War v. Pope

"If the Pope were a civil ruler and there were a conflict, I would go to war against the Pope. The 69th Regiment would ask to be sent over first."

"There is a certain grade of fools in every church. The Catholic Church has fewer of them than any other church."

"The Catholic pulpit is not a pulpit devoted to politics. It is devoted to two great themes, religion and finance."

For saying half as much in the medieval days of Innocent III, a Roman Catholic priest might have been unfrocked, nibbled by rats, burned at the stake. But today, under Pius XI, who is an eel & an ogre only to such as Senator Heflin, these statements were applauded by great & good Catholics. They were made last week by the Rev. Francis P. Duffy before the National Republican Club in Manhattan. Father Duffy, no obscure clergyman, was Roman Catholic chaplain of the famed 69th Regiment of New York ("the fighting Irish") during the World War, was advisor to Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith in his historic reply to Lawyer Charles C. Marshall (TIME, Apr. 25). Father Duffy also told the Republicans that any Catholic priest talking politics in a pulpit, even though lauding A. E. Smith, would be "trimmed down" if reported to his bishop or cardinal.