p. 261 | INFLUENCE OF ROME by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 17.

INFLUENCE OF ROME.

By Editor

IN view of the sickening spectacles so often repeated, of Protestants bowing before high Roman Catholic prelates, the following criticism from America, of February 28, is worth repeating:—

The New York Herald says in an article on the late centennial celebration at the Jesuit college at Georgetown, D. C.: “The kissing of the archbishop’s ring at the conferring of the divinity degrees, and of the cardinal’s hand by Catholics and Protestants alike at the public reception, suggests how possible it is to maintain an imperium in imperio [a State within a State], when the domains of religion and politics are so clearly separated as with us, for great and distinguished as a cardinal is and must be in a country where cardinals are rarities, in matters where or wherein cardinals count, as they can never be anything but plain John Smiths in secular affairs, all reasonable cause of jealousy or objection disappears.”

Does it? Such twaddle as this in American newspapers is as mischievous as it is disgusting. Why should a Protestant kiss the hand of a cardinal or the ring of an archbishop? Such fawning on the leaders of the Church of Rome by people who do not believe in their doctrines adds to the insolence of this powerful religious and political organization. The assumption that cardinals “can never be anything but plain John Smiths in secular affairs” in this country would be rejected with scorn by a large majority of the Roman Catholics of the United States. They are striving after greater things.