Anarchy

The Catholic Sentinel

Socialists are constantly protesting against being classified with anarchists. Socialism and anarchy, they explain. have exactly opposite ends in view. An all-powerful government is the ideal of the one, and no government at all, the ideal of the other.

Such a distinction is very well in the abstract, but when it comes to everyday life, anarchists and socialists seem sadly mixed at times. A case in point is furnished by French socialism. A large wing of the party is frankly engaged in an effort to make governmental authority ineffective in France. This wing of the party preaches anarchy to the army and professes its willingness to destroy the government of the Republic rather than see France engaged in a foreign

war.

Mr. Jean Jaures, who is looked upon as the official mouthpiece of French socialism, in a speech in Paris on September 8, voiced the sentiments of the anarchists of his party. He asked for a court of international arbitration of the widest scope and declared that if France refused arbitration with another nation "instead of marching to the frontier it would be the duty of the proletariat to revolt and throw down that government of crime by force of arms."

At the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart a few weeks before, Mr. Jaures and his followers embodied. their anarchistic views in a resolution and tried to have it passed, but the German socialists overwhelmingly defeated the proposal. It will be seen, therefore, that a man can be an anarchist while calling himself a socialist.

It is sufficient commentary on the professions of French freethinkers that Mr. Jaures, a high priest of French free.

thought, should preach that it is a crime to disagree with him, a crime worthy of death.

The Real Foes of Science

The Catholic Standard and Times

In shattering the pretense now being industriously promulgated by the enemies of the Catholic Church that the present Pope has created an unbridgeable chasm between the Church and Science, the facile pen of Dr. James J. Walsh, of this city and Fordham University, is doing yeoman service. Dr. Walsh is in himself a living example that that pretense is just a pretense, and nothing else. He is an indefatigable seeker after the bottom truths in many sciences, as well as a lucid and diligent chronicler of results and the lives of the Catholic scientists who achieved them. He has abundantly demonstrated the absurdity of the assertion made by that lively New York luminary which took the name of "The Sun" to itself, that the designation "Catholic scientist" must be henceforth, after the Papal Syllabus of Errors, only a contradiction in terms. Now he has turned his artillery on President Andrew D. White's book on "The Warfare of Science With Theology." This book is widely read, and it was lately quoted by the Evening Post as showing that the Church has been the persistent enemy and persecutor of Science and its votaries. It was a comparatively easy task. to demolish Professor White's case, because the man deemed good enough to be the head of an American university seemed to be ignorant of the very rudiments of the subject he had the temerity to start. He quoted a Decretal of Pope Boniface VIII as issued against dissection, and says that this document made the practice of dissection a sin against the Holy Ghost. Dr. Walsh makes it plain that President White knows no

more about Papal Infallibility, which he quotes, that he does about the meaning of the Decretal he was discussing. He wrote to the Evening Post editor:

"President White asserts that there is a Papal bull forbidding dissection. The bull he quotes does not forbid dissection, but prohibits a practice-that of cutting up the bodies of the dead and boiling them in order to transport them to long distances-which any modern sanitary authority would at once condemn. Four centuries and a half after the issuance of that bull, one of the Popes, Benedict XIV, was asked if it applied to dissection, and he pronounced that it did not. In the meantime there had been a Papal medical school at Rome for over four centuries, and for two centuries of that time the greatest teachers in anatomy that ever lived did their work at this Papal medical school. The list of professors of anatomy at Rome includes such names as Eustachius Varolius, Columbus, Caesalpinus, Aranzi, Malpighi and Lancisi. With the exception of Vesalius and Harvey these are the greatest names in the history of anatomy. They did their work at Rome, yet President White says that 'dissection was a sin against the Holy Ghost."

"President White quotes a bull which is supposed to forbid chemistry, the text of which shows that what it really forbade was the fraud of pretending to make gold and silver which was the gold brick industry of the Middle Ages. The Pope (John XXII) who issued this bull founded three medical schools and required that the course in them should be seven years, three for preparatory study and four for professional work."

It was unfortunate for the president of Columbia that he selected the period of Pope Boniface VIII for his assault. on the truth. It enabled his antagonist to "get his head in chancery" and keep it there till he had punished him to his liking. Dr. Walsh wrote, in a subsequent letter to the Post, this clincher:

"The curious thing is that the date of this bull is almost exactly the date of the first medico-legal dissection of which there is any record. Bodies had been dissected for at least a century at Salerno, but immediately after the date of this bull the evidence for the frequency of dissection accumulates. Before twenty years had passed there were prosecutions for body snatching in Italy, because students were too ardent in their search for material.

