Satolli’s Temperance Decision
SOME of the Protestant papers are beginning to see that they gushed rather freely over the much-lauded "temperance" decision of Papal Delegate Satolli. Bishop Watterson, of the diocese of Columbus, Ohio, who is an enthusiastic temperance advocate, decreed against the election of saloon keepers as officers in Catholic societies. From this decree an appeal was taken to Satolli, who promptly sustained the bishop. This action was hailed by many Protestants and Protestant journals as a great stride toward temperance and a powerful blow at the liquor traffic on the part of the Catholic Church. Those who were not blinded by the growing Protestant infatuation with Rome could plainly see that the decision was merely the upholding of the bishop's authority in his diocese, although couched in language calculated to tickle the temperance element in this country—which it did. But, to keep the matter from going too far that way, the apostolic delegate's decision has been explained for him by Monsignor Schroeder, of the Catholic University at Washington. Speaking for Satolli, he says that the apostolic delegate did not promulgate a fundamental declaration concerning the manufacture, sale, or use of spirituous liquors, temperance, total abstinence, or prohibition. All that these letters contained, or were designed to contain, was a refusal to pronounce null and void a regulation of the bishop of Columbus promulgated for his own diocese alone. This was the precise object of the letters. They had no application to other dioceses, and, as Professor Schroeder points out, under church law could have no such application, and any other construction would be a distortion of Monsignor Satolli's words. He was defending the bishop's authority, and this was the full scope and extent of his utterances. As before stated, some of the Protestant journals are reluctantly admitting the situation, but with the faint hope that much may yet be done for the temperance cause by the Catholic Church. It is fair to assume that she will do nothing for temperance, or for any other cause, of which Protestants will have legitimate reason to boast.