CATHOLICITY OF PLYMOUTH ROCK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 336, 26 September 1879, Page 11

CATHOLICITY OF PLYMOUTH ROCK.

It has been remarked in other cities that Boston this yeir had a pnest open the 4th July exercises with prayer. It was tlj first Time hatapnest was ever called upon for the duty : and it was fit ing perhaps and certainly suggestive, that the piiest selected Father ss^a^s^^^ doauboa rfrit " in bio ° d - d a On the same day, however, a still more notable proof of the risinoof the tide was witnessed in Plymouth, the home of theKlpri™ Father^ where a Catholic Church was dedicated to the service of God. How wonderful to look through the centuries and see the Old Church win back its domain, as inevitably as the ocean recovers its plains despite al artificial barners. In two handled years the population of X sachusetts has changed its base. It was no mere compliment or con cession on the part of Boston to ask a Catholic priest £, "Jay on ?b c Fourth Boston has simply accepted the inevitable, and paid due regard lto the faitn of its citizens, the majority of whom are Catholics Ihe last U.S. census tells vs that Massachusetts, in proportion to the whole population, has the largest number of Li'sh people in the Union ; but, if the census statisticians were to go back one or two giro-ration* they would have to report a change in tWsd.recti^n which would be accepted as overwhelming. An«l yet the Cat?ol£s have had to win their way in New England foot by foot, against a hard and malignant prejudice. They owe no thanks to the descen dants of the Puritans for any right they exercise. From the time when it was legal to whip a priest from the colony to SepreiTt year, when a Catholic prisoner or pauper is forced to attend Pro co^™' n ° Change fOl ' tbe bettc1 ' ««pt by But the children of the Pilgrims are a shrewd and sensible people 1 hey bogin to see that though the old trees are still behest in the forest, they will soon be ove. topped by the sprin-in" under growth It is time to change. It wilfnot pay much longer ob e an ami- Catholic bigot in Massachusetts. And there is no clSn'e of policy so complete as the change that can't be helped. For the future we shall witness the liberalizing influence of numbers on the Puritan mind-the only outside influence that ever made it generous -/£