OCR Text |
Show . . Roman Catholics and Politics. (Xcw York Sun.) Bishop McFauI of Trenton explained' in an address ad-dress to the Roman Catholic Federation, in which there are now a million and a half members, that the purpose of that organization is in no sense political, po-litical, hut' simply "to banish ignorance in regard to the Catholic Church." "We do not 'want a Catholic party," said the bishop; "it would be far better for us were we more equally divided between tlje two great parties." - It is not remarkable that Koman Catholics have . tended to the Democratic party. During the Know Xothing agitation of thejniddlc of the last century the prime object of attack by. the movement was the Church of Koine. The "native Americanism" which was its slogan was at the bottom simply religious, re-ligious, antipathy. It was fear and hatred of the Pope. The Know Nothings wanted . to keep foreigners for-eigners from voting for the special reason that those foreigners were -almost wholly Koman Catholics. Catho-lics. At the period mv1ju.'U Know Xothingism was acth-'e and influential politically the great mass of ! the immigration was Catholic and chiefly from Ireland. Ire-land. Against this movement the Democratic party was steadily and consistently arrayed. In its national na-tional platform for 1840 it had favored immigration immigra-tion and declared that "every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books." That declaration was -repeated in the platforms' of .1844, 1848 and 1S.j2. The Whigs avoided the .subject.. The "American" "Amer-ican" or Know Xothing platform of ISoG held that "native born citizens should be selected for all state, federal and municipal ' offices of government employment em-ployment in preference to all others," and it attacked at-tacked Koman Catholics in this fashion: ' ..; "Xo person should be selected for political station sta-tion (whether of native or foreign birth) who recognizes rec-ognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description de-scription to any foreign -prince, pbtcntate or power." " ... ' Of course, the reference there was to the spiritual spirit-ual allegiance of Catholics tothe Pope; and it;in-. it;in-. duced the Democrats to make this. counter declara-tlyi declara-tlyi in their platform of 1856:' . . - : "A" political crusade in the nineteenth century in the United States xf America against Catholics and foreign born is neither justified by the past history or future prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit of toleration which peculiarly peculiar-ly distinguishes the American system of popular government.". Under such circumstances Koman Catholics naturally nat-urally gave .their support to the Democratic party. The Know Nothing movement died out after 18ri' and left no sign, but for the most part Ki'inan Catholics remained with their Democratic champions, cham-pions, and even after the Civil war had brought about a new political alignment it is probable that the great majority still clung to that political allegiance. al-legiance. v Bishop McFaul referred to another matter of serious importance when be said that "if all the descendants of our Catholic forefathers had remained re-mained true to their faith there would -be more than 4(',00(l.noi Catholics in the United States today, instea'd of ."..0i).00(." This is a higher estimate of our present Human Catholic population than is warranted by official statistics, but it may not be excessive. However that may be, the immigration from Koman Catholic Catho-lic countries alone since the foundation of the republic re-public must have been as many. and. very much more if their children born in this country are included. in-cluded. A great part of. these foreign Catholics and their descendants mu-t have fallen away from the faith, and the bishop's estimate that if they had all remained' loyal our present Catholic population popu-lation would be 40.000,000 is moderate. |