A Purr and a Growl by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Feb 3, 1916

“A Purr and a Growl”

By Editor

THE Christian Advocate of January 13 contrasts the recent statement of Cardinal Gasparri to the Protestant Conference at Garden City, N. Y., regarding the friendly attitude of the papal see, with an address recently given by the Pope to the Society for the Preservation of the Faith in Rome. One is a “purr” and the other a “growl.” One breathes the spirit of Christian charity, and the other deplores the “scandal that would fill the Catholic world, if Luther and Calvin should come to set up their tents permanently in the City of the Popes,” and admonishes that “the spell of these robbers must be destroyed by a strong organization of defenders of the faith.”

Verily the Papacy has learned to become all things to all men, not, however, as did the great apostle Paul, that men may be won to Christ, but rather that the Papacy may advance its own interests and purposes. It is the system, and the principle for which the system stands, to which we are opposed. The Roman Church is not a church after the gospel order. It is primarily a political system masquerading under the name of the church the better to serve its purpose.

That there are many excellent men and women connected with the Roman Catholic Church we do not deny. That there are many conscientious, earnest members in that church we verily believe. They are doing the best they know, and living up to all the light they possess. They are Christians, not because of the system to which they belong, but in spite of it; and for their enlightenment we should labor. We should seek to bring to them the joy of Christian faith, the experience of personal salvation in Christ Jesus which we ourselves have come to feel in our own hearts and lives. We cannot do this by ridicule or by condemnatory words. In love and patience and forbearance we must seek to save the lost wherever they may be found.