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Demanding Recognition

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 20.

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Demanding Recognition

THE appointment of the new cardinals for the United States has opened the way for the Roman hierarchy to put forward in this country some of the arrogant claims made in behalf of the Papacy in the Old World. According to Roman Catholic teaching, the ideal form of government is found in a union of church and state, and growing out of this papal idea of government there arises the claim for recognition on the part of the state of those who occupy high positions in the church.
With the evident purpose of testing public sentiment in this country, there appeared a short time ago in various papers an article, doubtless inspired by the leaders of the Roman Church, which asserted the precedence of cardinals over all state officials, and placed them next in rank to the President of the United States. That the claims made in this article meet with the approval of the Roman hierarchy, is shown by the fact that the essential part of it was reprinted in the Boston Pilot (April 6, 1912), a paper which is owned personally by Cardinal O'Connell. The extract follows:—
“Some confusion appears to exist with regard to the exact position of the four American cardinals on the official table of precedence at Washington and in the various States of the Union, writes Marquis de Fontenoy. This was brought to light by the attitude of the governor of Massachusetts at the St. Patrick's day dinner, at which the President of the United States was present.
“In the first place, it is necessary to call attention to the fact that the point raised about discrimination in favor of one church at the expense of another can not be said to apply in the case of cardinals. They are something besides ministers of the gospel and ecclesiastics.
“Indeed, a cardinal is not necessarily a priest, but he is from a purely secular point of view a very great personage, who is regarded and treated everywhere abroad not as a dignitary of any church, but as a prince of the blood.
“Under the circumstances, it must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley, O'Connell, and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and members of an American hierarchy, yet they are, as cardinals, foreign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one of the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to concede the same honors that they receive abroad.
“Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he would be entitled to the salutes and to the naval honors reserved for a foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainments at Washington the cardinal will outrank, not merely every Cabinet officer, the Speaker of the House, and the Vice-President, but also the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the chief magistrate himself.
“Incidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not of sovereign rank visits New York, it is his duty to make the first call on Cardinal Farley.”
The recent incident in Boston, when Cardinal O'Connell demanded precedence over Governor Foss, shows that this “prince of the blood” intends to enforce this claim for the precedence of a cardinal over any state official, and this purpose is manifested in the following paragraph, which appeared in the Pilot of April 13:—
“This country would be showing a contemptible and narrow littleness which does not become it, and which will never be manifested, if it were to endeavor to set at naught the century-old rank which all nations accord to their eminence.”
We have long maintained that Roman Catholicism was the same in America as in the Old World, and that if it did not make some record as in the middle ages, it was because the time was not ripe for it. In recent years, however, the Roman hierarchy has become much more bold in asserting the claims of the church, and this demand for the same recognition of the rank of cardinals in this republic as in the monarchical governments of the Old World is a bold step toward the assertion of the supremacy of the Roman Church over the state. Fifty years ago it would have been thought incredible that such a step would be taken by the representatives of Rome. There has been a cardinal in this country for many years, but never before have the representatives of the Papacy felt sufficiently sure of their position to put forward the claim for such a recognition of the rank of a “prince of the blood.” It is one of the significant signs of the times that this step has now been taken, and we shall wait with much interest to see whether a cardinal of the RomanCatholic Church will be accorded at state receptions the position of honor next to the President of the United States.