The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-11
THE CHURCH OF AGGRESSION.

.
1t is quite evident that the Roman Catholic
Church in this country is steadily and skill
fully aiming at acquiring on this continent
something of the power it is losing in Europe.
For this purpose, it is everywhere affiliating
itself with one of our great political parties,
until, in all our large cities, it has gained i'm
mense political influence. The Irish immI-
grant population is almost universally, by
tradition and social bonds, attached to the
Democratic party. This population is, in
ninety-nine cases out of hundred, intensely
and bigotedly Roman Catholic in faith, and
under the control of the priests. AS voting
force this class holds the balance of power
in our politics. Wherever they tend
in our great Cities there will be victory.
They are usually led by shrewd American
demagogues, who are utterly Indifferent on
matters of religious belief, and who under
stand the power of the religious sentiment
and of an ancient and honored faith, in this
rude class. Indeed, candor must always
compel Americans to confess that there is
something honorable in the attachment of
this ignorant peasantry to form of faith
which has been prosecuted, oppressed, and
despised for so many centuries in their own
land. With the Irish, undoubtedly, fealty to
the Roman Catholic belief is loyalty to the
faith of the oppressed as against the op-
pressors. To abandon it is at once treason to
manhood and country.
But, while respecting this sentiment, we
are bound as Americans none the less to
watch and expose the ambitious plans of the
priests and demagogues who manage and
manipulate it. Did the Catholics, like the
Episcopalians or the Methodists, simply hold
their faith as matter of religious belief or
feeling, no sane mortal could have a word to
say against it. The only reason the subject
is ever introduced in these columns, is that
this Church, unlike others, is seeking and
has gained a political power which is dan
gerous to our future. Our frothy American
S'Iiberals" who dread to have the name of
religious belief ever men
toned in a public journal, except in
praise, may as we'll understand that the
Catholic Church of the United States is
guided by men as much abler aud more far
sighted than their sentimental associates, as
Loyola was than the "Evangelicals" of his
day They aim steadily, as did the Jesuits of
the Middle Ages, at the control of our schools
and charities. And to secure this, and also to
strengthen their political power, they
| follow the illustrious example of the Church
in all countries and ages, and seek especi-
ally to possess large masses of real estate.
Somebody has said that "whoever has con-
troll of the real estate of a country rules that
country" Nothing would give the Roman
Catholic Church of the United States such
power over the masses ss large possessions of
| land and buildings.
In all civilized countries, the steady PRO-
gress of liberty and intelligence has been
marked by constant struggle against this
corruptipg evil of ecclesiastical property.
English legislation, from the Magma Charta,
| by successive acts, to the celebrated statute
of mortmRin of George III, has been little
else than a history of incessant popular ef-
forts to restrain ecclesiastical corporations
from holding excessive properties in real
estate, whether held under the title of
another for their "use and trust, "or whether
conveyed directly to them. Spain has only
been able by revolution to free herself from
this incubus within few years, and Italy is
every year con6scating those burdensome
ecclesiastical properties which pay no taxes,
and hang like heavy weight on the neck Of
the nation. In Mexico one-third of the
whole real estate of the country was held by
the priests, who controlled thereby every
political party, and nothing but the estab-
lishment of the republic enabled the authori-
ties to rid the people of so burdensome an