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Show Weeds in the Pope's Garden. ALONG STORY conies from Kansas: City, which we find republished in the Butte Miner, containing all the details of a love affair between a Crotian priest aud an adventuress whom he secretly married. The ceremony cere-mony was performed by a probate judge at St. Joseph, Mo. According Accord-ing to the preist's story, after the marriage mar-riage the woman refused to live with him unless he presented hCr $3,000, which he had in bank, as a guarantee that he would not "cast her off," and as a condition for keeping the marriage secret for two years, or until he finished fin-ished building his church. At the end of that time, the priest told her, he would renounce the priesthood. The name of this unfrocked priest is Anthony Politeo. Both the woman and her lawyer frankly admitted that she j married the priest for his money, and suit is brought for divorce and alimony. ali-mony. The story" is garnished with all the elements of yellow literature, much of it contributed by Politeo himself in describing de-scribing his amours with and passion for the woman, thereby exhibiting his poverty of remorse re-morse for an act which degrades him in the sight of God and man. According Ac-cording to the story of his life, the "facts" being supplied by Politeo to the sensational newsgatherer, this Crotian Cro-tian priest was a remarkable man, and gave the Vatican much uneasiness by reason of his transeendant abilities as an orator. His fiery speeches for revolution revo-lution through socialism got him in ttouble in Italy and Austria, and the Vatican at last made "overtures" to Politeo to desist, but he would not. Finally he was excommunicated, dui the report goes on to say that after arriving in America he put up "such a vigorous fight for reinstatement into the Church that he was finally successful." success-ful." Examples like the one just furnished by this fallen Crotian priest are so very rare among the Catholic clergy that no wonder the sensational press rolls it about like a delicious morsel. -The scandal is so important as a news feature fea-ture that over three columns are taken up in telling- it. Scarcely a month passes by without finding in the daily press a paragraph or two alleging- lia-sons lia-sons of ministers with the.othe sex. But these are only common, everyday parsons, and the news excites no more comment than any ordinary criminal event. "When it comes to catching a priest, then your reporter strikes luck. He has all the elbow room he needs and is given carte blanche to make the story as racy as a dime novel. So far from feeling the humiliation which the publicity of such a scandal would bring to any man not destitute of decency, this unfrocked priest takes advantage of the notoriety it arouses to advertise a course of lectures against the faith he taught his people, the Church which cast him out because be-cause of his conduct, and against the venerable prelate who burst into tears when he heard of his crime. Politeo w ill be another Chiniquy, and when he declaims against Rome and its idolatrous idola-trous mission, bigots of both sexes will embrace him and the A. P. A. will admit ad-mit him to full membership. The divorce di-vorce court will free him from his secret se-cret alliance with the adventuress and give him choice of any susceptible uauie in me ounuaj acuuui. j iius win Politeo get even with the vaticar That good old Episcopal churchman and Irish wit, Dean Swift, said Avhcn the pope found weeds in his garden he threw them over the fence, but the sects came along and placed them in flower pots. It may be Politeo's luck to flourish in a flower pot at least, for awhile. |