p. 6 | Anonymous Priests and Catholic Reform

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 22, 1907

Anonymous Priests and Catholic Reform

BECAUSE five priests in Rome recently wrote an anonymous letter to the pope, telling him that he was wrong in his program, the Christian Register of Boston professes to “see the beginning of a stream which will one day swell to a flood.” This, like the oracles of old, may be true whichever way the matter turns. The Register, however, is expecting to see grow out of this a movement which “will in some way reconcile the spiritual elements in that church with perfect civil and religious liberty,” and the Register expects to see this accomplished in a hundred years—expects that within that length of time “the devout souls will have seceded from the Catholic Church.” It might be well to remark that no great movement was ever started by anonymous letters. The “theses” of Martin Luther were not anonymous, neither did he burn the pope’s bull secretly. The Declaration of Independence was “signed, sealed, and delivered,” and one of the signers wrote his address upon it, that the king might have no trouble in finding him. The great speeches made for the liberation of the slaves were made openly, and the articles written in their behalf were signed, and the world knows who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. There is no great movement toward the conversion of the Catholic Church and its adoption of “perfect civil and religious liberty” wrapped up in the protest of five priests who dared not sign their names to their protest. The resolutions passed at the convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, the rapid growth of this militant Catholic body, their fervent expressions of loyalty to “the holy father,” and their reports of what they have been able to accomplish in securing and in preventing legislation in this country, ought to preclude the possibility of any one’s making the mistake of thinking that a great movement has begun that is to result in the evangelical metamorphosis of the Catholic Church.