* * "At the very time when President White says Vesalius was practicing dissection at the risk of his life because of ecclesiastical opposition, Columbus, his great rival, was making as many as fourteen dissections in one year at Rome, and his public demonstrations in anatomy were attended by as many as four hundred persons, including at times cardinals and other high ecclesiastics."

Dr. Walsh dismisses President White's history as absurd, though amusing:

"He even makes an amusing misuse of the word infallibility in order to make the Pope responsible for the prohibition of dissection. Pope Boniface VIII as an infallible teacher should have had a foresight of the consequences. He uses the word infallibility in the sense in which no properly taught schoolboy should use it, entirely contrary to its real meaning, in order to fix the responsibility for the prohibition of anatomy on this Pope."

The first requisite in the solution of any equation is a clear perception of the meaning and value of its terms. In President White's case his bigotry evidently interposed an insuperable obstacle to the realization of that essential condition in his very remarkable "history."

Dr. Walsh deserves the thanks of the Catholic public for his masterly handling of this latest bogey and fraud. It is as neatly and effectively done as the finishing stroke of a star matador in the arena.

We are assured by Holy Writ that "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead." During November, the month of the Holy Souls, Masses and prayers without number will be offered up for the repose of the faithful souls departed, and the great and generous heart of Christianity will go out to the suffering souls who are awaiting helplessly in keenest sorrow and suffering the fulfillment of God's justice in their regard. Surely there is no charity. that appeals more strongly to Christian souls than suffrages for their dear departed dead and for those countless souls who have no friends to pray for them.

The notable success of the Eucharistic Congress recently held in Pittsburg is most gratifying and significant. The dominant note of the age is scepticism, disbelief in the supernatural. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed," said the Saviour to the doubting disciple-and through him He speaks to the doubting, materialistic world of to-day. The Blessed Eucharist is the sum of the Church's doctrine, the tabernacle is the earthly dwelling place of Christ, the Son of the living God, really, truly and substantially present. We perceive our Eucharistic God with the eyes of faith, and faith is the antithesis of doubt, and its remedy. The Congress was a grand object lesson of faith, and a condemnation of doubt and unbelief.

Tardy justice is in a fair way of being done in his native city to the memory of Father Tom Burke, O. P. At a meeting of the County Galway social club in Boston recently it was unanimously agreed to erect, in the near future, a monument to the memory of the illustri

I was left to find my own seat in sixtynine churches, * * * fifty-four persons in all had spoken a word to me, and that only in thirty-one churches! In one hundred and nineteen churches I had been practically ignored!" These facts gleaned from thorough investigation in representative churches of various denominations in the leading cities of the East, South and West are doubtless sorely disappointing to those who believe so strongly in "sociability" as an element of Protestant influence and strength. The plain truth is that the spirit of exclusiveness so manifest in Protestant churches, and especially in the larger and wealthier ones, repels strangers and the poor, and the boasted democracy of Protestantism is the merest shadow and pretense. Interest and

value would have been added to the article had the lady indicated the attendance at the churches visited. However, it is an accepted fact that Protestant church membership is fast decreasing and there is unquestionable testimony in abundance to the further fact that church attendance is rapidly falling off. The elements of disintegration inhere in Protestantism and merely human devices and makeshifts can not long conserve it. Sociability, the greeting of friends before and after "services," the "welcome" of strangers, the pulpit discussion of "topics of the hour" can never take the place of truth and the pure Gospel of Christ, and no substitute can be supplied by human ingenuity for the Real Presence on God's altar.

Writing in "The Nineteenth Century and After" Mr. Frank Foxcroft has this to say on the influence of the Sunday newspaper on American life:

"What influence does the Sunday newspaper exert upon American life and thought? For one thing, it undoubtedly promotes the increasing secularization of Sunday. The natural man is inclined to sleep late on Sun

for church-going, nor for any serious occupation. It is fit for nothing but amusement or sheer idleness. In some sections of the country a baseball game offers itself for the afternoon, and the theatre-possibly under the guise of a "sacred concert" out of deference to some obsolete statute-for the evening. Or, in sections where the restraints of law or decorum forbid such diversions, social visiting employs what energy remains. It is not surprising that religious conventions discuss the problem of the "evening service," and that many churches solve it by giving up the service altogether, and others by arranging special musical attractions and announcing sermons on topics calculated to pique curiosity. American preachers who are charged with sensationalism are not so blameworthy as they seem. They are engaged in a desperate competition. To a man who wants to preach to full seats the first essential is to catch his congregation. He cannot offer comic supplements or portraits of stage beauties, and he has no prize coupons to distribute, but he may do something by advertising sensational subjects. So the pulpit competes after its fashion with the Sunday newspaper by such topics as these: The New Woman,' 'Popular Vices,' 'Missing His Chance,' 'Prize Winners,' etc."

