Catholics Always Loyal EIGHTH EDITION 50,000 * * * OUR SUNDAY VISITOR Huntington, Indiana Catholics Always Loyal to their Country Catholics Always Loyal to Their Country. If we can prove that the Catholic Church has done more for our country in the past than any or all other institutions, and that she is doing more today, it should not be necessary to answer what to us is a laughable charge, viz.: that spiritual allegiance to Rome cannot go hand in hand with political devotion to the United States government. Here we shall recount some of the things for which America is indebted to Catholics ; then we shall show what allegiance to Rome implies, and quote Protestant scholars, who repudiate the charge that loyalty to the Pope is incompatible with civil allegiance to one’s country. 1 . The United States had its birth as an independent nation in 1776, when the grandest government in his- tory was established. To whom are the 100,000,000 people who now enjoy the blessings of this free country mostly indebted ? They may not be prepared to acknow- ledge it, but it will not be difficult to prove that human- ly speaking we would have no United States to boast of, were it not for the assistance young America received at the hands of Catholics. Catholic France sent a fleet of 10,000 men, furnished the great generals Lafayette, LaGrasse and Rochambeau, and supplied $3,000,000; Catholic Poland sent us Pulaski and Kosciusko ; Cath- olic Ireland furnished a dozen generals, and one-half the soldiers in the Revolutionary war were Irishmen ; Cath- olic Spain contributed 3,000 barrels of gun-powder and 1,000,000 francs. In fact nearly all the aid which our struggling patriots received from foreign countries came from Catholics. Washington wrote a letter to the CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 8 Catholics of New York acknowledging the indispensable aid they contributed to the new-born nation, and thanked them for the same. GEORGE WASHINGTON. (November 5, 1775, in a letter addressed to Boston bigots) “It is our duty to address public thanks to our Catholic brethren, as to them we are indebted for every late success over the common enemy in Canada.” Nine Roman Catholics signed the Declaration of Independence; several Catholics helped frame the Fed- eral Constitution ; even today the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who interprets this wonderful docu- ment, is a Catholic. Commodore John Barry, the father and founder of the American Navy, was a Catholic; the city of Wash- ington was planned by a Catholic; the White House was designed by a Catholic. “THE STATE," (Columbia, S. C.) (Nov. 9, 1914.) “Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the wealthiest private citizen of his time in the United States, signer of Thomas Jefferson’s ‘Declaration of Independence,’ member of the first Congress of the United States, one of the great ‘fathers of the republic’—and the most influential Roman Catholic layman in the country.” 2 . When the Union had to face its first great peril, which resulted in the Civil War, the proportion of Cath- olics in the Union army was double the proportion that the Catholics bore to the whole population. A whole host of Catholic generals in the Civil War helped to pre- serve the Union, among them might be mentioned, Sheridan, Rosecrans, Buell, Shields, Mulligan. It is on record that a Mr. Ryan, of St. Paul, was the first to volunteer his services to Lincoln. 4 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. The first soldier to lose his life at Vera Cruz, the first victim of a Villista raid, at Columbus, N. M., were Catholics. JERSEY COUNTY DEMOCRAT. (Jerseyville, HI*. Aug. 6, 1914.) "There have never been found truer men to their oath of office than these Catholics, especially during the Civil War as shown by our Generals like Sheridan.” GOVERNOR PHILLIP (Wis.) (Sept., 1915.) "Whoever says that a Catholic is not a good citizen, does not know him. The Catholic is made of the sort of stuff that built up a good Union army, and if needed again would readily respond.” In 1898, Catholics did not take Spaing religion into consideration when they answered the call to arms to fight for Uncle Sam against that country. During our recent “border trouble,” the Knights of Columbus had a count made of the religious complexion of the National Guard, and discovered that about one- third of the whole number was made up of Catholics. 3. For many years immigration to the United States from the different countries of Europe has been heavy. In some of our big cities these so-called foreigners con- stitute more than one-half the population. They come with their strange customs, language, and inclinations. Every person must readily see that these cities would no longer merit the appellation “American” unless there were at work some unifying power, which amalgamates them with the native-born and makes of them good, law- abiding citizens,—and our observant men give almost full credit for this invaluable service to the Catholic Church. The sameness of the Catholic Church here with the Catholic Church they knew in their own land makes CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 6 them feel welcome to her membership, and at home in her temples. Foreign children are able to attend a parochial school where teacher and priest know their own language; here they are trained in virtue as well a» knowledge, in patriotism as well as religion, and the country of their adoption becomes dearer to them than the country of their birth. 