Note :  According to Bruchési, why should we prohibit The Country newspaper?  Could this kind of letter be written today?  If not, why not?

Extract :

“DEAR BROTHERS,

More than a year ago, we gave the editors of the newspaper Le Pays (the Country) a solemn warning that you have not forgotten, and we concluded with these words:   “We hope they will come to our call, they will change their methods and language.  Let them, therefore, we beseech, use their talents and their pen at the service of better causes; that they remain faithful to our old religious and national traditions, respect the church, its dogmas, its precepts, its discipline and all those who are the custodians of its authority.

[…]

They have nevertheless continued their deplorable work, and so they force us to resort to harsh measures that we wanted to avoid.

But the spiritual good of our diocese is dearer to us than anything else.

Vis-à-vis the faithful entrusted to our care and subject to our jurisdiction, we are like the father vis-à-vis our children. We have strict duty and inalienable right to warn them of any book, of any dangerous newspaper, and if needed to inform them by appealing to their conscience by saying, “Do not touch.”

Therefore, that Le Pays newspaper is likely to cause serious harm to religious interests, and cause real harm, especially amongst the youth; under the powers inherent in our episcopal office and of those we hold due to our Apostolic See, having in mind the good of religion and the salvation of souls, the holy name of God invoked, we strictly forbid the reading of this newspaper by all Catholics in our diocese. ”

Source of the extract : Mandement de Mgr Bruchési, cité par Godfroy Langlois, Le Pays, 4 octobre 1913. Cité dans Yvan Lamonde et Claude Corbo, Le rouge et le bleu : Une anthologie de la pensée politique au Quebec de la Conquête à la Révolution tranquille. Montreal, PUM, 1999, p. 333-334