The eloquent Spanish orator, Castelar, speaking of his own Church of Rome, said, in 1869, “There is not a single progressive principle that has not been cursed by the Catholic Church. This is true of England and Germany, as well as all Catholic countries. The Church cursed the French Revolution, the Belgian Constitution and the Italian Independence. Not a Constitution has been born, not a step of progress made, not a solitary reform effected, which has not been under the terrific anathemas of the Church.”
But why ask the testimony of Protestants or Liberals to warn the American people against that conspiracy, when we have the public testimony of all the bishops and priests to prove it? With the most daring impudence, the Church of Rome, through her leading men, is boasting of her stern determination to destroy all the rights and privileges which have cost so much blood to the American people. Let the Americans, who have eyes to see and intelligence to understand, read the following unimpeachable documents, and judge for themselves of what will become of this country, if Rome is allowed to grow strong enough to execute her threats.
“The church is of necessity intolerant. Heresy, she endures when and where she must, but she hates it, and directs all her energies to destroy it.
“If Catholics ever gain a sufficient numerical majority in this country, religious freedom is at an end. So our enemies say, so we believe.”—The Shepherd of the Valley, official journal of the Bishop of St. Louis, Nov. 23, 1851.
“No man has a right to chose his religion. Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself. We might as rationally maintain that two and two does not make four, as the theory of Religious Liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity.”—New York Freeman, official journal of Bishop Hughes, Jan. 26, 1852.
“The Church is instituted, as every Catholic who understands his religion believes, to guard and defend the right of God, against any and every enemy, at all times, in all places. She, therefore, does not, and cannot accept, or in any degree favor liberty, in the Protestant sense of liberty.”—Catholic World, April, 1870.
“The Catholic Church is the medium and channel through which the will of God is expressed. While the state has rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the Superior Authority, and that authority can be expressed only through the church.”—Catholic World, July, 1870.
“Protestantism has not, and never can have, any right, where Catholicity has triumphed. Therefore, we lose the breath we expend in declaiming against bigotry and intolerance and in favor of Religious Liberty, or the right of man to be of any religion as best pleases him.”—Catholic Review, June, 1865.
“Religious Liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic Church.”—Rt. Rev. O’Connor, Bishop of Pittsburgh.
“The Catholic Church numbers one-third the American population; and if its membership shall increase, for the next thirty years, as it has the thirty years past, in 1900, Rome will have a majority, and be bound to take this country and keep it. There is, ere long, to be a state religion in this country, and that state religion is to be the Roman Catholic.