Cardinal Gibbons on Civil Liberty
By Editor
WHATEVER the real sentiments of Cardinal Gibbons may be, it is certain that nobody can talk better than he on civil and religious liberty. At the dedication of a Catholic Church in Baltimore, January 27, he said:— “We were informed recently by the daily newspapers that a certain antichristian Sunday-school was organized in this city for the purpose of advocating an infidel doctrine. Several ministers appealed to the municipal authorities to suppress the school. For my part, I would be sorry to see the arm of the civil law used toward the suppression of this school. Coercion is not conversion. Our divine Saviour never had recourse to the arm of the law or the sword in teaching his doctrine. The only weapons we ought to use are the weapons of argument and persuasion in dealing with this school. The sword I would draw against the enemy of Christ would be the sword of the Spirit.” It is very probable that the Cardinal speaks his own personal feelings in this matter; but, unfortunately, he is a part of a vast religio-political machine that has never acted on such principles, and he cannot alter either its record or its present condition, nor can he carry out the course that he professes to believe in.