4 . If this government is to endure and be glorious it i3 not sufficient that it be based (as it is) on Christian principles. Those who govern the people, who make and execute our laws, who teach in our schools, must be imbued with Christian principles. Is the rising genera- tion, which will be in control in twenty or thirty years hence, being properly schooled for the task? Not if Lyman Abbott (and a thousand others who say sub- stantially the same) is right, when he contends that “Development of intelligence without a concurrent de- velopment of the moral nature does not suffice.” For the continued safety of our government as now con- stituted, it is necessary that education tend to make our children good as well as learned citizens; it must be applied to the heart and conscience as well as the head. But only one million and a half of our children are receiving an education of this kind, and nearly all of them are in the Catholic parochial schools. 5 . Take account of what the Catholic Church is doing for suffering humanity; there is kindness and benevo- lence and charity outside the Catholic Church, but no church has within it a large body of people who make charity their life’s work. Hospitals, Reformatories, Homes for the Aged, the Poor, the Orphan, under Cath- olic auspices, abound CATHOLIC LOYALTY.« 0. The moral soundness of a nation’s life rests on the sacredness and stability of the families which make up the nation’s people. But there exist in our country 3,000 divorce courts, which annually break up the family for 400,000 people. The law which permits this contributes to the killing of love, devotion, sacrifice, contributes to the making of criminals. The number of divorces would be increased by one-fifth, were it not that 19,000,000 of our countrymen are pledged not to take part in the nefarious work. Who are these? The Catholics of the United States. 7 . Our observant statesmen see the beginning of a virulent cancer in the body politic in the growth of Socialism and its zealous propaganda. No greater enemy to our country could be conceived than that which seeks to overthrow the whole government and to erect another of an untried kind in its stead. Socialism proposes this, and there is no large organiza- tion, save the Catholic Church, which is taking the gov- ernment’s side. If a friend in need is a friend indeed, then our country has no truer friend than the Catholic Church. Temporal Power of the Pope. Many Protestants erroneously believe that the Pope is impatient to become a Temporal Ruler; that he is playing secret politics through bishops and priests everywhere in order to get Catholic subjects into high office, who, because of sworn loyalty to him, will pro- mote the interests of the Catholic religion. To such as have even surmised that this might be true, I wish to say without the slightest qualifica- CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 7 tion that the Pope is not concerning himself in the least about American politics. And if a Catholic were to be- come President, the Catholic religion would not seek a single favor at his hands and would be far less likely to get any than at present, since he would fear the charge of being partial. Rome would not meddle with his administration ; she would have no interest in him other than a hope that he would rule justly and creditably. And granting the impossible supposition that Rome would make a suggestion to him of a political nature, he could, without being disloyal, tell the Pope to stay within his (spiritual) realm. The territory where the United States has its seat of government belongs to no state. It must be free from meddling on the part of any other ruler. The Church’s situation is quite similar; she needs some, if only small, territory, where her Supreme Ruler will have freedom to govern the subjects of the Church in spiritual matters without danger of interference by a hostile king. By “Temporal Power” is not meant the power to rule the nations, or any single nation, in tem- poral matters. HARPER’S WEEKLY. (August, 1903.) “Public opinion accepts the plea that for an effective exercise of his functions the Pope needs political indepen. dence. What guarantee does the inmate of the Vatican possess that the successor of Victor Emmanuel III. will not be an infidel or a degenerate? What assurance has he that an out- burst of spite or violence on the part of the civil power in Italy might not be coincident with such a state of disturb- ance in Europe as would preclude the hope of succor from any Catholic or friendly power? To say that the exercise of the Papal functions does not require political independence seems, from the view-point of pious Catholics, to be unreason- able, because it contradicts the experience of 1,500 years, to which no real exception is presented by the wariness and 8 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. self-repression temporarily evinced by the house of Savoy, which itself is in a precarious condition.” No Danger From the Pope. POPE PIUS X. (In an Address to a Party of Pilgrims from the Argentine Republic.) “The Church will always defend the constituted authori- ties, imposing love, obedience, respect and observance of the laws, helping the State to provide for the maintenance of peace. At the same time the State should always render to God the things that are God’s, by showing itself respectful to that authority of the Church which God has given