“Beware of False Prophets.” — St. Matt. vii, 15

Our Divine Saviour was not content with revealing to us His heavenly truths, instituting the sacraments and dying for us upon the cross; He also wished to warn us against the enemies of our salvation. A good father and a kind mother will not be satisfied with raising their children well, giving them a good education and providing for them in such a manner that they will be in a position to make their way when left to themselves ; they will also warn them of the dangers and temptations they are about to encounter in the world. If children disregard these well-meant admonitions and plunge themselves into misery and misfortune, it is their own fault. If a Catholic, therefore, disregards the warnings of his Divine Saviour who bled for him upon the cross, if he disregard the admonitions of the faithful mother of his soul, the Catholic Church, who likewise has suffered and been persecuted for nineteen centuries for the sake of her faith, if he permits himself to be despoiled of his faith and of the grace of God and filled with prejudice against the Catholic Church and if in consequence he loses his immortal soul, he has only himself to blame for it.

But in order to put us on our guard and to make us prudent and circumspect in all our doings, our Divine Saviour points out to us the marks by which we may recognize the enemies of our faith and our salvation: “By their fruits you shall know them; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (St. Matt. vii,15-18).

I shall, therefore, speak to you of the false prophets of our own times.

O Jesus, assist us with Thy grace!

1. Bad newspapers are conspicuous among these false prophets.

Satan was the first false prophet who came in sheep’s clothing; and thus became the father of all succeeding false prophets. Under the hypocritical mask of enlightenment and of concern for the welfare of man he led our first parents to their fall in paradise. The fruits thereof have been bitter enough for Adam and his descendants. Idolaters were false prophets; the fruits they offered to mankind were bitter indeed, slavery, human sacrifice and all the misery that followed in the train of ancient paganism. Heresiarchs were false prophets, for under pretense of inaugurating reform, freedom to read and interpret the Bible and liberty of conscience they tore away whole nations from the Catholic faith. Their fruits were also bitter and evil. The daily papers are with very few exceptions false prophets of our time. They have assumed the outward garb of virtue and hypocritically pretend to stand for what is best and noblest in mankind, — virtue, the public good, civil and religious liberty, the advancement of learning, toleration, liberalism.

Who can number all the crimes committed against God and society, all the havoc caused in the mind and in the heart of the individual citizen under this cloak of hypocrisy? Nothing is any longer sacred. The holiest mysteries of religion are made the object of attack and ridicule, the Divinity of Christ is denied, news of murder, of suicide, of incest, of adultery, of disloyalty to the marriage vow, is spread broadcast, and the principles of morality are covertly, aye, and openly, sneered at. The Catholic Church in particular receives far more than her share of attack and vilification. If the Holy Father, the vice-gerent of Christ on earth, raises his voice to warn his people against the enemies of their faith, if bishops stand up to vindicate the sanctity of the marriage bond, insist upon the Christian education of children, defend the faith and morals of the flock confided to their care, if priests endeavor to fulfill their sacred duty and denounce indecency and profligacy, a torrent of abuse, of lies and calumnies is poured out against them by the public press. And with what unholy glee any scandal, or mistake, or act of disobedience, disrespect, or discontent that occurs in the bosom of the Church, is seized upon and amplified and embellished and spread broadcast over the world.

I put it to anyone whose head and heart are still in a normal position: Who instructed the nations, who conquered heathenism? Who carries to the utmost bounds of the earth faith, grace, redemption, morality, aye, and material prosperity, and preserved them jealously for nineteen hundred years? Who in defense of the heritage of the nations, of faith and salvation, shed her own blood in torrents and suffered the fiercest persecutions? Who other than the Catholic Church? Not these false prophets, the evil press of our day, but the Catholic Church has patiently suffered and bled for the welfare of mankind. Who first established and put in operation hospitals, asylums for the poor, sanitariums, orphan asylums, schools, colleges and universities? These false prophets in sheep’s clothing and under the hypocritical pretext of serving the public good and advancing science have not done it; the Catholic Church alone has accomplished all these things of which our present day civilization is so proud. To-day we still have numerous religious orders and associations, who self-sacrificingly devote themselves to the care of the sick, the education of poor children, the support of poor families. On what soil did they grow and flourish? On the soil of the Catholic Church. It is not the false prophets, the agitators who take care of the poor, but the Catholic Church. I will go further. True Catholics do not fill our prisons, commit no crimes, are not guilty of murders, robberies, do not cheat and steal and plunge the poor into still deeper misery. The Catholic Church, the kingdom of God and the Bride of Christ, does not rear criminals, but she does rear Christians, children of God and heirs of heaven. Yet there is no lie, no calumny, no insult and vilification, too low, too vile, too stupid, for this corrupt press to daily vomit forth against the Catholic Church.

