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Show -f CATHOLICS AND AMERICAN POLITICS. The matter of the federation of Catholic Cath-olic societies, suggested by the Right Rev. Bishop of Trenton, seems to have been misunderstood by some of our esteemed contemporaries, says Church News of Washington, D. C. The text of the Bishop's speech shows that he did not intend to suggest the formation forma-tion of a Catholic party. Catholic parties have their value on the Con-I Con-I tinent of Europe though the present position of the various Catholic political polit-ical groups in Spain might well make one doubt it but here a Catholic party would not be a misfortune only because it is an impossibility. Catholics as Catholics have no special rights here. Occasionally some blatant alien, with an inherited and acquired power of misunderstanding the situation, situa-tion, talks about the "rights of Catholics," Cath-olics," forgetting that no man here has any rights, because of the religion he professes. He has rights as an American citizen, cit-izen, secured to him by the Constitution Constitu-tion of the United States, and when those rights are infringed upon it is his duty to protest with all possible force. No fairminded American believes be-lieves that a Hebrew should be appointed ap-pointed to office because of his creed, or that a Methodist should be added to a commission because he is a Methodist. Metho-dist. There is too much of this done, but it is a vicious practice, which will always accompany the practice of general gen-eral suffrage. "Where the continuance of a party in power is dependent on the votes of the intelligent and unintelligent unin-telligent alike, this abuse must exist unless the executive should be able to rise beyond it. When it comes to the putting of a Catholic in office because he is a Catholic Cath-olic or a Protest because he is a Protestant, Prot-estant, we arrive at a condition never contemplated by George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. But, if discrimination discrim-ination should be made against a man because of his religion, the very foundations foun-dations of libertv are touched. To say that a Catholic, no matter how meritorious he might be, could not be president of the United States, is to confess that the Declaration of Independence has failed. To admit that any worthy American citizen is barred because of his religious convictions from any office he is capable of filling is to show a condition of unreason which is certainly not American. This, if anything could, would justify the foundation -of a Catholic party. The students of the working of our institutions tell us that everything with us depends on the ballot; the cynical observer of the working of these same institutions declares that all depends on the manipulation of votes. The cynic is wrong. The people can and must be trusted, and, if bigotry exists, it can be removed only by educating the people. peo-ple. But the people will not be edu cated by a display of . the numerical strength of the Catholics, though the professional politician may be impressed impress-ed by it. No federation of Catholic societies, so-cieties, arranged merely for the purpose pur-pose of recommending "favorite sons" to good official places is advised by Bishop McFaul; but he does advise if the newspaper reports of his speech be correct that when Catholics of force and character, acquirements and experience, exper-ience, are named for office, religious bigotry must be prevented from interfering inter-fering with their filling it. Some of our cotemporaries assume that all Catholics belong, to the Democratic Demo-cratic party. But this is a mere supposition. sup-position. There never -was a time, since Blaine's candidacy, when Catholics were so divided as to politics as they are now. And religious issues have nothing to do with this, division. There is nothing in the Apostle's creed that hampers a man's opinions on the gold or silver question. The "looting" of the churches in the Philippines has not proved half so important for campaign purposes as the ice trust. That Catholics Cath-olics should divide in politics merely to make both parties tributary to them at times of crisis is a fond, foolish fool-ish dream. The vision of a Catholic party is not only foolish, but evil; and only men impressed by foreign tradi- j tions can ' be misled by this mirage. The progress of the Catholic church in this country is dependent on no political polit-ical party, and we trust that day will never come when Catholics -will take office of-fice as Catholics and not as American citizens, pure and simple. , |