A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLIC PAPERS.
The Monitor (Roman Catholic), of San Francisco, has been feeling quite hurt of late, because it has been discriminated against by the trustees of the Oakland Free Library by having been thrown out of that institution, because it was considered offensively abusive in its personal thrusts against those whom the editor did not favor. This action of the trustees has been resented with much vigor in press and on the platform by the editor; and yet the good editor of the Monitor should not feel so sensitive if Protestants should refuse to consider his paper all that he considers it to be, a first-class representative of Roman Catholicism, when he himself has to say what he does concerning the Roman Catholic papers. In the Literary Digest of January 2 is the following quotation from the Monitor: “The Catholic Church throughout the world has more dead-beats and barnacles attached to it than any other organization that ever existed. The most obnoxious of this class in this country are the Catholic book and picture peddler, and the Catholic newspaper fakir. When a man has failed in every legitimate business that he puts his hand to, he starts a Catholic newspaper and runs it on the criminal charity of Catholics and an unlimited supply of gall. And so we have the country flooded with papers that are a disgrace to the church which they are supposed to represent. To a great many non-Catholics these reflect the culture of the average Catholic mind.” No doubt what the editor of the Monitor says is true. We are willing to accept his word for it; and he should not be seriously offended if those outside of the church should class his paper among those against which he issues his “counterblasts” even tho his critics may be mistaken.