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Show i A Shrine of Religious Liberty. 1 (Philadelphia Press.) ) "Protestants often wonder why old St. t Joseph's church at Fourth street and i ' i AVillings alley is held with such saintly - j reverence by the Catholic people," said I Martin I. J. Griffin, the Catholic his- ; l torian. "It was on that sacred spot that ' j full religious liberty was first publicly : permitted and established in this coun- i : try, dating back to the year 1732, about : the time of the founding of Penn's col- t ony here. Catholics regard it as the I ehrine of true religious liberty. Outside ; of Maryland, where masses were cele- i i brated in private houses by the Jesuit j priests, the residence of John Tatham, I a man of affairs, who was related to the ' i t Duke of Norfolk and for a brief period ' j was governor of West New Jersey, in . t - the town of Burlington, to where he re- I moved, was probably the only other : j stopping place for priests who said .' 't masses and conducted other ministra- ; t tions. This was at a period when big-I big-I ; otry prevailed to a great extent, and the so-called 'scandal of the mass being celebrated in public brought forth numerous nu-merous complaints to the colonial governors, gov-ernors, who were earnestly petitioned to suppress the same. But 'with St. Joseph's Jo-seph's parish the public Catholic services serv-ices began and remained. The first regular mass was observed in the little original chapel, only 18x28 feet in size, on Feb. 22, and there they have been regularly kept up ever since for a century cen-tury and three-quarters and even longer." |