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Answer: Certainly one ought not to be a bigot! Who says you should? Do those who rant most about bigotry really know what bigotry is? If so, it would be well to use the knowledge for their own improvement: for generally they are the most intensely bigoted bigots. They are so deeply immersed in their own little puddle of bigotry that they cannot see a whole ocean of fairness beyond them.

Bigotry is not religion, it is the abuse of it.

The defects of persons who are guilty of that abuse, generally from ignorance, ought not to be imputed to Religion.

Religion is abused, like every good thing in the world. We must reject the abuse, and retain the use. We must be pious, but we must not be bigots. God loves one, but He does not love the other. The desires to behold in our hearts devotion, that is, devotedness to His service, devotedness to the duties which He imposes, and love of His commandments; but He does not desire to see bigotry reigning in them, that is to say, those enthusiastic, those narrow-minded or superstitiously religious practices, which often replace the chief object by the accessories, and substitute the means for the end.

Nevertheless, these abuses of religion are not so universal and so heinous as they are generally said to be.

Generally speaking, they do not injure any one, and are only hurtful to those who commit them. Those who fall into these pitiable mistakes are unenlightened persons, who surround and fatigue themselves with numerous external forms and practices of devotion, food in themselves, but carried to too great a length; who assume a certain strangeness of manner; who torment their consciences in the fear of doing wrong; and who become excited and angry, through misguided zeal, when it would be more prudent and wise to remain silent, etc.

This is bigotry. It is a great defect, but I should be glad to think there were no worse ones here on earth! Those who inveigh so loudly against bigotry, and are indignant at the absurdities it gives rise to, are too often persons who remind one of the criminal, who, sentenced to perpetual labor for a frightful murder he had committed, was indignant at having given him for his prison companion a thief!

They are often more worthy of censure than those whom they attack.

Their profligacy, bad conduct, neglect of the most sacred duties, religious ignorance, licentious conversation, evil example, etc, etc, are not these abuses? Are they not crimes?

Their whole life is an abuse; and the abuse of devotion is, I venture to say, the only one they never commit. Would it not be as well to exchange this one for the others, I ask?

Do not, then, be a bigot, but a Christian, and a good Christian. Love God, serve Him faithfully, observe all His commandments; fulfill all your duties, so as to be pleasing in the eyes of God, and listen with docility to the teaching of the ministers of Jesus Christ.

Source: Short answers to common objections against religion By Louis Segur

"Ignorance is the leprosy of the soul. How many such lepers exist in the Catholic Church, even in Rome, where many men do not even know what is necessary for their salvation. It must be our business to try to cure this disease. In old times conversions of whole cities and countries were not unusual, for the zeal and faith of our predecessors in the ministry worked miracles; they were filled with the Spirit of God. Are we less strong than they were, that we are so easily tired, and so slack in our labors among the poor? Spiritum nolite extinguere.

Have we, then, hopelessly degenerated? But we need not go back to past centuries for examples. Vaselli and his fellow-missionaries did wonders in the Campagna. Let us try and deserve the like graces. Besides, if we neglect to labor for the salvation of our neighbors, let us tremble for our own. The conversion of our brethren is the object of our mission, the only real reason of our existence. It is enough for a layman to keep the commandments of God, Who will not require more at his hands. But for us it is different; as faithful imitators of our Lord, we must give our lives for the brethren. Let no fatigue, then discourage or slacken our zeal; never let us mind the hardness, or the indifference, or the rudeness of the poor. Only let us persevere, and if we have the right spirit we shall triumph over all obstacles with the grace of God, and obtain our own salvation as well as theirs."

Source: The life of st. John Baptist de Rossi by E. Mougeot

"We are called by God Himself for the sanctification of souls. How many among the common people are lost for want of instruction! if we do not do this, laymen certainly will not; and yet, if many of these laymen were in our place, what would they not do? Even as it is, do not they often shame us by their activity and their zeal? is it not disgraceful to think that very often they labor harder than ourselves, and contribute more to the sanctification of souls? Gospel adds that after the departure of St. John the Baptist's messengers our Lord said to His disciples, " Quid exiistis in desertem videre, arundinem vento agitatam?" ( Matt. xi.8.) No, the precursor was not a feeble reed driven by the wind; his strength and courage were great, and equally remarkable was his constancy. Although in prison, he did not fear to tell Herod, Non licet tibi habere eam. He neither dreaded the anger of the tyrant, not the prison, nor the death which were in store for him; and so our Saviour adds: "Non Surrexit inter natos mulierum major Joanne Baptista."

