Papal Literature in Public Libraries
THE papacy is very busy these days in working to cover up from the view of the rising generation the record of her misdeeds which has come down to us in the literature of the nineteenth century. Her endeavor now is to bring before the public some of her own literature in which these records are declared to be false and slanderous, and a pleasing picture is drawn of papal virtues and benefits to mankind. Her agents are visiting all the large public libraries, and supplying them with Catholic literature of this sort. “We learn,” says the Catholic Mirror, “that a movement is being inaugurated among the local [Catholic] federations of several of the larger cities to petition the public libraries of those respective centers to place more books of Catholic writers on the shelves of the public library, and to keep on file copies of Catholic papers which shall be recommended to them. This petition has been presented, among other places, in Cincinnati, and the request of the federation has been cheerfully granted.” This is one of many ways in which Catholic sentiment is being fostered and papal interests promoted in the United States.