SUPERSTITIONS IN THE ROMISH CHURCH
By J. O. C.
The Practices of Rome Where She Bears Full Sway — She Is Greatly Modified by the Influence of Protestantism
Few people in Protestant lands appreciate the unreasonable forms of worship indorsed by the Church of Rome. Living though they do side by side with Catholics, Protestants do not seem to comprehend the existence of any great difference between themselves and their Catholic neighbors. Even to speak of gross superstitions in the Church of Rome seems to many an exaggeration, or perhaps an open slander. CATHOLICISM DIFFERENT IN AMERICA
This condition of affairs is explained in an article on modernism, by Prof. Giovanni Luzzi, of Florence, Italy, in the Bible Magazine for June, 1915. He says: “I did not understand at first this skepticism of our brethren abroad; but after visiting England, Scotland, and the United States, I learned the reason. Roman Catholicism in these countries is quite different in its outward manifestations from what it is in our Latin lands. It feels, without wishing or seeming to do so, the Protestant influence which surrounds it; so that whoever wishes to judge aright of Romanism must not judge it from what it appears in Protestant lands, but from what it is in Latin lands. GOD AND CHRIST PUSHED BACK
“Here prayer is irrational, mechanical, repeated from the lips in a foreign tongue without the heart and soul having any part in it. Here the service is sumptuous, surrounded by glaring lights, by showy drapery, by, more often than not, noisy rather than sacred music. Here religious acts are reduced to magical arts, which are supposed to work by intrinsic efficacy, without him who officiates and him who worships having any moral part in it. Here sacred things are bartered for in a barefaced manner, eternal life being assured to the highest bidder. Here the morals of the laity are so lax that they can only be compared to the extreme laxity of the morals of the greater part of the clergy. Here God is pushed into the shade, Christ is almost forgotten or considered simply as the helpless child, and the virgin only is raised up as an object of worship, as the only omnipotent mediatrix, and is surrounded by a veneration which is often grosser than that which the pagans give to their divinities. “With regard to this I should like, if I may be allowed, to narrate a little incident observed by me and by two American students while we were making an excursion in the Tuscan Apennines. The story has little value in itself, but much from a symptomatic point of view. We had arrived at a quaint little village clinging to the rocky side of a mountain and hanging over a precipice at the bottom of which ran a river. We were tired and hungry, so went into a little shop, a most primitive little place, where a woman came forward to serve us. While we were waiting, we noticed in the corner of the shop a little shrine covered with a cloth which evidently could be pulled aside by cords. We were curious to know what was behind that curtain, so I said to the woman, ‘What have you behind that curtain on the shrine?’ “She answered, ‘An image.’ “‘Could we see it?’ I asked. “‘No,’ she answered, ‘because it is a miraculous image which we only uncover once a year, when it is carried in procession round the village.’ “I did not insist more, as I was unwilling to hurt the woman’s religious feelings; but as she heard that my two companions had come from so far away, she overcame her scruples, and went up to the shrine and drew aside the curtain. A more grotesque spectacle could not possibly have met our eyes; we had great difficulty in keeping from laughter. Before us we saw a rather large doll, with a shockingly distorted face, dressed in a most ridiculous manner in all the colors of the rainbow, and on its head a species of turban of no definable color. What struck me was that there was place for two in that little shrine; so that the virgin, who was standing, had room at her left for another figure which was missing. “‘And why,’ I asked, ‘is there an empty place here?’ “‘Ah!’ she answered, ‘there we had the eternal Father, but — we sold Him!’ “I repeat, it is a little story of great symptomatic value. Those people, put to the point of having to dispose of the image of God or of the virgin, chose to keep the virgin and got rid of the other, just as all the Italians have done from one end of Italy to the other, under the influence of a Christianity ruined by the Church of Rome.’” This seems almost like a fairy tale, yet it is but a repetition of the statements coming from Latin sources in other parts of the world. It is, too, but the natural sequence of spiritual darkness, and only a step removed from the obscurity of heathen ritualism. Yet those at the head of just such a system are said to have well matured plans looking to the religious control of all Protestant countries, especially of the United States. Let such an event occur, and nothing could prevent this country from adopting the superstitions of those lands where the iron hand of Rome rules, to the detriment of any and every religious faith antagonistic to that of the Roman system. PROPHETIC FORESIGHT POINTED IT OUT
Prophetic foresight pointed out this latter-day hazard, centuries ago, as witnesses Rev. 13: 7, 8, 11-17; 14: 9-12, and other references which might be cited. Worship of Jehovah in its truest sense is the demand of the present hour, because of the fact that the entire world now stands on the verge of the Judgment, when each individual must meet the record of his life. Rev. 14: 6, 7. Verse 12 of the same chapter points out that the standard of loyalty in such a time is “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Who will be prepared to stand the soon coming onslaught of the papal power as set forth by the living prophetic word of God? J. O. C.