Kirwan's Letters [&C] (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 Excerpt: ...it in His own time and way With the most sincere prayers for your temporal and eternal welfare, I remain, with great respect, your fellow-countryman and fellow-sinner, &c. LETTER IX. To all, and especially to American, Roman Catholics. My Dear Friends, --Having addressed a series of letters to one of your most celebrated and excellent bishops in this country, the Right Reverend John Hughes, of New York, candidly stating the reasons which induced me to abandon the Roman Catholic Church, and which prevent my return to it, I desire, before I lay aside my pen, perhaps never to be resumed on this subject, to address myself to you. And I turn from the bishop to you for various reasons, some of which I desire in the briefest manner to state: --1. Whilst entirely honest, I believe you to be a people deluded by your priests. They have taken from you the Bible; they forbid you to reason on the subject of religion; they have filled your minds with prejudices against all who resist or question their authority; they have imposed upon you for doctrines the commandments of men; and they have impressed upon you the belief that with them is the power to admit or to exclude you from heaven. In stating these things I say what I do know, and what you know. With me it is no theory, for I have felt it all. 2. I believe you to be a people impoverished and degraded by your priests. The reasons for my opinion on this subject are stated in the preceding letters. Ignorance being the parent of papal devotion, the priests have shut out from you the light of knowledge. Ignorance begets vice, and vice is the parent of poverty. Or if ignorance begets not vice, it is the rank soil in which superstition attains its most magnificent growth. And which most degrades a people, vice or supers...