Was the Reformation a Mistake?
This question springs spontaneously to the mind as we read the report of a meeting of Methodists in Los Angeles—Methodist ministers and Methodist students in a Methodist university—addressed by Roman Catholic Bishop Montgomery, the popular Roman prelate of Los Angeles. Of that meeting the Los Angeles Herald of January 16 says:— “Round after round of applause from Methodist ministers and from students of a Methodist university greeted Bishop Montgomery, of the Catholic Church, yesterday evening at the conclusion of his lecture at the University of Southern California on ‘The Cause of Church Disagreements.’ The bishop’s lecture, lasting nearly two hours, was listened to with the closest attention by the audience.” The bishop is quoted as saying:— “When a man goes to study the world around him he finds order, but when he begins to study the Christian faith he finds only a chaos of beliefs.” But this depends upon the student’s text-book. If it is discordant creed-bound sects—Catholic or Protestant—of course there is disorder, the same disorder which we find in the political parties of the world. He further said:— “I believe as you do that the New Testament is the revelation of the divine will of God. How are men to know that revelation? Here comes the dividing line between our beliefs. We all agree that Christ left some authority, but we disagree as to where that authority is. We Catholics say that authority is not a book, but a body deriving its authority from God. Truth unites, error disunites. Christ wants His people to be one.” “Bishop Montgomery closed by expressing the earnest wish that the churches might unite, and declaring that he for one would be willing to sacrifice some things if unity could be secured.” Now all may know and all should know that Bishop Montgomery or any other Catholic prelate will sacrifice not one scintilla of his belief. Rome holds herself to be infallibly right, and conversely holds Protestantism to be entirely wrong, having no foundation, no hope outside the Roman fold. Now we do not blame the Roman Catholics for teaching that; for they doubtless believe it, and believe in using every opportunity to propagate it, even from Protestant platforms. But where is the Protestantism of Methodists who will listen to the utter repudiation of Protestantism by a Catholic without a single protest or word of dissent? Nay, it is worse than this: “round after round of applause” is given by professed Protestants in honor of the one who presents before them their faith as baseless. What would John Wesley think? And what respect can Bishop Montgomery have for Protestant faith? Would he give a Methodist bishop the privilege of as free talking in some of the Catholic schools in his diocese? And would he cheer decided Protestant sentiments if he heard them elsewhere? It is just such exhibitions of Protestant weaknesses as this that lead Walter Elliott, one of the leading Paulist fathers, to say in the Catholic World the following: “The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our opportunity. Denominations and ‘creeds,’ and ‘schools,’ and ‘confessions’ are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, but little men can demolish them. This new nation can not but regard with disdain institutions hardly double its own short life, yet utterly decrepit. . . . The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out.” The remedy?—It is to return to the ægis of Protestantism, of Christianity, the Word of God. That will demolish creeds, but it will give us Christ, in whom all fulness dwells.