Note 1 — THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD Part I

The American Ecclesiastical Review, XXXVII (1907), 497-503, carried an article by Joseph J. Murphy under the title, “Pontifical Decorations,” as they were reorganized by Pope Pius X. In the same volume (pp. 324-26) a correspondent criticized the Pope for being “exceedingly lavish in his bestowal” of knighthood and other such honors and he felt that the spirit of a republican community “is entirely against their bestowal.” Three years later (“Roman Curial Honors and American Republican Sentiment,” AER, XLII [1910], 341-44), another (or the same?) correspondent expressed the conviction that the Papal appointments to “knights, marquises, monsignori and the like ... are entirely out of place in America and even contrary to the spirit of our people, if not also to the letter of the Constitution.” In both cases the editor’s equivocal comment left no doubt that he wished to run with the hares and hold with the hounds, and his statement that “such decorations as go with these titles are of much the same character as the secret society emblems and titles used in our numerous American fraternities” was, if not startling, at least amusing.