We have intimated, however, in former numbers of The Catholic World, that the chronic anti-Catholic agitation might assume a new character which would require on our part a new attitude of resistance. A few years ago, when the settlement of the issues of the war first seemed to menace the dissolution of the Republican party, the most active leaders of that party began to cast about for a “new departure,” [pg 757] and one of their favorite plans for keeping the organization alive was the scheme of compulsory education by the general government. Of this project the Hon. Henry Wilson was a prominent advocate. It has not yet been formally brought into politics, for the party has been able to get along without it; but it has not been abandoned, and we need not be surprised if it be strongly pushed within the next few years. Now, Catholics look upon the question of religious education as one of paramount importance. They will not surrender the teaching of their children into the hands of Protestants and infidels; they will not consent, so far as their young people are concerned, to the separation of religious and secular instruction. Any party which seeks directly or indirectly to limit the usefulness or hamper the operations of Catholic schools, must prepare to encounter in Catholics a united and determined resistance.
Thus far no such conflict has arisen. We may hope that it never will arise. And yet, during the canvass that has recently closed, two of the leading organs of Republican opinion have opened a bitter and apparently concerted warfare upon the Catholics of the United States which we cannot help regarding as highly significant. In the midst of a Presidential campaign, political organs never make such attacks except for political reasons. The papers to which we refer are in close relations with the party leaders. The New York Times became for a time, when The Tribune abandoned orthodoxy, the principal Republican newspaper of the principal state in the Union. It is known to have reflected with tolerable accuracy the sentiments of the Republican managers in New York, and it has always said what it assumed to be acceptable at the White House. For a long time it has been notoriously unfriendly to Catholics. It has amused itself, in its heavy, witless way, laughing at what they hold sacred and abusing all that they respect. Until a few months ago, its offensive utterances seemed to be merely the occasional vulgarities of a bigotry that, did not know enough to hold its tongue. But when Mr. Francis Kernan was nominated for Governor of the State of New York, its assaults became more methodical, more vehement, and apparently more malicious. Mr. Kernan is a Catholic; so The Times instantly denounced him as “a bigot.” An utterly untrue pretence was made that Democrats were asking Irishmen to vote for him on account of his religion, and thus the point was insinuated rather than openly pressed that on account of his religion Protestants ought to vote against him. For the first time, to our knowledge, since Know-Nothing days, the question of religious belief was dragged into the dirty arena of politics. Happily, the Catholics as a body kept their temper and their judgment during these infamous proceedings. They refused to be drawn into the discussion which The Times wanted to provoke, and even when that paper surpassed all its former disreputable acts by reproducing in its columns a forged handbill, showing the name of Francis Kernan surrounding a huge black cross, and told the public that such were the devices by which the Democratic candidate sought to inflame the fanatical zeal of his followers, the Catholics contented themselves with one word of indignant denial. It would have been a rash display of political courage to which we do not believe The Times capable of rising, if an open attack had been made upon the Catholic [pg 758] faith or Catholic morals. The Times was even frightened at its own frankness in scolding at Mr. Kernan for a bigot. It professed to be shocked at the introduction of religious affairs into the discussions of the campaign, and carried on a cowardly anti-Catholic warfare under cover of repelling purely imaginary assaults. Of course this subterfuge was well understood by all parties. The Catholics knew that they had done nothing to draw this fire; the Protestants also knew it, and a great many of them were indignant at the transaction. Was The Times itself deceived? That is a question which perhaps we should not attempt to answer. In its wild bigotry, it is capable of believing almost any preposterous falsehood against us; but it is equally capable of inventing one. Some familiarity with the course of political controversies in the United States has convinced us that in a fight The Times sticks at nothing. It would rather stab an enemy in the back than kill him in open battle. It never gives fair-play; it never makes amends for a wrong-doing; it never withdraws a calumny. Everybody who has had a controversy with it will bear witness that it is not in the habit of telling the truth about its adversaries. That it is in the habit of consciously, or, to speak more correctly, deliberately, lying we do not go so far as to say. But there is a kind of falsehood very common with people of strong prejudices to which The Times is greatly addicted. It bears about the same relation to truth that hyperbole bears to historical statement. Let us suppose that The Times really imagines the Catholic Church to be a dangerous and immoral