Religious Liberty Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 12, 1910

Religious Liberty Notes

Such has suddenly become the exclusiveness of the Vatican in these modern stressful days that even Bishop Paret, of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Maryland, was a few days ago refused an audience with “His Holiness,” and this in face of the fact that he went armed with a letter of introduction and recommendation from “His Eminence,” Cardinal Gibbons. The papal secretary, Cardinal Merry Del Val, by note informed the bishop that “His Holiness is neither a picture nor a statue to be inspected and criticized.”

The Chicago Israelite (Jewish weekly) quotes the following extract from Ex-Governor Folk’s article in the Saturday Evening Post of February 12, on “The Limitations of Reform:” “The Sunday laws of various States have been the subject of warm controversies during recent years. As to whether a thing should be prohibited on Sunday is, from the standpoint of government, a question of public morals and good government, not of religion. We are devoted to our religious faith that enjoins the observance of the Sabbath, but the law can not compel such observance on religious grounds. As individuals we can be controlled by the religious aspect, but the law can not recognize any religion, for the bars would then be down, and the next step would be religion by law, which is the thing our forefathers escaped. The law can not know either Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Protestant, or Jew. It can not fix fast-days or feast-days. Separation of church and state must ever be one of the cardinal tenets of free government.”