Sectarian Pilfering

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 2, 1872

Sectarian Pilfering.

The Catholics of New York City, in the years 1869, 1870, and 1871, received, as a gratuity from the county and city treasury, the round sum of $1,396,388.51, to be used for the support of private educational and charitable institutions, gotten up and managed by Catholics, and devoted to the inculcation of their peculiar religious tenets. All the other religious sects put together received, during the same period, $329,313.64, of which $56,956.74 went to Protestant Episcopal institutions. The aggregate thus taken out of the county and city treasury was $1,725,702.15, of which the Catholics made sure of the lion’s share. Every dollar of this money was raised by taxation, indiscriminately levied upon the people in proportion to the assessed valuation of their property. This taxation was by the authority of law, armed with the power of enforcement.

In addition to this large gift of the public money, especially to a single sect, the Catholics of New York have, in the course of the last twenty years, received from the city, in land grants and leases on nominal rent, the huge sum of $3,500,000; which, being added to the gratuity above mentioned, swells the total to $4,896,388.51. This presents an aggregate of nearly five millions of dollars of public money and property which have been given away by the city authorities to further the ends and purposes of Catholicism. The amount received by all the other religious sects of the city is comparatively a small sum, though the principle involved in both cases is precisely the same.

These facts, which we gather from a recent report of the Standing Committee on Political Reform of the Union League Club of New York City, ought not to be dismissed with a mere glance, or repeated to the end of time. They are startling and astounding facts. Their proper title is sectarian pilfering. We should not object to the use of the word stealing or robbery. The city authorities, who are the custodians of the public property and the disbursers of the

public money raised by taxation, holding this property and money in trust for the legitimate objects of political government, have seen fit to bestow on a single sect in a single city nearly five millions of dollars within the last twenty years; thus diverting this enormous sum from its political and civil purposes, and giving it away for sectarian ends and uses. Nineteen-twentieths of it came from Protestants, and non-church members, since Catholics, by reason of their general poverty, pay but a small fraction of the taxes. The non-Catholic taxpayers have, therefore, been compelled to contribute the greater proportion of this large amount to the support of a religious system in which they do not believe, and against which they earnestly protest.

If this is not in the city of New York a practical union between church and State, then we do not see how such a union can ever be accomplished. The political government of the city has first levied a tax upon the people; and then taken a portion of the proceeds and presented it as a gratuity to the Catholics, in aid of their sectarian institutions. We speak of the Catholics particularly since they have been the great sharers in this bounty. It is not surprising that they are so generally Democratic in their political affinities, when they have been so liberally fed by the Democracy. They have found that it will ecclesiastically pay to be Democrats. The Romish priesthood have had the sagacity to perceive this plain New York fact. The alliance between Catholicism and Democracy—the one seeking ecclesiastical and the other seeking political ends—may not have taken the form of a written covenant; yet it has had the reality of a mutual understanding. The game, “You tickle me and I’ll tickle you,” is upon the very face of the political and Catholic history of New York City.

So long, moreover, as the political power of the city is in the hands of the Democracy, with a legal permit to use it in the special interest of Catholicism, this game is likely to be continued. It is an old game, which has been played for at least a quarter of a century; and the parties thereto have become thoroughly versed in its secrets. The fact that this outrage has been committed under the sanction of law does not in the slightest degree relieve its moral and political enormity. The case would not be a whit better or worse if the same thing had been done for the benefit of Mormons, or to propagate the faith of those who glory in being the disciples of Thomas Paine. Infidels have as much right to the public money to foot the bills of their creed as Catholics or Episcopalians have for a similar purpose. No such right exists in respect to any of the sects. We protest against the whole thing as downright robbery perpetrated upon the taxpayers, as a flagrant contradiction of the elementary axioms of this government, and as a gross diversion of public funds from the only use which justifies taxation at all. It makes the support of religion compulsory.

There is a remedy for this evil, and it ought to be properly applied. The power thus to steal the public money ought to be wholly withdrawn from those who enact and administer the laws. The charter of New York City ought to contain a stringent denial of any such power; and then the Constitution of the State should make the denial general. The people throughout the whole country ought to take up the question, and, by amending the Constitution of the United States, make a clean sweep of this whole system from top to bottom. Not a root or fiber of it should be left to grow in American soil. The time has come for a kind of action that will teach all religious sects to be content with the rights and protection of citizenship, and not ask or expect the State to contribute a dollar for their support. This is the true ground to be taken, and there should be no delay in taking it. This ground will effect an entire separation between church and State, and remit the support of religion wholly to the voluntary contributions of the sects that represent it. It will impose upon no one the injustice of being compelled to pay for a religion in which he does not believe. It will set at rest the Catholic clamor about a division of the school funds. We call upon the American people, as citizens, one and all, to rise in their might, and put an effectual and final stop to this whole business of pilfering the public money to promote the ends of sectarian religionists.—N. Y. Independent.