December 6, 1894
CARDINAL VAUGHN, archbishop of Westminster, according to the Catholic Review of Nov. 24, “authoritatively” instructed the Roman Catholic voters of London to vote for the Tory candidates for school trustees and against the Liberals, because the former are in favor of teaching religion in the public schools, and the latter opposed to it.
NOW we rise and respectfully ask the Catholic Review to explain the difference between this action of Roman Catholic officials in England and the action of the A. P. A. in America. The whole Catholic Church of the United States is posing before the country as martyrs, the victims of the persecuting A. P. A. This organization is opposed to just such Roman Catholic ideas of the relation of Church and State as are illustrated by the cardinal’s position in favor of teaching religion in the public schools with public money; and consequently votes against Roman Catholic candidates for public office. This, say Roman Catholics, is persecution.
WHAT, we again inquire, is the difference between an organized political Catholic boycott of candidates in England because they are in favor of the separation of religion and the public schools, and an organized political Protestant boycott of candidates in America, because they are in favor of the union of religion and the public schools? It will not do to answer that the one is secret and the other not, for the Roman Catholic Church is the most thoroughly secret organization in the world.
A CARDINAL’S oath reads thus: “I,——, cardinal of the holy Roman Church, do promise and swear that … I will never knowingly and advisedly, to their injury or disgrace, make public the counsels intrusted [sic.] to me by themselves [the popes], or by messengers, or letters” [180] [from them]. A bishop promises that “the counsels which they [the popes] shall intrust [sic.] me withal by themselves, their messengers, or letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any to their prejudice.” [181]
Now that the charge of secrecy is disposed of in advance, we again repeat our request to the Catholic Review to tell us the difference between a Roman Catholic political boycott in England and an A. P. A. boycott in America. The SENTINEL is not an advocate of A. P. A. methods, as its readers well know, but it desires an answer to its question nevertheless. [377]