The Irish standard., 1916-08-05
ARE AMERICAS
TRUEsT FRIENDS" SAYS FIR.
LAWRENCE AT KNIGHTS OF
COLUMBUS BANQUET IN KAN.
SAS CITY,

The Rev. Father Lawrence Wiling,
O.S.B., of Conception College, Con-
ception, Mo-, speaking at the initia-
ton banquet of the Marquette Coun-
Gil, K. Of c., given at the Coates
House, Kansas City, Mo-, Sunday eve
ming, said in part:
Catholics are so very much misun-
derstood and misrepresented by their
fellow citizens of other religious con-
victions the teaching of the Saviour
who Himself gave the command to
render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesars and to God the things that
are Gods, was in no way in conflict
with our ideas of patriotism. The
power acquired by the Church in the
Middle Ages was not so much the do
ing of the Church as the wish of the
rulers themselves. When the Church
found it necessary to interfere be-
tween subjects and governments she
always stood on the side of liberty, as
can be instanced by the part she took
against Henry w of Germany, Henry
II of England, Henry VIII and Eliza
beth, all of which regents enslaved
the conscience of man to such a de-
gree that liberty was no longer pos
sible.
while Catholics are accused of be-
ing illiberal, the first free colony of
the United States was Maryland, a
Catholic colony, and the people of the
ages about which l have just been
speaking suffered more from the
tyranny Of their temporal rulers than
from any injunctions given by the
Church. AS a matter of fact the
Church would never have interfered
in temporal matters had it not been
for the fact that the princes of the
time besought her interference, and
acknowledged that she alone was able
to find the highway between anarchy
and despotism.
Turning to our own country we
find that it's very historical page is
saturated with the story of the hero,
ism of it's Catholic patriots. America
and it's free institutions found no more
staunch supporters than those patriots
from Catholic France, Catholic Pc.
land, and more numerous perhaps
than the rest, those from Catholic Ire
land. And even today dare to say
there is no more revered, no more re-
spected and no more thorough patriot
than our own venerable and sanity
Cardinal Gibbons. From this broad
and general review of the part played
by the Catholic Church in the history
of the nations 1 come to the conclu
sion that patriotism and Catholicity &c
hand in hand, that the better Catholic
one is the more loyal patriot he viii
be under any form Of government.
while we have much to learr
from the history of the past, while We
are able to form judgment of the pc
sition of Catholics of the presen
from their actions in the past we arr
living in an age which has it's owl
peculiar problems and problems which
cannot be solved by a contemplation
of the past merely. We must be VI
and doing, and even if we have ever!
reason to complain Of the treatmen
accorded us and the aspersions hurle'
against us by our fellow citizens Their
is no ground to despair. The remed
to remove the prejudice rampan
among mont Catholics is not to be foun
in the priesthood so much as in meas
ures of education and enlightenment
which should be made use of by GU
Catholic laity. And among our lay
men the Knights of Columbus are
all means the most powerful instr,