Roman Allegiance Versus American Citizenship
In commenting upon the late address of the Pope before the Sacred College, America, a Chicago paper, remarks that "this address of Leo XIII. possesses the deepest interest for Americans. It is a notification to the 7,200,000 Roman Catholics in the United States that their supreme allegiance is due, not to the Republic, but to the pontificate. If this claim were merely the garrulous utterance of an old man jealous of the authority and the prestige that has departed from his office, Americans could afford to dismiss it with a smile. But it is the expression of the pivotal dogma upon which revolves the mighty system of Roman supremacy over its children among the children of the earth. It is the doctrine subscribed to by over eight thousand priests, and preached by them to over ten thousand congregations, to over seven million American citizens. Worse than this, it is the un-American theory inculcated by alien teachers in 2,700 parochial schools to over five hundred and thirty-seven thousand American children."