The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1875-05-12

/ McGoWanlSm; an Irish member, one
McGowan, having undertaken to
force upon the Legislature the coun-
terpart of the McGeghan fraud, with
divers and sundry improvements"
Its sole design is to make public Off
Gals a police force to keep within the
ranks Of the Roman Church the pau
pers and criminals with which it so
plentifully supplies the State. In the
first place, after abolishing paid chap
lancies, none but authorized clergy
men" are to be allowed inside of
prisons; every criminal is made to be
the judge of whether it is best for him
to attend any services or not, thus
blotting out the whole reformatory
| element in imprisonment, apart from
rigid sectarianism If neglected or
orphan child is placed in an asylum,
however debauched its parents are or
may have been. it must be reared in
their faith, and when dead, guardians
| or clergyman of the same denomina
| ton shall determine the education it
! is to receive.
Not satisfied with this, the Roman
Church has another bill before the
New York Legislature, which has
| passed the lower house, and is now
before the Senate. 1t exempts GER
tain schools from the operation of the
law forbidding sectarian appropri-
| ations. The schools of the Vincent
De Paul Asylum are alone mentioned,
but there is nothing to prevent every
other Catholic school in the city from
being merged with the ones named.
In view of these significant acts,
how beautiful some recent utterances
| of Monsignor Capel-Disraeli's Cat
esby-sound; how charming is their
sincerity. We quote:
"God forbid (said Monsignor CapeD
that they should ever become richer.
The glory of Gods priests should be
! to have written on his brow and his
whole life. Poverty The day the
Catholic Church becomes rich she is
ever in danger, and the day when she
! is poor, she is powerful before the ma
/ tions. There is poverty that para
| lyZes and a poverty that binds hearts
together. The poverty that paralyzes
is the ina bility to meet the obligations
imposed upon US. The poverty that
binds is the poverty of mutual de,
pendence by which priests and people
receive benefits from each other.
| "Grieved as I should be to see the
English Church disestablished, be-
| cause it would show that a nation was
rejecting it's duty toward God, still
more grieved should | surely be if we
| were to be established in its place and
to receive its money. 1t is far better
for US to depend upon our people.
Fixed incomes for priests are always
productive of evil.
| 1t has been apparent for some time
past, and the evidences are rapidly
accommodating, that the clerical poll
ticians at Rome, who hide their per
| sonality behind that of the venerable
| Plus, are determined to repair their
| losses at home by gains abroad. The
brunt of their attack is just now di-
rected against England and the Uni
ted States, and New York and Ohio
are specially selected as important
| and vulnerable points. Most persons
| would at first think that our own
| country presented most hopeless
field. On reflection they will see that
it offers special inducements. Even
| in the Catholic nationalist of Europe,
the Church, when pushing its claims
| too far, has come into collision with
| the government. Here the secular
authorities have nothing to do with
any churches. There are no laws
preventing the accumulation of real
estate by the clergy, and the votes of
their most Jealous followers are as
good as those of their opponents.
Divide and conquer is the Church's
motto. In large cities where her
! main strength lies she has great in
fluence, for she can sell her strength
to INSCRIPTIONS politicians, and the
Democracy are always ready bidders
though her terms are high. In the
country, though her opponents in the
aggregate largely outnumbers her,
she has the advantage of most com
not. Attacked in turn, and perhaps
rarely offer an effective resistance,
they forget their differences and unite
Such concentrations the Roman
makes haste
1t favored common schools, and
apparently never dreamed that our
prisons were sectarian institutions
until Il few years past. Its conviction
:,
until, having secured the aid of the
secular arm it made the grand
demonstration which resulted in the
Geehan law 1t drove the Bible out
of the schools, because they were sec
tartan. When this was accomplished,
the schools were denounced as god
less. Next a partial division of the
school fund will be effected, by an
| evasion of the present laws If things
go on we'll, the next constitutional
convention will be called upon to I'M
do part of the work of its predeces-
sor, and even to endow and establish
the Church Of Rome. If the majority
of the people of Ohio should ratify
such an act, there is nothing in the
Constitution of the United States to
prevent it. Our national charter
merely forbids Congress to interfere
with liberty of worship, and guaran-
tees to each State Republican gov
| eminent; the former interposes no
check upon State authorities.
1t may be said that there is no dan
| ger of such results as these. We hope
there is not, but when one powerful
| element of our society is working with
all its might toward a given end.
| while the other elements are either
passive or its helpers, it is not best to
| remain too confident Austria was
| virtually Protestant in the latter half
Of the 10th century. By the middle
of the 18th it was overwhelmingly
Catholic, and has since remained so.
This one thing is certain, the doc
trines of the Church of Rome in re-
gard to education and to civil and re-
ligious liberty are openly antagonistic