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By Root 10436 0

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—that of the Catholic Church. It is not Birth-Control that we need but ... Self-Control!’ When you meet someone advising you to read the latest book, you must say this: ‘I am unashamed to say that I will not expose my mind and my soul to such trash. I read only good books, decent books, and no books by wind-bags and publicity-seekers like Sinclair Lewis, and H. G. Wells. I read books like those of G. K. Chesterton, the foremost living writer of this century. No, I don’t read psychoanalysis, either. I read psychology, the true psychology, the rational psychology by the foremost psychologist in the world today—Father Maher.’

“For, my friends, your minds and your bodies are vessels of the Lord, given unto your keeping. They must not be abused. They are not tools for the indiscriminate enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. There is one commandment which, above all, you must not violate. God says, clearly and without equivocation: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!’ If you do, the torments of Hell await you for all eternity! That is clear and unmistakable.

“Today, sad to state, I come here as a priest of God, and I have to confess that the youth of this land neglects that commandment. On every side, they are encouraged. Books! Filthy movies. Newspapers. The doctrines in universities aimed to destroy morality. Men who cater to the purposes of the devil, and expose youth, tender girls and immature boys, to the danger of this sin, all because it is profitable, because a dirty, soiled thirty pieces of silver can be collected. Such men, I say, are worse than Judas.

“And what are the results? One result is this: today in America, there is a type, a class of young men, a recognizable young squirt. This squirt spends the money that his father earned and saved after long years of honest toil. He has an automobile. He has been miseducated at a godless university. He is fast, modern; he talks smartly, dresses smartly, acts smartly. He is always on the loose for a girl. He meets an innocent Catholic girl. She is pure and sweet and good, like Longfellow’s Evangeline. But as young girls often