| Publication information |
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Source: Challenge
Source type: magazine
Document type: letter
Document title: “An Open Letter”
Author(s): McGrady, Thomas
Date of publication: 5 October 1901
Volume number: none
Issue number: 39
Pagination: 2
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| Citation |
| McGrady, Thomas. “An Open Letter.” Challenge 5 Oct. 1901 n39: p.
2. |
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| Transcription |
| full text |
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| Keywords |
| Thomas McGrady
(correspondence); McKinley
assassination (religious response: criticism); socialism;
Michael Corrigan;
Leo XIII (encyclicals);
Thomas McGrady;
socialists. |
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| Named persons |
| Michael
Corrigan; Leo
XIII [also identified as Joachim Pecci below]; Thomas
McGrady; William
McKinley; H.
Gaylord Wilshire [in notes]. |
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| Notes |
In the magazine the letter (below) is immediately preceded by a separate
letter by McGrady, addressed to the magazine’s editor. It reads:
B, Ky., Sept. 16,
1901.
D W:
The time has come when we can no longer let any attack upon Socialism
in the high places go unchallenged. I am sending you herewith an
open letter to Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, a copy of which
I have forwarded to the New York Journal. If it appears in
the columns of the Journal, kindly send me a copy of that
paper.
Fraternally yours,
T. MG,
St. Anthony’s Church, Bellevue, Ky.
These two letters are collectively titled “Priest vs Archbishop:
Father McGrady’s Challenge,” with a subhead reading “Does This Mean
an Oncoming Kentucky Cardinal?”
From magazine cover:
Image courtesy of HathiTrust.
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| Document |
An Open Letter
.
Y G:
While sincerely grieving over the murder of President McKinley with the great
body of Socialists in America, I cannot, in justice to the truth, pass by the
unfair inference of your letter of the 14th inst., which is, in a sense, a public
document by reason of its wide diffusion in the daily papers. To the average
reader of that letter you seem to implicate Socialism in the crime against the
President when you request your clergy “to impress on the faithful the constant
teachings of our holy father, Leo XIII., against the errors of Socialism.” I
therefore respectfully challenge Your Grace to show wherein Socialism errs.
The Catholic Church championed Socialism for four hundred years until capitalism
succeeded in winning the high places and poured its corrupting gold into her
coffers.
The Pope’s encyclical has no dogmatic value in
view of the fact that it is not the work of Leo XIII., proclaiming a doctrine
of faith and morals, but merely the opinion of Joachim Pecci as a writer on
social economics.
My love for the Catholic Church is too profound
to allow me to keep silent when such a distinguished representative of the lowly
Nazarene condemns a righteous movement for the liberation of the toiling masses
from the bondage of industrial serfdom.
I will go to New York and pay the rent of the
hall on any date it may suit Your Grace’s convenience to debate this vital question.
Trusting that Your Grace will not shirk the issue,
I am,
Respectfully yours,
T. MG,
Pastor St. Anthony’s Church,
Bellevue, Ky.