Catholic Policy and Strength by Dudley Marvin Canright

James White · Oakland, California · Jun 25, 1874

Catholic Policy and Strength.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

The Christian Union has the following: “To all who look at it thoughtfully, the Roman Catholic Church in America must appear to be a marvel of power, versatility, shrewdness and aggressive persistence. Vanderbilt does not manage his enormous railroad interests with more sagacity and boldness, with a more subtle, trained and far-seeing faculty for getting on in the world, than do the priestly rulers of the Catholic Church who wield the vast and multifarious operations of their tremendous corporation.

“The Catholic Church in America is the last consummate product of the genius of organization. It is conquest reduced to science and operating with the precision of a perfect machine. What spring of individual or social influence does it leave untouched? What weapon of spiritual or of carnal dominion has it overlooked or delayed to subsidize? The pulpit, the newspaper, the platform, the caucus, the ballot, the legislature, the judicial bench, the executive office, the charms and graces of society, music, art, literature, the illimitable terrors of superstition, the power of wealth, finally the absolute personal ascendency of secret confession—these are its instruments, and they are handled with a skill that never blunders, an energy that never slurs, or slumbers, or tires, and an audacity that is sublime and in the presence of which the greatest secular man of the earth is but

“A pebble, twig, or blade of grass, that lies / Upon the path one treads; a thing of naught; / A thing unheeded, unremarked; a thing / That merely makes a part of all around.

“For instance, take the Catholic Church in this country as an operator in real estate. The keenest of worldly speculators in that article could go to school to these cloistered religious functionaries and learn how to pick out building sites, and to bide their time, and to seize their opportunity, and to give their price. In the whole vast territory from the Bay of Fundy to San Diego, this corporation has fixed its eye and its mark on the best pieces of land; and while others are in a hurry, it can wait; and what it once takes, it never surrenders; and it calculates values, not on a scale of years or of decades, but of centuries. In fifty years from now it may control more property, real and personal, than all other religious bodies put together.”

How truly the prophet describes the Papacy when he says of it, “Through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand.” Dan. 8 : 25. Silently, but surely, this power is gaining strength and influence in our country, which will be felt by and by.”

D. M. C.