[4] The headquarters of the C.T.S. of India are in Trichinopoly.  They have already their own publications.

[5] Although the Halifax branch of the C.T.S. does not form a unit of the C.T.S. of Canada yet it is one of the most active branches in our Country.

CHAPTER XV.

A SUGGESTION[1]

Importance of the Catholic Press—­Requisites for its Success in the West.

Nowadays the Press is assuredly the greatest factor of the public mind.  For, if public opinion is “King” and “Master” of the modern world, the “Press” is his “Prime Minister.”  Between these two great forces there is a continuous action and reaction; the Press is at the same time the moulder and mirror of public opinion.

We all know how the world has turned this mighty weapon against the Catholic Church.  To create an anti-Catholic opinion, to surround the Church—­its authority, its practices—­with an atmosphere of prejudice and antagonism has always been the aim of the non-Catholic press.  Of late this campaign has become so universal and so violent “that were St. Paul to live among us, he would become a journalist,” said Archbishop Ireland.  Repeatedly the Pontiffs of Rome have urged the faithful to contribute to the support of the Catholic Press.  “In vain you will build churches,” said Pius X, “give missions, found schools; all your works, all your efforts will be destroyed if you are not able to wield the defensive and offensive weapon of a loyal and sincere Catholic Press.”

The Catholics of Western Canada should have these words of the beloved Pontiff continually before their minds.  There is no place in Canada where this vital factor, the Catholic Press, is of such an absolute necessity.  In our sparsely settled Provinces the Catholic paper is the greatest help of the priest.  It prepares, keeps, and perfects his work and very often is the only silent messenger of the Church’s teachings on the lonely prairie.  Isolation from all Catholic life, from its teachings, its authority, its sacraments, has created through Western Canada a tremendous leakage in the Church.  This leakage can be stopped to a certain extent by the active service of a good Press.  The Catholic paper, indeed, reacts as an antitoxin against the virus of unbelief and indifferentism which a non-Catholic atmosphere is bound to spread.  In its columns we find the answers to the misrepresentations and slanders which bigotry is ever throwing at the Church.  But above all it is through the medium of the Catholic paper that the lonely Western settler enters into what we would call the larger life of the Church.  We are too prone to think of and judge the Church by what we see of Her in our own nearest surroundings.  We lose sight of Her Catholicity and forget that greater life which is ever pulsating throughout the world.  The reading of the Catholic paper breaks down the narrow walls of parochialism, provincialism and nationalism, and introduces its readers into the more serene and more spacious regions of Catholic life.  This is, in our opinion, the greatest benefit one can derive from the assiduous and intelligent reading of a good, active, Catholic paper.