The “Bulwark.”

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 30.

The “Bulwark.”

At the recent laying of the corner-stone of a church in Washington, D.C., by Cardinal Martinelli, Dr. Conaty of the Catholic University preached the sermon. In it he said:—

We are living in an age when men are reckoned, not as men made in the image of Christ, but as producers of wealth. Money is the thought that holds sway, and many seem to forget the beautiful doctrine of brotherly love. If shock ever comes to our republic, if turmoil and disturbance should threaten our beloved land of liberty, it will be found that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and the gospels it has ever preached, will be the great bulwark against anarchy, corruption, and treason. While millions of our citizens, like those who are here to-day, believe in her teachings, there is no fear for the republic.

We wish that all men could see what is most emphatically true, that the same spirit of imperialism rules in wealth to-day that rules in the Catholic Church. In one it is using man to support a religious autocracy and hierarchy, in the other a plutocracy with its hierarchy. The Gospel as preached by Christ and His apostles, knows naught of the nature of imperialism at all. It is that which has ruined the nations of the past. It is that which will ruin both the Catholic Church and this republic.