No Religious Test

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 13, 1913

No Religious Test

ONE of the provisions of the national Constitution is to the effect that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust” in the government of the United States. Some of the States long had provisions in their constitutions which excluded Catholics from public office. The new national administration, however, can not be accused of making any discrimination against that class of citizens. A Roman Catholic administered the oath of office to the President of the United States. A Roman Catholic is private secretary to the new President, and this private secretary’s first assistant is also a Catholic. The private secretary of the President’s wife is a Roman Catholic. Thus all the correspondence of the President’s household comes under the eye of a member of the Roman Church. No communication can get to the President that does not pass under the eye of a Catholic. Catholic editors are jubilant over this arrangement. Says the Catholic Citizen (of Milwaukee) of February 15: “A Southern Democrat is quoted as saying that there will be ‘no Catholic in the Cabinet,’ but ‘Catholics will be appeased with minor jobs.’” The editor of the Catholic Citizen then adds: “We shall see.” So while the government is debarred from making religion a test, the Catholic Church makes it a test, and urges adherence to its faith as a qualification to holding public office.