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THE BULLETIN OF'THE CATHOLIC TOYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
MARCH 20, 192S
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THE BULLETIN
The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Association
of Georgia.
RICHARD' REID, Editor.
Published Semi-Monthly by Hie Publicity Department with
(he Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Bishops, of Raleigh, Char-
lesion. Savannah, St Augustine, Mobile and Natchez.
1409 Lamar Building. Augusta, Georgia.
Subscription Price, $2.00 Per Year.
FOREIGN ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE
S. T. Mattingly, Walton Bldg... •• Atlanta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1921-25.
P. II. RICE, K. C. S. C.. Augusta President
COL. P. H. CALLAHAN, K.S.G., Louisville. Ky., and ADMI
RAL WM. S. BENSON, K.C.S.G., Washington D. C.
Honorary Vice-Presidents
J. J. HAVERTY, Atlanta First Vice-President
J B. MeCALLUM. Atlanta Secretary
THOMAS S. GRAY, Augusta Treasurer
RICHARD REID, Augusta '. Publicity Director
MISS CECILE C. FERRY, Augusta. .Asst, Publicity Director
VOL. VII. MARCH 20. 102G NO. 6
Member of N. C. W. C. News Service and of the Catholic
Press Association of the United States and Canada.
Entered as second class matter June 15, 1921, at the Post
Office at Augusta, Ga., under Act of March, 1879.. Accepted
for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Sec
tion 1103, Oct of October 3, 1917, authorized Scpi 1, 1921.
The Mexican Constitution
There is no war being waged on the Catholic
Church in Mexico and any action being taken against
Catholics is demanded by the Constitution declare*
President Caries of our neighboring republic, who
seeks to endow the Mexican Constitution, which was
hatched by a band of revolutionists and American rad
icals who hated religion, and never acted upon by the
people, with the same sacred character that loyal
Americans attribute to the Constitution of the United
States.
Consider some of the articles of the present Mexi
can Constitution, recalled by Archbishop Curley in a
recent article:
“Article 27—The religious institutions, known as
Churches, irrespective of creed, shall in no case have
legal capacity to acquire, hold or administer real prop
erty or loans made on such property; all such real
property or loans as may be at present held by the
said religious institutions, either on their own behali
or through third parties, shall vest in the Nation, and
anyone shall have the right to denounce property sa
held. Presumptive proof shall be sufficient to declare
the denunciation well founded.
“Places of worship are ihe property of the Na
tion, as represented by the Federal government, which
shall determine which of them may be devoted to
their present purposes. Episcopal residences, rectories,
seminaries, orphan asylums or collegiate establish
ments of religious institutions, convents or any other
buildings built or designed for Ihe administration, pro
paganda or teaching of the tenets o'f any religious
creed shall forthwith vest, as of full right; directly
in the nation, io lie used exclusively for the public
services of the Federation of Stales, within their res
pective jurisdictions.
“All places of public worship which shall later
be erected,’ shall be ihe property of ihe Nation.”
“Article 130—Ministers of religious creeds shall4>c
considered as persons exercising' a profession and shall
be directly subject to the laws enacted in Ihe matter.
“The Stale Legislatures sliajl have the exclusive
power of determining the maximum number of minis
ters of religious creeds according to tlie needs of each
locality.
“No ministers of religious creeds shall either in
public or private meetings, or in acts of worship or
religious propaganda, criticize the fundamental laws
of the country, the authorities in particular or the
Government in general; they shall have no vote nor
be eligible to office, nor shall (hey he entitled to as
semble for political purposes.,
“Before dedicating new temples of worship for
public use, permission shall lie obtained from the “De
partment of the Interior, and the opinion of the Gov
ernor of the respective states- shall be previously
heard on the subject. Every place of worship shall
lave a person charged with its care and maintenance,
who shall he legally responsible for the faithful per-
’ormance of the laws on religions observances within
he said place of worship, and for all (be objects used
for purposes of worship.
“No minister of any religious creed may inherit,
either on bis own behalf or by means of a trustee or
otherwise, any real property occupied by any associa
tion for religious propaganda or religious or charit
able purposes. Ministers of religious creeds are in
capable legally of inheriting by will from rtiinisters
of the same religious creed or from any private in
dividual to whom they are not related by blood within
the fourth degree. All real and personal property
pertaining to the clergy or to religious institutions
shall be governed, in so far as their acquisition by pri
vate parties is concerned, in conformity with Article
27 of this Constitution, j
“No trial by jury shall ever he granted for the
infraction of any of the preceding provisions.”
