By Phil Lawler (
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) | Aug 16, 2022
“Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary out of his pocket] is a Rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”
Thus spoke Hillaire Belloc, answering an anti-Catholic heckler, while campaigning for a seat in Parliament in 1906.
After the publication of a rabble-rousing article in The Atlantic entitled “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol,” some timid Catholics may be inclined to hide away their Rosary beads (assuming they can find them), to avoid being associated with extremism. Others are ready to scold The Atlantic for publishing such a bare-faced attack on…
