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Show AGAINST fPERSTSTIONS B Distinguished It g n Prelate Warns His Flock Againsf-jf, perstitious Practices Chainles? Pr fjr Letters Particularly Condemned--4ters to St. Anthony Also Come Wi hirk Scope of the Bishop's Disapproval. The translation into English of the distinguished distin-guished Italian Pastafal. warning his flock against superstitious practices;;-for which the church is in, no way rccsponsible, i timely, and cannot fail to effect some good. The.'chainless prayer and writing letters to St. Anthony.come within the scope of the bishop's1 condemnation', and should be discouraged. He quotes the Bolanrijsts in reference to the devotion devo-tion to St. Expedittiai" They say '"it originated in a mere play upon a ykird." Continuing he says: ''These are devotions which -ought not so much as to be named among us, aud yet they go on spreading. Oh, that'jour holy religion, so sublime in its origin, so pure' in its worship, may be preserved pre-served from falling 'miserably into ridicule, or so low as to recall to mind the heathen superstitions!'' Wlfi HE OBJECTS. "If you will consider the origin, spirit and tendency ten-dency of certain devotions, yu will find that not infrequently they have for their object the obtaining obtain-ing of certain concessions, some material favor, some removal of this or that evil, e. g., to keep away hailstorms,'tp obtain raivr or fine weather, to drive away obnoxious insects, that the cattle may not take a disease, .that the harvest may be abun dant, that business may be prosperous, and so on without end.- - ' ' "Is it lawful and right to ask temporal favors of God, and to as kthem through the invocation of this or that saint f Yes; it is rifrht mid lawful in itself to do so. But in that way? jXever under the serious seri-ous impression, that the devdllj.)! itself or practice caii' be infallible,-or dtoosc- as so-manyof-tho faithful, pious rather than educated, lead one to fear they believe. God may. listen'. to-them, their faith mar be rewarded by him, but the result is not necessarily bound up with the devotion as grace is allied to the sacraments, and even to think so is both a presumption and a gross error. The devotion devo-tion must always be subject to the condition that it pleases God and that it shall turn to benefit in what is of most importance, namely, the real good of the soul. ''Ah, even among good Christians, among those' souls so dedicated to devout practices, how little the words of Jesus Christ are remembered, who said, 'Seek ye first the kincrdom of God and his righteousness, and these things shall be added to you.' On the contrary, they first seek other things, that is to say, temporal benefits, deliverauce from bodily ills, and afterward seek, if they seek them at all, the spiritual ones. These are the real oWects of not a few of these devotions, if one may judge by what one sees and hears." "What is to be said of these devotions when it is proposed by means of them not only to obtain material favors and. the successful issue of simple lawful and minor interests, but to ensure the success suc-cess of unlawful ones, opposed and openly, to all religious principles? , "A subtle, deadly poison." Mgr. Bonomelli declares, de-clares, ''oftener than we think instils itself, ahnost i imperceptibly, into these devotions, the poison of private, interest. There are the interests of self-love, self-love, vanity, a desire to make oneself prominent in the eyes of the people or of one's superior, to be spoken of by the populace as a zealous priest, ixn form a clientele for oneself, to open out for oneself a way to get on. There is the low, base interest, ; i which in the times of St. Paul caused him to blaze j forth in 'wrath against certain men of the primitive primi-tive church as being 'greedy of filthy lucre.' And why 'filthy lucre'? Because under the appearance of piety and religion their eyes were really fixed on the money which. they were striving after and for which they made merchandise of holy things. Before Be-fore St. Paul, loo,, our Lord Jesus Christ chastised mercilessly thosV miserable men who, under pretence pre-tence of long prayeiV, devoured the houses of widows wid-ows V" V "I observe that all these devotions and pious societies for devotiou.s, of all sorts and everywhere, always ask for money, some little offering, either in a direct of indirect manner. I know that certain honest and necessary expenses must be provided for, and are so far good. But do all the offerings go toward to-ward the expenses ? And these expenses themselves, them-selves, do they not conveniently transform themselves them-selves into profitable industries alongside of the devotions? de-votions? Again, how many ways are there by which, without raising any suspicion, the prompters and administrators of the offerings can derive advantage advan-tage to themselves from them? I am not accusing anybody. I merely point out the possibilities which . exist of material advantages derived from certain devotions, worked with singular ability, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively, sometimes alone, sometimes by means of others, or through . the shops and trades which get hound up with the objects' of devotion,.. . "If ever there was a period when Catholics, both priests and laymen, ought to guard themselves from the 'defiling pitch,' the evil of seeking their material ma-terial interests under the shadow of religion, committing com-mitting 'simony' with subtle art, it certainly is this of ours." Nowadays, owing to the thousand channels of the press and facilities of communication of all kinds, owing also to the lack of faith, and anticlerical anti-clerical hatreds now. so obstinate and profound, the slightest failing on our part is made much of ' ' ' '- .' and converted into a weapon against religion. The regular unimpeachable conduct of twenty or fifty priests and religious is overlooked, in order to " point at and cry out against one who is guilty. It is unspeakably unjust on the part of the w-orld, but so it is, and it is useless to protest' against it. All the more is it our duty as Catholics never to give an opening to such accusations and calumnies, and to render it impossible to make them.V This is one of the great difficulties which the church has to contend against, viz., to convince the un-Catholic world that what they object to is not a part of Catholic belief. Then devotions are multiplied mul-tiplied and so much attention paid to these new devotions, de-votions, that the great central object of true and solid piety and faith, viz., the Blessed Sacrament, is overlooked by the simple minded, and those who are .superstitiously inclined. |