Some Extraordinary Assertions
By L. A. S.
In a report of an address by Rev. Dr. Stafford at St. Patrick’s church, in this city, on the occasion of the annual visit of Cardinal Gibbons, Sunday, January 10, we note some statements which, by comparison with well-known historical facts, appear truly remarkable. As is not uncommon with Catholic orators, the speaker set forth the Catholic Church as having been the defender and preserver of religious liberty through the centuries that have elapsed since it became powerful in the world, but “Father” Stafford went beyond all others by this comparison which he drew between that church and the United States:— Between the Catholic Church, then, and the American republic there is a perfect conformity, nay, an absolute identity, of principle; and if the founders of the Constitution had been Catholics, bent upon founding a government conformable to the Catholic Church, they could not have done better. The American government, then, is not only the most, but the first, real Catholic government in history. That is to say, during all the long period of Catholic supremacy, during which kings, queens, and emperors obeyed the behests of the popes, when the threat of excommunication was sufficient to terrify the subjects of every ruler into absolute submission to the papal will; when there were rulers especially honored by the popes for their zealous conformity with papal ideas and principles,—“most Christian” and “most Catholic” princes, “dutiful sons” of the church, etc.,—during all this long period of papal supremacy, there was no “real Catholic government” in the world, and it remained for the Reformation, which asserted man’s right to think for himself and to act according to the dictates of his own conscience, and therefore to break away from the despotism of monarchs who claimed to rule by divine right,—it remained for Protestants, in the New World, to establish “the first real Catholic government in history”! Are the times ripe for such bold utterances? Evidently Catholic prelates believe they are, and the fact is very significant.5 It seems fitting in this connection to quote from two Catholic authorities who have spoken on this subject of man’s natural right to the blessings of civil and religious freedom of which the Catholic Church is now alleged to have been the guardian. Cardinal Gibbons, in whose honor “Father” Stafford’s address was delivered, says in his book, “The Faith of our Fathers,” page 264:— A man enjoys religious liberty when he possesses the free right of worshiping God according to the dictates of a right conscience, and of practising a form of religion most in accordance with his duties to God. A “right” conscience,—what is such a conscience, from the cardinal’s point of view? Is it anything else than a conscience instructed by the Catholic Church? And what, from the same standpoint, is “a form of religion most in accordance with his duties to God”? Does not the cardinal hold that the Catholic religion is that form of religion most in accordance with one’s duties to God? Religious liberty therefore, as this Catholic authority defines it, is the liberty to worship God according to the dictates of the conscience, not of the individual concerned at all, but of the pope, the cardinal, or the priest,—the right to worship God according to the conscience of some one else, and not of one’s own conscience at all, unless that conscience coincides with the “right” conscience which his religious superior assumes the prerogative to define. Here is another testimony from more ancient but no less eminent authority. Pope Pelagius, one of the earliest of the Roman pontiffs, made this justification of papal persecution to Narses, who had refused to obey one of his commands on the ground that it would be persecution:— Be not alarmed at the idle talk of some, crying out against persecution, and reproaching the church, as if she delighted in cruelty, when she punishes evil with wholesome severities, or procures the salvation of souls. He alone persecutes who forces to evil. But to restrain men from doing evil, or to punish those who have done it, is not persecution, or cruelty, but love of mankind. [See Bower’s “History of the Popes.”] Hence when an individual is forced to do “right,” to worship God according to the dictates of a “right” conscience, he is not persecuted, and no cruelty is exercised toward him. Pope Pelagius and Cardinal Gibbons agree in the matter, and both justify all the bloody persecutions ever inflicted by their church upon dissenters. Another noteworthy statement in “Father” Stafford’s address is: “The better Catholic you are, the better American you are; and the better American you are the better Catholic you are.” True Protestants, according to this, are nothing less than traitors to this government; for true Protestantism is in every principle utterly opposed to Rome. The Supreme Court of the United States some years ago asserted that this nation is a Christian nation; Pope Leo later on declared it to be a Catholic nation; and now “Father” Stafford at this gathering of laymen and hierarchy declares that this government is, above all others that have ever been, a Catholic government, and that the only good citizens in it are Catholics. It would seem that the limit in the line of assertions has now been reached. L. A. S.