And yet the Mexican Constitution in previous ar
ticles guarantees religious freedom!
The Constitution is being enforced only against
Catholics. The atheistic government in power be
lieves that the United States is a Protestant country
and that it can curry favor with our government by
persecuting Catholics, at the same time throwing up
a smoke screen to veil its other tyrannical acts which
might involve it in difficulty with Washington.
Imagine the Constitution of the United Slates
giving an atheistic government here power to con
fiscate the churches and religious institutions of the
country, assigning buildings Baptists erected and paid
for to the Lutherans, or Methodist churches to the Un
itarians, or turning churches into barracks and closing
up schools and orphanages, and you consider a con
dition paralleling that existing in Mexico.
Conceive if you can an atheistic government in
these United States with constitutional power to de
termine arbitrarily how many ministers the various
denominations should have, forbidding any but native-
born citizens from officiating "ak clergymen, denying
native-born citizens who are clergymen the right to
vole, to hold office, to inherit except from near rela
tives, denying churches all property rights, and de
priving clergymen of the right of a trial by jury for
alleged infractions of these regulations which sound
more like laws of pagan Rome than of a twentieth
century government, and you may realize the situa
tion south of the Rio Grande.
Still President Calles denies that religion in general
and Catholics in particular are being persecuted in
Mexico.
Dixie Musings
Tiie organizers of the Klan are
now promoting a movement to save
the country from the evolutionists.
They have signed up some members.
Proving that liannum was a great
psychologist after all.
The Dixie Press
Official Alibis
It is impossible for anyone to justify to thinking
Americans a Constitution such as that of Mexico or
the enforcement of it against any class in that Repub
lic. The Mexican Minister of the Interior endeavors
to defend the legislation against the Catholic Church,
hut Bishop Kelly of Oklahoma City, who is perhaps as
familiar with conditions in that country as any Ameri
can, in a recent address in Brooklyn showed the fall
aciousness and liyprocrisy of the excuses advanced.
“The alien priests are plotting against the gov
ernment,”-4 hat Minister of the Interior claims. Every
Bishop and Archbishop in that country is a Mexican.
If the charge he true, why did not the government
appeal to the Mexican Bishops to rid the country of
the “plotting alien priests?” There are laws in Mexico
to deal with those charged with conspiracy, without
warring against the cause of religion.
“Mexico is priest-ridden,” he asserts. There are
5,000 priests in Mexico to minister to 15500,000 Catho
lics, or one to every 3,100. Clergymen of other de
nominations in Mexico minister to much smaller con
gregations. In the United States, where there is an
admitted shortage of priests, there is one to every
800 Catholics. The Methodists and Baptists in the
United States have a minister for less than every 200
members.
“The'Catholic Church has failed in the matter of
education,” says the same official. The Catholic
Church in Mexico has been forbidden by law lot more
than sixty years to conduct schools, and now it is
.-barged with failing in the matter of education!
“The priests are in politics and the priests are
rich,” he continues. The government lias the most
obnoxious laws to prevent priests, even if they wished,
from participating in politics. As a reading of the
Constitution reVeals, they are not permitted to vote
or to hold office. They break the law if they criticize
the government, the officials or the law, and when
charged with such a crime they are not entitled to a
trial by jury. If priests are being expelled for being
in politics, why are homes for the aged, orphanages
and academies suppressed? instead of being rich, the
priests are poor. The government lias done everything
possible to reduce them \fb poverty, and done it suc
cessfully, as the condition of the. exiled priests ar
riving in the country very plainly shows.
“It is demanded by the Constitution,” says tlie
Minister of the Interior. It is demanded by the Con
stitution because those who are responsible for the
present government put it there, wanted it there. The
radical government is responsible for the Constitution,
and for it to blame the persecution of Catholics on the
Constitution is as reasonable as for a murderer to
blame the gun for his crime.
In considering the plight of Mexico, the Catholics
of the United States remember that the Bishops and
Archbishops of Mexico arc in charge of the Catholic
Church there, that they know more about the situation
and the way of meeting it than we possibly can, and
that ill advised action in the United Stales may make
thejr task more difficult. Americans in general arc
aware that the religious people of Mexico ldve their
country with a patriotic favor and that, despite their
troubles and persecution, outside interference might
be resented. We distinguish, therefore, between the
people of Mexico and the radical government now in
the saddle. This government is anxious for favors
from Washington. If the people of the United States
know its radical, irreligious character, opposing not
only tiie Catholic Church hut, when it suits its pur
pose, all religion, and favoring none except in cases
where it believes it will promote its own interests,
they will not lend it the moral and material support
it desires for its perpetuation. It is our duty to ac
quaint our fellow citizens with the pernicious character
of the campaign they are asked to further, one that
is the antithesis of every American ideal. When they
know the facts, we may confidently expect them and
our government to adopt a policy dictated by justice.
