A Warning | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 6, 1871

A Warning.

The political question which the Catholic church is deliberately raising in this country will soon excite more serious alarm than it has yet done. Although in Europe the reaction against it has compelled it to relax its hold upon the civil governments, in this country it is trying to gain possession of the temporal power. It demands subsidies for its institutions; asks that its holy days shall be made national festivals; declares itself the enemy of popular secular education; and by tortuous and indirect ways is gradually insinuating itself into the possession of civil authority. Should Tammany be enthroned in Washington, the nation would see, together with the corruption and fraud which have been systematized in New York and at Albany, the installation of those influences by which this session secured appropriations of over half a million of dollars from the New York Legislature for the benefit of Catholic institutions.

Perhaps one of the most meritorious claims, intrinsically, that is, which have come before Congress, was the demand of the Orphan Asylum conducted by the Sisters of Mercy in Charleston, South Carolina. These sisters were very kind to the sick and wounded soldiers of the Union army. Their Asylum was destroyed by the bombardment of Charleston, and in behalf of their services twelve thousand dollars were given to them at the close of the recent session of Congress. This appropriation was opposed by many who would have been glad to show liberality, not to say gratitude, for the kindness of the sisters. But the Orphan Asylum is a sectarian institution. It was not legally entitled to a cent from the Treasury. Whatever was given was an unauthorized donation for building up a sectarian institution. It was objected, moreover, that if the money was given there was great danger of its being diverted from its charitable to a purely sectarian purpose. Those opposing the appropriation were denounced as heartless bigots, and bitter haters of the South, anxious to gratify their revenge by an exhibition of petty spite and malicious stinginess. In reply to these objections the Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston wrote that the Asylum was a corporate body, and the priests could not touch the money.

So the bill was passed. Last week the Lady Superior and a companion came to Washington to procure the money. They were quickly followed by a priest who ordered them home. He himself went to the Treasury Department, and by representing himself as agent of the Sisters of Mercy he obtained the warrant, payable to the Lady Superior. Prominent Catholics of Washington, who helped to get the appropriation on condition of its being strictly expended for the object for which it was obtained, believe that the same clerical authority which ordered the Lady Superior home, will have her signature affixed to the warrant and get the money. This incident and its result very plainly exhibit the absolutely delicate and dangerous ground on which we tread, when our civil authorities overstep, in the slightest degree, the rigid line which has been so clearly drawn between church and State, in our national polity. It is fraught with such dangers that we are mad to put even the smallest weapon into the hands of those who will use it against us, with a force increased tenfold by the wonderfully organized and efficient power of those who employ it.—Detroit Post.