The immigrant comes to us, largely from countries in which the Church and the State, the cross and the sword, are one. In fact to the large majority of those who come, nationality or race, and the Church, are one and the same. The Russian and the Southern Slav who are not _pravo_ Slavs, adherents of the Greek Church, are regarded very much in the light of traitors to their nations. The Pole is a Catholic by national instinct; Poland and Roman Catholicism are to him one and the same; while the Jew is a Jew by race and faith, regarding as a profligate, him who betrays his people by becoming a Christian.
Roughly speaking, nearly eighty per cent. of our present immigration is made up of Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Jews. More or less, usually more rather than less, they bring with them and foster these ideas. This is undoubtedly true of nearly all the Slavs whom the Church divides racially and who are enemies; remaining so a long time on this side of the Atlantic. The Church, cognizant of this fact, fosters it in no small degree, because it can hold its children more loyally to itself by giving the national idea a large place. Polish, Bohemian and Slovak church societies of a semi-military character exist in large numbers, and many of their members carry arms. Although in itself this may be a harmless way of keeping men loyal to the Church, it does seem to clash with one of our religious ideals, which is fundamental in maintaining religious liberty. I am judging only as an outsider and am telling only what seems to me to be the case; but I am speaking also for a large number of Catholic priests who see in this no small menace and who have tacitly admitted it.
The sooner the Catholic Church can get rid of Polish and Italian priests who have been trained in Europe, to whom religion is a sort of politics,--and a certain kind of politics is religion,--the better for the Church and of course the better for the State.
The immigrants free themselves from the autocracy of the Church and of the priest more quickly than from the national idea, and they easily breathe in the liberating atmosphere and sometimes manifest it in a very disagreeable way. The close supervision which the priest exercises over his parishioners, the respect they pay to him, the awe in which he is held, are helpful rather than detrimental phases of their religious life, where the priest is a true priest. There are, however, too many who are not, and I am sure that the authorities of the Church concerned are perhaps more anxious about this than are we, who are simply looking over the fence at our neighbours’ affairs.