Public Funds for Sectarian Charities

International Religious Liberty Association · Chicago · Jun 21, 1900

FromThe American Sentinel, The Sentinel of Liberty, Vol. 15, No. 24.

Public Funds for Sectarian Charities

June 4, 1900, the House of Representatives had under consideration an appropriation for the support of St. Joseph’s Asylum, a Roman Catholic institution in the District of Columbia. On the strength of the action taken in 1897, Representative Bingham of Pennsylvania opposed the proposed appropriation. Mr. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts spoke in favor of making the appropriation notwithstanding the general law, and “predicted the rise of a Catholic party if the persecution of the Catholic sectarian institutions continued.”

It seems rather strange that any one should term an effort to make a church support its own charities “persecution.” The prediction of a “Catholic party” may be realized, but it would seem that in order to hope for any success it would need something more substantial and more just in the way of an issue than the fact of opposition to the support of church institutions out of the public treasury.