Basic causes of group antagonism between Protestant and Catholic lie
partly in the fact that the government of the Catholic Church is outside
of the United States, and partly on account of the attitude of the church
itself toward certain American institutions, notably the public-school
system and the laws in this country governing marriages. If the Catholic
Church was under an American head, with no connection with any foreign
organization, there would be but little ground upon which the
professional Catholic-baiter could stand, but the fact that it is governed
from Rome furnishes the chief objection to the system. In spite of this
however, it lies in the power of Protestant and Catholic leaders to "get
together" and endeavor to eliminate the present growing friction. In my
study of the Ku Klux movement, I found that one of its greatest bids for
popular favor was in its attitude to the rise of Catholicism in America.
The fact that such a thing can be true, should be a matter of serious
reflection to the Catholic and to the Protestant. In the succeeding years,
if this feeling is not allayed and the differences reconciled it means
mischief.
I believe in a real Americanism based on a deeply rooted love of country,
and a broad respect and mutual understanding on the part of the people. I
believe firmly that all of the internal dissensions and discords in this
country, where group is arrayed against group could be completely
eliminated by the application of the philosophy and love of Jesus Christ.
"Invisible Empires," "Ku Klux Klans," and all organizations seeking to
advance one group at the expense of another, pale into oblivion and
nothingness, when the voice of the gentle Nazarene speaks down the
centuries, breathing a sweet message of brotherhood alike to the white man
and the negro, the Gentile and the Jew, the Catholic and the Protestant,
giving to each the same message, and voicing a common creed:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor
as thyself.
"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"similiar" corrected to "similar" (page 6)
"WEELKY" corrected to "WEEKLY" (page 48)
"violating" corrected to "violation" (page 75)
"opnion" corrected to "opinion" (page 95)
"in in" corrected to "in" (page 118)
"Afracanize" corrected to "Africanize" (page 125)
"compiled" corrected to "complied" (page 215)
End of Project Gutenberg's The Modern Ku Klux Klan, by Henry Peck Fry
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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