NO. 7 THE CATHOUC CHURCH AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS Huntington, Indiana THE CATHOUC CHURCH AND CIVIL GOyp»^ MENTS During the national presidential campaign of 1928, when a Catholic ran for the highest office in the land, a Charles C. Marshall, of Millbrook, New York, wrote a book in which he defended the contention that it is not safe for a country, whose complexion is largely Protestant, to have a Cath- olic as its sovereign, because as a sub- ject of the Catholic Church he may come in conflict with the spiritual power to which he professes personal allegiance. During the year 1931 Mr. Marshall wrote another work dealing with the same subject, and claims that during the three intervening years his obser- vations in his earlier work were con- firmed by happenings in Italy and on the Island of Malta. In this brochure we present facts to be considered versus theories, and the reader may judge for himself 2 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH whether the reviewers of Marshall’s work (Current History, October, 1931) are not right in declaring that he weakens his position by trying to prove too much. ITALY AND MALTA In the late controversy (1931) be- tween Mussolini and the Pope, who is there in America, who, despite his dif- ference of religious belief or even his irreligion, would side with Mussolini ? If ever any similar situation arose in our. country Protestants and infidels would be with Catholics in condemn- ing the civil ruler who would declare as Mussolini declared: “I am the State”. In his conflict with Mussolini the Holy Father was upholding one hundred per cent American prin- ciples, namely, those of free assembly, free speech and free press. Surely Mr. Marshall would not want any American to demand that his government be consulted concern- ing the transfer of clergy, but that is the principle which Marshall defends in taking sides with the British Gov- ernor of Malta against the Church. AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 3 But was the Church wrong in the Malta affair? The Investigating Committee appointed by the British government says “No,” and criticized the very government which gave it being. On February 16th, 1932, a year after the unpleasant situation on the Island of Malta, we learned from London that the Royal Commission appointed to investigate the conflict between officials of the Government and the Church in Malta, returned and filed a report filling 218 pages, in which Lord Strickland was severe- ly criticized. This Commission was composed of Lord Askwith, Sir Walter Egerton and Sir John de Salis. Defends Church Against Government In the report it is claimed that the quarrel between Lord Strickland and the Bishops of Malta had a trivial beginning; and we read: “Lord Strickland was a dominating and ag- gressive force, with a manner cal- culated to cause irritation and annoy- 4 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ance. His method of attack involved personal animosity on the part of those attacked, which tended to divide the island which is extremely loyal to Great Britian into very embittered cliques.” Referring to Father Carta, who was charged with undue political ac- tivity by Lord Strickland, the Royal Commission made this report: “It does not appear to be the case that he played any active part in poli- tics, and his actions cannot, in our view, be interpreted as constituting an inter- ference by priests in politcs.” It was represented by this investi- gating Commission that the clergy would be willing to cooperate in har- mony with the Government if it minded its own affairs. In fact the Commission received assurance from the clergy that they were ready to cooperate in harmony with the Gov- ernment and Ministry when it re- organizes following the next elections. AMERICAN STATESMAN vs. MARSHALL Abraham Lincoln rebuked those who organized to promote just such AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 5 views as those held and exploited by Charles Marshall. On one occasion he wrote: ^^When the Know-Nothngs get con- trol, our constitution will read: ^All men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics/ When it comes to this I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make 'no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Theodore Roosevelt repeatedly con- demned those who maintained that the country would not be safe under Catholic rule. He said on one occa- sion : “When a secret society tries to pre- scribe Catholics, both politically and socially, the members of such society show that they themselves are as utter- ly un-American, as alien to our school of political thought, as the worst immi- grants who land on our shores.” On another occasion in an open letter addressed to an Ohio Lutheran, who opposed the election of William Taft for President because it was al- leged that he or his wife was a Cath- olic, Roosevelt wrote: “I know Catholics who have for many years represented constituencies mainly 6 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Protestant, and Protestants who have for many years represented constitu- encies mainly Catholic; and among the congressmen I know particularly well was one man of Jewish faith who repre- sented a district in which there were hardly any Jews at all. All of these men by their very existence in political life refute the slander you have uttered against your fellow Americans. Shortly before he died Mr. Bryan, who had been accused, in some quar- ters, with affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, declared in an address at Madi- son Square Garden, New York: “My friends, I have such confidence in the Catholic Church, which was for 1500 years my Mother Church as well as yours, that I deny it needs political aid. It was the Catholic Church that took religion from its Divine Founder and preserved it—was its only custo- dian—for over fifteen centuries. When it did this for Catholics it did it for me and for every Protestant. The Catholic Church, wth its legacy of martyred blood, and with the testimony of its long line of missionaries who went