80 PERILS.— ROMANISM. 



word is law, as absolute and as unquestioned among 

 Roman Catholics here as in Spain or Mexico. "The 

 archbishops and bishops of the United States, in Third 

 Plenary Council assembled," in their Pastoral Letter 

 "to their clergy and faithful people," declare: "We 

 glory that we are, and, with God s blessing, shall con- 

 tinue to be, not the American Church, nor the Church 

 in the United States, nor a Church in any other sense, 

 exclusive or limited, but an integral part of the one, 

 holy. Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ." i 



The Roman Catholics of the United States have repudi- 

 ated none of the utterances of Leo XIIL or of Pius IX., 

 nor have they declared their political independence of 

 the Vatican. On the contrary, the most liberal leaders 

 of the church here vehemently affirm their enthusiastic 

 loyalty to the Pope. The Pastoral Letter issued by the 

 Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (December 7, 1884), 

 and signed by Cardinal Gibbons, ' ' In his own name and 

 in the name of all the Fathers," says: "Nor are there 

 in the world more devoted adherents of the Catholic 

 Church, the See of Peter, and the Vicar of Christ, than 

 the Catholics of the United States." ^ Says a writer on 

 the recent Roman Catholic Congress at Baltimore : "It 

 was well that Masonic pseudo-Catholics, compromisers of 

 the papal authority, persecutors of the clergy, anti- 

 Jesuits, social revolutionalists, legal robbers of church 

 property, lay educationalists, anti -clericals, should learn 

 once for all, that the Catholic laymen of America are 

 proud of being pro-papal without compromise; that they 

 are proud of the Jesuits from whose chaste loins the 

 church in the United States drew its vigorous life." ^ 

 This writer is not quoted as a representative of moderate 

 Romanism, but, as one who very justly expresses the 

 sentiment of loyalty to the Pope, which characterized 



1 Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii, p. Ixxvi. 

 (Baltimore, 1886). 



2 Ibid. 



3 John A. Mooney in American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv, January, 

 1890. 