her, and by not thwarting, but rather protecting her and her children.” CARDINAL GIBBONS. (Baltimore) “In the present emergency it behooves every American citizen to do his duty, and to uphold the hands of the President and the legislative department together in the solemn obliga- tions that confront us. “The primary duty of a citizen is loyalty to country. This loyalty is manifested more by acts than by words; by solemn service rather than by empty declamation. It is exhibited by an absolute and reserved obedience to his country’s call.” CARDINAL FARLEY. (New York) ’ \ “Our President having spoken, and our national Repre- sentatives having spoken, the response to the voice of the authority they embody will be that we will rally around our flag with the completest fullness of devotion, and with loyalest hearts and sturdiest arms place all that we have, and all that we are, at our country’s service. “We will not shrink then from any sacrifice in her behalf. We will render to her what our Catholic faith and our Cath- olic teaching sanctions; nay, sanctifies. No demand on our American manhood or American citizenship will go unanswer- ed or will not find us true Americans, true children to our Church, that never was found wanting in any crisis of Ameri- 7an history.” CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 9 CARDINAL O’CONNELL. (Boston, Mass.) “The Catholic civil allegiance divided? Why, look across the sea, to where all Europe is in arms. Every Catholic is fighting loyally, giving his very life for his own country. And though some of these countries have merited little gratitude from any Catholic, still the very priests are in the trenches, each a defender of his native land. Where, I ask of any honest witness of these facts under his very eyes, where is this divided allegiance? And the Pope—is there one in this country who, after this war, will ever dare to accuse the Pope of interference in civil affairs or of weakening the loyalty of citizens ?” CARDINAL NEWMAN. (“The Pope,” p. 68.) “Were I a soldier or sailor in her Majesty’s service in a just war, and should the Pope suddenly bid all Catholics to retire from her service, I should not obey him.” COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. (May, 1846) “We can confidently appeal to our whole tenor of instruc- tions, not only in our public addresses, but in our most con- fidential communications, and you bear witness, that we have always taught you to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, to God the things that are God’s.” THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY AS A BODY. (April, 1917) “Mr. President: “Standing firmly upon our solid Catholic tradition and history from the very foundation of this nation, we reaffirm in this hour of stres® and trial our most sacred and sincere loyalty arm patriotism toward our country, our goverment, and our flag. “Moved to the very depths of our hearts by the stirring appeal of the President of the United States and by the action of our national Congress, we accept wholeheartedly and un- reservedly the decree of that legislative authority proclaim- ing this country to be in a state of war. “We have prayed that we might be spared the dire necee- 10 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. sity of entering the conflict. But now that war has been de- clared, we bow in obedience to the summons to bear our part of it, with fidelity, with courage, and with the spirit of sacri- fice, which as loyal citizens we are bound to manifest for the defense of the most sacred rights and the welfare of the whole nation. “Acknowledging gladly the gratitude we have always felt for the protection of our spiritual liberty and the freedom of our Catholic institutions under the flag, we pledge our devo- tion and our strength in the maintenance of our country's glorious leadership in those possessions and principles which have been America’s proudest boast. “Inspired neither by hate nor fear, but by the holy senti- ments of truest patriotic fervor and zeal, we stand ready, we and all the flock committed to our keeping, to co-operate in every way possible with our President and our national gov- ernment, to the end that the great and holy cause of liberty may triumph and that our beloved country may emerge from tiiiis hour of test stronger and nobler than ever. “Our people now, as ever, will rise as one man to serve *he nation. Our priests and consecrated women will once again, as in every former trial of our country, win by their bravery, their heroism and their service new admiration and approval. “We are all true Americans, ready as our age, our ability ^d our condition permit, to do whatever is in us to do for me preservation, the progress and the triumph of our beloved ^untry. “May God direct and guide our President and our govem- aent, that out of this trying crisis in our national life may at length come a closer union among all the citizens of Amer- ica, and that an enduring and blessed peace may crown the sacrifices which war inevitably entails.” [Signatures of Archbishops follow here]. ARCHBISHOP IRELAND. (St. Paul) “Apart from the dictates of solemn duty, should we not cherish America, live for America, and die for America? America is the guardian of our weal and of our life. The words of St. Paul, ‘Let everyone be subject to the higher powers,’ tell us of our duties to the country. The individual CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 11 requires for his life and welfare the protecting hand of civil society; to civil society, therefore, we must be subject; for its life, integrity, and honor we must be ready to make sacrifices, even of life. Our social family, our country, is the United States of America. America is speaking, we listen as to the voice of God; we obey, we follow, gladsomely, and ‘for con- science sake.’ ” ARCHBISHOP PRENDERGAST. (Philadelphia) “While the Catholic Church commands your obedience in things spiritual, the land of your birth or adoption has exclu- sive claim to your allegiance in all that regards the civil order. This is a doctrine which you have been trained from infancy to believe and observe. We exhort you, therefore, in the great crisis through which we are passing to comport yourselves as loyal and patriotic citizens and to upohld the authorities by every means in your power in whatever meas- ures they see fit to adopt for the safety and dignity of the republic. Our fathers in the faith had no small part in estab- lishing and maintaining this home of freedom. We view their achievements with justifiable pride, and to them, as to the other heroes of our nation, we will ever look with grateful reverence. May we in this and in all emergencies prove our- selves their worthy children, ever ready, even as they, at the call of country, to stake ‘our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.’ ” BISHOP ENGLAND. (Charleston, S. C.) “Let the Pope and Cardinals and all the powers of the Catholic world united make the least enroachment on that Constitution, we will protect it with our lives. Summon a General Council. Let that Council interfere in the mode of our electing but an assistant to a turnkey in a prison—we deny its right; we reject its usurpation. Yet we are most obedient Papists.” RT. REV. TIMOTHY CORBETT. (Crookston, Minn.) '‘Catholics pay obedience in spiritual matters to a wise, unselfish, just and God-commissioned ruler, but not in civil matters.” 12 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. RT. REV. B. J. KE1LEY. (Bishop of Savannah, Ga.) “Catholics in civil matters owe and pay allegiance and loyal support to no person, power or authority save the United States; the Pope has no authority over us in civil matters; no Catholic recognizes in him any right or title to have or demand civil allegiance. “I assert that we Catholics are more loyal to our institu- tions than others, or at least that our loyalty is based on much higher and stronger motives. We believe that all au- thority comes from God; that resisting lawful authority is resisting God; that our government is the lawful government in this land; hence with us loyalty to God and loyalty to the Republic go hand in hand, being based on the same motive and resting on the same authority—the Word of God. Can our Protestant fellow-citizens do better? Can they do as well?” W. E. GLADSTONE. (“Vaticanism,” p. 14) • “The immediate purpose of my appeal has been attained, in so far that the loyalty of our Roman Catholic fellow-sub- jects in the mass remains evidently untainted and secure.” CANON NEVILLE. (In “A Few Comments.”) “Some one may urge that the Pope may issue a mandate, enforced by an annexed excommunication, forbidding all Catholics to eneage in the war against him The supposed action of the Pope does not change the question materially. The soldiers and sailors would not incur it, because ‘grave fear’ excuses from censure (excommunication), censures be- ing directed against the contumacious, not against those who act through fear of coercion.” BELLARMINE. (“De Rom. Pont.” Vol. 2, p. 29.) “In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is re- quired Therefore, as it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man’s person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls, ‘or troubled the state/ and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful to resist him, by not doing what b* 'Commands, and hindering the execution of his will.” CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 13 REV. J. P. McKEY, C. M. (In the “Marian,” 1913.) “If by any impossible supposition, the Pope should man army and fleet to storm our coast, do you know what Catholics here would do? You would have two million Catholics in the American army ready to die to resist the Pope’s invasion; you’ would have thirteen million Catholics in their homes praying for their sons, brothers and fathers in the field; you would have forty-five thousand Catholic nuns upon their knees before the Tabernacle, beseeching the God of armies to strike the guns from the Roman emissaries; you would have seventeen thousand priests in the front ranks of the army fighting until they died for the Constitution of the United States. We would be loyal Catholics, still we would say to that Pope: ‘We shall render to God the things that are God’s. Yes, but we will render also unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’ ” REV. G. R. GEBAUER. (Duluth, Minn., April 19, 1914) “We Protestants are apt to have a rather exaggerated notion of the power of the priesthood outside the walls of the Church. I believe that no intelligent Catholic would permit any priestly dictation in matters of strictly secular life. Yes, and in the Roman Catholic Church in America itself would arise bishops in protest in case his holiness in Rome were to meddle with American political life.” REV. K. A. BRAY (Episcopal.) (Episcopal, Geneva, N. Y.) “To those who are forever harping on the power of the Pope, meaning thereby not his spiritual, but his temporal power, the problem set by this war must be a hard nut to crack. Here Roman Catholic fights his brother, each owing allegiance to the same spiritual head, yet each with his life protesting allegiance to different and opposing temporal rulers. Austria, one of Rome’s most faithful children neg- lecting the pressure of Rome, along with Germany so largely independent of Rome, fighting France still very largely Roman Catholic; England dominatingly Anglican, aided by Ireland herself divided as by a line into Roman Catholic and non- Roman Catholic camps. If to be a Roman Catholic means loyalty to the Pope in antagonism to loyalty to one’s country, what is the answer to the present situation?” 