The Supreme Council of the Scot
tish Rite of Freemasonary of tiie
Southern Jurisdiction has, accord
ing to the Washington Post and
a', her newspapers, declared war on
private and parochial schools. An
other mark against the South’s tol
erance record. But we read: “The
committee which composed the re
port adopted by the Council was
composed of Judge Edward C. Day,
■Helena. Mont, chairman; Marshall
W. Wood, Boise Idaho; Frank C.
Patton, Omaha, Neb.; Thomas G.
Fitch, Wichita, Kan, and Edward
T. Meredith, Des Moines, Iowa.”
Nothing Southern about that com
mittee. It reminds us of the story
about the news-butcher on a local
train who was selling “ham sand r
wiches.” A passenger bought one.
After sampling it, he complained:
“Boy, there’s no ham in Uiis ham
sandwich,” “What of it?” returned
the boy. “There’s no dog in dog-
biscuit, is there?”
In defending his vote on the World
Court, Senator Harris of Georgia
wrote to the press of Georgia: “I
received thousands of letters from
Protestant minister and members of
Protestant churches urging me to
support tliis court of justice, but
have not received a single letter
from a Catholic priest urging my
support.” It would he interesting
to know whether our Senator has
ever received a letter from any Cath
olic priest urging him to support
any political measure. Our guess is
that he lias not. “The Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians^ Episco
palians,' Unitarians, Christian and
all Protestant churches are support
ing it (the World Court)” he writes.
The Catholic church, not being in
politics, has taken no stand on tiie
question.
The Canadian Freeman thinks that
if Cardinal Mercier had beeii\an
Irish prelate and had withstood the
reign of terror in Ireland, our news
papers would not have searched the
dictionary for superlatives to laud
him. The newspapers said nothing
good about Cardinal Mercier that
was not deserved many times over,
but there is good reason for the Ca
nadian Freeman s remark.
“Why is it that Catholic schools
observe the holy days and have
class on national holidays?’ the
Denver Catholic Register quotes an
anti-Catholic paper as saying. The
Catholic schools of Denver closed in
honor of Washington’s birthday this
year as usual; the public schools
held classes. The dishonesty of an-
ti-Catholics cannot fail to disgust all
fair-minded people.
A MAN OF HONOR
(From the Crawfordville (La.)
Democrat-Advocate)
In the death of Mr. John O’Keefe,
on Monday, the town of Sharon and
the county of Taliaferro lost a man
whose place will he hard to fill. Mr.
O’Keeffe was noted for his business
infegrity and honor, and no one
ever had cause to question either.
One could always rely absolutely on
wjiat he said in any transaction,
knowing that lie would not for the
world misrepresent anything or mis
lead one in the least. The Advo
cate-Democrat counted him among
its true friends, and we mourn with
his family and loved ones in his
sudden and untimely death.
An anti-Worid Court editor of a
Catholic paper approvingly states
that a certain United States Senator
tore the World Court to pieces in
an address at a Knights. of Colum
bus banquet in Chicago recently. By
what authority does a United States
Senator or any other man deliver a
political speecli at a Knights of Co
lumbus gathering? In our opinion
it was, regardless of the subject on
the attitude of the speaker, a glar
ing breach of the hospitality-extend
ed to the Senator by the Knights—
unless the officials of the Knights of
Columbus were a party to the
speech. In that improbable event
t tie officials should he disciplined for
the good of the order.
At a dinner sponsored by the Aid
Society of St Paul’s church, Spar
tanburg, S. C, recently, Charles
Chartres told of an amusing inci
dent at Camp Wadsworth there dur
ing the war illustrating the friendly
feeling among soldiers of different
creeds. The chaplain of one battal-
lion was a Catholic priest and very
popular. Returns from a religious
census showed all but 16 of the 1,000
members of the battalion recorded
as Catholics, a situation so surpris
ing even to the chaplain himself
that it was investigated. It devel
oped that the Catholics in the bat
talion were actually outnumbered by
the Protestants, hut the latter fear
ed that the chaplain would be trans
ferred if the authorities learned
how few members of his faith were
in the unit and acted accordingly.
