Volume 7 — The Rights Of Catholic Women. By A Lady.

[We took occasion, some months ago, to sketch a number of the charitable works of Paris, in the hope of stirring the emulation of some of our leisured, zealous, and wealthy fellow-citizens to undertake something of the kind in this densely crowded city. The correspondent whose communication is given below, and whose contributions have often graced our pages, has felt her soul stirring with the same impulse in visiting Catholic Europe. Her earnest words came appropriately after the letter we published last month respecting a Refuge or Central Mission-House for vagabond children. There lies an open field where hundreds may work without jostling each other; and we hope this iron may be hammered while it is hot into a practical shape, and not merely serve as a poker to a useless fire of sentimental philanthropy. There is nothing like reducing the abstract to the concrete, sentiment to work, resolution to definite action.

We venture to suggest something else, also, to those of our fair readers who may be awakened to a desire of claiming their woman's rights by the appeal of their gifted countrywoman. It is practical, and yet not so difficult, as sending checks for one thousand dollars, or searching the streets for vagrant children. A society exists in Paris for making and embroidering vestments and other ornaments for the altars of poor churches and missions. Why not inaugurate the same work among the ladies of New York, for the benefit, first, of small country churches and chapels in our own diocese, and secondarily of similar churches elsewhere? We cannot rival Paris by a sudden coup de main or accomplish everything in a day. But it is possible to make a beginning with one necessary work of charity after another, and to bring them gradually to the colossal dimensions which want and misery and vice have attained without any effort.—Ed. C. W.]

In The Atlantic Monthly of April and May, 1868, appeared a generous and high-toned article, entitled "Our Roman Catholic Brethren," in which the author, appreciating the fact that no one can lose ground by treating with justice those who differ from him in opinion, frankly recognized the noble struggles of our priesthood and the success with which they have been crowned.

One assertion in this article we shall venture to comment upon, making this the occasion for a few suggestions to the Catholic women of the United States, whose right to share the labors of Catholic men is inalienable and incontestable, being founded upon the unvarying teaching of the church.

The author, in speaking of a missionary bishop whom he had known and respected as an "absolute gentleman," an "exquisite human being," in whom all the frailties springing from self-love had been consumed, leaving the "whole man kind, serene, urbane, and utterly sincere," concludes thus: "A Catholic priest, indeed, would be much to blame if he failed to attain a high degree of serenity, moral refinement, and paternal dignity;" because, be it understood, he has neither family cares nor business anxieties to harass him.

Most assuredly true, so far as concerns priests in a Catholic country, where the ranks of the priesthood are full; perhaps true in a purely missionary country, where the priest, in his intervals of repose, communes with his only companions, God and nature; absolutely untrue when applied to a parish priest in the United States, drained of his spiritual riches all day, and often half the night, and for relaxation thrown sometimes upon the companionship of his inferiors. It is no uncommon thing to see a noble priest, at the very centre and core of life, when powers should be ripe, strength unbroken, hope and nerves unshaken, break down, crushed under the weight of work which should have been divided between several persons, leaving to each one work enough to occupy a man of average capacity, time for study, and time for the recuperation of his spiritual powers by prayer and meditation.

Now, where is the remedy for this? Not in a sufficient number of clergymen, because we cannot hope for such a blessing for many years to come. Not in a diminution of labor, thank God, for the domain of the church is constantly widening, and souls are clamoring more and more eagerly for the privileges of religion. The assistance must come from the laity, not working each one after a fashion of his or her own, but in a systematic manner, doing the work recommended by the parish priest in the way most agreeable to him.

That the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul contains all the elements necessary for providing Catholic men with missionary work, we are well aware; therefore we address ourselves exclusively to Catholic women.

Early in February of the present year, on a radiant Roman day, the remains of Saint Ignatius, bishop and martyr, were brought in triumph to the Colosseum from their resting-place in San Clemente. There, where, 1758 years before, the cry had gone up from 80,000 spectators, "Ignatius to the lions!" the Litany of the Saints arose to heaven; there, where wild beasts had snarled over their consecrated prey, canonized bones lay on a gorgeous bier, surrounded by cardinals, bishops, priests, and religious, gathering about them in veneration. One, at least, of those who watched the scene from the crumbling galleries, asked herself eagerly if God has ceased to call upon his children for sacrifices, as he called upon the early Christians; and conviction answered. No; that, though martyrdom has a mysterious value in the eyes of the church, she tenderly loves those who patiently endure the pangs of "that incurable malady which we call life."

And the Christian passing through the catacombs of Rome to-day, pausing in silent awe beside the tombs of martyred virgins, mothers, children, and pontiffs, draws in with every breath the same glorious assurance which gave them strength to suffer—the assurance that God would have us serve him with every nerve and fibre of our being. He claims from the nineteenth century, as he claimed from the first, not, indeed, its blood, but its energies, its faith, its charity. He summons every soul capable of the sacrifice of self to a life in the catacombs, to a holy, interior solitude, where his inspirations can be distinctly heard, where the buzz and hum of the world are inaudible. And as, after the celebration of the sacred mysteries, the early Christians were dismissed, and sent back to the performance of their ordinary avocations, invigorated and renewed; so God releases such souls after communing with them, and sends them forth to work for him, setting upon them three signs to distinguish them from other laborers—peace, simplicity, and perseverance.