from every land, does not need a great politi- cal party to protect it from Klansmen.” MARSHALL vs. MARSHALL A namesake of the critic of Cath- olics, the Honorable Thomas R. Mar- shall, former Governor of Indiana, and later Vice-President of the Uni- AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 7 ted States, declared, in an address de- livered on June 4th, 1910, at St. Jos- eph’s College, Rensselaer, Indiana: you tell me the Mother Church is inimical to democracy? I, a Protest- ant of Protestants, deny it. Tell me who are more loyal and dutiful citizens than the Catholic clergy and the Catholic laity of this Republic! IVe got a little of the blood of Charles Carroll, of Car- rollton, in my veins. Who was a better Catholic man than that signer of the Declaration of Independence, who staked more and lost more than all the others in penning his name to the im- mortal declaration? ‘‘Your Church stands to-day as the greatest bulwark against atheism and socialism. She stands for the sanctity of the marriage tie. If she was guilty of every crime alleged against her by her most bitter enemies, she would have more than wiped them all out by her stand for the sanctity of the home and against the forces of irreligion and dis- order in our own day.’’ The united declaration of the Cath- olic Hierarchy of a country should be convincing. The Archbishops and Bis- hops of the United States, assembled at the Third Plenary Council in Balti- more in 1884, made this pronounce- ment: “We claim to be acquainted with the laws, institutions and spirit of the s THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Catholic Church, and with the laws, in- stitutions and spirit of our country, and we emphatically declare that there is no antagonism between them.” UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE The fact that the Catholic Church has always defended the theory that union between Church and State is ideal should not surprise any reflect- ing person. If you be one who be- lieves that you have reflected on the matter, kindly reflect again with us for just one moment. Let it be noted in the first place that the Catholic Church has never advocated union of Church and State where non-Catholics were in the ma- jority, as in the United States, or England, or Germany, or Sweden, or Norway, or Holland, or Denmark, or Kussia. Secondly, take note of the fact that there has been union between Pro- testant churches and the State in all the above mentioned countries except our own. Therefore, your fault finding AND CIVIL. GOVERNMENTS » should not be with the Catholic Church any more than with the Luth- eran Church, or the Anglican Church, or the Russian Church. In the so-called Catholic countries, where union of Church and State has been provided for in the Constitu- tions, there have been, until recent years, very few people who were not Catholics by profession. Isn’t it natu- ral that where practically every citi- zen cf a given state is also a member of a given church there should be such union as would spell hearty coopera- tion between that State and Church? Would any state operate a govern- ment “of the people, for the people, and by the people” if it did not have the warmest sympathy for the reli- gion which all its citizens profess and practice? Is there not a union between the State and the Soviet religion? This religion may be anti-religion, but the citizens of the State are practically forced to embrace this anti-religion. In no Catholic country have people been forced to embrace the Catholic 10 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH faith, nor have Protestants and infi- dels been molested. IS FRICTION NOT COMMON BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE? If the Catholic Church can cooper- ate harmoniously with any form of government how do you account for the present estrangement between the Church and State in Spain and in Mexico? We have already excepted Com- munistic governments. But what sane American would blame the Church when friction eventuated be- tween Church and State in countries governed by Communists? What sane American would even imagine that Protestantism would fare any better under a communistic regime? Press reports from Spain have all made clear that the attempted revolu- tions against the new Republic of Spain, and the many attacks on the clergy and Religious, as well as upon ecclesiastical institutions, were per- petrated by small organized groups directed from Moscow. AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 11 The weekly magazine TIME, Feb- ruary 1, 1982, reporting the latest ef- forts of the revolutionists in Spain, says: “Syndicalists and Communists had been waiting for many weeks for- a chance to rise. . . Up and down the valley spread the revolution. Soviet flags went up over many cities. Ex- cited crowds rallied under Leo Trot- sky’s old slogan : ‘EUROPE IS BURNING AT BOTH ENDS’.” The same magazine, of the same date, says : “Despite church-burning young men, Spain is a deeply religious country. The Jesuits are its strongest religious order. The average Spaniard was not impres- sed by the threat of expulsion of the Jesuits because he remembered that the Jesuits had been expelled, not once but many times before, and they always came back. “Because the Society of Jesus has always been accused of concerning it- self unduly with political matters, it has always attracted more bitter enemies than any other Catholic organization. In 1767 Carlos III drove the order out of Spain, its mother country, and in 1773 he persuaded Pope Clement XIV to suppress it entirely. The order was restored by Pius VI in 1814; the Jesuits were back in Spain in 1815. In 1835 they were kicked out again; they came back in 1852; out they went with the 12 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH revolution of 1868; they were back again by 1875 only to be threatened with expulsion once more in 1912.” FORCES OF DISORDER V The fact that the Jesuits were re- admitted into Spain after frequent expulsions shows that when sanity ruled they were not regarded as a menace to the state at all. The