John Catron

“ Bishop Blanc would seem to establish this proposition incontrovertibly, for he says that 'the dogmas of the Roman Catholic religion did not require that the dead should be brought to a church, in order that the funeral ceremonies should be performed over them; that this was a matter of discipline only.' A dogma is a matter of church-faith, and affects conscience; discipline affects conduct only, where conduct does not affect faith. ”

“ No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory.'
This ordinance, so comprehensive, so far-reaching, so simple, and sublime, established a new era for the millions who were destined to swarm within the sphere of its benevolent operation. ”

“ What avail our anxious compromises, our reluctant concessions, our cautious provisos, if, the instant a new partner is admitted to the national firm, she is at liberty to cast her most solemn obligations behind her? ”

“ The 'inhabitants' of Louisiana have provided their own securities for their own rights in their own constitution, which they themselves have established; and the federal government has admitted her into the union upon their own terms. They have absolved the government from its treaty dues to them, and the government has absolved itself from its treaty dues to France on their account.
3d. So much of the ordinance of 1787 as may have been extended to the people of the Orleans territory expired within the jurisdiction of Louisiana when she was admitted as a state into the union. ”

“ Equality before the law is of the very essence of liberty, whether civil or religious. The performance of funeral obsequies, in buildings consecrated to public adoration of the Deity, is not confined to Catholics, but is practised by many other religious societies. ”

“ The great body of the Catholic citizens of New Orleans (other than those of Irish descent) reside in the First Municipality. The American Protestant population reside chiefly in the Second Municipality; they have but one church in the First Municipality, and that fronts the Second, on Canal street.
The usages of the Catholics there are to perform the mortuary services with the corpse exposed in open church, and before the congregation. Protestant churches there are never used for such purposes, but services for the dead are performed at the cemeteries where the bodies are deposited. ”

“ They punish the performance of a religious function by individuals acting in their religious capacity or character, 'according to the rites, doctrine, and discipline of the church to which they belong.' They legislate for the priest as priest, and only as priest; not as a person transporting and exposing, or causing to be transported or exposed, any corpse in the interdicted churches; but as the ordained celebrant of the office for the dead. ”

“ His church-the holy Catholic church-teaches that the mercy of God, while it mitigates, does not merge his justice; that, though many, through the atoning blood of the Saviour, escape eternal woe, they do not all pass directly from this probationary state to celestial bliss. Souls may depart this life unpolluted with mortal sin, which would consign them to everlasting misery, and yet bearing some stains of earth, which may not be admitted to His presence, before whose awful purity archangels veil their faces ”

“ New Orleans is visited annually with the yellow fever, in either the sporadic or epidemic form, and strong sanitary measures are deemed indispensable there to check the range and prevalence of the pestilence when it comes. ”

“ Nothing could have been further from the designs of either party to that controversy, than to have trenched upon or abridged the civil or religious privileges of Catholicism itself, and still less to have favored, to its prejudice, any other denomination of Christians. ”

“ Hence, if the ordinance complained of abridges the privileges of Catholics, it abridges to a like extent the privileges of those who enacted it. If Catholics are wronged, Catholics have wronged them. This circumstance, indeed, may not lessen the injury, though it weakens the wrong. If may not test the lawfulness, but it defends the motive. ”

“ But the judge below contends that the Catholic office for the dead is not prohibited; inasmuch as it is permitted in the 'obituary chapel.' That is to say, religion is free, though its observances may be limited to a building in the possession of notorious schismatics, who might tax them to virtual prohibition, or apply the proceeds, at their own discretion, to the subversion of religion itself. ”

“ But the judge 'a quo' has argued, that the praying for the dead in churches, with the body there present, is merely a disciplinary observance, as stated in the evidence of Bishop Blanc, and may, therefore, be regulated or controlled by the legislature, without violating religious liberty. ”

“ Louis any dead person, under penalty of a fine of fifty dollars, to be recovered for the use of the corporation, against any person who should have conveyed or exposed any dead person into the aforesaid church; and also under penalty of a similar fine of fifty dollars, against all priests who should minister to the celebration of any funeral in said church ”

“ And this absolute immunity extends to all religions, and to every sect.' So that, had the judiciary system of Louisiana permitted an appeal from the City Court of New Orleans to the supreme law tribunal of the plaintiff's own state, this court would not probably have been troubled with this argument.
3d. To read the ordinances, under which the plaintiff in error has been fined, is to dispose of the third question presented by this cause. Their bearing upon only one denomination of worshippers establishes their tyrannical character. ”

“ P. E. Crozat proved, that one of his friends having departed this life, and having been warned by Mr. Rufino Fernandez of the existence of the ordinance, he had nevertheless insisted that the body should be taken to the St. Augustin chapel for the funeral rites, holding himself responsible for the fine imposed, for his opinion was on the side of the clergy.'
The judge of the City Court then gave his opinion at large and decided, as has already been stated, in favor of Municipality No. ”

“ Its sole purpose was manifested in its title and provisions. All persons concerned gave it their obedience, and none ever complained that it impaired or abridged the civil or religious rights and privileges of the Catholics. ”