The Freedom Rome Gives.
By Editor
The leading contributed article in the Catholic Mirror of November 24 is by J. Thomas Scharf, Jr., on "Our First Explorers Catholics." His argument is to the effect that because a Catholic discovered America therefore it belongs to Roman Catholics. It strikes us that by parity of argument the Indians and paganism have the first right. However, the writer admits that the first two attempts by Catholics to settle the country were abandoned. Really in this country the permanent settlement and character of the country came from Protestants. But that does not mean that the government should be administered by any religious class. In the same article the writer, in speaking of one of the early explorers, says:— The influence of the action of Father Montesinos, the first to denounce human slavery in America, can be seen in the second patent to John Poncede. This required that the natives should be summoned to submit to the Catholic faith and the authority of the king of2Spain; and they were not to be attacked or captured if they submitted. But what is this but a worse slavery? The terms were to submit to spiritual slavery and a foreign monarch, or be made slaves! Wonderful freedom in that, but it is the freedom we may always expect when papal principles are dominant, whether administered by Roman Catholics or Protestants.