How Catholics Look Upon It
THERE are a great many Protestants, and they are continually increasing, who not only admit, but contend that the Roman Catholic Church is a Christian church, a sister church. They do not quite believe all her doctrines; they still believe her, however, to be a Christian church. They feel greatly offended if the Catholic Church is criticized; but one finds no such sentiments on the part of Roman Catholics. The coming together of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is all on the part of Protestantism. Take for instance an editorial in The Western Watchman of September 9. In discussing a marriage between a professed Catholic and a Protestant woman, the editor says: “There was a time when Catholics could validly marry outside the church, but that time is past. For over a year every Catholic who marries before any other than a priest is not married. His partner becomes a mistress, and the children, if any are born to them, are declared illegitimate. The laws of the little state of Missouri may consider them married, but the whole Catholic world pronounces the union a concubinage.” “When a Protestant marries a Catholic outside his church, she consents to pose before the whole Catholic world as a mistress and only a mistress.” “Those children can not be denied baptism, but they must be recorded as illegitimate. A man posing as a Catholic who asks a woman to marry him before a squire or a Protestant minister, simply insults her. He wishes her to become his concubine. To marry him and preserve her self-respect, it would be necessary for him to publicly renounce his Catholicity.” Certainly this is clear and unequivocal. Protestants know just where Roman Catholics stand. The Western Watchman is one of the leading Roman Catholic papers in the United States; and the acknowledged dean of Catholic editors is the Rev. D. S. Phelan, who has charge of it.