organization, and its bishops and supporters in this country to be engaged in an enterprise which ought to be resisted; with this conviction of the general wickedness of Catholic principles, it imagines itself justified in charging upon individual Catholics a variety of specific crimes for which it has no evidence whatever. Catholics are none too good to commit murder, we can imagine it saying; therefore let us accuse Francis Kernan of killing his grandmother. The Pope is an impostor; therefore it cannot be wrong to call Archbishop McCloskey a thief. Indeed, men who would blush to tell an untruth in private intercourse with their fellow-men have no hesitation in publishing slanderous accusations which they suppose may “help their party”; and, if we should say that their conduct in doing so was to the last degree infamous, they would affect to be shocked by our strong language. The editor of The Times would think twice before he went into a club parlor, and publicly accused some prominent citizen of a criminal action, unless he had the strongest possible proof of the commission of the offence. But he makes such accusations every day in his newspaper, without knowing, and we presume without caring, whether they are true or not. Anybody whom he dislikes he regards as an outlaw. Anybody who comes in his way is a fit subject for the penitentiary. We saw a striking illustration of his entire insensibility to the demands of truth and honor in his behavior towards a rival newspaper a few weeks ago. At the close of the year, The Times made great efforts to secure the old subscribers of The Tribune, who were supposed to be dissatisfied with that paper's recent declaration of political independence, and the means which it took to secure them was one which in any other business would have resulted in a suit for slander and a verdict in very heavy [pg 759] damages. The Times first circulated a report that The Tribune had sold itself to one of the most disreputable stock-gamblers in Wall Street, and then assured the public that the circulation of its competitor had fallen away more than half, and was rapidly going down to nothing at all. Both these stories were well known to be entirely untrue, and, if the editor of The Times was not conscious of their falsity when he penned them, he might easily have learned the truth by a moment's inquiry. But he did not want the truth. He wanted to say something damaging, and these were the most damaging things he could think of.
How much he succeeded in damaging Mr. Kernan by his campaign slanders against Catholics, we can guess from the figures of the election. Mr. Kernan received about 5,000 more votes for Governor than Mr. Greeley received in this State for President; but he received 5,000 fewer than the candidate for Lieutenant-Governor on the same ticket. This loss is probably attributable directly to the anti-Catholic feeling, for Mr. Kernan is a gentleman to whom no personal objection could possibly be made except on religious grounds. No doubt an equally large number of voters were repelled, by the bigotry The Times fostered, from supporting the Democratic and Liberal ticket at all; so that we shall not pass the bounds of probability if we estimate the fruit of prejudice and falsehood in this case as equivalent to ten thousand votes.
Catholics are used to injustice, and they are not quick to resent it. In America, the church has prospered under every sort of obstacle and discouragement short of the direct hostility of the government, and it is not likely that her course will be stayed by The New York Times. But it is well for us to look at the situation carefully, and judge who are our friends. If any political party is to make bigotry part of its stock in trade, we cannot help taking notice of such a declaration of hostilities, and we shall govern ourselves accordingly.
We have said that The Times and Harper's Weekly appear in this matter to have acted in concert. Perhaps it is unfair to hold the party managers fully responsible for the utterances of these two violent newspapers; but we cannot forget that both journals are in close communion with the Republican administration, and that both have been governed during the campaign by the judgment of the Republican leaders. The editor of The Times enjoys the most intimate association with the federal organization popularly known as the “Custom-house faction” in New York City; the editor of Harper's Weekly is the personal friend of the President, and speaks the mind of the President's chief advisers in Washington. If, then, these two papers have made a systematic assault upon the Catholic Church in the midst of a sharp political controversy, and have taken pains to give their furious Protestantism a direct political bearing, the party for which they speak must be prepared to face the responsibility. It should be observed, however, in justice to the sensible and unprejudiced members of the party, that Harper's Weekly, though it may have been encouraged in its bitterness by partisan considerations, did not draw from such motives its first anti-Catholic inspiration. It has always been our enemy. A spirit, of commercial fanaticism, the hatred of a religion which it will pay to abuse, has distinguished the firm of the Harpers ever since the public has known anything about them. [pg 760] The political campaign of 1872 made no difference in the tone of their paper; it merely gave force, and concentration, and regularity to the attacks which had previously been spasmodic.
