CONDITION OF ROME by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 29.

CONDITION OF ROME.

By Editor

It seems from Catholic papers that the city of Rome is in a sad state of moral decay. Instancing this fact, the Catholic Review reminds several prominent Protestant editors of some of their utterances at the time that Victor Emanuel occupied Rome in 1870, and says that it "takes pleasure in calling their attention to the fact that their beloved atheistic municipal Government of Rome, like their dear atheistic Government of Italy, is practically bankrupt." The Review continues:—

"The Italian king is, as his father was, a scrofulous profligate; the Italian Prime Minister is bankrupt politically and financially; the evangelical mission at Rome has 500 children in its schools to 22,000 in the State and 19,000 in the clerical schools; and municipal Rome goes begging to the embarrassed Government for money to pay its corruptions. Moreover, in the city where Christianity once held sway under a decent civil government, the abominations of atheism are multiplying, and the enthusiastic haters of the Pope will soon erect a statue to the free-thinker and libertine Giordano Bruno."

This is certainly a dark picture, but we doubt if Rome is any worse, or as bad, as it was under the rule of the Pope. Certainly it is no worse than when visited by Martin Luther previous to the Reformation, nor as bad as when sacked by the Germans and Spaniards, in 1527, at which time, according to Vettori, its people were emasculated and effeminate, "proud, avaricious, envious, luxurious, and hypocritical," and then it was ruled solely by the church. All the moral rottenness described by the Catholic Review was present in Rome before the change in Government; it now simply has opportunity to show itself. It is the legitimate result of Catholicism gone to seed.