A Significant Demonstration

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 22, 1908

A Significant Demonstration

THE return of Cardinal Gibbons to Baltimore last week after an extended visit in Europe, which included a considerable stay in Rome, was made the occasion of an imposing demonstration. The mayor of Baltimore, the governor of Maryland, and Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, attorney-general in President Roosevelt’s cabinet, who is a prominent layman in the Roman Catholic Church, delivered addresses of welcome. A great parade, headed by carriages containing the governor and his staff, the mayor and members of the city council, an ex-governor, the attorney-general, the State’s attorney, and a member of Congress, marched through the streets, some of which had been handsomely decorated. This procession was reviewed by Cardinal Gibbons, who, arrayed in his pontifical robes

and surrounded by officials of both the church and the state, sat in a chair on the cathedral steps for this purpose.

At the close of the parade, there was a service in the cathedral which was attended by all the dignitaries present. At the close of the service the cardinal said:—

I thank you again, and, with the wishes of the White Shepherd of the Vatican, I will now impart to you the blessing of the holy father. His blessing he is eager to extend to you, whether of the Catholic Church or out of it, and its spirit extends to all.

The cardinal then stood on his throne and gave the blessing of the pope.

It is the privilege of any State or city to pay honor to a distinguished citizen, but such action furnishes no ground for criticism. It is only when we analyze this demonstration in honor of Cardinal Gibbons in the light of the teachings and of the purpose of the Roman Catholic Church, that it assumes any special significance.

From the reports of the occasion it is clear that Cardinal Gibbons received the honor bestowed upon him not simply as a citizen of Baltimore, but as a high dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church. Before reviewing the parade, he was particular to exchange his citizen’s suit for his pontifical robes, and in the religious service which followed, he departed from the usual custom by imparting the blessing of the pope to non-Catholics as well as to members of the church. Furthermore, in the address of welcome by Attorney-General Bonaparte, emphasis was placed upon the ecclesiastical position and duties of the recipient of these honors. The attorney-general said, in part:—

In truth, dear father, you return to us when we most need you. At this time we are burdened with a great duty, one cast upon us by our form of government, — the duty to choose our chief civil ruler. At such a time we may well be reminded, and by those who speak as with authority, of the quickening truths which give life to our country.

It is hardly to be expected that the attorney-general would desire Cardinal Gibbons to use his great influence in favor of the candidate whose election is being most stoutly opposed by his own chief, and the introduction of such a reference to political affairs into this address will be likely to give increased force to the claim that the influence of the Roman Catholic Church will be used in favor of the election of President Roosevelt’s favorite candidate, on account of his favorable attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church, as shown in the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Cuba.

On the day following the parade, over one hundred non-Catholics visited the Cardinal, and presented him with a silver loving-cup. The spokesman of the company told the cardinal that “in this delegation are Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and Hebrews, and, indeed, a Jewish rabbi, while two of us are Spiritualists.” In his address he further said: “At the reception yesterday one of the speakers said that the bitterness of religious prejudice had well-nigh died out, and we hope that it may soon die out altogether.”

There is a vast difference between religious prejudice and that kind of maudlin religious sentiment which finds expression in a disregard of the difference between truth and error, between loyalty and apostasy, and hastens to join in the exaltation of a man not as a man merely, but as a leading official representative in this country of that organization which has been the menace of the true church of Christ and of every government which has attempted to follow the Christian idea of the separation of church and state.

This demonstration in honor of Cardinal Gibbons is one more evidence of the drawing together of Catholics and Protestants, and of the rapidly increasing influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. When we remember that the conventions of the two great political parties, at which candidates for the presidency were nominated, were both opened by prayer by an archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, it is not difficult to conclude that both parties are hoping to realize benefit from the influence which that church exercises over its communicants as a factor in determining elections. There is a constant need of emphasizing the counsel of a former president of this republic: “Keep the state and the church forever separate.”