The Blight of Roman Catholicism by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 5, 1911

The Blight of Roman Catholicism

By F. M. W.

SPEAKING of the great blight which Roman Catholicism has been to those countries over which she has ruled with unlimited sway, the Western Recorder (Baptist) of August 17, quotes the historian, Macaulay, as follows:—

But during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom whatever advance has been made in knowledge, freedom, wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what four hundred years ago they actually were, will now compare the country around Rome with the country around Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of papal domination. . . . Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails.

To this quotation the Recorder adds:—

That is, indeed, a deadly indictment of the greatest human organization that the world has ever seen, and yet one that will stand in any court in Christendom. The words of Macaulay are as true to-day as they were the day he uttered them. Wherever Roman Catholicism has had sway, it has left its blight of ignorance and illiteracy, in Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. . . . Without doubt, the Roman hierarchy has done more than any earthly institution to stay the progress of civilization, and to make ignorance the heritage of man.

The Recorder believes that this “dread nightmare of human history will soon disappear in the awakening of a better day.” We join in this belief, but we do not believe that this day will be reached this side of eternity. The Scriptures declare that the great system represented by the Papacy will endure until the coming of the Son of man. With the other great false systems of religion, it will be overthrown at that time, and a better day will be ushered in by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the rule which he will establish among the saved nations of men. We join with the Recorder in saying, “May the God of our fathers hasten the coming of this glorious day.”

F. M. W.