An Unusual Spectacle by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 15, 1910

An Unusual Spectacle

By Editor

THE current issue of our Protestant Magazine—which, by the way, is getting for itself a name even beyond our own ranks as a veritable storehouse of important documents—has an interesting article by Elder L. R. Conradi, reporting the stir that the last papal encyclical has been making in Europe. It has put the Pope in a position where he has had to back down publicly in more than one instance. Speaking of the protest from various countries against the Pope’s style of attack on the Reformation, Elder Conradi’s article says:—

But the most striking position of all is that taken by the king of Saxony. This country, with its four millions of people, has scarcely two hundred thousand Catholics; but the king himself is a Catholic, and his own brother, Prince Max, is a priest and professor of Canonical Rights, at the Catholic university in Fryburg, Switzerland. On the thirteenth of June the king called his ministers together, after they had protested against these attacks in a session they had held, and informed them that he had personally written to the Pope. And the German papers state that he has even written two personal letters to the Pope, in which he protests against these statements in the encyclical.

And now the sequel is told by the London Christian as follows:—

In an autograph letter to the king of Saxony,—the Roman Catholic monarch of a predominantly Protestant country,—the Pope, in answer to the strong protests made by the king on the part of his Protestant subjects, states that he had no wish to offend the German Protestants by the strictures upon the Reformers which were made in the Borromean encyclical, and that he has “withdrawn,” the passages which had given offense. The communication is, however, of deep interest beyond the borders of Saxony; for the question naturally arises: If the passages in question—as concerning faith and morals—came from an infallible pontiff, why should they be withdrawn?

The Vatican must surely rue the day when it launched the Borromean encyclical upon the world, it has compelled so many humiliations and apologies. After patching up a sort of peace with the states of Germany, the Pope now sends soft words to Holland, assuring the young queen of that Lutheran stronghold that he “has learned with regret of the erroneous interpretation given in the Netherlands to the Borromean encyclical, and that his holiness was deeply troubled,” etc. Such belated penitence deceives nobody. At the same time, it is certainly an edifying spectacle to see the Roman pontiff declaring that he meant no harm, and calling back the harmless thunder of his recent denunciation!