attain the happiness of heaven!
The Catholic voter meditates no invasion of vested rights. The constitution and government of the United States have the approval of the holy see. The Catholic is satisfied with the laws of his country, and only dissatisfied with local legislation, which contravenes the implied pledges of the constitution and the common law, based upon the canon law.
He demands nothing that natural justice and the legitimate interpretation of the constitution do not guarantee him. Freedom in religion entitles him to protection against open and secret attacks upon what he holds most dear, under the guise of state education, and which are invariably made in every system of uncatholic or infidel education. The great majority of English-speaking Catholics have had a personal and national experience of the bitter fruit of systems of education divorced from the control of the church, and in the French revolution they recognize the results of infidel science, literature, and sentiment practically applied to the reformation of society. France gave the world a terrible illustration of the violent, frantic creed and futile efforts which humanity makes when it would be sufficient for itself and become its own redeemer. France almost expired. Her Catholicity alone saved her. The Goths and Vandals entered Paris, but were compelled to retire. They entered ancient Rome, and remained.