Jesuits have been expelled from other Catho- lic countries also, but always to be invited back. The forces of disorder oppose them not on religious grounds, not even on political grounds, but be- cause their presence with their schools of higher learning, with their many periodicals, always promoted conservatism. They were potentially educators of public opinion, but al- ways on the side of right. What is true of Spain is also true, in a great degree, of Mexico. While its government has never been called Communistic it has been that in fact. Under the administration of Calles several cabinet members were pro- fessed Communists. The Church is persecuted there because it never AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 13 ceases to denounce socialism, con- fiscation of property and crops, the graft which has been carried on in a wholesale way by men high up in government circles. Catholics in Spain, Mexico, Italy, and in other Latin countries, have never been or- ganized politically. Therefore they have never had political leaders ; and during revolutionary days, as was ex- perienced in Mexico on a number of occasions, everyone who announced himself as a candidate for high pub- lic office on a platform which would guarantee the safeguarding of the rights of the Church, was secretly assassinated. Leadership for orderly government is always frustrated where Communists rule. Imagine leadership away from sovietism in Russia ! FACTS VS. THEORIES We promised to present facts versus theories. Catholics had considerable to do with the beginnings of our nation, with the winning of our independ- 14 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ence, with the acquisition of our lib- erty. They have been at the head of our Supreme Court, have governed important states, have been mayors of large cities—yet we would be pleased to learn of a single instance where their Church found herself in conflict with civil authorities. The late honorable Charles Book- waiter, mayor of Indianopolis at the time, said in a public address in Tom- linson Hail, July 14, 1907 : HON. MAYOR BOOKWALTER (Indianapolis, Ind., July 14, 1907) “No man can read the history of this American continent without being forc- ed to an appreciation of what we owe as a continent to the Catholic Church. Just read the stories of Father Mar- quette, Father Hennepin, La Salle, Joliet and others.'^ These were ‘'foreigners’’ giving their life and ready to spill their life’s blood that America might be- come great under a Christian civil- ization. In fact “foreign” Catholics had more to do with the winning of our independence than the people within our own border ; and we have no less AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 15 authority than that of George Wash- ington himself in substantiation of this contention. General Rochambeau, who came from France to help the colonies, planned the Yorktown cam- paign, which resulted in the defeat of Cornwallis and the winning of the war. It is also of record that the French people, led by the French clergy, financed the campaign. The money was collected in the churches. In addition to all this French troops, which outnumbered American troops more than two to one, are to be cre- dited with that victory. George Washington recognized this, and in an open letter to all the American people rebuked the bigots of that day and reminded them that they owed a deep debt of gratitude to a nation in which the Catholic faith was professed. We quote from Gen- eral Washington’s letter: GEORGE WASHINGTON (March 12, 1790) hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality; and I presume your fellow citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the 16 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.” Again in an order issued by him on the 5th of November, 1775, prohibit- ing fanatics of Boston from burning the Pope in effigy, Washington says: “As the commander-in-chief has been apprised of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and child- ish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so devoid of common sense as not to see the im- propriety of such a step. It is so mon- strous as not to be suffered, or ex- cused; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is the 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.” It is also of record that Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the richest man in the colonies, risked more than any other one did in ap- pending his signature to the immortal document. Count de Grasse commanded the French fleet, made up of twenty-four AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS 17 ships, carrying 1700 guns and man- ned by 19,000 Catholic sailors and marines, which ended the British rule in the United States. The day following the surrender of Yorktown, Washington wrote to de Grasse : ‘^The surrender of Yorktown, the honor of v/hich belongs to Your Excel- lency, has greatly anticipated, in time, our most sanguine expectations.” While Catholics were doing all this to establish an independent nation on these shores, it is also of record that the clergymen of most other denomin- ations, in their sermons, in their ef- forts outside their churches, attacked the independence movement, and for a long time after our government was established, remained “pro-British”. GREATEST RELIGIOUS LIB- ERTY UNDER CATHOLICS Surely it should not be necessary to apprise the reader that religious liberty, which all Americans now re- gard as our country’s greatest glory was first proclaimed by the head of a Catholic colony, that of Maryland 18 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH under Lord Baltimore. Applying practice to theory, Protestants were invited into the Catholic colony and given the same civil and religious rights as the Catholic people them- selves. Such little sympathy did the Pro- testant groups have for this forward step of Lord Baltimore that when they finally grew into large numbers in Maryland they showed their disap- proval by restricting the rights of the Catholic pioneers in their midst. Enemies of the Catholic Church try to