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Show j MO APPOINTED PLACE FOR MIRACLES. So Says Father Keenan.. Hitting- Holy Hill and Alleged Miraculous Cures. ' Rev. J. J. Keenan, pastor of St. Patrick's church, Fond du Lac, Wis., in an interview criticises critici-ses the action of Catholics in going to Holy Hill in that state with the expectation of seeing or having miracles in the way of cures performed. "There is no appointed place for the performance perfor-mance of the Lord's miracles." said Father Keenan. "and Holy Hill, from this standpoint, is no better place for the afflicted to go than their own churches are. Where the Lord's sacrament is, there is He also. I do not condemn Holy Hill as a place to go for a pleasant outing or an excursion. Indeed, it has been the excursion business that, has given Holy Hill the name it has. Railroads advertise it as a place where great miracles have been performed per-formed and the probably mercenary clergy about it help the thing along and a good business has sprung up for botli through the advertisement of the place as a ground for the performance of miracles. "The church does not believe in Holy Hill as a place where, miracles are performed and does not sanction the belief in it. The most noted shrines in the world Calvary, Xazareth and Bethlehem, are for pilgrims to come to worship, but no claims of the performance of any miracles are made, or is such a claim or belief tolerated by the church. I went to all of these shrines, but only as a worshiper. wor-shiper. - "I was pastor there in 1S74," he said, "and nothing noth-ing was known about the performance of miracles at that time. In fact, that is what has made jme skeptical in the matter. It was not kuown as Holy Hill then. The hill was there just the same and ihere was an old Frenchman who lived in a hut at ihe summit. Rumor had it that this man had-murdered another man in Paris and was doing 'penance by living alone on the hill. That was the only thing out of the ordinary about the place' "The great shrines of the world in Europe or the old countries, where we would naturally expect I to find such superstitions or beliefs, have no .such legends or claims about them. It is not believed and is not. tolerated. The great shrine of Loretto , in Italy, to which thousands of pilgrims go, has nothing of the supernatural about it. I was at the shrine of St. Aim de Beaupre, in Canada, to which tens of thousands of visitors and pilgrims have been and heard not a word about miracles or miraculous mir-aculous cures of any kind. "How do I account for the fact that crutches and braces have been lqft there by cripples and others who claimed to have been cured there?" said Father Keenan in repetition of the question asked. "It is undoubtedly because these people,' when they came ihere, were strong in the faith that they were to be cured. That was their one absorbing thought. They were to be cured. "Mind has a great power over matter and when they left with the idea that they were well again, they left the appurtenances of their misery behind them. But there is no telling when they needed them again. There is a great deal in having an all absorbing faith. Gregory, ihe wonder worker, in the history of the saints, was strong. in the faith. He had such unbounding faith in the fact that the Savior would give him power to move a mountain, to give him room to erect a monastery that he told the mountain to move. The next day when he returned, re-turned, history says, the mountain had moved back and given plenty of space for the monastery. "Ves. faith will account for whatever may have happened at Holy Hill," concluded Father Keenan. "Humanity will always be frail and such things will easily find a hold upon people. |