p. 6 | Sentenced to Attend Mass by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 24, 1914

Sentenced to Attend Mass

By C. M. S.

THE Milwaukee Journal of August 24 gives a little foretaste of what may be expected more and more frequently as Rome secures the upper hand in the various departments of our municipal and national governments. One Arthur Stewart, of Chicago, had been arraigned before municipal Judge Jarecki on a charge of nonsupport filed by his wife. The judge sentenced Stewart to attend mass in a certain Catholic church regularly for a year. The judge himself is a Catholic and attends mass at this particular church. It is stated that the judge takes great delight in observing the punctuality with which Mr. Stewart is “serving his sentence.”

In colonial days, when church and state were admittedly united, church attendance was made compulsory, and those were fined who did not regularly attend. When Sunday observance began to be enforced by law in the days of ancient Rome, the same spirit of compulsion in religious things was manifest. All through the Dark Ages compulsion in religious things was working, and that was what made those ages dark. The victims of stake, rack, and dungeon went to their death as a protest against such compulsion. We have heard frequently within the past few years of soldiers and sailors being compelled to “attend divine worship;” and the Chicago incident above mentioned is not the first report we have seen of men being sentenced to attend church. Such actions by a court of justice indicate that not all Americans appreciate what religion really stands for, or what rights the Constitution guarantees the citizen, or even what century we are living in. Such a “sentence” not only tramples upon the rights of the individual, but is an insult to the church and to the Head of the church. Our Lord never designed that his church should be used as a penal institution, or that individuals should be forced into it under compulsion of threat of punishment. Force in such things is utterly foreign to the purpose and character of Christ. Never did he use force save twice, and then it was to drive unworthy men out of his sanctuary, not into it. These modern developments show a tendency to break away from the fundamental principles of the national structure and follow the course of other nations in making unholy alliances between civil and religious things. We shall hear of such developments with greater frequency as the government becomes more subservient to the dictates of the church. It is history repeating itself; but when this repetition is complete, we shall see the end. C. M. S.