increased is the reverse of the truth. The Church did not denounce or abolish slavery: it discouraged education: it abased woman: it set back a thousand years the development of culture. Yet our clerical writers repeat the medieval falsehoods as fluently as if modern history did not exist.
The later period is just as grossly falsified by Catholic writers, but here the Protestant—who has somehow convinced himself that the Holy Spirit abandoned Europe to the devil for a thousand years—begins to cry for candour. Much of the Protestant literature is uncritical and unscrupulous in its use of authorities; it is, however, instructive in comparison with the kind of history purveyed by the “Catholic Truth Society.” There is hardly a candid historian in the Church, even in Germany and the United States. The latest historian of the Papacy, Dr. L. Pastor, is certainly entitled to respect for his effort, though even he does not present all the facts; while men like Cardinal Gasquet are appallingly one-sided. I am, however, thinking mainly of the “popular” literature, on which no stricture could be too severe. Indeed, when it comes to the modern period, both Protestant and Catholic literature is scandalous. One often finds Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paine described as “atheists,” and the most slovenly observations on the Revolution. Roosevelt’s description of Paine as a “dirty little atheist” is a good indication of the kind of literature that even an educated religious man may read.
