This rule, however, does not apply to religious festivals and celebrations, whether Catholic or Protestant, because in the eye of the state all religion is catholic, and not national, and, therefore, never a foreigner in any nation. Protestants cannot claim Orange celebrations as a right, though the Orangemen are all good Protestants, because the event celebrated is a foreign political, not a religious event; yet they have the right to institute and celebrate festivals in honor of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and other Protestant reformers; for these being the founders of their religion are as such not foreigners. Catholics may also celebrate here any of the festivals of the church in the way and manner she prescribes, because they are religious festivals, and the right to celebrate them is included in the freedom of conscience; so may they celebrate publicly the birthday of the Holy Father, his return to Rome from his exile at Gaëta and Portici, the completion of the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate, or his liberation, when effected, from his present imprisonment, and the recovery for the Holy See of the possessions of which she has been sacrilegiously despoiled—because, as the chief of their religion, he is no foreigner in America.
The German peace celebration, as it was called, but really the celebration of the German conquest and humiliation of France, our ancient ally, was by sufferance, not by right. The Fenian organizations, marches and countermarches, parades and processions in honor of victories not won, are absolutely illegal, and take place only by the connivance—we might say the culpable connivance—of the government, if Great Britain, against whom they are directed, did not herself allow demonstrations on her own soil against foreign sovereigns. The celebrations of Italian unity, since effected by fraud, violence, sacrilege, and robbery, the spoliation of the Holy See, and the imprisonment of the Pope, perhaps should be regarded as the celebrations of the successes of Protestant principles, and therefore, by a right secured in the civil freedom of Protestantism, and if peaceable and orderly, not prohibitable by the police. They may be annoying to Catholics, but so is Protestantism itself; but Protestants have, so far as the secular authorities go, the same right to be Protestants that we have to be Catholics.
We have already shown that it is ridiculous to attempt to hold the church responsible for the riot. The rioters may have been nominal Catholics; but, if so, they were bad Catholics, for they acted contrary to the principles of their church, and the advice and direction of their pastors, and the church cannot be held responsible for acts done contrary to her orders and in violation of her principles. The rioters, themselves, knew and owned that they were disobeying their church, and defended themselves on the ground that the question was a national not a religious question, and, therefore, not within the jurisdiction of the clergy.
Their defence was a lame one, and proved they were no true Catholics; for the church, without assuming to decide the national, party, or political question, had full jurisdiction of the morality of their acts, and was quite competent to condemn the passions of anger and revenge that actuated them and their riotous proceedings, as condemned by the law of God.
But there are Catholics in this city of fifteen or twenty different nationalities, and yet the rioters were exclusively of Irish origin, which is full proof that the riot was not Catholic, but Irish. Had it been a Catholic riot, inspired by the church and for a Catholic object, for which the church could be held responsible, Catholics, irrespective of their nationality, would have been engaged in it, and it would not have been confined to persons of one nationality alone. It was, as everybody knows, an Irish riot, occasioned by an old Irish feud between two Irish parties, not an American or a Catholic riot. These hot-headed, disobedient Irishmen, even if Catholics, could not commit the church to their disorderly and criminal proceedings.
It is only fair to add that this handful of Irish rioters could not any more commit the great body of our Irish fellow-citizens. According to the last census, there were 201,000 souls in this city who were born in Ireland, to say nothing of their children and grandchildren born here. There probably was not over five hundred, if so many, actively engaged in the riot; but double the number, say there were a thousand, and they are quite too few, even if they were of reputable character, which they were not, to commit so large a body as that of our Irish population, most of whom remained quietly engaged in their ordinary avocations. That the Irish furnish their full quota of rowdies,
roughs, and disorderly persons in our large towns, nobody denies; but we must remember that there are plenty of the same class not of Irish origin, and there have been riots, and riots of a very grave character, in which the Irish had no hand, though of some of them they were the victims. We have seen more than one American mob in which the chief actors were respectable, well-dressed Protestant American citizens.
There are Irishmen who are wealthy and wear fine clothes that are no credit to their race or their religion, but the Catholic Irish as a body constitute a sober, quiet, peaceable, intelligent, religious, industrious, and thriving portion of our population, and no American-born citizen has any right to say a word in disparagement of them. Indeed, we may say of the Catholic population of the city generally, that it is that portion of the population that it can least afford to spare. Were the city to lose them, it would lose the very population that has contributed, and contributes, the most to its high moral and religious character, to its industry and wealth, and on which its prosperity chiefly depends. With all their faults, and they are many, and many more in the eyes of the Catholic than of the Protestant, they are, as they should be, decidedly the best people going. Their vices are on the surface; their virtues lie deeper,
and are many, solid, and durable. We bless God that we are permitted to call them brethren, and that we are with them in the unity of faith and communion, though we happen to be an American of the seventh generation, and it was our misfortune to be reared a Protestant.
We think the conduct of the Democratic party towards their Catholic supporters is discreditable. Any party may feel itself honored that secures the votes of the great body of our Catholic citizens, whether naturalized or native-born citizens, and no party will suffer in the end by insisting on justice to Catholics and to Catholic interests. Any party, by frankly and fearlessly sustaining the equal rights of Catholics with Protestants, and maintaining the freedom and independence of religion, will not only serve truly their country, and respond to the demands of American patriotism, but they will best ensure its own permanent prosperity, power, and influence. They who scorn and trample on the church may flourish for a time like the green bay tree, but in the end they will wither and die, and their places be sought, and not found. It is well for every political party to remember that God reigns, and that they who scorn his church, whom he hath purchased with his own blood, will in turn be scorned by the “King of kings, and Lord of lords.”