AT a banquet of the Chamber of Commerce, of Cleveland, Ohio, given May 13, the chief oratorical feature was a speech by Archbishop Ireland, on the subject of “The Sure Foundation of a True Citizenship.” Among his [339] utterances on this occasion worthy of note as showing the drift of papal teaching upon this important topic, are the following: “Patriotism is never so potent as when it is identified with religion.” “The crisis for democracy will come when comes the crisis for religion.” “The enemies of religion are the enemies of country and democracy.”
What religion? it might be well to query in reply. “There be lords many and gods many,” and there are religions many, and the archbishop’s religion is one of them. But there is only one gospel—one revelation of God to mankind through Jesus Christ. And this cannot be identified with “patriotism;” and mere religion can be so identified, and we may not uncharitably infer that Archbishop Ireland hopes to see his own religion so identified. But what a state of things will exist in this erstwhile “land of the free,” when to be irreligious, or to fail to conform to the prevailing religion, will be counted unpatriotic, and subject the nonconformist to the charge of being an enemy “of country and of democracy”!