Page:William Penn the Friend of Catholics.pdf/9

Rh to the Crown. Remember that Mass was not allowed to be publicly celebrated in England; that his enemies invented lies, perverted facts, and misrepresented circumstances in order to obtain the mastery of him. The malcontents here reported everything to London; and Penn simply informed Logan: "Here is a complaint against your Government, that you suffer public Mass in a scandalous manner." Remember that in England the public exercise of the Catholic religion was not permitted. In all her colonies Catholics were "excepted" from the declaration that liberty of conscience should prevail; and even in Catholic founded Maryland Mass was not publicly allowed even in Father Andrew White's time, and was prohibited by statute in 1692.

Pennsylvania alone did not "except" Catholics and her statute pages contains no prohibition of the public exercises of their religion.

But let us consider "the scandal of the Mass" charge. It is this alleged extract that I attack. I deny its authenticity. It has got into our Catholic histories from Watson, because about 30 years ago Henry de Courcy, a French Catholic journalist making a tour of America, wrote sketches of Catholicity in the United States for his paper; these were translated and published under the title History of the Catholic Church in the United States.

I deny the existence of "the Scandal of the Mass" (alleged) extract. It is not in the "Penn and Logan Correspondence." I have searched innumerable books for it, have examined a number of authorities, questioned those who have repeated the statement, and sought diligently, anxiously and faithfully to discover if Penn ever used the language. I can get no other or any further back than Watson. My position might rest here when the evidence upon which Penn has been charged with "having his fling at Catholics" is not verified nor discoverable. Proof must be produced before condemnation is pronounced. No indefinite "subsequent letter" is evidence. Proof, if it existed in "Watson's time, is available now, and even more so in these days of historical research.

But let us examine the probability of any such language having been used. Even if it had, I claim that it is not a just judgment to take one sentence from a private official letter and hold it as destructive of a life-time of professions and practices totally at variance with the spirit which we Catholics might impute to one who would call the most consoling, the most efficacious and most cherished practice and belief of our faith—the scandal of the Mass—even though these were but the words in every day use. But let us see how Penn regarded Catholics.

From King Charles II. Penn received a grant of this land. He undertook to settle it upon a principle first practiced in our country by a Catholic, Lord Baltimore—Religious Liberty. "For the matter of liberty and privileges I propose that which is extraordinary," wrote Penn to Turner, Sharp and Robert, April 15th, 1681, as cited in Janney's Life.

It was "extraordinary" to grant religious liberty in any of the Colonies to "Papists and Quakers." Everywhere they were the banned and hunted people, and he who prayed that "the Lord guide me by His wisdom and preserve me to honor His name and serve His truth and His people, that an example may be set up to the nations," would be most likely not to do ill to those who were fellows with him in suffering, who with him were at home and in the new land persecuted and oppressed for conscience sake. But mere Toleration would not satisfy Penn. He made Religious Liberty a right. All know of the penal laws of England against Catholics. They were used to oppress Quakers. He protested against this, but urged that the blow that he desired turned from his people should not fall upon others.

Penn was "a Protestant and a strict one too," as he declared. He believed not the doctrines of "the Church of Rome." As a youth at Oxford he had torn the surplice from a fellow student