The St. Johns herald., 1890-06-19

$ disloyal. You may not think as
 -ou choose; you must think as
 'atholics. The man who says I
 rill take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics from Pc,
 err is not true Catholic. The church teaches that the Supreme Pontiff must be obeyed, because he is the vicar of the Lord" And all this is in perfect keeping with the claims of the Pontiff: II acknowl- edge no civil superior; 1 am the sub- ject of no prince and 1 claim more than this. I claim to be the su- preme judge on earth and director If the consciences of men; of the peasant that tills the field and the
 prince that sits on the throne; of the household that sits in the shade of privacy, and the legislature that makes laws for kingdoms. 1 am the sole last supreme judge on earth of what is right and wrong" Leo, in his encyclical letter of Novem- Der 2, 1885, says: All Catholics
 must make themselves felt as ac- tive elements in daily political life in countries where they live. All Catholics should exert themselves to cause the constitutions of states to be modelled on the principles of the true church." The oath em- bodied in the Roman profession of faith, which every Catholic has to
 take, does not differ materially in
 the point of allegiance from that ta- ken in the Mormon Endowment House, which the courts have re- gently decided disqualifies those who take it for naturalization. It is as follows: "I acknowledge the
 Holy Catholic and Apostolic Ro- man Church as the mother and mis- tress of all churches; and l pledge
 and swear true obedience to the
 Roman Pontif, vicar of Jesus Christ and successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles" There is no reservation, no exception. The duty to obey the Pope is imperative and absolute over the duty to obey the laws. This doctrine of supreme Papal sovereignty and jurisdiction
 over all earthly powers and laws has always been taught by the Ro- mish Church in America. It is ut lerly impossible for those who are bound over body and soul to this despotic power eEer to become true American citizens. On page PTS of a book prepared for the use of the Roman Catholic colleges and schools, and bearing the imprima- tur of Cardinal Manning, we are told that the civil laws are binding on the conscience only so long as they are conformable to the rights of the Catholic Church." This lan- guage is so plain that 1t cannot pos sibly be misunderstood. The Cath ollie World, for August, 1871, very tersely states the whole matter as follows: "We are purely and sim ply Catholics and profess an unre- served allegiance to the the church, which takes precedence of and gives rule to our allegiance to the State. But this is not the kind of loyalty which our constitution contem- plates and which our institutions require. If called upon to choose between serving our government or the power at Rome, every true Catholic would be under the neces- sity of abjuring his country. This being true, it necessarily follows that every Roman Catholic who oc- cupies position of political power and responsibility is an enemy in disguise. In view of these un-Amer- ican and reasonable doctrines, no man who confesses allegiance to the Pope should be allowed to partici- pate as a citizen among us, in eith- CT holding an office or casting bal lot. We certainly would not admit