Page image

13

¥.— 8

saying that the chief means is to obtain control of the education of the young. Now, in that attitude leading Protestants in America have seen a danger—not on the ground of any religious prejudice at all, but the danger may be best expressed probably in the words of one of the Church dignitaries in America. I refer to a public utterance by Bishop Gilmour : " Nationalities must be subordinate to religion, and we must learn that ' We are Catholics first and citizens next.' ' That is to say that the danger seen by Protestants in America from the Catholic religion is that the sovereignty of the State is made only secondary to the sovereignty of the head of their Church. That statement has not only been made in America, it has been made quite recently by a leader of the Church in Australia, and I can refer your Worship, if necessary, to exactly the same statement made in similar terms by the Tablet, the official organ of the Catholics in New Zealand, and 1 could refer also to many statements made by leaders of the Church in the same interest in America. For instance, Father Phelan said, " Tell us, in the conflict between the Church and the Civil Government, we take the side of the Church. Of course, we do. Why, if the Government of the United States were at war with the Church, we would say to-morrow, ' To hell with the Government of the United States '; and if the Church and all the Governments of the world were at war, we would say, ' To hell with all the Governments of the world.' ' And so on. That illustrates, any way, the danger which the Protestants in America, and also the association which I represent, have feared. Now, to meet that danger a number of Protestant defence papers have, comparatively recently, been established in America, and among those a weekly paper founded in 1911 called The Menace. That paper, although founded by private persons, is now controlled by a powerful organization called the Free Press Defence League of America. And the platform of that league is exactly the platform of the Protestant Political Association here— nothing very terrible —the defence of those liberties we all thought we had won two hundred years ago, and we see a danger of being whittled, away Iry the political activities of the Catholic Church. The platform is—Freedom of conscience; freedom of speech; freedom of the Press; the right of assembly; and separation of Church and State. That is all they stand for. Now, The Menace was managed and edited with, such energy and skill that it soon became a powerful force, and it became a thorn in the side of the Church in its political ambitions, and all sorts of endeavours have been displayed in endeavouring to crush this paper in America. All the time the Courts were open, if the bounds of free speech were transgressed or the matter published were untrue or libellous, it never availed itself of that except once, when it succeeded in getting the Department of Justice to lay an information against the owners and publishers for sending obscene matter through the post. The result was an acquittal, on the ground that the so-called obscene matter consisted of truthful statements concerning the acts of certain Roman Catholic priests. From that time the strongest efforts have been made in America to suppress this paper and prevent it going through the post. Several Bills have been introduced into Congress by Roman Catholic Congressmen. The Bills were couched, in general terms, but the persons who introduced them admitted in the Committee which considered the Bills that the sole object of the Bills was to crush papers like The Menace, and The Menace was specially mentioned. They actually succeeded last year in getting Mr. Pelletier, the Postmaster-General of Canada—and a Roman Catholio, by the way—to prohibit the use of the Canadian mails to this paper. To such an extent have they endeavoured to prohibit the use of the mails and to crush the papers, and especially The Menace, which have been on the side contrary to them, that only last July a resolution was introduced into the American Congress charging them with that, and charging them also on their political side with grave crimes in their attempt to do so. This is a copy of the resolution : — "I. The Pope of Rome is a foreign sovereign, claiming allegiance in temporal as well as spiritual matters throughout the world. " 11. The papal system of which the Pope is the head is opposed to and seeks to destroy our free institutions, to wit: (1) Our public schools; (2) the free Press; (3) the right of free speech and public assembly; (4) the right of freedom of thought in matters of conscience; (5) the principle of separation of Church and State. " 111. The papal system in America, which consists of the Roman Catholic cardinals, bishops, priests, the Jesuits, Knights of Columbus, Federation of Catholic Societies, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and other Roman Catholic societies, together with the Roman Catholic Press, seeks to substitute for our democratic system of government the monarchical or papal system. "IV. The Roman Catholic laity in the United States of America is taught, influenced, and commanded by those in authority to yield implicit obedience to the teachings of the Popes of Rome, and to blindly obey all their orders and decrees even though said orders and decrees conflict with the constitution and the laws of the United States of America. " V. The Roman Catholic organization in America is perniciously active in politics, and, although having but few votes as compared with the whole body of electors, it manages by threats, intimidation, blackmail, and by coercion of the Press to secure an undue proportion of the elective and appointive offices throughout the country, and these offices when filled with Roman Catholics are used to further the plan of making America dominantly Roman Catholic. "VI. In carrying out the conspiracy to bring the United States of America under the complete domination of the Pope of Rome the Roman Catholic, hierarchy aided by the Roman Catholic politicians and the Roman Catholic Press has inspired the Roman Catholic laity to resort to threats, to intimidation, to the boycott, to assault, and to riot and murder. " VII. The Roman Catholic hierarchy is now and has been for more than a year last past actively engaged within the territory of the United States of America in fomenting and inciting revolution in the Republic of Mexico, and attempting to bring about a state of war between the Republic of Mexico and the United States of America." Now, my aim in quoting Mr. Gray: I am very loth to interrupt lest it be supposed I desire to prevent my friend going into anything relevant, to the inquiry, but 1. utterly fail to see the relevance of all this to