Читать книгу Champion of the Church - Ann Ball - Страница 10

Chapter One

That’s a Lie!

That, sir, is a bare-faced lie!”

Shaking with anger, his face flushed as red as the hair on his head, a sturdy young priest jumped to his feet and challenged a man at the front of the room. It was 1901, and Fr. John Noll, in the company of a few other priests, was attending an anti-Catholic talk at Island Park in Rome City, Indiana, given by a certain Rev. F.F. De Long.

Young Fr. Noll

Talks of this sort, directed against Catholics, were popular at the time. Based on intolerance and black, unreasoning hatred, the talks purported to “expose” the immorality and false religion of the Catholic Church. For the audience, primarily simply badly informed country people, the lectures provided something to do to alleviate the boredom of a Friday night in a small country town with little means of entertainment. But unfortunately, sometimes the alleged “outrages of the Papists” caused audiences to become so inflamed that they went out and rioted. For the organizers of these sessions, however, there was a substantial financial reward from entry fees and collections; largely unchallenged in their assertions, they didn’t care much about the consequences of what they said or how they said it.

That was all about to change.

“Mr. DeLong,” Noll continued, “you have just said that gross immorality is the general rule in our convents, and you allege that these things don’t leak out because we priests are the only ones permitted inside a convent. That’s a lie, Mr. DeLong!”

“I can substantiate that assertion,” DeLong retorted. “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you’ll get me inside a certain convent I shall name in Fort Wayne.”

At that, Fr. Quinlan, pastor of the cathedral parish in Fort Wayne, stood up beside Noll.

“I’m a pastor in Fort Wayne,” he said. “We’ll take you up on your offer. Hand your wager to one of the committee members up there on the podium with you, and I’ll even pay your way. We’ll go to Fort Wayne, and I’ll make certain you are allowed to inspect any convent you wish!”

Seeing that his bluff had been called, DeLong immediately began to backpedal, stating that he couldn’t break God’s commandment against gambling. But, having regained the floor, he quickly concluded the evening with an invitation to his next talk, two days later. At that time, he said, he would prove his allegations by appearing with an ex-priest ready to detail the horrors of the “Church of Rome.”

Fr. Noll, of course, was one of the first to arrive at the next lecture. With disgust, he heard more of the same misrepresentation, with the “ex-priest Delaney” painting a lurid picture of the wickedness of his fellow priests which resulted in his leaving the priesthood. He spoke at length of a priest named Chiniquy and his supposed depredations. These bigoted, hateful, and untrue remarks whipped the audience into a frenzy to the point that young John Noll was afraid some would grab up baseball bats or other weapons and go to seek out the closest “nest of Romans,” as some people called Catholics.

But Fr. Noll had done his homework. He had with him notes on DeLong’s unsavory reputation, including a letter from the preacher’s wife saying that DeLong had attempted to kill her by forcing her to drink carbolic acid. From comments the man made during his speech, Fr. Noll also knew that Delaney had never been a priest. But he had no intention of attempting to inform the henchmen of their errors; it was the audience that needed to be convinced. Delaney had to be discredited. So, politely, Fr. Noll waited until the end of the lecture and then arose to take the floor.

“What diocese are you from, sir?” he called out to the self-styled former priest.

The man responded, “Chicago.”

Nodding, Fr. Noll turned and addressed the audience directly. “My dear people, I am a priest myself, the pastor at Kendallville, and I happen to know that your speaker has never been a priest. It is true that the Fr. Chiniquy¹ was a priest, but he was booted out of the ministry for misconduct. But Mr. Delaney has never been a priest. Let me ask him a single question, and you can judge for yourself. Mr. Delaney, what is an Ordo?”

There was a dead silence in the auditorium as all eyes turned to hear Delaney’s answer. After thirty long seconds, Noll repeated his question, “What is an Ordo?” Still, the supposed former priest did not answer, so Mr. DeLong leapt into the fray.

“That’s not fair,” he cried. “Mr. Delaney has been out of the Catholic ministry for many years. You can’t expect him to remember these technical terms when he never uses them!”

“Very well. Let me remind you what an Ordo is,” boomed out the young priest. “It’s the annotated calendar found on the desk of every priest. A priest consults it every day. Remember?”

Again turning to the audience, Fr. Noll continued, “Now, tomorrow night, it’s my turn to talk. You have spent the entire night hearing a liar, pretending to be a priest, telling you a lot of nonsense about the Catholic Church. I’m giving you a chance to hear a real priest tell you the truth. I’ll be on that very stage tomorrow night. If you are fair-minded, you’ll come. No admission charge or collection will be needed. That’s for men like DeLong and Delaney. And you will all be free to ask as many questions as you like.”

True to his word, the following night Fr. Noll spoke and answered questions to a full house. Unknowingly, the priest was embarking on a lifetime mission of education, one in which he would defend his faith in the face of the anti-Catholic bigotry and slander of his day and use the power of his pen to educate his own people who were often equally ill informed about the tenets of their own religion.