The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-08-28
THE CHURCH OF AMERICANS
NoN-cATHoLIc WRITER SAYS
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WILL
BE THE CHURCH OF MOST
AMERICANS BEFORE LONG.

In recent issue of The Atlantic
Monthly, H. D. Sedgewick, a non
Catholic, gave reasons why the Catho-
lie Church must be accepted as the
church of most Americans before
many more years. He said: s
sThe great opposition to the Roman
Church in the sixteenth century at the
Reformation vas the awakening of
the Teutonic races to the differences
that separated them from the Latin
races; northern nations felt the swell
ing of national instincts, and the
bonds of the universal church. were
broken. From then until today the
sentiment Of nationality has been pre-
dominant; that sentiment reached its
zenith in the end of the century and
is already beginning to wane. Cos
mopolitanism is ablishing; hereaf-
ter other bonds than those Of common
country will group men together.
II Signs appear that the breaking up
OF nationality will begin in the United
States. There will be In that country
three principal parties: those of Eng
Hsh, German and Irish descent; but
there will be other stocks. But the
whole so formed will not have that
unity of inheritance, of habits, of
pleasures, of tradition, or organization
which makes a nation. The United
States will be the one great cosmo-
.politan country. In such country
with no purely national feeling to be
stirred to opposition, a proselyting
church, prudent and bold, will have
great opportunities.
Most of the German element will
be Protestant, but it. will hardly
strengthen the Protestant cause; 1t
will not unite with, the English Prot
estant section. The Irish will be
Catholic almost to man; and they
have an ardent loyalty Of nature
which will naturally turn them to the
support Of their church. In the midst
of cosmopolitan indifferences and dis
agreement the Church of Rome will be
then as she has always been, the one
church which draws to herself men
Of all European races. There, is but
one church whose priests visit every
people and hear confessions in every
language. There is but one cosnno-
politan church. BY the time the
United States shall be acknowledged
to be the richest and most powerful
nation in the world the attitude Of the
.papacy will already have been de-
termined. The church reads the
signs OF the times, and will have grid
ed herself for the great task of con-
trolling the religious life of the major
ity of the American people.
I'm the past the Roman Church has
achieved her greatest victories in the
face of the greatest powers of the
world First she anbdued the Roman
empire; after its fall she met the
Teutonic emperors as a rival; and
now after the Holy Roman Empire
has passed away, she still treats with
the governments as an equal She is
the only organization which has sue
ceeded in adapting herself to the
varying needs Of men for nineteen
hundred years. Again and again she
has fallen into servitude Of German
emperorss Of Roman nobIes, of the
kings Of France: again and again she
has risen with pndiminished vitality
tt is not strange that many who think
that some divine power stood behind
the early Christian Church should be-
lieve that the same power guides and
preserves the Church of Rome.
There have been great crisis i'm
her history. She might have been de-
stsoyed when the barbarians over-ran
Italy; she might have been wrecked
by the Reformation Of the sixteenth
century; she might have been ruined
in the nineteenth century If the Pope
had been made the head Of confed-
rated Italy; and she may be van
pushed In the twentieth by the spirit
of American democracy, but the genius
and the passion of the Latin race will
|subsist, and they are great powers on
her side.
The Roman Church has always
been cosmopolitan. There have been
Popes from England, Holland, Ger
many, France, Spain and Italy. Her
nhf4rr4aa 1fff their afffrna frfFrp Mar.