A COMING CONFLICT WITH THE PAPACY IN THE UNITED STATES.
By T. Fitzsimons
We have all along believed, from a close observation of the signs and drifts, that a coming conflict with the papacy in the United States, at no distant date, is one of the events before us. The traditional policy of the papal church, its history, its ever hostile attitude toward free governments, its alliance with the Democracy, its intermeddling with our public schools, the avowed utterances and threats of its adherents, are all the visible signs of the conflict now inaugurating, and force us to this conclusion, nor do we stand alone in this opinion; scores of both foreign and American writers have warned America on this head within the past twenty years, and the following are but a few publicly recorded recent opinions of distinguished divines and writers, who maintain the same view, and sound the trumpet of alarm. The National Standard, of August, 1875, says:— “There is a battle impending in this country, over the same issue that is being fought abroad. What has been so far is only skirmishing and preparation. Rome makes war against the Bible. America is pre-eminently the land of Bibles. It is upon American soil that the final struggle will take place. All signs indicate this, and we shall do well to be prepared.”
The Religious Telescope, of Dayton, Ohio, August 25, 1875, says:— “All our convictions arising from observation, and a study of the word of God, point out to us that the system of Romanism is an unholy worldly monster, having for its aim the subjugation of all the nations upon the face of the earth to its temporal dominion.”
Rev. Robert M. Hatfield, D. D., in an address at the Chautauqua Convention, N. Y., 1875, says:— “The growing influence and power of Romanism in this country is one of the greatest perils of the hour. The Church of Rome has been the inveterate and constant foe of civil and religious liberty, and would to-day padlock every American citizen, so that all should be brought under its power and control. While we have been crying, There is no danger from the Church of Rome, she has been with consummate tact uniting and marshaling her forces, and moving steadily on to the accomplishment of her hellish purposes. I predict that the war of the ages will take place in this country between Protestantism and Romanism.”
The Christian, New York, 1875, says:— “There is a power that is fixing its fangs upon our body politic, and uniting its efforts to bind us hand and foot; that power is endeavoring to wipe our public schools and Bible out of existence, and creating its cardinals and archbishops in our midst. Do Protestants realize the danger? Are Americans on the watch? There is danger impending, are we prepared to meet it?”
The Rev. Father Stack, of Williamsport, Pa., himself a Catholic priest, but opposed to the class autocracy of the Roman bishops in the United States, in one of his series of articles contributed to Harper’s Weekly, in July, 1875, that attracted so much attention over the country, thus speaks of the “menacing dangers of our institutions” from this bishop power, and warns the nation. He says: “The Catholic Church in America, under the class power of the bishops, is an empire within the republic, and the bishops are its supreme rulers, requiring the most unqualified obedience of their ‘subjects,’ as they love to call one-fifth part of the American people. The bishops are absolute feudal lords. And Bishop O’Hara informs us, in his printed argument to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in Stack vs. O’Hara, that they intend to maintain this absolute power until they are successful over all their enemies in America.” He also further makes the following prediction of a coming conflict in the United States, between the papacy, the Bible, and our institutions: “I am not anxious to hazard a prophecy, but I am bold to say that I anticipate angry contention and strife from the relation of the Catholic Church under the sway of the bishops to the American republic. And though the conflict may be postponed, it is sure to come.” This testimony, coming as it does from a Catholic priest (though not an enemy to our institutions, as witness his famous suit against Bishop O’Hara for the tyrannical use of his episcopal power), is for that reason the more valuable and important. One of our State journals on this fact also says:— “Bishop Gilmore, the Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland, Ohio, stated in 1875, ‘we are Catholics first, and citizens next.’ What is this but tantamount to saying, ‘We obey the church first, the State after?’”
Harper’s Weekly, of August 21, 1875, says:— “If the freedom of our schools is in danger—and no one who is familiar with the facts will deny it—the peril lies in the servile obedience of the Democratic leaders to the Roman priesthood, which is the price of the Roman Catholic vote for the Democratic party. The important point is26not what the Democrats say, but what they are doing in every state in the Union.”
At the Evangelical Convention, held at Sea Grove, N. J., in August, 1875, at which were present ministers from nearly every religious denomination in the country, one of the most important subjects that came up for action was “the aggressions of the Romish Church in forming political organizations, whose aim is to obtain a share in the public school fund.” The voice of warning was here sent out to the people of the United States by two hundred clergymen, to resist any and all attempts upon our institutions by this new uprising papal political alliance in our midst. One of our public writers says, referring to the same subject, “That alarm is greatly felt upon this approaching danger to our country, the action of over a dozen of our State legislatures, and recent enacted laws on the subject, plainly indicate, and they are too public to escape notice.” Rev. Geo. F. Griffin, Milford, Ct., 1875, says:— “Let not the Protestant church of America close its eyes and fold its arms in self-complacency and indifference, while Romanism marches on with silent tread to the occupation of the land.”
And so we could extend the testimony to columns. These men sustain prophecy that describes the papal power in the last days as rising in its dying struggle to supremacy over the earth again, and in which she is represented in Rev. 18:7, as saying, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow;” but the next verse tells us her destruction comes “in one day.” We believe that the near time will show that the above warnings are true and prophetic. And this great conflict is rapidly approaching.—T. Fitzsimons, in Advent Christian Times.