Catholicism on Its Own Soil

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 10, 1907

Catholicism on Its Own Soil

An English view of conditions in Ireland is given in the Protestant Observer (London) for October, in an editorial with the title “The Religious Aspect of the Home Rule.” This article throws further light upon the degree of religious intolerance taught and practised in a country where the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church are in the majority. It shows that Rome’s idea of religious liberty is liberty to embrace and to hold her own doctrines, and that persecution for dissenters is the inevitable fruit of her teaching. We quote as follows:—

We would venture to press on the attention of those Protestant friends of home rule residing in the United Kingdom this thought. The Word of God is the only cure for Ireland’s woes. Where this is accepted, it will make tenants honest, and landlords just and generous. Is there a Protestant home ruler who dares to challenge this assertion? or who denies that it is our duty to make the written Word of God widely known throughout the length and breadth of Ireland? But let that Protestant home ruler who agrees with us in this respect try to practically carry out this theory in Ireland, either by personally trying to circulate the Bible in Roman Catholic villages or by teaching its doctrines by word of mouth in the streets of Irish towns, and he will soon find himself opposed by the whole forces of Rome, and to such an extent that if he escapes without broken bones, he may think himself fortunate. The priests and their lay dupes will use physical violence to prevent him from giving to Irishmen the only lasting cure for Ireland’s woes. Under these circumstances, what will the Protestant home ruler do? Will he submit to popish mob violence, and make no further effort to apply the remedy, leaving the people in darkness? If he be a truly Christian man, he will do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, as a true friend of civil and religious liberty, he will ask himself: “What right have these priests and their dupes to act in this way? They have a right to resist my efforts for the good of the country by fair arguments; but the law ought not to permit them to use physical violence against me, merely because I differ from them in religion.” And would not his next demand be that the government shall deprive those priests of the power which enables them to suppress by brute force every effort to propagate Protestantism in Ireland? For Protestants have just as great a right to make disciples and proselytize as has the Church of Rome herself. Rome enjoys full liberty in this respect; why, then, should Irish Protestants not be protected in the exercise of a similar right? The right to proselytize is an essential element in religious liberty. All this has a direct bearing on any new legislation which may have for its object the granting of an instalment of home rule to Ireland. It is very well known that the Roman Catholic priests dominate the political life of their people, and that they are the ministers of a church which has ever shown the spirit of intolerance to Protestantism. At Maynooth College, where most of them have been educated, they were taught that the Church of Rome has a right to call in the aid of the state to suppress by physical force all dissent from her faith, and even to inflict the punishment of death on heretics. Of those who leave the Church of Rome for another religion, the teaching of Maynooth College to-day is: “Such persons are to be compelled even by corporal means to fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they have once received.”

Several articles in the same issue of the Observer supply the evidence, if further evidence is needed, of the truthfulness of its statements concerning the attitude of Catholics toward the propagation of Protestant doctrines. And these same scenes are enacted in other countries where Catholics are in control. What a travesty upon the religion of Jesus Christ, who taught that we should love our neighbors as ourselves!