Such casual efforts to change relig
ious affiliations is not commendable
but the good-will of the boys is.
There lias been some criticism of
the Catholic papers which have been
running Bell’s article on Wells’s
pagan outline of history. The objec
tion is based on theadvertising the
articles are giving Wells. But many
Catholics will read Belloc’s criticism
of the Wells work who could not be
persuaded to read the same matter
by Belloc in mere historical style.
The Bulletin would have been pleas
ed to run the articles had the space
been available.
“Dies abroad” reads a cutline over
a picture of a priest appearing in
the Chicago New World. The story
accompanying states that the priest,
a pastor in the Archdiocese of Chi
cago, died in Hollywood, Cal. Flor
ida must have some friends on Mon
signor Shannon’s publication.
MONKEY BUSINESS
(From the Greensboro (Ga.) Herald-
Journal)
“Edward Young Clarke lias comb
hack now to save us from the mon
keys. We do not speak for others,
but if Eddie is our only l}opc To
escape from the monkey brigade, wo
are for joining ’em right now. Wa
have seen some monkeys we pre
fer to associate with than some
folks, and Eddie is one of that
gang ”—Bainbridge Post Searchlight,
The only thing that Clarke is in
terested in is the dollars lie will get
out of the thing. It is really piti
ful to know that so many well-
meaning men will fall for Clarke’s
game. He was the brain of the Ku
Klux, and he was kicked out of the
order and it began to go down.
Clarke doesn’t give a darn about the
monkey business. He will play the
game that enriches himself and then
start something else.
WANTED—MORE TOLERANCE
(From the Asheville (N. C.) Citizen)
So far as tile facts go, so far as
the tenets of their religion are con
cerned, there is not the slightest
reason for political antagonism to
Catholics. We need to have more
tolerance in the South and in the
country at large. When an organi
zation of any sort can go boldly
into the open and denounce worthy
and able citizens solely because of
the way they worship their God and
their Savior, things have come to a
sorry pass. It is contrary to the
ideals and traditions of the South.
It is atrociously un-American. It
causes nothing hut misunderstand
ing and bitterness. If persisted in,
it is going to deprive the nation of
the services of men who could give
them distinguished service. There
is no more wanton offense against
patriotism than denying people the
right to serve thiir country accord
ing to their best abilities.
LEGISLATION AND MORALITY
(From The Thomasville (Ga.) Times-
Enterprisc)
In no case is the effort to legis
late morals into people going to he
markedly successful. The matter of
Sabbath observances is not one that
can wholly be settled by legislation.
Christian people, who believe that
Sunday should be observed without
work of any kind, could create a
more wholesome respect Tor their
ideas by refraining from using thoso
instrumentalities for amusement or
recreation that are readily available
on Sunday than by trying to legis
late all folks into a Sabbatical at
mosphere, where they know it is not
generally coriceded to he a matter
for the government to settle it. It
is the Christian that has made the
Sunday observance what it is. In
tiie main they ar e content with lidd
ing it within reasonable hounds.
The radicals on neither side are
able to gain any appreciable strength'
REASON FOR REGRET
(From the Charleston (S. C.) Eve-
ning Post)
The Times in an editorial com
ment on these (election) results and
others of similar significance ex
pressed the opinion that the “flabby
politicians, Democratic 0 r Republi
can, who have tied themselves up
with the Klan, will yet regret, as
some of their predecessors did, that
this edifying chapter can not he ex
punged from their record.” No doubt,
and some of them will be in the
forefront as denouncers of all such
dangerous “un-American” affilia
tions. Well, it will be a good sign
when tiie politicians shy from tha
Klan, as many of them arc doing
now, even though rather furtively.
TRUTH AND CONFESSION
(From the Brunswick (Ga.) News)
, “Tell, the truth and shame tha
devil’ is an old adage, but it is a
very forcible one. There is nothing
the devil hgtes and shuns as he does
the truth. Truthfulness is the foun
dation of every virtue. Of course,
we are not dealing here with abrupt
and cutting frankness in criticism
nor the wounding of feelings by
the verbal outbursts of thiugs that
could be left untold. The Roman
Catholic church recognizes the value
of truthfulness and the ease which
confession brings the conscience and
the re-estabJishment of communica
tion, so to speak, with the God
head and things spiritual when it
keeps the Confessional as one of
the inviolable tenets of tiie church: