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Show LITANY OF JOAN OF ARC. The . xomaii Pontiffs in their sovereign capacity have repeatedly warned the faithful to be on their guard and not allow themselves to be deceived either by their enemies or pious "cranks" within the fold. If it were permitted us to unite our voice with that of the Sovereign Pontiff, we would do so most cheerfully cheer-fully to condemn the foolish novelties superimposed j upon our most admirable cult, and which are the product of diseased mindsor perhaps have a worse and more vicious origin. Not many years ago a book was published in France in favor of devotion to the blood of the Blessed Virgin; then a hysterical nun gave the public pub-lic a lengthy pamphlet on the heart of St. Joseph; an English devotee contended in a two hundred page volume that the Virgin Mary was present with her divine Son in the Blessed Eucharist, and, soon after this, appeared a dissertation from a Frenchman contending con-tending that the Blessed Virgin, really and physically, physical-ly, lived before the creation of our planet. A German Ger-man wrote a treatise to prove that the heart of Jesus was the center of the universe, and that the Holy Trinity was obedient to the voice of the Mother of -our Lord. . And now comes a pious fraud who has written a Litany of the Blessed J oan of Arc, with a promise prom-ise that whoever recites it for nine days will never be damned. The Church is having a hard time of it with her enemies attacking her from without, and her foolish friends, from within, subjecting her to ridicule. Within her fold there are those who prophesy (and have visions and, calumniously, claim that therse visions and prophecies have the approval of the Church. What does it mean? Are these absurdities absurd-ities and hallucinations founded on faith or piety? Decidedly not. They have their origin often in ignorance ig-norance or in a diseased mentality and, sometimes, in perfidy itself. It is deplorable that these produc-' tions find their way into Catholic homes, where they tempt to superstition, make religion ridiculous and endanger faith, the supreme possession of the Christian. Chris-tian. One must read Pusey's "Errors of Romanism," or some late production of infidel France, to under stand the loud laughter of the enemies of our Church as they enumerate these absurdities and quote them as if they carried with them the .weight and authority of Pontifical encyclicals or decrees of Ecumenical Councils. . The Catholic Church has done and will always do its duty touching these emanations from eccentric eccen-tric men and women. One has but to look over tbe eatalogus of the books on the Index to be informed of the long series of these so-called spiritual or aseetical books, meditations, indulgenced prayers, extravagant lives of saints, revelations, false visions, stigmatas and ecstasies, indulgences, invented and sold by printers, and innumerable superstitions, deceits de-ceits and frauds, condemned by the Church. The Church now and at all times has condemned and reprobated all these tomfooleries, which is a suf ficient answer to those who w;ould hold her responsi-I responsi-I ble for what she cannot prevent. Catholics, the world over, are in possession of the Bible, the works of the fathers and doctors of the Church, the ancient records of ecclesiastical history, his-tory, the Lives of the Saints, and prayer-books approved ap-proved and recommended by their bishops, and these ought to confirm their faith and satisfy their pious aspirations. We renew the advice we gave our readers some months ago, when writing about that absurd thing called the "Chain Prayer," "burn it," and with' it the Litany of Joan of Arc and all other pious novelties having about them an odor of suspicion. |
