{"id":139,"date":"2014-05-10T22:38:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T22:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html"},"modified":"2016-03-25T17:43:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T22:43:07","slug":"a-priest-visits-tom-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html","title":{"rendered":"A Priest visits Tom Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Today I visited the Thomson, Georgia house of Tom Watson, an influential Georgia statesman, journalist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. \u00a0I remember studying the impact he had in Georgia politics while I was in college, but most notably I remember reading some of his venomous anti-Catholic writings.<\/p>\n

Watson was a member of the Georgia General Assembly, the US House of Representatives and for the last two years of his life a member of the US Senate. \u00a0His political views were populist and was nominated as the Populist Party\u2019s vice presidential candidate in 1896.<\/p>\n

Later in his life he became an avid anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and racist writing tormented tracts and books. \u00a0His anti-Catholic rhetoric did not go unnoticed by Bishop Keiley of Savannah. \u00a0In 1916 the bishop called for the foundation of the Catholic Laymen\u2019s Association of Georgia for the purpose of counteracting the anti-Catholic campaign started by Tom Watson. \u00a0The chairman of the Association J. J. Farrell of Augusta wrote in 1917, \u201cWe are suffering and enduring such a campaign of misinterpretation as would, if not checked, inevitably render Georgia impossible as a place in which our children could live.\u201d (The Fortnightly Review, Arthur Preuss, 1917, pg. 309). \u00a0In conjunction with the Knights of Columbus, the Association distributed over 115,000 pamphlets throughout the state on topics such as \u201cCatholic Belief\u201d \u201cCatholics and the Confederacy\u201d and \u201cCatholics and the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson\u2019s fears regarding the Catholic Church were mostly political in nature. \u00a0He saw the Church as a foreign power that wanted to strip away the liberties citizens enjoyed in the United States and endanger the prominence of Protestantism.<\/p>\n

Here are a few samples of Watsons\u2019 writings which show his irrational fear towards the Catholic Church:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Roman Catholic Hierarchy! \u00a0The most damnable group of interlocked secret societies that ever met in darkness, and took hellish oaths to a compact of greed, and lust, and crime, for the sordid purpose of grasping uncontrollable power, boundless wealth, and a never ceasing supply of the most enjoyable women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReligion? \u00a0These secret societies, which constitute the real machinery of the Roman Catholic Church, have the same sort of religion that Satan would have, were he able to leave hell, and take human shape on earth\u201d<\/p>\n

[from The Roman Catholic Hierarchy (Thomson, Ga: Jeffersonian Publishing Co. 1915].<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

A Sister of Saint Joseph told me years ago that Tom Watson\u2019s daughter attended the Catholic boarding school in Washington, Georgia run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph (later to become Mount Saint Joseph in Augusta at the invitation of the same J.J. Farrell from above, which later became Saint Mary on the Hill Elementary School). \u00a0He must have not thought we Catholics were so terrible.<\/p>\n

Watson wrote dark stories of inappropriate happenings in convents and scores of accounts about misbehaving priests.<\/p>\n

After learning about Watson almost fifteen years ago, every time I visited the Georgia capitol in Atlanta I would look his statue in the capitol grounds with apprehension. \u00a0I never thought it needed to be removed since he remains an influential Georgia historical figure, but I would think how the presence of the statue was a contradiction just as the views of Watson oftentimes were contradictory. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t too sad when suddenly a crew removed Watson\u2019s statue last November and relocated it to a nearby park. \u00a0The Atlanta Journal Constitution<\/a> reported the happening and described Watson with these words:<\/p>\n

\u201cWatson, a former state lawmaker, congressman and U.S. senator, was viewed by many as a hero when his statue was dedicated in 1932. He came to prominence in the late 1800s, championing the needs of poor farmers and sharecroppers of all races. That support waned with time. Watson, who owned a weekly newspaper, endorsed taking the vote from African-Americans and launched anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic diatribes in his editorials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly a controversial figure in Georgia history, the New Georgia Encyclopedia<\/a> summarizes his memory by stating: \u201che is remembered for being a voice for Populism and the disenfranchised, and later in life, as a southern demagogue and bigot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pictures are mine, all rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I visited the Thomson, Georgia house of Tom Watson, an influential Georgia statesman, journalist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. \u00a0I remember studying the impact he had in Georgia politics while I was in college, but most notably I remember reading some of his venomous anti-Catholic writings. Watson was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Priest visits Tom Watson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I visited the Thomson, Georgia house of Tom Watson, an influential Georgia statesman, journalist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Priest visits Tom Watson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I visited the Thomson, Georgia house of Tom Watson, an influential Georgia statesman, journalist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Labyrinthine Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-10T22:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-25T22:43:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/files\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-9LeokX-zhTg\/U27Y6Mth71I\/AAAAAAAADVA\/gRzh1JFOuWM\/s1600\/image+(1).jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Father Pablo Migone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Father Pablo Migone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html\",\"name\":\"A Priest visits Tom Watson\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-10T22:38:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-25T22:43:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/#\/schema\/person\/35ce8464416a4368561caf8ed8c2ba1b\"},\"description\":\"Today I visited the Thomson, Georgia house of Tom Watson, an influential Georgia statesman, journalist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/2014\/05\/a-priest-visits-tom-watson.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Priest visits Tom Watson\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/\",\"name\":\"Labyrinthine Mind\",\"description\":\"Seeking God in the labyrinth\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/#\/schema\/person\/35ce8464416a4368561caf8ed8c2ba1b\",\"name\":\"Father Pablo Migone\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/labmind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/305296c2dd82f71369f8808eb07ace26?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/305296c2dd82f71369f8808eb07ace26?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Father Pablo Migone\"},\"description\":\"Born in Lima, Peru and raised in Augusta, Georgia, Father Pablo Migone was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 2009 after studying at the Pontifical North American College and earning a Masters in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. 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