Papal Despotism (Chapter VIII of Romanism)
Father Jeremiah J. Crowley
1912
Nothing more startling has ever been put before the public than Rome’s recent resolutions of boycott of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Watson’s Magazine, the Protestant Magazine, the Menace, etc., and her attitude as Censor of the United States Mails. At the annual convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, held at New Orleans, November 13-16, 1910, resolutions were passed calling for the passage of Federal laws to prevent the transmission by the United States mails of matter offensive to the Roman Catholic Church. In these resolutions postoffice employees were boldly called upon to destroy, without any warrant of law, any such mail in transit. The leading ecclesiastic at this convention was Archbishop Falconio, Papal Delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America.
Archbishop Falconio had good reasons for tendering his sincerest congratulations to the American Federation of Catholic Societies at its convention held at Columbus, Ohio, August 20-24, 1911, for its “rapid progress” and “the effective good work accomplished” by it. He was fully aware, I presume, of the destruction of much printed “matter offensive to the Church” in the postoffices of the United States of America since their last reunion at New Orleans.
I know that several large parcels of printed matter mailed at the General Postoffice in Chicago during the months of December, 1910, and January and February, 1911, never reached their destination. This destruction commenced immediately after their New Orleans convention. On receipt of numerous complaints from subscribers the sender called on the postoffice authorities for an explanation, but received no satisfaction whatever. This party’s mail continued to be held up, and, surmising the cause, the sender threatened public exposure of such unlawful action on the part of the Postoffice Department. This threat of exposure scared Rome and her Jesuitical agents, and since then the mail of said party has been unmolested. Ah, Rome fears publicity!
Meanwhile, to divert attention from their own criminal acts, they are loudly inveighing against the circulation of obscene matter through the mails; and by obscene matter they mean all matter inimical to the Church of Rome. Non-Catholics think they mean indecent and licentious matter. The inconsistency of the private lives of popes, cardinals, prelates, priests and monks as compared with the deference exacted by them in public from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is, to say the least, ridiculous: for example, decollete gowns and peek- a-boo waists are out of order at formal receptions for male members of the Hierarchy. Any one who knows the kind of pictures and indecent realities that most delight the eyes of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy will not be faked by any pretended shock that they may profess to experience on contemplation of the nude in art, much less decollete gowns at formal functions.
As a satisfactory evidence of this fact it may be stated that the telephone companies in different cities have threatened to take away the phones from the residences of some priests because their conversation was at times so vile that the female operators refused to receive their messages and threatened to resign if required to do so.
The Roman Catholic Hierarchy should be indicted for illegally using the mails to operate confidence games, chainless letters, etc., in the alleged behalf of “the poor homeless children,” “the poor orphans,” and “the poor suffering souls in purgatory.” No more shameless and outrageous system of fraud was ever perpetrated by men.
The American Federation of Catholic Societies, which embraces the numberless Associations, Societies, Clubs, Church Confraternities, etc., as well as their widespread military organizations, is a menace to our freedom and an injury to the Catholic people whom it pretends to serve. It is a mighty power for evil in the hands of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
At the Columbus convention, among other boycotts, a “boycott was declared against the Encyclopedia Britannica, which boycott was soon after printed and circulated broadcast throughout the English- speaking world.
The following additional proclamation of the same boycott was issued and circulated with the endorsement of the New York County Federation of Catholic Societies, of which Cardinal Farley is the principal under the pope.
“No Catholic should purchase the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. No purchaser of it is bound to keep or pay for a work which falls so far short of the representation of the editors and publishers. It should be debarred from our public libraries, schools and other institutions. It should be denounced everywhere, in season and out of season, as a shameful attempt to perpetuate ignorance, bigotry and fanaticism in matters of religion.”
Mr. Samuel Byrne, editor of the Pittsburgh Observer (Roman Catholic), addressing the Catholic editors at the Columbus convention, said in part:
“I have come here for the purpose of very briefly suggesting one thing. It is this: That the Catholic editors of the country, concertedly and persistently, urge their readers to notify the proprietors and managers of the daily papers that unless they use instead of the European dispatches of the Associated Press, those furnished by the newly established Catholic International United Telegraph Agency, they will withdraw their patronage from them, either as readers or as advertisers, and will, moreover, boycott both the offending newspapers and those who advertise in them.”
The boycott is the most powerful weapon and one in constant use by the Roman Hierarchy. By intimidation, threats and terror, they are able to suppress literature and destroy private business, and they do it most effectually. Few and far between are the newspapers who will dare to print anything which would fall under the adverse criticism of a priest.
The owners of newspapers, and especially of the great dailies which circulate in the large cities where there are many Catholics, are notified that there will be a sudden drop in their advertising patronage if they publish or refuse to publish certain matter condemned or approved by the Censor Bureau of the Roman Catholic Church, which has its representatives in numerous and extensive Catholic societies. Non-Catholics, too, who receive from some source or other information that the Roman Catholics are boycotting a particular paper, withdraw their advertisements to gratify and retain Catholic customers. The mere circulation of a city daily does not pay for the paper on which it is printed; the whole revenue is derived from their advertisements — thus the press is at the mercy of the secret Roman boycott.
But the boycott is by no means confined to the press. It reaches out and extends universally in all directions. Business men and professional men of all kinds are at the mercy of the boycott. From some mysterious cause, which they can not comprehend, their patronage falls off, their receipts diminish, and if they do not make terms when informed of the cause of the falling off of business, bankruptcy stares them in the face. In many instances where the Roman Catholic Church possesses the influence, teachers, clerks, agents, and the ten thousand individuals of humbler rank, are absolutely at their disposal to be discharged from their places and turned out upon the world without means of support. These boycotts are rarely published as such. Sometimes, it is true, on special occasions when big interests are involved, they do not hesitate to have the boycott printed and circulated, but in the vast majority of instances the Roman boycott gets in its deadly work in the dark. And did anybody ever hear of an injunction being issued against a Roman boycotter, or any one of these said boycotters ever being put in contempt of court? So far does the influence of Rome extend that even the courts themselves, which are supposed to be the citadels of impartiality and justice, are prostituted to serve the interests of the, Roman Hierarchy. The non-Catholic people should engrave it on their memories and keep it forever fresh in their minds that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Why prosecute and punish non-Catholic clergymen and other citizens, while Roman Catholic priests and prelates — foes of the nation — commit similar crimes, and worse, with impunity?
Why waste time and money in sham efforts to curb the trusts, and at the same time permit, and even assist, that trust of trusts — the Vatican system — to continue the even tenor of its way?
If the governments of the United States and of the British Empire had done their duty toward Catholics and non-Catholics alike, whose interests have been injured, and sometimes wholly destroyed by Romanism, the majority of priests and prelates who are “operating” under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, and the Union Jack, would be behind the bars — not a few of them would have been rewarded with the hempen tie or electric chair.
Furthermore, if the Government of the United States had done its plain duty in protecting my rights and interests as an American citizen during the past ten years, Cardinals Martinelli and Falconio, Archbishop Quigley, Bishop Muldoon, and many other Roman ecclesiastics, would now be wearing stripes in penitentiaries as the guests of Uncle Sam, instead of purple and gold in luxurious palaces as “Ambassadors of Christ.”