Catholic Versus Protestant Abuse by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 11, 1915

Catholic Versus Protestant Abuse

By Editor

REGARDING the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to prohibit the publication of attacks on the Catholic faith, and the offensive utterances of the Catholic press regarding Protestants, the Northwestern Christian Advocate of Dec. 16, 1914, declares:—

Roman Catholics throughout the country propose to unite in a demand upon Congress for the enactment of a special law excluding anti-Catholic publications from the United States mails. They also advocate the use of the threat that they "cannot support at the polls an administration which is so remiss in its duty as to allow such filthy sheets to use the money of American citizens to circulate their venomous slanders."

We have no way of forecasting the success or failure of their effort. We had always thought that existing laws were wholly sufficient for protection against libelous or slanderous statements in the public press. We have from time to time suggested that Roman Catholics resort to the courts for justice in this matter. This they have done with but slight success. But before they proceed with their lobby, it might not be amiss to apply the old suggestion about a physician healing himself before applying his nostrum to others. For instance, there recently came to our desk the journal of a neighboring Roman Catholic diocese that contained a column and a half editorial cataloguing no less than fifty ministers of Protestant faith who had fallen or had been reported morally remissful. The deplorable feature was that the editor had stated as fact in numerous cases what was mere newspaper rumor. The effect of that editorial was bad—very bad. We wrote the editor stating as gently as possible that he had not played fair. His reply was that he had been instigated by attacks upon those of his own faith.

A cursory reading of the Roman Catholic press will reveal the fact that considerable of their editorial expression is direct abuse of Protestantism, and falsely founded and ill-directed abuse at that. It is quite true that Protestant papers—with rare exception—keep well within the limits of the permissible in criticism of their brethren. If there are publications that seem to overstep the bounds, they are independent, not actuated by any desire to defend Protestantism. Protestantism does not champion them. They themselves will not claim any pro-Protestant proclivities. They believe the policy of the Roman Catholic Church is anti-American, and fight it with all their might. Some of the severest critics of these extreme papers have been Protestant ministers. That the supporters of these papers are not Roman Catholic is not proof that they are churchmen of the Protestant faith. The fact is, though our Roman Catholic brethren seem ignorant thereof, the great bulk of opposition to that church comes from nonchurch quarters, many critics themselves having once been Catholics. Their attack is more upon civil grounds than ecclesiastical.

As long as Roman Catholicism judges herself the sole custodian of salvation; as long as she claims to hold the keys of heaven and hell with power to award or consign; as long as she attempts to apply the cruel principle of the Ne temere decree to the legally married; as long as she lays violent hands upon the public school; as long as she sets church above state, cardinal above President, Rome against Washington, so long may she expect a force, a strong and ever-swelling force, to be directed against her. It is not primarily the protest of Protestantism, but the protest of American citizens.