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VOL. IV. R1CHMONI
Is Americc
Were a foreigner to judge through the organs
of public opinion wiiat is the religion of
the American people, or at least what is the
predominant one, he would assert without the
slightest hesitation that the religion of the
Roman Catholic Church is that of the nation.
He will see at once that daily papers, weekly
and monthly magazines give exceptional space
to the opinions of Roman Catholics. Any
Roman Catholic, whether of high or low estate,
will receive a hearing in the public press and
this tame press will strongly emphasize the
affairs of the Roman Catholic Church almost
tc the exclusion of other churches.
lie will soon learn that the out-goings and
the in-comings of any Roman Catholic bishop
or other dignitary of the Catholic Church are
heralded abroad throughout the length and
breadth of the land as if such common place
and trival events were matters of vast importance
and vital consequence to the welfare of
the nation.
He will hear that when a Catholic friar, nun,
bishop or archbishop passes away the public
press publishes such warm and interesting
eulogies about their fruitful lives and the in
valuable service they have rendered to the
country that the foreigner will easily be induced
to believe that the greatest citizens of
the early days of America, the true builders of
American nation were but insignificant pyg- \
mies compared with the present Roman Catholic
people.
He will realize that the opinions of such
men as Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ireland
weigh more with the public press and
count for more in the plans and combinations
of politicans than the views or opinions of all
the Protestants taken together.
A foreigner will see and learn and realize
more, he will see that at the last jubilee of a
prince of the Roman Catholic Church, the
President of this Republic, an ex-president,
some of the members of the United States Su
preme Court, the Speaker of the House, senators,
representatives and leading statesmen and
politicians went, to pay their tribute of honor
to the Roman Catholic Prince and Cardinal and
praised him and honored him and through him
his religion in a way that neither the King of
Spain, nor the King of Italy, nor the President
of France, nor the ruler of any other nation
on earth would dare to do to-day.
He will learn that the most typical national
day, the only one when the nation as such
worships God, namely Thanksgiving Day, the
i . t .i * t? .i !- _
iicsmeui oi mis xvepuouc witn certain members
of his cabinet betook himself to a Catholic
Church and worshipped God there, among the
Catholic dignitaries, attending a Catholic mass,
that it, he attended the most typical and theoj
X NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, FEBRl
n
i Becoming
?? Part II. *"
only act of worshiping really and truly in accordance
with the Roman Catholic Church.
He will learn that hundreds of thousands
receive with shouting joy the returning Cardinals
and that in Boston the army of this Republic,
as such will pay its honors to Cardinal
O'Connell on his return from Rome.
If any one believes that 1 exaggerate I beg
him to give a slight perusal to the public press
Oil these three reeent nvorfo llio
_?* wwMv v> vubOy xju\;nai isiiu
Congress of the Roman Catholic Church, the
Jubilee of Cardinal Gibbons and the creation
of the new American Cardinals, and he will be
at once convinced that I do not indulge in
sensationalism or exaggeration.
And there was something so striking to a
Spaniard in the way of reporting the creation
of the new cardinals that I can not pass over
it without pointing it out as something characteristic
of the present situation in America.
The same Northern writers who exalt Lincoln
as the greatest American citizen that
ever lived and who recommend to us as something
ideally American and very honorable,
his plainness of living and dressing and his
hatred of titles, honors and distinctions; the
same writers 1 say, who smile at Europeans
because they speak too much of their earls,
dukes and lords and pay too much attention
to nobility, titles, and ceremonies, these very
writers, 1 say have published in big red letters
and repeated to weariness that the American
cardinals were nothing less, oh harken American
people, to the astonishing discovery, were
nothing less than Princes of the Rnmnn P.nth.
olic Church. They have reported with greater
joy than a little boy feels over the gifts Santa
Claus has brought him that America has now,
oh! risum teneatis, amici, oh! mons parturiens,
nothing less than four princes of the Roman
Catholic Church.
When I read these reports which from the
old American standpoint seem to me so ridiculous,
1 can not refrain from believing that there
are not a few Americans to-day who, although
praising loudly Lincoln, ought to be grouped
not in the category of that great statesman,
but rather with the old fox in the fable, who
after his failure to get the much desired grapes
went away pretending to despise them and saying
boisterously, "I do not want them, they
are not ripe."
But let us return to our point.
A foreigner will see and hear something yet
more convincing about the influence nnurof
w ?rv,,vl>
yea complete monopoly of the Roman Catholic
Church over the public press.
He will soon realize that the same public
press, "which is eager (I quote from a leading
Catholic weekly), to hear and accept the
pinions of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy,"
WESTERNP/?ESBYTEP/aM
:al Presbyter/an <r
rHERN Presbyter/an
JARY 21, 1912. NO. 8.
I Catholic?
avoids hearing from and dealing with Protestant
personages and Protestant inlluenees as
such.
To-day there is no place in our leading daily
papers or weekly or monthly magazines for
any thing that may emphasize Protestantism.
Nay, any article that may criticise Roman
Catholic doctrines or practices will be set aside
on the ground of sectarianism or bigotry. Nay,
more, books seriously written and paying reai
respect to the Catholic people will not be reviewed
and advertised in the leading magazines
because these books do not indulge in
fulsome praise of all things Catholic but seek
rather to present such questions from the viewpoint
of justice and truth.
Only when a Protestant is ready to apologize
for his protestantism or willing to exalt the
excellency of every thing pertaining to the
Koman Catholic Church will he find the public
press eager, from North to South and from
East to West, to indorse and to reproduce his
utterances, otherwise no Protestant obtains a
really national hearing.
if my observations are exact, and no one well
acquainted with the facts will question them,
then what will a foreigner say is the dominant
religion if he has no other source of information
than the newspapers and periodicals of
the country? Will he not assert that either
America is already a Catholic nation or that
tliA m .
vaiuvim v^uurcu is tne leading one.
I have met more than one foreigner who has
received such an impression and 1 know more
than one American who on account of such
striking facts considers the present dark, very
dark and the future entirely hopeless in regard
to the Protestant religion.
Is there no other more hopeful way to explain
existing conditions. 1 think there is one
more reasonable and true and according to
which it can be plainly demonstrated that
Protestant ideals and principles are yet the
main factors in the national life of America,
yea, that Romanism advances only so far as it
misleads people by assuming Protestant appearances
and methods; and that the power of
true Romanism is entirely fictitious and temporary
since it has not yet obtained any solid
footing in American life and institutions, yea,
that it is weak, powerless and in the way to
decay, division and complete extinction.
If any of my readers feel startled by such
unexpected and emphatic assertions, the more
BOvbecansc iht*y are written by a man who was
.uuucii a v>?i,uoiic ana tnerelore apt to overestimate
Roman Catholic power and influence,
I entreat him to continue reading my articles
and he will see, so I hope, that I have to support
my contention, such powerful facte end