If we give to
girls some vivid realization, say, of the troubled Pontificate of
Boniface VIII, with the violence and tragedy and pathos in which it
ended, after the dust and jarring and weariness of battle in which it
was spent; if they have entered into something of the anguish of Pius
VII, they will more fully understand and feel deeper love and sympathy
for the living, suffering successor now in the same chair, in another
phase of the same conflict, with the Gentiles and peoples of the rising
democracies taking counsel together against him, as kings and rulers did
in the past, all imagining the same "vain thing," that they can overcome
Christ and His Vicar.

Besides this living sympathy with what we teach, we must be able to
speak truth without being afraid of its consequences. There was at one
time a fear in the minds of Catholic teachers that by admitting that any
of the popes had been unworthy of their charge, or that there had ever
been abuses which called for reforms among clergy and religious and
Catholic laity, they would be giving away the case for the Church and
imperilling the faith and loyalty of children; that it was better they
should only hear these things later, with the hope that they would never
hear them at all. The real peril is in the course thus adopted.
Surrounded as we are by non-Catholics, and in a time when no Catholic
escapes from questions and attacks, open or covert, upon what we
believe, the greatest injustice to the girls themselves, and to the
honour of the faith, was to send them out unarmed against what they must
necessarily meet. The first challenge would be met with a flat denial of
facts, loyal-heartedly and confidently given; then would come a
suspicion that there might be something in it, the inquiry which would
show that this was really the case; then a certain right indignation,
"Why was I not told the truth?" and a sense of insecurity vaguely
disturbing the foundations which ought to be on immovable bed-rock. At
the best, such an experience produces what builders call a "settlement,"
not dangerous to the fabric but unsightly in its consequences; it may,
however, go much further, first to shake and then to loosen the whole
spiritual building by the insinuation of doubt everywhere. It is
impossible to forewarn children against all the charges which they may
hear against the Church, but two points well established in their minds
will give them confidence.

1. That the evidence