14 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. GOVERNOR HAMMOND (Minn.) (The Tribune, Minneapolis, Oct. 13, 1915.) “I believe thoroughly that no order of citizens in this country is more patriotic and more devoted to America today than the Knights of Columbus. COMMITTEE OF MASONS (Who examined K. of C. Ritual.) “The ceremonial of the order teaches a high and noble patriotism, instills a love of country, inculcates a reverence for law and order, urges the conscientious and unselfish per- formance of civic duty and holds up the Constitution of our country as the richest and most precious possession of a knight of the order.” VICTOR (N. Y.) HERALD. (Oct. 9, 1914.) “I have found the measure of their patriotism, their loyalty and their integrity to be in exact proportion to their devotion to their Church and their obedience to its teachings.” Church Not In Politics. Now a word on “Catholics and Politics.” Catho- lics, like other citizens, have politics, but the Catholic Church has none. Some of the Catholic bishops of the United States are Republicans, some are Democrats. So it is with the priests and people. And not only is there never a word from Rome or elsewhere about what Catholics should be in the matter of politics, but the clergy never so much as intimate to the people how they should vote. This should be plain to any observant person. Some of our states, where Catholics constitute nearly one-half the total population, will go Republican, whilst other states where they are equally strong will be carried by the Democrats. If Catholics were in politics, as many Protestants think they are, nearly all the Eastern states would have Catholic governors, most of the big cities Catholic mayors. Religion is not car- ried into politics by Catholics. CATHOLIC LOYALTY. 16 What we say about our country is equally true about others. REV. D. F. BRADLEY (Prot.) (Cleveland, Ohio, July 19, 1914.) “Now as to the danger of the Catholics controlling the government. If they had any such designs they have not been ve^y successful in carrying them out. There has never been a Catholic President or Vice President. There have been eight Episcopalians, seven Presbyterians, four Metho- dists, three Unitarians, two Dutch Reformed, one Disciple and one Liberal. “I do not recall that a Catholic was even ever nominated for President or Vice President. The present administration is about as Presbyterian as it can be, both President and Vice President, the Secretary of State and a majority of the Cabinet are Presbyterians. Many of the heads of bureaus and Ambassadors are Presbyterians. The Senate is over- whelmingly Protestant. So is the House of Representatives. So is the Supreme Court and the judges of the Federal Courts. If the Catholics have tried to capture the government they have had very poor success. “When we come to the local government of cities the case is a little different because the Catholic population in cities is dense and heavy. It is natural that as in Boston where Cath- olics outnumber the Protestants they should have a large share in the municipal government. It would scarcely be fair were it not so. Yet as a rule Catholics do not get their share of the offices.” HON. W. J. BRYAN. (The Commoner, Aug., 1915.) “Those who have come into intimate acquaintance with representative Catholics did not need to be informed that they do not concede to the Church authorities the right to direct their course in political matters, but many Protestants, lacking this knowledge which comes with personal acquaint- ance, have been misled.” EX-GOVERNOR FOSS (Mass.) (Aug., 1915.)* “I have a special sympathy for those good people who, mislead by dishonest misrepresentations, are apprehensive or the future of our public schools. But I assure them that 16 CATHOLIC LOYALTY. those against whom their fears are directed will be found, as they have ever been, in the forefront of the fighting for American institutions on the field of battle and elsewhere in public or private life.” TEXAS DEMOCRAT. (Tyler, Tex., April 14, 1914.) “To the average American Catholic, the Stars and*Stripes, the American Flag, is next in sacredness to the Cross of Christ. “If American institutions were as sacred in the hands of those who, in books and newspaper, seek to arouse Protes- tant prejudice against Catholicism as they are in the hands of the American Catholics, but little harm would befall the most sacred safeguards which our fathers threw around the religious and political liberties which we enjoy.” FORT WORTH (Texas) RECORD. (February 20, 1914) “We pity the state of mind of any person who conjured up visions of Catholic conspiracy against American institu- tions in this day of enlightenment, free thought and publicity.”