That year, 1853, in March, periodic publication of the Catholic Readings began. In 1847, when the emancipation of the Protestants and the Jews took place, it became necessary to put some antidote into the hands of the Christian faithful in general, and of the young in particular. From that act it appeared that the government meant only to grant freedom to those beliefs and not to harm Catholicism. But the Protestants did not understand it in this light. They produced propaganda with all the means available to them. They distributed three newspapers, (La Buona Novella, La Luce Evangelica, Il Rogantino Piemontese) and many books both biblical and non-biblical. They gave assistance freely, found employment, supplied work, offered money, clothing, and food to those who came to their classes or attended their lectures or simply joined them at church. They used all these means to make proselytes.
The government was aware of all this and allowed it to go on; with its silence it gave them effective protection. The Protestants, moreover, were organised and furnished with every means both moral and material. Catholics, on the other hand, had relied on the civil law for protection and defence up till then; they possessed a few newspapers, a few classic or learned works, but no newspapers or books to put into the hands of the working classes.
At that time, advised by necessity, I began to draw up some summaries about the Catholic Church, and then some posters entitled Reminders for Catholics. I handed them out to both children and adults, especially at missions and retreats. These handouts and pamphlets were eagerly welcomed, and I had soon given away thousands and thousands of them. This convinced me of the need for some popular means of spreading knowledge of the fundamental Catholic doctrines. So a pamphlet entitled Advice to Catholics was printed. Its aim was to put Catholics on the alert lest they let themselves be caught in the nets of the heretics. Its distribution was extraordinary; in two years it sold more than two hundred thousand copies. This pleased the good, but it enraged the Protestants, who had begun to think that they had the field of evangelisation all to themselves.
It was then that I began to see that the matter of preparing and printing books for the people was urgent, and I laid out plans for the so-called Catholic Readings. When a few issues were prepared for publication, I wanted to get them printed at once. But an obstacle loomed up, as unexpected as it was unforeseen. No bishop wanted to take the lead. Those from Vercelli, Biella, and Casale refused, saying that it was dangerous to tangle with the Protestants.
Archbishop Fransoni was then in exile at Lyons. He approved and recommended the project, yet no one was willing even to undertake the ecclesiastical review. Canon Joseph Zappata, the vicar general, was the only one who acceded to the archbishop’s request and reviewed half of one issue. Then he sent the manuscript back to me with this comment: Take your work. I can’t see my way to signing it. The cases of Ximenes and Palma are far too recent. You challenge and take the enemy head on, but I prefer to sound the retreat before it’s too late.
With the vicar general’s consent, I explained everything to the archbishop. His reply was accompanied by a letter to Bishop Moreno of Ivrea, asking that prelate to take under his patronage the publication I was planning and to assist it through his censor and with his authority. Bishop Moreno readily agreed. He delegated his own vicar general, the canon lawyer Pinoli, to act as censor, stipulating that the censor’s name was not to be published.
A programme was quickly put together, and the first issue of The Religiously Instructed Catholic, etc. came out on March 1st 1853.
Father Ximenes, the publisher of a Catholic paper, Il Contemporaneo of Rome, was assassinated. Msgr Palma, papal secretary. and a writer for that paper, was done in by a musket shot right in the halls of the Quirinal Palace.