2. A murderer is certainly a great criminal, but in most cases he commits murder in a fit of anger or to avenge an insult, or he is driven to it by hunger and misery. But the murderer knows and feels the enormity of his crime. He frequently regrets it from the depth of his heart, is converted and is, moreover, punished by death or life-long imprisonment. But the real scourge, the real misfortune of a people are the murderers of souls, these false prophets, who with malice prepense, with deliberate lies and calumnies, with well-calculated sneer and insult, poison, not one, two, not hundreds, but thousands of souls; despoil whole peoples of their faith and morality and fill them with hatred against the Catholic Church, destroy the quiet and peace of families and nations, agitate the world and form untold numbers of godless men — and all this in the name of public good, prosperity, liberty, enlightenment and toleration. Yea, this slaughter of souls is the most horrible of all occupations, the curse of nations and of governments.

When Voltaire lay on his deathbed, his ravings betokened a terrible despair. With his own teeth he tore the flesh from his arms. Voltaire had written volumes filled with hatred of Christian faith and morals. And now there appeared before the eyes of the dying man the souls whom by his writings he had poisoned, murdered, despoiled of faith and cast into unending misery. Despair made Voltaire a raving maniac, and in this despair he died. And yet in comparison with these false prophets and ravening wolves of the present, Voltaire was almost a saint. He never accomplished the results they obtain so successfully by their ruthless methods. Such murderers of souls are never converted; a terrible curse rests upon them. “Woe to the man through whom scandals come; it were better for him had he never been born.” The wrath of God knows no bounds on this point, for to rob thousands of souls, for whom the Saviour bled, of their faith and morality and salvation, and to pervert them by deliberate lies and calumnies, is a display of unutterable malice.

And in fact what do these false prophets, these newspaper-writers care if you lose grace and everything else? They want your money for their paper. What do they care if you lose your immortal soul, your eternal salvation? They wish to interest you for their own purposes. The workingmen, the people are to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them. And these false prophets and agitators take good care that not a single advantage will accrue to the people.

“By their fruits you shall know them.” These fruits are apparent to all: The loosening of every legitimate tie, robberies and murders in appalling numbers, unbelief, blasphemy, curses and maledictions, and a state of immorality that no longer seeks to hide its head, but flaunts itself on the street, on the stage, in society and puts every virtue to flight. The Catholic Church brings forth no such fruits. She can only produce good fruits; that is why she has existed for nineteen hundred years and will continue to exist as the good tree until the end of all time. But the evil tree, the false prophets in the person of vicious and irresponsible newspaper-men will be cut down and thrown into everlasting fire.

3.Evil times will surely come. They already stand at our very doors. They are the fruit of impiety and of hatred against the Catholic Church. These evil times will come upon all, because with hardly an exception all are culpable, not excluding the better of the faithful. There are Catholics who subscribe for and advertise in these newspapers and thus furnish the money necessary to continue and propagate the evil work. They are accessories to the crime. A multitude of others are silent when they should speak and declare themselves, and so they give the enemy a free field. They are accessories to the crime. Our Catholic men join every society but a Catholic one, and the Catholic societies in turn are afraid to use the power for good that lies in their hands. They are accessories to the crime. We are afraid of antagonizing people, ashamed to assert ourselves and our principles, grateful that we are tolerated, and so we prevent the development of Catholic life, and encourage our enemies to continue their nefarious work. We are all accessories to the ruin and devastation they cause.

Let us, therefore, manifest our Catholic faith in word and deed, for “not everyone who saith to me, Lord, Lord! will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.” Let us not cringe before the idol of so-called public opinion, for it is manufactured and paid for. Let us be loyal to the Catholic Church, and let us heed the warning of Our Divine Saviour, and hearken to the voice of our Holy Father and of the bishops. They alone have our true interests at heart, they labor for and with us, they suffer for and with us. They are the successors of the Apostles and, therefore, the true prophets whom Our Divine Saviour has commissioned to lead all those who believe in Him, hope in Him and love Him with their whole heart on the right path to salvation.

I have fulfilled my duty as a Catholic priest by issuing this note of warning to you. It is now your duty to take heed of the warning so that on the day of judgment you will not be found guilty of having betrayed your glorious Catholic faith, that you be not other Judases to the Catholic Church, the mother of your souls. May God guard you against such a sin, and may He grant you all the grace of steadfastly preserving, professing and defending your faith against the machinations of false prophets. May the recompense of the glorious confessors be yours in the eternal happiness of Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer. May His Holy Name be loved and praised through all eternity. Amen.

The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church Vol. 1 (1911)
Rev. Edward Jones