She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or consent of the state.
She has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state.
She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others.
She has the right to prevent the state from granting the public exercise of their own worship to persons immigrating from it.
She has the power of requiring the state not to permit free expression of opinion.
You see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who think that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization, ought at least to know what the Catholic Church has to say about the matter. Here is Mgr. Segur, in his "Plain Talk About Protestantism of Today", a book published in Boston and extensively circulated by American Catholics:
Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise the soul of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those impossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can regard as admissible. But a sound mind, that does not feed on empty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply absurd, and, what is more, as sinful.
You take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe because the Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this "Law" applies to your Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that they are bound by the restraints that bind you? Here is Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical of 1890—and please remember that Leo XIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist statesmen and editors, as wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever roasted a heretic. He says:
If the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of God—if they inflict injury upon the Church—or set at naught the authority of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff, then indeed it becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render obedience.
And consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a democratic state do and forever must contravene the "laws of God" as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that the Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that all persons who have been married by civil authorities or by Protestant clergymen are living in "filthy concubinage"! Consider, in the same way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by Gladstone, one might add many issues, such as birth control, which have arisen since his time.