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Show THEIR GRIEVANCE MAY BE JUST. Marked copies of the Lancet and the Afro-American, Afro-American, newspapers published at Baltimore in the interest of the negro race, of date July 9, have been received by the editor of the Intermountain Catholic. The articles to which attention is called relate to an incident which occurred on a recent Sunday at Mass in the church of the Immaculate Conception, Baltimore. In the Lancet an editorial paragraph makes this protest: "The colored Roman Catholics of Baltimore owe themselves and the race the duty of finding out what their rights of worship are. The incident inci-dent at the church of Immaculate f n?i pent I rm loaf Sunday, when several respectable ladies and gen-t gen-t emen were asked to vacate their seats and leave the church was a disgrace to Christianity." The Afro-American supplements its editorial comment with a cartoon, representing Father Donohue, the pastor, in the act of banishing two colored females from the church. The editor says., in part : 'The disgracef ul incident which occurred in this city on Sunday last in the Roman Catholic church of the Immaculate Conception, simply proves that Roman Catholics are no better nor worse than other white Christian people. It is so much the more scandalous because of the fact according ac-cording to good Catholic teaching- the Blessed Lord is actually and indeed present in the Sacrament Sacra-ment of the Mass, and thus in His presence and in JIis House a priest should act so disorderly as to drive human beings away, for whoso salvation He came down from Heaven, would seem almost a direct affront to the Savior present on the altar exclaiming by that awful sacrifice, 'And I. if I be lifted up will draw all men unto Me.' This color question is a very naughty subject, and if in the very presence of Christ himself we can not hope lor its disappearance, where in or out of the world may we hope for exemption from the same?" There are two sides to every quarrel, else it could not be a quarrel. .We have seen nothing in our Baltimore exchanges, concerning this incident at the church of. 'the. -.immaculate Conception; . nothing to justify the act of Father Donohue, nothing to fortify the protest of the colored editors. It occurs sometimes that people enter pews in churches that are rented to other members of the church, and are requested to vacate them when their owners appear. But it is set up by these negro editors, that the "respectable ladies and gentlemen were not only asked to vacate their seats," but they were dismissed from the church. And both editors agree that the dismissal was based on the color line. If what is set forth be true, these colored Catholics have a just grievance. The editor of the Afro-American, however, does not distinguish between be-tween the Church of Christ and a pastor of that Church who, after nil, is only human and liable to err seven times a day, even as llie just man fell seven times a day. An man, in his own person, is infallible, not even the pope. The mlored editor speaks only the truth when he winds up his editorial edi-torial with these words: "This incident mu.-t have given intense pain and great mortification to Cardinal Gibbous and all high-minded Roman Catholics who grieve at the dishonor done to their holy religion.' Father Lambert of the Freeman's Journal tutes the position of the church on this race question so clearly and concisely, that we reproduce it here for the benefit of our colored readers: "To Catholics thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Church the presence of colored Catholics at divine services, so far from being objectionable, is welcome, as their presence is a reminder of the universality of the Church. '"" We remember a striking passage in one of Wendell Phillips' speeches, in which the great American orator describes seeing Xegroes kneeling kneel-ing side by side with white persons at the communion com-munion rail in a church in Rome to receive the body of our Lord. Protestant though he was, Wendell Wen-dell Phillips was deeply impressed by this sight, which brought home to him a realization of the equality existing within the Church. Any attempt at breaking- down that equality should bo met with the reprobation it so richly merits. The doors of Catholic churches always have been open for all to enter. To slam them in the face of a person on account of the color of his skin is un-Catholic. Rome certainly would not approve of it." |