Is Orangeism Protestant?

New Zealand Tablet, 20 October 1921, Page 37

Is Orangeism Protestant?

THE "LOYAL ORDER" UNDER THE ACID TEST. • In this connection (says the Nvrth West Review, of Winnipeg, Canada) we do not regard Rev. George Laughton's keystone phrase of last Sunday morning when speaking to the Orangemen of Winnipeg, as any more than the • artfulness of a preacher who performed the ceremony of speaking for and beating the breasts of an audience of Pharisees. We do not know, neither do we care, what the Rev. Mr. Laughton believes— is of little account, but what he said was that ''Loyalty to Christ, loyalty to the word of God, loyalty to the Protestant Church and loyalty to the Empire are the principles of the Orange Institution." Now loyalty to Christ and obedience to God's word can only be affirmed before men by loving God above all, and one's neighbor as oneself. This implies charity to all men, which is the test of Christianity. Now we should like to know if there is one word or deed of Orangeism since its inception that can be submitted to show that the Order ever did a charitable thing, or uttered a charitable word. Take'Orangeism as you find it. At its best it is narrow and uncharitable. • "Loyalty to the Protestant Church:" Which Prox testant Church ? . There is not one of the sects that would embody the beliefs of Orangeism. There is not a single Orange Lodge in the world that accepts the full teachings of any of the Protestant reformers. How, then, can Orangeism be loyal to the Protestant Church? The "religion of Orangemen is the simplest of all creeds. If you dissect it you will have difficulty in determining whether it is political or religious. . . . Its faithful have a church day every year, a twenty-four hour "advent" for the "twelfth"; the sermon is usually political with a Protestant flavor thrown in, the usual passions are played up and when the great feast day comes, the "Boyne" is fought all over gaain. The central tenets of Orangeism is belief in a kind of chimera, the Pope of the Order. This is not Portestantism.' No Protestant can claim to be such and practice a negative creed. Neither can he do so, and refuse to accept the Bible. Neither can he do so and repudiate the Fathers of the Church. Neither can he do so and refuse to accept the history of the Christian Church least up to the • time of the Reformation. Now, if Orangemen are truly Protestant and loyal to that Church, the order must then have been founded, at least under Protestant auspices. Now the first Orange Lodge was founded in the village of Cullyhanna, Co. Armagh, in 1797. It was nothing but the organisation of an armed banditti for the avowed object of driving the Catholics out of the neighborhood for the purpose of seizing their lands. Which of the Protestant Churches will sanction the morality of such a beginning? Now, a period of 123 years elapsed between the first acts of Orangeism until the sack of Lisburn last year, and the Pogroms of Belfast. Has Orangeism changed? No! Did it display kindness, charity or tolerance in the call for truce a few days ago? No! Orangeism was the one outstanding and only centre of cruelty and lawlessness in all Ireland when others, even the "Black-and-Tans," laid down their arms and showed a disposition for peace. "Loyalty to the Empire." Why? -Because Orangemen wave the flag and shout "God Save the King," so long as they can secure special privileges. Orangemen plotted to keep. Queen Victoria off the throne and the Order was suppressed afterwards as seditious. Not a very great test of loyalty. During the reign of King Edward VII. the loyal Order threatened to kick the crown into the Boyne. In 1913 a rebel government was set up in Belfast and even to-day the accent, of his Majesty to freedom for Ireland is liable to turn the "God Save the King" of Orangemen into quite a different prayer. Orange loyalty even in the Empire is entirely conditional. It will stand no test other than its very own Orange conditions. "A Thinking Protestant," writing from Co. Antrim to the Nation and Athenaeum, London says: "As to the real attitude of thinking Protestants in ■ the North towards Orangeism, I should say at least 50 per

cent, of the whole would transfer, if possible, with infinite pleasure and a sigh of relief, the whole Orange organisation to the wilds of Central Africa — only place on earth for which its demonstrations were ever suited. "They would be glad thus to shift the greatest blot from Protestantism, and at the same time rid Ireland from the greatest power for retarding progress that ever held sway in any civilised country."