AN OBJECT LESSON TO AMERICA.
What the Papacy Has Been Doing in America.
We have shown in our more recent issues that what Spain is the Papacy has made her. The Roman Catholic Church boasts that she is infallible, and does not change. It is declared that “what the church has done in the past for others, she will now do for the United States.” What she has done in the past for other nations may be read in the history of the Middle Ages, and in the Spanish nation to-day. Previous to the Supreme Court decision, Feb. 29, 1892, which declared this to be a Christian nation, Roman Catholics did not consider this government “to be any government at all, or as capable of performing any of the proper functions of government;” but since the beginning of 1892, note the following significant items concerning Rome’s progress (we quote from “Rights of the People,” pp. 190–194):— 1. February 29, 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States declared it to be the “meaning” of the Constitution of the United States that it is “the voice of the entire” people of this nation, speaking in “organic utterances,” that “this is a religious nation,” and that “this is a Christian nation.” 2. July 11, 1892, there was published in this country, in the New York Sun, a letter from the Vatican announcing the plans of Leo XIII. respecting the United States, and through this the world. In this letter it said:— What the church has done in the past for others, she will now do for the United States. . . . Like all intuitive souls, he hails in the United American States, and in their young and flourishing church, the source of new life for Europeans. He wants America to be powerful, in order that Europe may regain strength from borrowing a rejuvenated type. . . . If the United States succeed in solving the many problems that puzzle us, Europe will follow her example, and this outpouring of light will mark a date in the history not only of the United States, but of ALL HUMANITY. 3. In October, 1892, Francis Satolli, archbishop of Leponto, was sent to this country as the personal representative of the pope, ostensibly to represent the pope’s interest in the Columbian Exposition, but in reality to be permanent apostolic delegate at the capital of the nation, with assurance under the seal of “the fisherman’s ring” that whatever he does shall be confirmed by the pope. 4. September 5, 1893, at the World’s Catholic Congress, Chicago, this same Satolli delivered to “the Catholics of America” the following message from Leo XIII.:— In the name of Leo XIII. I salute the great American republic; and I call upon the Catholics of America to go forward, in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth, and in the other the Constitution of the United States. . . . Bring your fellow-countrymen, bring your country, into immediate contact with that great secret of blessedness—Christ and His church. . . . Here you have a country which will repay all effort not merely tenfold, but, aye! a hundred-fold. And this no one understands better than the immortal Leo. And he charges me, his delegate, to speak out to America words of hope and blessing, words of joy. Go forward! in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth—the Bible—and in the other the Constitution of the United States. 5. A few days later, September 24, 1893, Prof. Thos. O’Gorman, of the Catholic University, Washington, D. C., having been announced in the published program to read a paper at the World’s Parliament of Religions on “The Relation of the Catholic Church to America,” changed the title to “The Relation of Christianity to America,” and declared that “by right of discovery and possession, dating back almost nine hundred years, America is Christian;” cited evidences in proof of “an acquaintance between America and the church in times when the only Christianity in existence was Catholic;” and declared that this is “a nation that shall find its perfection in Catholic Christianity.” 6. October 18 and 19, 1893, the jubilee of Cardinal Gibbons was celebrated at Baltimore. The night of the 18th Archbishop Ireland delivered a panegyric in which he exclaimed:— I preach the new, the most glorious crusade. Church and age! Unite them in mind and heart, in the name of humanity, in the name of God. Church and age! . . . Monsignor Satolli, the church, and the age. Rome is the church; America is the age. And at the banquet the night of the 19th, the archbishop again spoke to the following purpose:— I do not know whether or not you appreciate the full value of the union you see typified here to-night,—the union of the Catholic Church and America; the fraternity between the church and the non-Catholics of the nation. The Vice-President of the United States comes here and takes his seat alongside the cardinal. The spirit of fraternity between Church and State thus typified, is the result of the work of our American cardinal. 