The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [221]
“The writers I have named are merely a few out of many. There are others, and amongst them, there is the biggest windbag of them all . H. G. Wells. That Englishman who preaches evolution, who says that man came from a monkey. And on what evidence do such false prophets preach evolution? On the evidence of science? That is a lie. I’ll tell you the evidence. A slab of shin bone and a half a skull was found in China. These half-baked pseudo-scientists gave it a confounding and terrifying name—Pithecanthropus Erectus. Then they went to a zoo and saw a monkey eating with a fork. Because of that, and because of—pardon me if I mispronounce it—Pithecanthropus Erectus, they say that man came from a monkey and is only an animal. In their insane egotism, they think that all men are made unto their own image and likeness. (Snickers.)
“And the universities, miscalled seats of learning, temples of truth, are full of such men. Over here on the Midway, you have one such university. Recently, I conducted a mission in another part of the city, and a Catholic girl came to me and said: `Father, what am I going to do? I’m given these kind of books to read in my courses, and if I don’t read them, I’ll be flunked. And they present fallacies contrary to my faith.’ I told her what to do. I told her what every Catholic student should say in such circumstances. I told her to take the books back to her professor and say that Father said she should tell him this: ‘I am a Catholic. I will not read these books and endanger my holy faith. They are full of half-truths, paradoxes, lies, and the men who wrote them are either ignorant, or else they are liars. You must put a stop to this sort of thing. You must stick to what you know, to the limited field which you have studied, and stop talking about or recommending books on morals and theology, because you are ignorant and biased.’ That is what every Catholic student in a godless university should do.
“Another class of people contributing to the sham sophistication which I have mentioned is a bunch of snivelling old maids who do not care how many souls they ruin, as long as it permits them to get their hatchet-faces plastered all over the newspapers as forward-looking women. And what do these snivelling old maids advocate to earn the dubious honor of being forward-looking? (A pause.) Birth control! The deliberate murder of human souls, in defiance of the laws of God and Nature. I’ll tell what the birth control of these snivelling, hatchet-faced old maids means. It means this (he banged his right fist into his left palm): It means the legalization of sin, disease, promiscuity, the destruction of the Christian home; and the Christian Catholic home is the backbone of this, or of any civilized, nation. But what do such irresponsible old fools care? What do they care if they incite to the murder of innocent, unborn babes? What do they care if they turn this nation into a state of debauchery which would make pagan Rome look virtuous by sheer comparison? What do they care if all men live without even the decency of the beasts of the field? What do they care so long as their long, hatchet mugs are in the daily newspapers, with a description of forward-looking and modern, under the photographs?”
He paused, and slowly wiped his perspiring face with a large handkerchief. He coughed. He recommended in an even voice:
“Ah, my friends, the mind of America is being ruined. For the youth of a nation is that nation’s future. And our youth is being contaminated. And there is only one way, one method, of fighting this ruin and contamination. There is only one hope for America. That hope lies in the Catholic young men, the Catholic girls of this nation. They must be the leaders. They must offer the strongest resistance to sin and blasphemy. They must fight the untruths spread by these cheap little half-baked, second-rate anti-Christs. When they, when you, meet someone defending birth-control, this must be said in answer: `Birth control solves nothing. There is only one answer