Book Description

Excerpt from The Catholic Cabinet, and Chronicle of Religious Intelligence, 1843, Vol. 1: Containing Original and Selected Articles V e shall begin our sketch of the Catholic world with Italy, not only on ac count of its being at present the most purely catholic portion of Europe, but especially as containing within its limits that greatest, most ancient and uni versally known church - we use the language of St. Irenmus, a writer of the second century, - with which, on account of its more powerful principality every church, that is, all the faithful, must agree. Throughout all Italy, in its various political divisions, our religion is the only one publicly professed; so that the entire population ofthe country, may be stated as the num ber of Catholics. No portion of Europe is more visited by travellers of all countries than Italy, as no other land is so gloriously associated with the past, or contains so man relics of antiquity, or exhibits such a profusion of the mas terpieces of art. E regret to be obliged to add, that few, if anypeople, have been more severely, and, in most instances more unjustly dealt with than the Italians by such visitors. Religious prejudice has conspired, with other causes, scarcely less excusable, to influence the judgments of that crowd of tourists who, too often, withouttaste, refinement, or moral princi lo themselves, have been unable to appreciate the character and institutions of t e Italian peo ple; and who have very frequently made no other return for the kindness and at tention they received in Italy, than indiscriminate and contemptuous abuse of its inhabitants. One of the objects which we propose to ourselves in the Carnouc cabinet is the vindication of our foreign brethren in the faith, by presenting occasional sketches of their manners, deriv cd from authentic sources; as we believe that the evil to which we refer is one of the most fruitful causes of prejudice against our religion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.