rob Lord Baltimore of the glory of promulgating religious liberty by re- presenting that it was religious toler- ation rather than liberty, because those who disowned the divinity of Jesus Christ were not granted the fullest measure of citizenship. But it must be remembered that there were few in America in that day who were not professed Christians of one or other of the denominations. But what other religious organiza- tion set example even of tolerance? In 1649 the Puritans, sheltered in AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS Maryland, after having been driven from Virginia, rebelled even against the tolerance of Catholics in the colony established by them. Although the State of Virginia, under Thomas Jefferson, is credited with having founded the first govern- ment on the theory that Church and State should be separated. Lord Balti- more, a Catholic, founded his colony on the same principle one hundred years previously. As an instance of greater tolera- tion on the part of Catholics we have the law passed by the General As- sembly of Rhode Island in March,. 1663, which reads as follows : “That all men professing Christianity, and of competent estates, and of civil conversation, who acknowledge and are obedient to the civil magistrate, though of different judgments in religious af- fairs (Roman Catholics only excepted) shall be admitted freemen, and shall have liberty to choose and be chosen officers in the colony, military and civiV^ PRESIDENTS SCORED PERSECUTION James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, had a veritable hatred 20 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH for religious intolerance, which stir- red him more nearly to passion than any other feeling he ever manifested, we are told by Gaillard Hunt, his bio- grapher. Two years before the Vir- ginia Convention, Madison wrote as follows : “That diabolical, hell-conceived prin- ciple of persecution rages among us. * , I have neither patience to hear, talk or think of anything relative to this mat- ter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed so long about it to little purpose that I ani without com- mon patience.” In his last message as President of the Untied States, Madison declared: “The people should be thankful for a government which watches over the purity of elections, the freedom of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, and the equal interdicts against encroachments and contacts between re- ligion and the State.” The necessity of religion for the well-being of the Commonwealth is strikingly set forth by George Wash- ington in his Farewell Address, de- livered to the people of the United States on the 17th of September, 1796. Here are his own words : “ ‘And let us with caution indulge the AND CIVIL GOVERNMENTS . 21 supposition that morality can be main- tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar struc- ture, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious prin- ciple.’ JEFFERSON: '‘Each and every act of parliament by whatever title known or distinguished, which renders criminal the maintaining of any opinions in mat- ters of religion. . . or exercising any mode of worship whatever. . . . shall henceforth be of no validity or force within this Commonwealth.” COOLIDGE: "But among some of the varying racial, religious and social groups of our people there have been manifestations of an intolerance of opinion, a narrowness of outlook, a fix- ity of judgment against which we may well be warned. It is not easy to con- ceive of anything that would be more unfortunate in a community based upon the ideals of which Americans boast than any considerable development of intolerance as regards religion. To a great extent this country owes its be- ginnings to the determination of our hardy ancestors to maintain complete freedom in religion.” Intolerance invariably and inevit- ably reacts upon the heads of the in- tolerant. The very existence of our nation in its independence is proof of that fact. 22 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH A PRESERVER OF GOOD GOVERNMENT History presents the Catholic Church in the United States, as well as in other countries, as a stabilizer and preserver of orderly government. She has always been the most bitter opponent of radical and fanatical forces organized to destroy the state here or elsewhere. It can be affirmed without danger of contradiction that most of contin- ental Europe would now be living under Bolsheviki rule were it not for the offsetting influence of the Catho- lic Church. If the Catholic body had not constituted such an inconsiderable minority in Russia, Sovietism would never have established itself even there. Not knowing the character of the movements against the Catholic Church in Mexico and in Spain in recent years even otherwise fair- minded writers have thought that they were actual uprisings of the Catholic people against their Church. As a matter of fact these attacks AND CIVIL, GOVERNMENTS 23 were directed by small groups, secret- ly well organized, for the purpose of substituting a sdcialistic or commun- istic regime with all its by-products, the complete secularization of educa- tion, the destruction of all religion, the introduction of practices which every true Protestant would stigma- tize as immoral. Small groups have had great power in Latin countries because the Cath- olics themselves were not politically united, while their enemies were. Even those Catholics, who concerned themselves with politics, were divided into so many groups that the Social- ist element, in numerical strength, had greater strength than any one or two of them. Let the Catholic Church be perse- cuted ever so much in any given country, she always comes back to save that country. The people whom Bismarck sought to crush have been the principal saviors of Germany several times since. They have been the backbone of Holland with a differ- ent state religion. It is acknowledged 24 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH that they are now saving Christianity for England, where. for several cen- turies they were disfranchised.