Wilkins and the Pope
Pallen, Conde B.
anti-Catholic hobgobblins still haunt the secret chambers of your soul and poke up their hideous heads every time you run up against anything Catholic. It is this that is at the bottom of Ku...
...If that were true you ought to be a Ku-Kluxer, yet you repudiate the movement...
...I am not blaming you as I might very justly...
...The Catholic attitude to the civil power (Caesar) is the answer that Christ gave to the Jews...
...Let us say for political allegiance, temporal allegiance...
...Only a moment ago you said that I had to vote as the Pope dictated...
...You believe that I, as a Catholic, owe political allegiance to the Pope...
...Their question to Him was —Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar...
...All I want is to disabuse your mind of an unfounded prejudice...
...It is this that is at the bottom of Ku Kluxism—that the Pope is plotting with the connivance of Catholics here to seize the American government and set himself up in the White House as lord of America...
...One can't play golf and think of anything else under the sun...
...The Pharisees were trying to trap him into a treasonable utterance...
...Why shouldn't I be...
...Your inconsistency is right, your belief altogether wrong...
...Happily you are," I replied, "but at the expense of consistency...
...Our conversation about the Pope and Catholic allegiance was as completely erased from his mind as if it had been wiped out by a wet sponge on a dry slate...
...for I owe no political allegiance to the Pope...
...but a religious duty founded on obedience to God, by whose authority the civil magistrate exercises his power.' "The Catholic Church lays it upon the conscience of every Catholic to obey the civil power, to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's...
...Of course I am," he answered...
...Wilkins vehemently repudiated the Klan...
...Pope Leo XIII in one of his encyclicals (Immortale Dei) says— 'As no society can hold together unless someone is over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every civilized community must have a ruling authority, and this authority no less than society itself, has its source in nature and has God for its author...
...When their country calls upon them to defend it against any enemy internal or external, Catholics are bound in conscience to respond and give their lives in defense of their state...
...Logically he should have fallen in with Ku-Kluxism as readily as a key fits a lock made for it, but he spewed KuKluxism out of his mouth because he thought it unAmerican...
...That's where you are inconsistent...
...His contradiction was sound, though his logic was utterly inconsistent...
...Wilkins's Americanism saved him from the tragedy of his own confused mental processes...
...nor merely the compliance with a condition of peace and security...
...Contradictions sometimes save men from their follies...
...I know that you don't half believe me, for you can't rid yourself at such short notice of an ingrained habit of inherited suspicion...
...I played golf with him that afternoon, and golf is the most absorbing game in the world...
...Hence it follows that all public power must proceed from God.' The Catholic bishops of the United States in solemn council as far back as 1866 issued a pastoral letter to all the Catholics of this country in which they declared—Tor the children of the Church obedience to the civil power is not a submission to force which may not be resisted...
...It would take an earthquake to distract a golfer, and even then he would wait until the shake was over and then drive for the next hole...
...He was a man of meagre and superficial information, like many of his fellowcitizens who are perfectly honest in their notions of things Catholic and at the same time thoroughly ignorant...
...It was evident to me that Wilkins was not ready to concede all that I had said...
...You were brought up on the absurd notion that the Catholic Church is ready to gobble up this country, and you have never taken the trouble to find out for yourself...
...for he is the head of the Church, its spiritual ruler...
...I am glad to see that you are such a good American," I said...
...It is Catholic teaching that the civil power is of God because men are social beings and are ordained to live in society, and God Himself is the author of society...
...I am not even exhorting you to impose upon yourself the duty of enlightening your ignorance...
...As a Catholic I owe no temporal allegiance to the Pope...
...I suppose you have heard the saying— 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.' These words were a solemn declaration of Christ on a momentous occasion...
...The only temporal allegiance I owe is to my country...
...He was, however, somewhat disturbed...
...That is the teaching of the Catholic Church...
...Catholics are bound not only to obey civil rulers but they owe allegiance to the state in all things that the state may lawfully demand of them...
...spiritual allegiance, yes...
...It was in response to this question that Christ gave his memorable answer...
Vol. 3 • November 1925 • No. 2