"A generous constancy, therefore, is as necessary to us as to St. John. But how often does a slight obstacle suffice to make us give up a work we have begun, or stop us as we are beginning to undertake some useful scheme to help others?

Our predecessors were far more zealous. Persecution, ridicule, cold, heat, rain, rebuffs, nothing discouraged them, however much they might have to suffer. And so their works were accomplished, and God blessed and rewarded their constancy. Remember that we are the inheritors, not only of their position, but of their labours. We are priests, chosen by God for the salvation of His people; not to seek our own ease and comfort. let us, then, be known by our works, and may men say of us as our Lord did of St. John, "Pauperes evangelizantur."

Source: The Life of St. John Baptist de Rossi by E Mougeot

The faith of the Curé of Ars was his whole science; his book was our Lord Jesus Christ. He sought for wisdom nowhere but in Jesus Christ, in His death and in His cross. To him no other wisdom was true, no other wisdom useful. He sought it not amid the dust of libraries, not in the schools of the learned, but in prayer, on his knees, at his Master's Feet, covering His Divine Feet with tears and kisses; in the presence of the holy tabernacles, where he passed his days and nights before the crowd of pilgrims had yet deprived him of liberty day and night, he had learnt it all.

Source: The Spirit of the Cure of Ars by John E. Bowden 1865

"Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matt. V.10

There is nothing for which Christ seems more concerned to prepare His Apostles than the active, violent opposition of the world. He warns them repeatedly that they must not expect to fare better than Himself; that they will have to suffer all manner of ill treatment on His account; that they will be taken up and dragged before unscrupulous judges, cast into prison and tortured; that their very friends and relatives will turn against them and betray them; finally that they will be an object of universal distrust and hatred among their fellow-men.

Subsequent events abundantly verified the Savior's prediction. The lives of the apostles, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to have been full of suffering and trials, and all ultimately crowned by martyrdom. St. Paul, the apostle whom we know best, tells the Corinthians what he had to endure. "Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and day I was in the depths of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watching, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. " 2 Cor. ii. 25....

For three hundred years the history of the Church is a history of persecutions; nor did they cease with the conversion of Constantine. Under many of his successors, confiscation, exile, prison, and death were the lot of Christians true to their faith. In deed it may be said that at all times the good have had to suffer, and to suffer "for justice's sake;" that is, because of their very goodness. The dishonest, the corrupt dislike them, as interfering with their pursuits and their pleasures, and because the very life of the just man is a protest against their methods. It is thus that they are described in the book of Wisdom: (ii.12), "Let us therefore lie in wait for the just because he is not for our turn (he is of no use to us), and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life. He is become a censurer of our thoughts. He is grievous to us, even to behold, for his life is not like other men's and his ways are very different."

And so will it be, St. Paul tells us, to the end of the world. "All that will live godly shall suffer persecution." At the hands of the evil-minded, the good will be made to pay the penalty of their goodness; the faithful and fervent will have to bear the criticism of those who choose not to follow in their footsteps; converts to the true faith will forfeit position or fail to reach it because they have not closed their eyes to the light; born Catholics will seek in vain for what they might easily reach if they were known to be indifferent to religious truth, or to have eschewed all belief; men of integrity who hold office or fill positions of trust will be driven from them because they refuse to share in the dishonesty of others or interfere with their crooked ways; at every turn of life the conscientious will have to suffer for conscience's sake.

The priest does not escape the common law. He too has occasionally to suffer for justice's sake. He may be led by a simple sense of duty or by the impulse of zeal to a manner of action which is not approved of by all. He is often found fault with, criticized, not only by the ignorant, the thoughtless, and the wicked, but sometimes by good people, and even by his fellow-priests. But he finds an encouragement that never fails in the voice of his conscience and in the promise of his Divine Master: "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Yet, he must be sure that what he has to endure is not of his own making. With the best intentions a man may be injudicious in his action, indiscreet in his methods. His firmness may degenerate into obstinacy, his zeal into intolerance. He may, under the name and cover of duty, become self-righteous, narrow-minded, impatient of contradiction, thus awakening opposition and leading to trials hard to bear, but for which there is no reward.

"It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradictions, and to allow people to think ill and slightingly of us, even when we do and mean well.

"These are often helps to humility, and rid us of vain glory. For then we more earnestly seek God to be witness of what passes within us, when outwardly we are despised by men and little credit is given to us. " Imitation i, 12.

Source: Daily Thoughts for Priests, Very Rev. J. B. Hogan S.S., DI president of St. John's Seminary Brighton, Mass 1899

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