Happily, Catholics are not influenced by the Sunday paper to the extent indicated by the foregoing. No intelligent Catholic with a knowledge of his su

his toilet and his breakfast, the church bells are ringing. Will he heed their call? Per

haps. But there on his doorstep lies the Sunday paper, with its flaunting comic supplement and its fifty to one hundred pages of miscellaneous material. It offers itself with jaunty assurance as a substitute for churchgoing. It prints a picture of the ideal American family-the father tilted back in his chair, reading the news of the stock market report; the mother absorbed in the fashions and bargain sales; the older children busy with the fiction, society gossip, theatrical news, and answers to correspondents, and the little boy or girl revelling in the comic supplement, puzzle page, or "cut-out" inset from which, with the aid of a pair of scissors, can be evolved ingenious card-board constructions, squads of soldiers, or hideous masks. The picture is not exaggerated. It might be reproduced photographically in hundreds of thousands of American homes. Its counterpart may be seen in remote villages as well as in the cities and larger towns. A family which has saturated itself with the Sunday newspaper is in no mood

would deliberately absent himself from the Divine Sacrifice through so trivial a reason as interest in the morning paper. But, unfortunately, many Catholics devote too much time and attention to the Sunday and daily paper-and there are not a few Catholic families whose entire reading matter is supplied by the secular press. They are strangers alike to Catholic paper and magazine, and consequently are out of touch with current Catholic thought and events and are misinformed generally on things Catholic, accepting unquestionably as Catholic "news" the most absurd reports and speculations concerning the Church and her world-wide interests and policies. Truly, such Catholics are proper subjects of commiseration-and their name, alas, is legion.

We have received the advance sheets of the second volume of the Catholic Encyclopedia, and we take pleasure in adding our mite of praise to that which the work has already received. There was a real need for just such a work. The editors merit the honor and thanks of all English-speaking Catholics. It was not, however, along an unblazed trail that they started, for the French and German Catholics had already set the example. There is abundant ground for the fond hope that this publication will prove a real missionary power in making Catholic truth better understood by outsiders.

Now, in taking exceptions to anything found in its contents, or in running counter to any statements that have its authority, we hope that no one will gain the impression that we are prone to carp or to be captious. It is really the cry of justice that calls us from silence. The article we have particularly in mind is that on Atahuallpa, the last Inca in Peru. The space devoted to him must give pleasure to all who have ever studied the most romantic of all histories, that of the great people who by their own efforts rose from savagery to a high state of culture. In general, the contributor gives entire satisfaction. Where we must protest is when he discusses Fray Vicente de Valverde, the Dominican who accompanied the Spanish invaders. This same poor monk is one of the greatest figures in the early history of South America. He was first named Bishop of Panama and then of Peru-in which office he died. When the motley crew that made up Pizarro's party met the Inca and his hosts at Cajamarca, Valverde went forward with an interpreter to tell him of the evangelical motive of the white men's presence. As the story goes, Valverde, after a brief parley, rushed back to the Spaniards crying out for vengeance, calling on the Spaniards to kill

the pagans who had the audacity to throw his breviary on the ground. The gifted ones among the historians add that he absolved them all. The Catholic Encyclopedia, through its contributor, practically accepts the bulk of this story. The writer says, however, that Valverde only did his imperative duty. We disagree with this dictum. If duty entered into the scene it was to spare the unoffending ruler. The imperative duty of missionaries is to save, not to slay. Any apology of such an action as the above will limp. The bibliography following the article is thorough enough, and can be referred to as the real source of information. The eyewitnesses say not a word about all this trumpery, and the really serious authorities put a very different phase on the story. Valverde's cries were not to encite the Spaniards but to deter them. His course instead of being criminal was really Christian. At another time we will go more at length into the history of this great man, and essay a humble criticism of the motives underlying the divergent accounts. Suffice it to say that acquaintance with the eye-witnesses and early historians clears the great Dominican bishop from the serious charges against him. The author of the article says that the execution of Atahualpa was not unjustifiable. Therefore it was justifiable. And in making this statement he stands practically alone, for contemporary and later historians, of whatever nationality, agree that only greed and treachery can explain the cruel deed.

NICK ROBY: THE STORY
THE STORY OF HIS

CHILDHOOD. By David Bearne, S.
J. Benziger Bros. 12mo. pp. 148.

Father Bearne is well-known as the author of the "Golden Stair Ridingdale Stories," etc., in all of which he has given us books to delight the young