How coarsely it attempted to turn to political account the religious bigotry upon which it had always traded may be seen in an article entitled “Our Foreign Church,” published in Harper's Weekly of the 14th of September last. The writer starts with the assumption that all religious denominations in this country, except “the Romish Church,” patriotically renounced the authority of their European rulers when the American republic was founded. The Methodists “rejected the control in political and ecclesiastical matters of their founders”; the Presbyterians repudiated the General Assembly of Scotland; Episcopalians revolted from the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Jews “threw themselves boldly into the tide of American progress”; while the Catholic Church alone stood aloof, and “refused to separate itself from its European masters,” and conform its organization to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the United States. Ridiculous as this complaint sounds, it is no burlesque, but a faithful synopsis of the nonsense which Mr. Eugene Lawrence is permitted to print in Harper's Weekly. A church of divine origin, according to this preposterous person, is to change its divine laws to conform to the requirements of temporary human institutions; and the political theories of Thomas Jefferson are to govern the ordinances of Jesus Christ. It is the glory of the true church that she is above all secular constitutions. She has seen the rise and fall of countless dynasties and states; she will survive the ruin, if every form of government now known upon earth shall be eventually overthrown. Empires, kingdoms, republics, are all alike to her. She was founded for all ages and all climes; she was not created, as Mr. Eugene Lawrence seems to think she ought to have been, for the exclusive benefit of the United States of America. This is a great country; but we presume that our constitution, amendments and all, occupies but an insignificant place in the divine order of the universe.
Obeying its heaven-appointed head, who did not see fit to choose either Europe or America for the place of his human birth, the Roman Catholic Church in America, according to Harper's Weekly, is a foreign body, and, therefore, dangerous (as all foreigners are) to the peace of society. “It is loud in its denunciations of American civilization;” it “furnishes three-fourths of the criminals and the paupers who prey upon the Protestant community”; it never intermits its “attacks upon the principles of freedom”; and “its great mass of ignorant voters have been the chief source of our political ills.” Moreover, “the unpatriotic conduct of the Romish population in our chief cities during the rebellion is well known. They formed a constant menace and terror to the loyal citizens; they thronged the ‘peace meetings’; they strove to divide the Union; and when the war was over they placed in office their corrupt leaders, and plundered the impoverished community.” We are almost ashamed to copy, even for the purpose of denouncing it, this insult to the memory of our dead Catholic soldiers. There is not a man in the United States who does not know of the noble share of these outraged “Romish” troops in the terrible struggles of the civil war; not a man who is ignorant of the splendid [pg 761] record of the Irish regiments under the Union flag on every hard-fought field from the first Bull Run to the last conflict before Richmond. “The Romish population of our chief cities” furnished the bone and sinew of more than one gallant army during those four sad years. They gave up their lives for the country of their birth or their adoption with a heroism that stirs every sensitive heart. Their priests followed the army on the march and into the fight. Their Sisters of Charity nursed the wounded and the sick. The greatest of their prelates, aided by another bishop who is still living, spent the last remains of his strength in defending the cause of the Union in hostile foreign capitals. Nothing, in fine, could be more magnificent than the patriotism with which the adherents of this “foreign church” sacrificed life and fortune for their country during its hour of need; and we have no language to define the infamy of endeavoring to make capital for Gen. Grant by maligning the devoted men whom he led to death at Shiloh and in the wilderness, and whose bravery, we are sure, he would be the last man to depreciate.
