Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

THE BULLETIN OE THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OE GEORGIA 3 THE DEMOCRACY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Ey R. J. PURCELL, PH, D„ (Yale) (Professor of History, Catholic University of America). The organization of the Catholic Church is hierarchic in form, hut essentially a perfect type of democracy. As an axiom, this statement re quires analysis rather than demonstration. The Church is ruled from above, but its rulers, its hierarchy, are democratically, if indirectly, se lected. They are of the elect in point of training, service, ability and godliness. They represent no other caste; certainly never a social or financial group, where the Church has been free and un- tranimeled. The method of election is different, but the result is quite the same as that which obtains in the choice of officials in a well ordered political democracy. Woodrow Wilson, despite the rigidity of his Calvinistic training, as a student of history rec ognized the force of the Church for democracy in the Middle Ages. In his book, the “New Free dom,” the Church is described as the sole means by which a man from the masses could rise to power and dignity. The Church proved a safety valve. “There was no peasant so humble,” he writes, “that he might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become a pope of Christendom.” And as a prelate, the peas ant might serve the State and control its poli cies, like an Anslem, a Thomas A Beckett, or a Langton. Prelates were counselors of kings and often re gents during a minority or royal absence, for they were trained in the laws, canon and Roman, as well as in morals and in theology. The feudal lord on the other hand, skilled in the methods of war, was at ease only in field or castle. The nobility was a caste, more than today, separated by wide and impassable barriers, from the free man, who in turn was of a rank unattainable to the peasant. Once a serf always a serf, as far as the Feudal State was concerned. The Church in doctrine denied the distinction, and in prac tice broke it down. Through the Church, the State was saved from “dry rot”, from the sole rule of an in-bred, deteriorating noble-estate. Through the Church, new men and new blood were given opportunity. Equality before the law and equal opportun ity, political, economic, and social, are the char acteristics of a democracy, whether the state be described as a republic or a constitutional mon archy. In America, there are class differences and social distinctions, but they are not perman ent. They can be bridged. Fifth Avenue in one generation may be a long way from Second Avenue, but in the second or third generations the position may be reversed. Few American leaders, social, political, or indus trial, date back more than a couple of genera tions., The great majority on the contrary are men, self-made men of the masses, who have forced their way by sheer strength of character, by ability, or occasionally by chance. There is no permanent proletariat, regardless of what dem agogues may declare. Good Americans who know their coirtry are proud of the political leaders who were born and schooled in poverty. They recall the early strug gles of Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Webster, Harrison, Tyler, Jefferson Davis, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Grant, and Garfield. They are aware that since Washington, we have had no presi dent-who was wealthy relative to the times in which he lived. Until recently the Supreme Court was a poor man’s bench, and until the period of the eighties few were the senators of independent means. In industry, the masters of capital have been men from the soil. Only the exceptional man has derived his position and wealth from his ancestors. Far more capitalists have been immigrants or the sons of immigrants, who first viewed America from Castle Garden. This is one phase of American democracy, equal opportunity for all citizens. Good Americans who happen to be Catholics are equally proud of the democracy within the Catholic church. They see in the Church an in stitution bridging all barriers, financial, soci al, intellectual, and racial. They see a church rooted in the soil, with a hierarchy and a priest hood from the humbler classes, with sympathies broadened and intensified by obstacles overcome. Nowhere and at no time, has this condition been more true, for nowhere has the Church been granted greater freedom from outside influences. Glance over great names in the American hier archy. Jean Cheverus,. the emigree priest who worked for a time as a day laborer, and who was later first Bishop of Boston. A friend of Presi dent Adams, who headed the subscription list for a little church, he so won the Boston Puri tans that they formally protested when he was recalled to be a cardinal in France. Archbishop John Hughes started in life as an immigrant and a gardener, yet he was Lincoln’s personal repre sentative in Europe during the War between the States.. John England, the first bishop of Charleston is remembered as one who on his con secration in Cork refused an allegience to the crown on the grounds that he hoped to acquire American citizenship. John Ireland, the late arch bishop of St. Paul, was an immigrant boy who rushed from ordination to serve as a U. S. A. Chaplain. Cardinal Gibbons, typifying the ideal Churchman and citizen, was a grocer’s clerk. The list could be extended until it would appear a chronicle of the hierarchy. Such is the democracy of the Church, and such is the democracy of America. The two are quite similar. There is no incompatibility. Uncon trolled and free from pernicious influences, the American electorate can be trusted to select as its political leaders men of worth, whatever their status. Untrammeled, the Church will ever se lect and advance its best men. TWO U. S. PRIESTS MURDERED The same Associated Press report August 11 carried stories of murders of two Catholic priests one m Birmingham and one in San Francisco. ’ Birmingham, Rev. James E. Coyle, pastor of St. Paul’s Church, was shot and killed by Rev. E. R. Stephenson, Methodist minister. Stephenson then surrendered. Father Coyle was well known to many Georgians. Rev. Patrick Heslin, who disappeared the night of August 3 after being called from his San Fran cisco rectory to administer the last sacraments to a dying man, was found buried a week later. He had previously been shot. Archbishop Hanna of San Francisco had received letters demanding large sums for the return of Father Heslin. The police are holding a suspect.