The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1902-03-15
ERIN's NATIONAL FESTIVAL.

festival Of Ireland's apostle, and as
usual it will be celebrated with reli-
gious fervor and patriotic enthusiasm
by the Irish people throughout the
world. Here in Minneapolis, 1850
miles away from the island that st.
Patrick converted to Christianity, his
children in the faith will assemble by
the thousands in the spacious EXPOSE
ton building to listen to eulogy on
the holy man from the eloquent lips of
Hon. Bourke Cochran, of New York,
one Of the most distinguished sons Of
Erin in the United States, whose fame
as an orator is international.
In every part of the globe to which
Irislmen have been driven by British
oppression, the name of st. Patrick
will be honored on his glorious ami
versary In veal or in woe, in pros
pcrity or in adversely, in slavery or in
freedom, the people of the Emerald
Isle and their descendants in other
lands will never forget to reverence
the memory Of the holy apostle who
brought the light of the Gospel to
their pagan forefathers in A. D. 1872.
TO the faith brought by st. Patrick in
the remote past, the Irish people have
adhered with marvellous tenacity; and
today, in their island home and in ev-
cry cline they inhabit, that faith, pure
and indebted, is as fresh and Green
in their hearts as the shamrock upon
the hillsides and in the valleys Of
Erin.
They have made many sacrifices for
that faith, both in the land Of their
nativity and in exile: they have suf-
fcrcd untold prosecutions for it at
home and in foreign lands; and though
some of them have abandoned it for
selfish motives, they are but few in
comparison with renegadcs in other
countries where Catholicity was plant
cd by other apostles from Rome
No Catholics on earth were subject
ed to such persecution for the faith as
the Irish. According to DR.. Johnson,
an honest English Protestant, the
Catholics of Ireland suffered more for
their religion in the penal days than
the early Christians under the pagan
foman cmperors. by the laws. of
William and Anne" says Bancroft,
the American historian, "St. Patrick
himself, in Ireland. in the 18th CEN
fury would have been IL felon." 1t
was Il crime under British law for an
freshman to worship God in his own
land. A price of fifty pounds was
placed on bishops head, and of
twenty pounds OH Il priests head.
Thousands fled the island to save their
lives from their merciless prosecutors
and thousands died for the faith of
st. Patrick.
10 the present day. some of these
odous laws against Irish Catholics re-
main unrepealed OH the statute looks
W lllc SOIOiilllOIl IcNl
June, King Edward, the libertine, will
solcmny swear that the Catholic re-
liglon not only in Ireland, but through
out the United Kingdom and in his
empire beyond the seas, is "damnable
and idolatrous."
Catholic Ireland today is governed
by Protestants, and the natives of the
island are barred from official positions
because of protesting the ancient faith
which England cast off at the bcllcst
of lechcrous monarchs. Not only did
English Professionals prosecute the Irish
at home, but they prescribed them in
new countries where they sought ref
ugc. ~ law was passed in Virginia
for the Punishment of Irish Catholics
from that British colony, and in New
England, laws were passed to deprive
them of the rights of citizenship. Gen.
B. Il. Butler, in his autobiography,
refers to the discrimination against
Irish Catholics in New Hampshire,
where his forefathers from Ireland
had settled. The descendants Of the
British in America have not vet d.
vested themselves of their prejudces
against Irish Catholics, and wherever
they arc in the ascendancy "no Irish
need apply" for common justice ut
their hands. 1t is the same in Can
ada and Australia. The Anglo-Saxons
and the Celts will never pull together
until Ireland is free from British DOM
nation and takes it's place among free
nations.
In modern times, the cry has gone
forth that st. Patrick was a Protest
ant and that the early Irish Catholic
church was not in communion with
Rome. Undoubtedly some Protestant
preachers of English extraction will
repeat the cry from their pulpits to-
morrow. But their utterances will be
in vain. The facts of history are
against them. 1t is enough to say that
the doctrine taught by st. Patrick be-
fore King Laogare and the nobility, at
Tara, 1910 years ago. is the same as
that taught throughout the Catholic
world ut the present day. The Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated
then rs now. and the Sacramento of
the Church We're administered rs now
by st. Patrick and his disciples.
There Is no valid foundation for