The San Francisco call., 1896-04-24

check and protected the rights of the peo-
pie. Applause.
ut is good thing for the church to
mind its own business and the state TO at
tend to its own affairs. 1t is bad thing
for the church to try to run the state, ana
bad thing for the state to try to run e ane
church. Applause.l The Popes always
stood for this principle. During the mia,
die ages the independence of church and
state weres sym mbolized in the Roman pom
tiffs.
After the Protestant Reformation all
civil hopes of Catholic Christians were
destroyed. 1t was arranged that as soon
as body of Christians might separate
from the Church of Rome its only head
would be the temporal sovereign. 50 II
came to pass in England. Now, we ma
that the first head of the divorced Churcn
of England was not Bishop-not legltl-
mate successor of st. Thomas OF Canter-
bury, but the royal hog Henry VII:
''At the bottom of this revolt OF this So
called reformation not so much rehglous
as political motives are to be looked Tor.
Kings have only one religion. ana tnat Is
that they believe in kings. Hence, we nnu
that Catholic kings have joined with un-
believers in order to increase their own
power; and the worst of 1t all is that the
poor fools of people believed In them ana
in their pretensions. If there be lesson
in the history of the past, this should teach
US that the great and good God. who is the
author of religion, never intended that re-
ligion should be thing to be fought about.
The man who would attempt to convince
Americans to the contrary is either TOOL
or scoundrel. ;,
"The power of a well-ordered and we'll
organized public conscience met It's oeath-
blow in the so-ralled Reformation. AT the
same time slavery commenced to spread
about the earth. We inherited the writ or
habeas corpus, the famous magma charta
and the right of representation with tax
alton from our Catholic ancestors, but we
did not get from them the black Inherit
ance of human slavery.
However, we must make an exception
as to Indian slavery. The Spanlards VINO
came to the new world found rivers
glittering with gold and enslayed
the Indian in order to get
him to amass treasuers Tor tnelr
conquerors. In Massachusetts and Vir-
ginia we find no man prominent In church
or state advocating the cause of the slave.
In the south, however, we see some lazy,
good for nothing monks taking the
trouble to say good word for the poor en-
slaved savage.
SIN Santo Domingo we see the Domini-
can Father Montesino getting up in his
pulpit and telling his hearers that they
the slave trade, and had about as much
hope Of salvation as though they We're
Turks. When reprimanded for his burn
ing words his superiors confirmed them,
and on the following Sunday Montesino
gave the people stronger sermon than
before.
"Las Casas, the first American priest,
who. though a Spaniard, was the first to
receive the sacrament OF holy orders on
HI oAx af
the slave. From the court of Spain to the
court of Rome and back again went the
voice of the priest Las Casas; and down to
our own days comes that noble voice
pleading for the God-given rights of the
Indian slave.
Nor were the Popes idle. Paul III,
who was held up by the reformers as a
tyrant and bugbear, commanded that no
savage people, even though they should
not embrace Christianity, should be
molested in the enjoyment of their pos
sessions or liberties. Men may call this
papal interference in politics, but l would
rather appear at the last day beside such
Popes as Paul III than with our modern
patriots of to-day.
''In Mexico there are about Ii, ,0O0, 900
people, of whom 100000 are of Indian
birth. 1t is true that these Indians have
not been taught to chase after the
almighty dollar on a bicycle nor to make
wooden nutmegs, but they are free men
and have chance to improve until per-
haps they may be able TO come up to our
level in these and other respects.
When the slave trade commenced
among the Portuguese Molina ana San
chez, the great Spanish theologians, laid
down the proposition that the traffic was
and those who engaged in it or
prohted by it were guilty of mortal sin,
The same doctrine is laid down by Soto, q
Jesuit writer, whose works. dated 1889, are
in the library of st. Ignatius College in
this City in their old-fashioned parchment
bindings.
Another phase of the effort to divide
the people by setting them against each
other on religious grounds was the mag
nifying of the divine right of kings.
James /, the most learned fool in all
wrote book to prove that
all power in every department of govern
ment proceeded from the Kings bounty.
This doctrine was long held in England.
This same doctrine became very popu-
lar throughout Europe. In Spain court
chaplain had the nerve to say, when
before the King, that the tenn
poral sovereign had absolute power over
the lives and properties of his subjects.
The people arose en- masse, and, dragging
the monk from the pulpit. they took him
to the Inquisition of all places, and the In
cushion, whose sole business Is supposed
to have been the burning of Protestants,
condemned this monk, after long trial,
to retract from the same pulpit his false
and heretical expressions.
This will give US a sort of idea of the
kind of liberty which our Catholic ances-
tors believed in. The Catholics of this
country can point back with pride to th cir
fathers, who made the first entry in the
volume of the history of American re.
ligious liberty. The tradition of freedom
in America had not it's origin in the So
called reformation; but its roots were
fastened deep in old Catholic soil. France,
the pioneer of religious liberty in Europe,
has at last recognized the old, solid prin-
ciples Of freedom that have come down
from our Catholic ancestors.
''The countries which have kept the
Protestant ideas least diluted are the only
despotic nations which bear the Christian
name. The Catholic nations are all con-
stitutional monarchies or republics. Not
one Catholic despotism can we find. But
Of the twenty-five republics of the earth
twenty are Catholic, or nearly so.
Now we come. at last, to our title. An
old fable speaks of one who sowed drag.
ons' teeth, which sprang up in the form of
armed men fighting against each other
and killing each other. Let US. if we love
our country, beware of those whose work