Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-11-17
RELIGION IN POLITICS
Rev I. '. Crowley Makes Rs-
 marks About Same.

In Mondays edition of the New York Sun appear some lengthy ex- cerpts of letter to President Rooss- welt from committee of Lutheran clergymen relative to his denounce- ment of the refusal to vote for a Catholic simply because he Is a Cath olic, as unwarranted bigotry. The Suns article tells us that the Luth- eran committee quoted passages from Popes Boniface VIII, Plus TX and Leo XIII. As the passages were not given lin the article 1t is of course impossi- ble to consider them. The commit tee might have added the names of Popes Gregory VII and Innocent III. But how the utterances of these popes affects the position of Catholics in the United States is not too clear. They were contending against vastly dif- ferent condition of affairs that ob- tains in this country. Even in the days of Plus K and Leo XIII, and as is the case in France to-day, they were contending against a temporal power that sought to obtain supreme sway in matters spiritual. During the greater part of the time repre- sented in the reigns of the popes mentioned the Christian world was Catholic. The pope was the official and legitimate representative of religion and as such 1t was necessary that he should be clothed with a power sufficient to control princes and compel them to respect the independence of the church in her sphere, which, because of the incorporation into the civil law of many of the ecclesiastical laws, was of far wider scope than is or could be now. Temporal princes sought to combine in themselves both the imperial and the pontifical power and the authority of the church to resist the pontifical ambi- ton of temporal rulers was no usurpation, nor did 1t rest, as is sometimes fallaciously asserted, on any civil grant. It grew out of the necessity of the case and had its jus tiflcation in the necessity to maintain the independence of the church as representing their spiritual order. The conditions against which Gre gory VII, Innocent III and Boniface VIII struggled in their antagOnism toward the German emperors, the kings of France, Aragon, England and the Italian republics were such that the autonomy of the church ia her own legitimate sphere was threatened and the church was sim ply fighting for her life against the encroachments of temporal sovereigns and hence the long drawn out an- tagonism of the middle ages.
 But here in the United States the exercise of such power is not neces- sitated by prevailing conditions since the state here frankly comedies all that the church was struggling for in the days of her greatest papal champions. Here the church has all she has ever claimed, perfect free dom to work out her mission in her own way. She convenes her councils and promulgates their decrees and no mandate from the white house says them nay. No presidential or congressional placet is required for her to create new dioceses and ap- point bishops thereto. In her spir- ituals and temporals she manages her own affairs without let or hindrance and not by any concession made to her, but as an acknowledged right. In the main there is nothing the church can receive from civil society that she has not in this country and all she can seek and does seek in re- Ia tioD to fho oonctifuf;np ic tbnt ;f remain unaltered. I am a very un- important and not very widely known clergyman of the Catholic church, but think that speak for every in.. telligent American Catholic who un- derstands rightly the position of his church in this country that the bulls or briefs of the popes alluded to would not affect American Catholics. At most only two of them, Plus K and Leo XIII, could be considered, since the others were anterior to the formation of the constitution of the United States, and cannot. off-hand recall any utterance of either that would place the American Catholic in a position antagonistic to the consti- tuition. l can recall many utterances of both and of the present pope in laudation of the, spirit of freedom manifested by our government to all churches.
 Catholics of the United States do not need to seek for union of church and state any more than any other religious denomination We have that union, union that every other religious body desires as much as we do, true union-not unity-without which the liberty of the citizen nor the authority of the state has any solid support, union that consists in this: that church and state, lib- erty and authority, are in the most harmonious relationships. Had the same freedom and independence been granted to the church in other times and other countries, the Catholic church would not have been forced to arraign herself against temporal powers for her own preservation, and fact that seems to escape the notice of many is, that precisely what medieval popes struggled for first found its realization in this great re- public of ours. In the words of one of her most eloquent sons and one of the most enthusiastic Americans. Archbishop Ireland: "Esto per- petua"!
 When the Catholic church is inl- pugned as being opposed to separa- tion of church and state, little ex. planation is in order. She does not desire the unity of both as corpora