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Non-Catholics are very apt to associate Catholics and Jesuits in their disapproval, dislike, or hatred, as the case may be; but neither Englishman nor German could speak of the order of Ignatius more bitterly than many a most devout Catholic.
That the Roman Constitution was an unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed Chamber of Deputies, which was not to make laws affecting education, religious corporations, the registration of births and marriages; or to confer civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the privileges and immunities of the clergy, might have suited Cloud-cuckoo-town, but would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to recognise, but no one had time to pause and consider.
Then what superhuman guarantee did He offer? What was to be our security? Nothing less than the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost Himself. Surely, then, we need not be anxious after that! Listen, and remember it is to God you are listening. Non-Catholics do not seem in the least to realise what those words mean, or that it is God Himself who promises.
Pacien, "Christian is my name, but Catholic is my surname." How pressing is this obligation to be an apostle, to be truly Catholic, among our non-Catholic brethren? Why should we particularly turn the energies of our zeal to the conversion of non-Catholics? What special claim have they to our prayers?
Therefore missions to non-Catholics, caeteris paribus, take precedence over foreign missions. We all recognize the reality of this obligation and understand, vaguely perhaps, the burden of its responsibility. We all indeed, at times, say with the Divine Master: "There are other sheep that are not of this Fold; them also I must bring." But, what have we done to bring them?
Men are often as irrational in this respect as women; and, notice this well, you will find superstition much more common among non-Catholics than among Catholics. As we have seen, however, some of us do not realize that what we are pleased to call certain harmless eccentricities, are very like the superstitious practices forbidden by the First Commandment."
The interdependence of Greek literature includes some reference to the Greek fathers and their writings. Many of the books of the Old Testament, regarded as canonical by the Catholic Church; but known as the Apochrypha among non-Catholics, were written in Greek. A number of them are historical, and of great value as illustrating the spirit and thought of the age to which they refer.
We see ecclesiastical edifices of great magnitude, splendor, and expense, erected everywhere by Catholics, but for what purpose? To attract non-Catholics? Bosh!
Lastly: "The laws apply to the aforenamed Catholics whenever they enter into betrothal or matrimony with non-Catholics, baptized or not, even when they have obtained a dispensation from the obstacle of a mixed religion or of a disparity of cult; except the Holy See decrees otherwise for a certain or locality." The operations of this decree have been peculiar.
To measure the success of a lecture or a mission to non-Catholics by the number of immediate converts is completely unfair and against reason. The main and direct object of these lectures is to combat the three obstacles in the way of conversion, indifference, ignorance, and prejudice, and to prepare the soil for the Great Sower.
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