THE CHURCH AND SECRET SOCIETIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 85, 12 December 1874, Page 10

THE CHURCH AND SECRET SOCIETIES.

+4 n?Hfi following is taken from a recent issue of the ' Monde,' one of the test and most uncompromising of the journals of France : — '• To give an idea of the hatred entertained by the secret societies against the Catholic Church, and of the efforts of tho sectaries of the two hemispheres to destroy it, we shall quote for our readers the language made use of in a certain society in Paris by a Freemason from Brazil <If the Catholic Church comes triumphant from out of the war which we are waging against it in the Old and in the New World — if jt does not get entangled in the meshes which we are spreading out for it in order to destroy it, I will believe in its divinity, and will avow myself a Catholic ; I will be converted.' This, continues ' Monde,' is an intimation of the gloomy and infernal' task which the old secret societies have set before themselves. When will good Catholics thoroughly understand it ? No act of persecution is isolated. There is a pre-arranged link in all that happens in G-erinany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, and South America : everywhere it is the same purpose — the destruction^ of the Church of Christ. Therefore, it is that they -will not tolerate that a single voice should be lifted in its defence, and hence the secret societies are all loud and unanimous in their denunciation of the pastoral letter of the Archbishop of Paris. What a misfortune it was that the French Government should (in so far as helping out tlie objects of the societies) have given a rebuke to the Cardinal Archbishop ! When will the men who govern us thoroughly appreciate their mission and tho interests of our poor country ? When will they learn to disregard the counsels of men, ■who being enemies of the Church, are also the enemies of France." »~ ' Standard/