7. September 21, 1894, a despatch announcing the return of Bishop Keane from Rome gave the following words of an interview with him:— The policy of the pope in view of the late overtures in Italy, is the union of the church with the great democratic powers of the future—that is, America and France. This is his hope, and toward it all his remarkable energies are bent. Three days later, September 24, the newspaper despatches stated that Bishop Keane was “the bearer of a receipt from Pope Leo XIII.,” of which the import was the following:— The papal rescript elevates the United States to the first rank as a Catholic nation. Heretofore this country has stood before the church as a missionary country. It had no more recognition officially at Rome than had China. . . . By the new rescript the country is freed from the propaganda and is declared to be a Catholic country. . . . The importance, not only to Catholics, but to all citizens of the United States, of this radical change in the relations to Rome of the church in America, can scarcely be overestimated. 8. A letter from the Vatican, dated October 14, 1894, to the New York Sun, republished in the Catholic Standard (Philadelphia) of November 3, says:— The United States of America, it can be said without exaggeration, are the chief thought of Leo XIII. in the government of the Roman and universal Catholic Church; for he is one of the choice intellects of the Old World who are watching the starry flag of Washington rise to the zenith of the heavens. A few days ago, on receiving an eminent American, Leo XIII. said to him, “But the United States are the future; we think of them incessantly.” . . . This ever-ready sympathy has its base in the fundamental interests of the holy see, in a peculiar conception of the part to be played and the position to be held by the church and the Papacy in the times to come. . . . That is why Leo XIII. turns all his soul, full of ideality, to what is improperly called his American policy. It should be rightly called his Catholic universal policy. 9. In his encyclical of January 6, 1895, to the hierarchy in America, Leo XIII. himself speaks, and says:— We highly esteem and love exceedingly the young and vigorous American nation, in which we plainly discern latent forces for the advancement alike of civilization and of Christianity. The fact that Catholicity5with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His church; . . . but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. 10. The Catholic Mirror (Baltimore) of March 2, 1895, reported a sermon by “Father” Lyons, of that city, delivered Sunday evening, February 24, 1895, in which he said:— It is strange that a rule which requires a Supreme Court to give final decisions on disputed points in our Constitution, should be abused and slandered when employed by the Catholic Church. Citizens and others may read the Constitution, but they are not allowed to interpret it for themselves, but must submit to the interpretation given by the Superior [Supreme?] Court. The Bible is the constitution of the Catholic Church, and while all are exhorted to read this divine Constitution, the interpretation of its true meaning must be left to the superior court of the church founded by Christ. The decision of our federal Supreme Court is final; the decision of the superior court of the church is final also, and, in virtue of the divine prerogative of inerrancy granted the church, infallible. The church has not, does not, and can not, permit the violation of God’s commandments in any case whatsoever. 11. March 11, 1895, the New York Advertiser printed a despatch of March 10, from San Francisco, as follows:— Private advices received here give an interesting and important communication from Mgr. Satolli to officials in Guatemala, concerning that country’s following the course of Nicaragua in sending to Rome an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. In the course of the document reference is made as to the propriety under the United States Constitution of official relations between Washington and Rome, and an interpretation given of that feature of the Constitution relative to the separation of Church and State. Mgr. Satolli’s letter was written while negotiations were pending about four months ago. It refers at length to difficulties in church administration in Guatemala, and suggests that certain changes desired by the government should be accompanied by an equivalent of serious advantage to render less burdensome the condition of the church in Guatemala. The document then adds:— “The condition of the Catholic Church in the United States, in whose Constitution was inserted the article of separation of the State from any religious sect, can not escape our consideration. I might almost say it causes no surprise. If up to date no official relations exist between the government and the holy see, it is because the great majority of the population is anti-Catholic. In the meantime the church here is attaining possibly greater development and liberty than in other States.” It is stated that this is the first time, so far as is known, that Mgr. Satolli’s mission has been extended outside of spiritual questions and has dealt with governmental subjects. Now can any man read over this string of facts and deny that there is being carried on by the Papacy in the United States a fixed purpose to crowd herself into place in this nation as the “Christianity” of “this Christian nation”? Can any one fail to see that from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution to mean that “this is a Christian nation,” she has caught the cue, and not only holds to that as true, but has begun to take upon herself the interpretation of the Constitution as it relates to “Christianity, general Christianity”?