Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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16 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL the causes of the revolution. The Catholic newspaper, on the other hand, gives a true and accurate account of the state of affairs in Europe, confines itself to facts and has always a sane and conservative policy. Among uneducated Catholics at the present day there is a spirit or feeling of shame with regard to the Church. The Protestant press has proclaimed, in so many ways and with such persistency, the opposition of the Catholic Church and modern science, that Catholics have begun to believe it. They dread the subjects of Queen Mary, The Inquisition, Indulg- ences and other questions of dispute. Knowing no defense for them they believe everything the Protestants say about them. A Catholic newspaper would remove these slanders; it would give the Catholic a true history of his church, and allow him to speak intelligently and with superiority, with any Protestant upon any religious subject; it would show, by the deeds of the church, her greatness, her sanctity and most especially her harmony and agreement with true science. There are in the United States over 12,000,000 Catholics. In New York alone there are 2,000,000. And yet there is not one Catholic daily newspaper. The weeklies are very excellent papers and are doing wonderful work. But they are not equal to the work demanded from them. The damage done by slan- ders and false despatches cannot be repaired by the Catholic weeklies which have but a very limited subscription and do not reach the masses of the people. It has been proposed there- fore to publish a daily newspaper, at one cent a copy and pub- lishing all the readable news of any daily newspaper. This paper would not be a prayer book, an idea too often associated with Catholic reading, nor would it be filled with an account of the lives of the saints and martyrs of A. D. 200. It would be a newspaper in the true sense of the word. It would contain not merely Catholic nev s, but all the real nev s of the

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THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 15 Protestantism and Masonry. An excellent example of this can be found in the recent troubles in Portugal. When the Jews were massacred at Kitchenef, the American press im- mediately protested, denounced the outrage in the most bitter terms, threw open its columns to the tragic stories of the refugees and even advised government interference. But when Catholic priests and monks were driven from their monasteries, beaten and thrown into prisons, when Catholic nuns were turned from their convents and herded like cattle in foul jails and prisons, or forced, penniless to leave the country, the press of America was silent; distorted accounts of events v ere all that was printed. Even when no calumnies are reported, insinuations, arrange- ment or marshalling of facts often cast a slur upon the Cath- olic Church. This was clearly seen in the Roosevelt- Vatican incident. The press was full of the insult offered to America’s foremost citizen and forgot the right of any man, especially the prince of the Catholics, to impose conditions upon those who request an audience. No mention was made of the means of the Methodist propaganda. The benefit to be had from a Catholic newspaper are mani- fold. It puts the Catholic hemispheres in touch and sympathy with each other. During the last twenty years, great changes, vitally affecting the church, have taken place in France, Italy, Spain and P ortugal. The Catholics of America desire an ac- count of this and for the sake of truth and justice the condi- tions in foreign countries should be fairly stated. This most newspapers never do. Cable despatches are manufactured, the truth distorted and every suspicion of rabid anti-Catholics given to the public as undesirable fact. During the trouble in Portugal it was admitted, even by the Protestant press that all the despatches passed through the republican authorities, and yet they were published as a fair and unbiased account of

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LOYOLA LITERARY SOCIETY