VI. A Page of History

England, the teacher in the art of colonial expansion, took over the choicest portions of islands and continents. While on the one hand, it keeps expanding its possessions in India and annexes Burma, on the other, it occupies Egypt, controls Cyprus and Malta and holds in its powerful hands the keys to the Red Sea and to the seaway that leads to its Far East possessions.

However, England is not satisfied with merely establishing and expanding its vast colonial empire in rich and populous regions that are inhabited by what are called inferior races, inferior because they happen to profess pagan or Islamic practices and because they are ignorant of the beauty of Christian civilization. In Canada, the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, England possesses immense continents where its citizens flock to seek their fortune in agriculture, in industry and in all kinds of arts and crafts. There, as happened earlier in the United States, freed by George

Washington, civil life begins to flourish and, along with it, an outpouring of progress. Christianity has raised its glorious cross and spread its saving doctrine. And if Protestant heretics have set up churches of all rites and denominations, Catholics have not been far behind, and, already the Church’s faith and moral teachings are being preached everywhere by tireless missionaries who are reaping abundant fruits from their apostolic labors. The Catholic hierarchy, established in Australia and Canada by the immortal pontiff, Pius IX, now has, in these two countries, several ecclesiastical provinces, archdioceses and dioceses, as well as many parishes, churches, schools and convents. Two cardinals have been created by Pope Leo XIII, one in Australia,¹ and the other in Canada,² so that those young churches are in no way inferior to the very ancient ones in our old Europe.

In this way, the English colonies, while giving the civilized world a beautiful spectacle of material progress and of scientific and economic achievements, are most worthy daughters of our Christian Europe. In those places, religion finds ample room for its apostolate, while the emigrants from the old continent find zealous and active priests in the new one, as well as bishops full of courage and spirit of sacrifice, schools and hospitals, benevolent societies and all that is needed for the good of souls, for health care and for educational improvement.

In this way, the ideas of country and nationality do not fade away across the ocean but are strengthened through continuous contact with teachers, religious and priests who share with the emigrants the same sacred attitudes toward God, Church and country. The English Government, for example, is the jealous guardian of the rights of its countrymen wherever they may be, watching over them and defending them, because it realizes that, by defending its citizens, it enhances its own prestige.

Over and above government intervention, many organizations with lots of money and members have set up houses, missions and colleges wherever they could promote their goals. For the missions in Equatorial Africa, almost five million lire have been spent!

Though on a smaller scale, France has followed England’s example in its overseas islands, but especially in its vast colonies in the Mediterranean.   Algiers and Tunis are tangible proofs of what the Catholic religion can do to foster a spirit of patriotism and the sanctification of souls in its colonies. Everyone knows how much that outstanding man, Cardinal Lavigerie,

has done: from the resurrected walls of the glorious African metropolis, he is promoting religion with unparalleled wisdom throughout the French colonies. Where, in July 1830, there were just a few missionaries, confined within four walls and constantly watched by a suspicious and tyrannical Muslim ruler, today there are three flourishing dioceses: Algiers, Oran and Constantine. The See of St. Augustine rose from the ruins because of the Muslim migrations. Churches, convents, Christian schools, orphanages and hospitals are springing up everywhere. The cross of Christ consoles the emigrants, encourages them, sustains their religious principles, and preserves the emigrants from the dangers of corruption and apostasy, which would, little by little, lead them to deny not only Christianity but also their duties to the motherland.

Not long ago, France added the vast and rich regency of Tunis to its possessions in Algeria. And there, too, the work of evangelization and civilization received a marvelous impetus from the zeal and wise leadership of the above-mentioned Cardinal Lavigerie, who has become the first metropolitan bishop of the reborn Church of Carthage.

France is spending substantial sums of money to uphold the glory of its colonies and to defend its sons and daughters scattered throughout the world. It grants large subsidies to its Catholic missions, even though, within its own borders, it fights religion with wicked laws.

The International Society for the Propagation of the Faith has been flourishing in Lyons for half a century, but it collects most of its money in France, money that, in the past few years, totaled seven million lire.

The Government of Portugal, too, has recently reformed and more generously endowed its Missionary College and is making every effort to establish its language, especially in the Congo.

Germany, which, as far as colonies are concerned, is in the same condition as we are and where emigration is also very high, not only protects its citizens with the intensity and zeal peculiar to that powerful Empire, but is also seeking across the seas, on the coasts of Africa and the Americas, a fitting place on which to raise its flag and thus prepare a new homeland for its emigrating children.

Through private efforts, a protective society for German Catholic Emigrants has been set up in Germany, known as the St. Raphael Society.

I would like to quote the following information from a speech given by

P. Cahensly at the general meeting of German Catholics in Aachen on September 10, 1874. “This Protection Society for German emigrants was established in Bamberg during the 1868 Catholic Congress and reconfirmed

in Mainz in 1872, on the recommendation of Prince Isemburg-Birnstein. The purpose of the Society is to protect the emigrants through a carefully planned network of assistance from the dangers that surround them as soon as they leave their homeland. In every port of embarkation, the Society has a salaried commissioner who offers his services to the emigrants gratis. He counsels and guides them. He helps them with the currency exchange and finds suitable lodgings for them before embarkation. After encouraging them to find strength in religious practices and the reception of the Sacraments, he surrenders them to their destiny, having provided them with letters of recommendation for the commissioner who will be waiting for them at the port of arrival in America. This commissioner, in turn, begins anew the same work of charity with them, a work that now becomes not just useful but necessary in view of the new dangers awaiting them in a foreign land.

In Germany other societies similar to the one just described, are flourishing. Their purpose is to keep alive and spread German culture and language, like the Deutsche Schulverein (the German School Association), with headquarters in Vienna; the Allgemeiner Deutsche Schulverein (the General German School Association), with its purpose well-defined in the title itself: Zur Erhaltung des Deutschtums in Ausland (for the preservation of German culture abroad).

Almost everywhere, these two societies have several thousand members, are full of vitality and enthusiasm, and dispose of rather large sums of money. Not even small Greece has forgotten its children spread throughout the various regions of the Ottoman Empire. The Syllogos, educational organizations, which gather funds from all Greeks who love their country, uphold the prestige and dignity of Hellenic culture by setting up not only elementary schools in even the remotest villages in Thessalia and Macedonia, but also high schools and mobile libraries, and even schools of music.”

How many magnificent examples!