In the early ages the laity suffered martyrdom with the clergy. In our own day, the laity should share the labor of the clergy. We are not summoned to bear witness to God in one mighty confession of faith sealed with our blood; but we are bound to show our fidelity to him by lives of unremitting devotion, to lighten the burdens weighing on the priesthood, to do our utmost to leave them leisure for the direction of souls, and for those works of supererogation which are the very heart and pulses of a life consecrated to God.

There are four things which we do not wish to recommend to Catholic women; namely, neglect of domestic duties, overexertion on the part of invalids, indiscreet activity in recent converts, the undertaking of difficult enterprises by those who are not gifted with executive faculty.

Home is the training-school of souls, and a mother's chief duty is to her husband and children. The physically weak serve God by renunciation and sacrifice, hardest and noblest of all apostleships. Converts, generally speaking, should show their families, by tact, affection, fidelity to home duties, that conversion has only knit them more closely to old friends and to natural claims; and this is seldom consistent with much exterior activity soon after conversion. It is very rarely advisable to undertake any work of importance without the advice of a judicious confessor; a just appreciation of one's personal strength and weakness is too rare a gift to be relied upon as a right.

It is our misfortune in the United States that the number of communities is very small in proportion to the work to be done; but though a clergyman would rather receive assistance from religious than from any one else, he would gratefully accept the aid of women of the world, provided they were possessed of judgment, tact, and perseverance.

To take up a charitable enterprise from love of excitement and lay it aside just as one's assistance had become valuable, would not be a proceeding modelled on the actions of the early Christians.

To make one's way into a public institution to patients or prisoners in a manner at variance with the regulations of the establishment, would not tend to advance the cause of religion.

To foster the whims of the poor and excite in them false wants, would add to their sufferings, not lessen them.

All these mistakes may easily be made by well-meaning persons who have not prudence. With fidelity, modesty, and common sense, it is impossible to make serious blunders, and it is possible to do a great deal of good without the sacrifice of much time or comfort.

Those who have health and leisure can work for the church; those who are too busy or too ill to undertake missionary labor can pray for the church. All who have an hour to spend or an ave and pater to recite, or an ache or a pain to offer to Almighty God, can do their share of the blessed work.

Without questioning the fact that the highest of all vocations is the call to a religious life—conceding the point that the work done by women has been usually better done by religious than by women of the world—we think there is a tendency to deny, to that obligation resting upon us all to do the work God marked out for us, the name of vocation, unless it leads us to a life in the community or to marriage. We venture to predict that an important share is to be taken in the work of the church in this country by women who have neither a vocation to join a religious order nor to marry.

There is a correspondence between the various vocations of religious orders and those of persons living in the world. Let us read over the golden record, and decide which path we are called to follow. There are the working orders, Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, of the Good Shepherd; the teaching orders, Ursulines, Sisters of the Visitation, Ladies of the Sacred Heart, and that sweetest of orders, the Sisters of Notre Dame, whose fame is hidden behind humility and obedience; and the contemplative orders, on whose prayers hang the fruit of thousands of energetic enterprises.

Most of the prisons, work-houses, and hospitals in the United States need the influence of judicious women. As such institutions are almost exclusively filled with poor people, and as more than half our poor people are Catholics, more than half the inmates of asylums, penitentiaries, etc., are Catholics; it is, then, a matter of justice that Catholic prisoners, patients, and paupers should be under Catholic influences. Obedience to discipline is a principle most strongly inculcated by the church, and no consistent servant of the church will infringe the smallest regulation in any institution to which he has admission. When this truth is fully recognized, Catholic ladies will be allowed to visit freely all the public establishments in the Union. Let those who wish to do work corresponding to that of the working orders use all available opportunities for alleviating the sufferings and ameliorating the condition of the lower classes.

There are hosts of children who must learn the catechism; not after a parrot-like fashion, such as any ignorant person can teach it to them, but in a vital manner, so that the truth shall be set in their souls like a jewel, to be transmitted to future generations as a precious heritage. Every well-disposed and intelligent Catholic child can be sent forth from his course of instruction in the Sunday-school with the fervent determination to be a missionary in his own little sphere. Those who emulate the labors of the teaching orders have not far to seek for their work.

The Catholic literature of France, Germany, and Italy should be in general circulation in America, through the medium of good translations. Women are especially fitted to be translators. Their impressionable and adaptive minds make it easy for them to understand an author's thought and adopt his style. Let those who would follow in the footsteps of the contemplatives of earlier ages, whose leisure hours were given to writing for the benefit of religion, study critically their mother tongue and one other modern language, and thus unlock some of the treasures of foreign literature to those less gifted than themselves.

But enough, and more than enough for the present. We have sought to arouse a sense of the importance of the work to be done, not to explain the best method of accomplishing it. We have tried to show Catholic women what are their rights, leaving it to God to awaken in them a noble ambition to claim and appropriate those rights.