And now, continues the writer in the Weekly, as the Presidential election approaches, “our foreign church has assumed more openly than ever before the form of a political faction.” “Romish priests” and “Romish bishops” have taken the field as the partisans of Mr. Greeley, “the candidate of disunion and of religious bigotry”!—the italics are ours—and the church is engaged in an attempt “to place the fallen slaveholders once more in power.” For these statements we deliberately declare that there is no justification whatever. Mr. Eugene Lawrence invented them out of his own bigotry and malice; and when he had the folly and insolence to threaten us, as he did at the close of his article, with “the vengeance of the people,” he added to his untruthfulness a degree of hypocrisy which we have rarely seen equalled even in the publications of the house of Harper & Brothers. We say hypocrisy; but perhaps that is unfair. Mr. Lawrence may be silly enough to tremble at the bogies of his own devising. He may imagine that the rest of the world is as much afraid of the Pope as he is. He may fancy that the whole party of which he is such a hard-working member is burning with desire to take the Jesuits by the throat and hang them on the nearest lamp-post. If he did not suppose that a profitable market could be found for his sensational wares, he probably would not be at the trouble of the manufacture. If the “vengeance of the people” do not menace the Jesuits, it will certainly not be the fault of Mr. Lawrence. In the issue of the Weekly for Oct. 12, he had a furious narrative of “The Jesuit Crusade against Germany,” the points of which are substantially these: The Jesuits, with the aid of the Inquisition (of which they are the directors) and of a hired band of convicts and brigands, obtained the absolute mastery of the city of Rome and the papal government. The wretched people “cowered before their Jesuit rulers,” and within the crumbling walls of the guilty capital “priests and cardinals perpetrated their enormities unchecked and unseen.” They then, by means of their “lawless police,” overpowered the Œcumenical Council, and forced it, “by intimidation and bribes,” to accept the doctrine of infallibility, to curse liberty and education, and to set on foot a bloody crusade against political and intellectual freedom. This was in accordance with the Jesuits' [pg 762] time-honored policy. “The fierce and fanatical Loyola” used to burn heretics in Spain and Italy, and taught his followers that no mercy should be shown to such offenders. It was the Jesuits who set on foot the persecutions under Charles V. and Philip II., and “excited the unparalleled horrors of the Thirty Years' War.” In 1870, they were getting ready for a new religious war. Napoleon III. was their chief backer. In fact, the attack upon Germany in 1870 was the result of a conspiracy between Rome and Paris, concluded at the council, and the purpose of the war was nothing less than the establishment of the Jesuit Order on the ruins of prostrate Germany! For this scheme the Irish Catholics of Dublin, London, and New York “furnished men, sympathy, and possibly money.” And now that the conspiracy has failed, and that the papists of France have been beaten (in spite of all the sinews of war so lavishly furnished by the Irish laborers and servant-girls of New York), the Jesuits are getting, up another European convulsion. “The Romish Church, organized into a vast political faction, is stirring up war in Europe, calls upon France to lead another religious crusade, and promises the aid of all the chivalry of Catholicism in avenging the fall of Napoleon upon the German Empire.” It purposes to involve all the great states of Europe in a common ruin, “and erect the Romish See upon the wrecks of the temporal empires.” The pilgrimage of Lourdes is a part of this scheme. The Catholic Union is another. The International Society of Workingmen (of which the Jesuits are the secret instigators!) is another. Mr. Lawrence exhibits the venerable fathers in the unfamiliar garb of communists, and substitutes the red cap for the beretta with all the effrontery and nonchalance in the world. The Order which in one column is the detested safeguard of absolutism becomes in the next the raving propagandist of social anarchy, revolution, and universal democracy. Can any rational person after this condescend to dispute with Mr. Lawrence?
As in the other cases to which we have referred, there was a political moral to this story also. If we would avert this horrible era of blood and fire, said Harper's Weekly, we must vote for General Grant, and stand up for the straight Republican ticket. Grant is the firm ally of Germany against Jesuitism. Grant is the champion of public schools against religious education. Grant is the enemy of all manner of Romish fraud and violence. Greeley is the friend of priests and persecutors, the foe of the Bible and education, the accomplice of that infamous “Jesuit faction” which “would rejoice to tear the vitals of American freedom, and rend the breast that has offered it a shelter”; and if he should be elected the “Jesuit Society” would celebrate the victory “like a new S. Bartholomew, with bells, cannon, processions, prayers at the Vatican,” and hasten “the rising of the Catholic chivalry ... in their sanguinary schemes against the peace and independence of Germany.” Such was the wicked nonsense with which Harper's Weekly in the autumn of 1872 attempted to make political capital out of the ignorance and bigotry of its readers.
But this was not the worst. The Jesuits were not only conspirators against political and mental freedom, they were the principal enemies of the freed people of the South. Their society (risum teneatis, amici) had “allied itself with the Ku-klux of Georgia and Mississippi”! And so infatuated [pg 763] was the Weekly with the monstrous folly of this tale that week after week it returned to the same slander. On Oct. 26 it printed a portrait of the Most Reverend Father-General, accompanied with one of the most outrageous pages of falsehood and defamation ever put into type. “In our country,” says the author of the article, “the Jesuit faction has allied itself with the Ku-klux.” “The Jesuit Society assumes the guise of liberalism, and cheers on the rebel and Ku-klux in their plots against the Union.” “In America the Jesuits link themselves with the Ku-klux.” They do this because they hate the republic. They denounce, “with maledictions and threatenings, the course of modern civilization.”