Tar and feathers

by Victor Rubin

“Can you prove what you have just told him, father?” asked McCall.

“That is exactly what I am about to do. Although I have some authority in the church, you, Mr. Hamilton, will want some greater authority than mine. Have you ever heard of the Baltimore Council? Shortly after Pope Leo the Thirteenth had conferred with the American prelates in Rome, a plenary council of the Catholic Church of the United States was ordered, late in 1884. The acts of this council were approved by the Pope and are enforced throughout the United States. Now, very fortunately, this very subject of church and state was discussed by the fathers of the Baltimore Council and this, by the approval of the Holy See, is the official position of the Catholic Church.”

The priest turned the leaves, found the proper page and handed the book to Robert.

“We repudiate with equal earnestness,” he read, “the assertion that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness to our church to be true Americans; the insinuation that we need to lay aside any of our love for our country’s principles and institutions to be faithful Catholics. To argue that the Catholic Church is hostile to our great republic, because she teaches that ‘there is no power but from God’; because, therefore, back of the events which led to the formation of the republic, she sees the providence of God leading to that issue and, back of our country’s laws, the authority of God as their sanction—this is evidently so illogical and contradictory an accusation that we are astonished to hear it advanced by persons of ordinary intelligence.... To both the Almighty and to His instruments we look with grateful reverence, and to maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left us, our Catholic citizens will be found to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge anew their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. No less illogical should be the notion that there is aught in the free spirit of our American institutions incompatible with perfect docility to the Church of Christ.”

The next sentence Robert read several times. It seemed to strike at the union of church and state, although—and this seemed natural—such union was blamed upon the selfishness of secular monarchs, seeking greater power. It was natural that the Catholic Church, if it now condemned this union, should see in it, not a usurpation of secular authority by the church, but of ecclesiastical power by the state.

“Narrow, insular, national views and jealousies concerning ecclesiastical authority and church organization may have sprung naturally enough from the selfish policy of certain rulers and nations in bygone times, but they find no sympathy in the spirit of the true American Catholic.”

“I see,” said Robert gravely, handing the book back. It seemed queer that both the Catholics and the Tribesmen should issue proclamations against what was probably the same thing. It was like the two knights fighting each other all day because one declared the shield was red and the other that it was black and then discovering, as they lay exhausted on the ground, that the shield was black on one side and red on the other. Tribesmen and Know Nothingers feared that the church wished to control the state; the Catholic fathers that the state should try to control the church.

“Have you the real fourth degree oath of the Knights of Columbus?” asked McCall.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Robert.

“Yes, it is. You must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Knights of Columbus, Father, are supposed to be trying to seize control of the state by, well, it amounts to murder. Read this.”