no nation on the face of the earth where the Church
is less trammelled, and where she has more liberty to carry out her
sublime destiny than in these United States.

For my part, I much prefer the system which prevails in this country,
where the temporal needs of the Church are supplied by voluntary
contributions of the faithful, to the system which obtains in some
Catholic countries of Europe, where the Church is supported by the
government, thereby making feeble reparation for the gross injustice it
has done to the Church by its former wholesale confiscation of
ecclesiastical property. And the Church pays dearly for this indemnity,
for she has to bear the perpetual attempts at interference and the
vexatious enactments of the civil power, which aims at making her wholly
dependent upon itself.

Some years ago, on my return from Rome, in company with the late
Archbishop Spalding I paid a visit to the Bishop of Annecy, in Savoy. I
was struck by the splendor of his palace and saw a sentinel at the door,
placed there by the French government as a guard of honor. But the
venerable Bishop soon disabused me of my favorable impressions. He told me
that he was in a state of gilded slavery. I cannot, said he, build as much
as a sacristy without obtaining permission of the government.

I do not wish to see the day when the Church will invoke or receive any
government aid to build our churches, or to pay the salary of our clergy,
for the government may then begin to dictate to us what doctrines we ought
to preach. If it is a great wrong to muzzle the press, it is a greater
wrong to muzzle the pulpit. No amount of State subsidy would compensate
for the evils resulting from the Government censorship of the Gospel, and
the suppression of Apostolic freedom in proclaiming it. St. Paul exults in
the declaration that, though he is personally in chains, the word of God
is not enchained.(316)

And moreover, in proportion as State patronage would increase, the
sympathy and aid of the faithful would diminish.

May the happy condition of things now existing among us always continue,
in which the relations between the clergy and the people will be direct
and immediate, in which Bishops and Priests will bestow upon their
spiritual children their voluntary labors, their tender solicitude, their
paternal affection, and pour out like water their hearts' blood, if
necessary; and in which they will receive in return the free-will
offerings--the