The Irish standard., 1908-11-21

This success of the Catholic Church
was too much for the native Protes-
tanls to endure, says the Pilot, in an
article describing the growth and ad-
vance of the Church in Boston, which
appeared in its issue of Oct. 81. They
beheld with envy the invasion of the
Catholics into the land from which
their fathers had sought to drive them
and little was needed to fan into
flames the old colonial spirit of BIZ
gotry and Of persecution still smolder.
ing in their bosoms. But now that
little was at hand. All about them
were these foreigners, uncouth, ill-fed.
with little education and a strange
language, intruding themselves among
a people which before was fairly ho-
mogenous speaking the same tongue.
wearing the same dress and sharing
in the same feelings and sentiments.
They saw them monopolizing labor
and lowering, the rate of wages even
as we Sec the Italian today, and in
view of this fact we are not surprised
to find that the greater number of
those who struck at the Church were
Yankee laborers and mechanics with
whom the Irish immigrant had entered
into competition. The bitter feeling
which this condition Of things cngen-
dered was rendered more intense by
The exciting speeches Of political lead.
ers with whom the discouragement of
immigration and the suppression Of
the harangucs OF ministers who. in
furiated by the Catholic Emancipation
movement in England and by the rapid
increase Of the Church's power on the
Continent left nothing unsaid or un-
done to stir up the masses against
the subjects of Rome.
With all these forces at work, it
took ~ Tong time to bring the native
Americans to that pitch of feeling
which knows neither law nor order.
nor was it unexpectedly that dark and
evil days entered in upon the life of
the Church. Prclate, priest, and pco-
pie, all saw the clouds darkening and
lowering, and all were preparing them
selves TO meet the tempest with meek
ness. Neekness was the answer to
frenzy which the country's Bishops,
met in provincial Council, advised in
1888, and mcekness was the only sslu-
iary answer that could be given, for
tho Churcl, was in no position yet to
measure it's strength against the op-
posing ranks. But meekness could not
scatter the clouds of hatred and of
wrath; the storm broke in all it's fury
and during the middle decades of the
century bold attempts were made to
dislodge The Church from her feeble
footing, attempts which took the form
of religious outbreaks in the wake of
which followed murder, arson, riot.
and vandalism of every kind.
In New England the storm broke
early and with violence TO which
only years of pent up hatred and bit
terness could give birth. To it the
same causes conspired as to the law
lessness in the country at large; the
same tactics were resorted to, with
the same fatal results. But the
Church, of which Fenwick was the mi
tired head, found itself more at the
mercy of her enemies than did the
faithful elsewhere. Here the Puritans
we're far in the majority; they were
the mouldcrs of public sentiment and
the makers Of the laws while the min
listers of justice. if not openly allied
with tho anti-Catholic party, were at
least in sympathy with it. It was not,
in fact, until 1867 that the Catholics of
Boston, although they represented a
large portion of the population, shared
In the law-making of the city. Not
until this year did they obtain their
first common councilman; their first
alderman was not elected until 1870,
while they waited until 1882 for q