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Show I Bogus Catholic History. 1 T IS HARDLY just to charge any portion of the Catholic press with intentional design to deceive their readers with inaccurate history in order or-der to illuminate the deeds of Catholics Catho-lics in the colonial struggle for independence inde-pendence in America- Truthful history his-tory is ample in its demonstration of the Catholic's love of country, his loyalty loy-alty to the republican form of government govern-ment and his unceasing efforts for religious re-ligious tolerance in the Puritan states even after the adoption of the federal constitution. Of late, however, scarcely a week goes by without bringing in some fairy tale of what some priest or bishop or lay patriot (Catholic, of course) did in the war of the Revolution or the war of 1S12 that exerted a marvelous influence upon the spirit of the times. One of these fairy stories goes so far as to represent Benjamin Franklin in a kneeling position before the Papal nuncio at the court of Louis XV., because be-cause that posture could alone express the gratitude of the American ambassador ambas-sador to nuncio for refunding the French king to come to the support of Washington. There is no menti m of this incident in history. Xeither is there anything to establish as fact the statement that the Papal nuncio was alone responsible for the success- ! ful mission of Franklin at the French court, nor had anything to do in the negotiations. . . Nevertheless this story had its run in the Catholic press and doubtless was accepted as fact by a large majority major-ity of readers, until it was punctured by that vigilant and tireless old bookworm book-worm of Philadlephia. Martin I. J. Griffin, editor of American Catholic Historical Researches. An article in this issue of the Intermountain Catholic Cath-olic points out other inaccuracies of history which Mr. Griffin has run down and disposed of in his usual drastic style. It is worse than silly for Catholics to parade these stories as examples of exalted patriotism, because along with inviting -denial and "-criticism ; the thought is r born that Catholics must go outsie of fact to establish their part -in the- history of the country. Thire is no need of doing this; the facts stand for themselves, and need no lomantic elaboration. Religion cuts no figure in personal courage or in lofty statesmanship, in loyalty or disloyalty. dis-loyalty. Louis XV. helped the American Amer-ican cause not because he was a Catholic, Cath-olic, but because he vas an enemy of Great Britain; not because of any love for the struggling republic, but because be-cause of his hate of George III. Catholics Cath-olics should reflect upon these histori-; histori-; cal facts in the light of common sense, i The editor of American Catholic ' Historical Researches is engaged in a praiseworthy work. He should be encouraged, en-couraged, and fairy Catholic history discouraged. |
