SHALL AMERICA BECOME ROMANIZED?
What Roman Catholics Think.
In the Catholic Review for September is an article of thirteen pages on the "Missionary Outlook in the United States," by the noted "Paulist Father" of New York City, Walter Elliott. It was a paper read at the Columbian Catholic Congress. The fact that it was written by such a loyal Catholic, who by the way has been found frequently on the same platform with Protestant clergymen, that it was read at the Columbian Congress, and that it was afterward published in a leading Catholic magazine, would show that it doubtless reflects the sentiments of the Roman Catholic Church as regards the Protestant sects of the United States. We wish to notice four points: (1) What Rome feels it her duty to do; (2) the condition of the Protestant churches; (3) the power by which she hopes to accomplish her work; (4) what the prospects are for her success? 1. What Rome feels it her duty to do. She feels that it is her duty to save the American people, and to proclaim to "the entire American nation" that "the certainty of Christ’s truth is with us [Roman Catholics]." She feels that, as the "characteristics" of the people of the United States are liberty and intelligence, and "the only common creed is progress, human dignity, and the destiny of the great republic," "any claimant for a hearing must be able to square his fundamental principles with these beliefs." That is, the Roman Catholic Church must show that she fosters and upholds both liberty and intelligence, and that progress, human dignity, and the destiny of the great republic are safe in her hands as in no others. He says:— "The Catholics are mingled among this people in the proportion of about one to six, and are the only perfectly organized body of Christians." "God would have us missionaries to the American people." "The dense and tangled forest of prejudice has already been pierced. That vice of honest minds is now chiefly to be found among the more ignorant. Few converts but will tell you that their first step was surprise that Catholics had been falsely accused. There are men and women all around us who have but to learn just what we are [Italics his] as a religious body, to be led on to conversion. They already know that we have been basely calumniated." He then goes on to say that in the "better class of minds" the chief difficulties will lie in "timidity, dread of the mysterious, or a false view of reason’s prerogatives, unwillingness to submit to unchangeable truth," in other words, the Catholic Church. In many other cases it will be worldliness, sensuality, family pride, human respect, etc.; of the first two there need be no trouble; Rome is full of such. And Father Elliott feels that Protestants are willing to listen to every priest who will give patient, intelligent exposition of their faith. 2. The condition of the Protestant sects. We will let the writer speak for himself:— 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, and little men can demolish them. This new nation cannot but regard with disdain institutions [Protestant] hardly double its own short life, and yet utterly decrepit; cannot but regard with awe an institution [the Roman Catholic Church] in whose life the great republic could have gone through its career nearly a score of times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at the freshness of perennial [Roman Catholic] religion, and must soon salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out. . . . Consider, then, how it is with our noble-hearted friends; in their case it is religion wandering here and there in search of a church. How many earnest souls are about us, weary of doubtful teachings, glad to hearken to, aye, and to believe, anyone who promises them relief. See, too, and admire how their religious instincts strike after organic life. As Calvinism dies, Christian Endeavor is born and counts a million members in a day—good works making little of faith, as at first faith made little of good works. See that while Methodism leaves the slum and is petrifying in lordly temples and in universities, the Salvation Army scours the gutters it [Methodism] has turned from with loathing. I tell you that the people around us are religious, that they long for God, and are ready for those divine rules of the higher life called Catholicity. No form of belief faces civilized irreligion with half the courage of Catholicity. A vigorous man exults in the trial of his strength. It is incredible that an intelligent Catholic shall not command the attention of thoughtful minds on questions of such absorbing interest as: What becomes of our dead? Can we communicate with them? Can we get along without the Bible? What think you of Christ? whose Son is he? We have the truth on all such vital questions; Catholic truth is simple, credits itself, and is in the highest degree commendatory of the church as compared with the Protestant denominations. 3. The power by which Rome seeks to accomplish this. She talks of Christ?—Yes, but not of the simple power of his gospel. It is form, ordinances, ceremonies, the church, the sacraments, great men. He declares that it is— a duty [which Catholics have not properly felt] to proclaim to them [the American people] that the certainty of Christ’s truth is with us, that the pardon of sins is in the contrition, confession, and satisfaction of the sacrament of penance, that the union of their souls with God is in the communion of his Son’s body and blood in the eucharist. But not a word of Christ’s free grace. He contrasts the tribulation of the early church with the easy way Rome now has of obtaining converts:— Why, when it was to fly in the face of high Rome, to be burned to death, to be devoured by wild beasts, countless thousands yearly rushed into the church. And now it is to float into the haven of peace and joy; it is to taste the sweetness of the Lord Jesus Christ without any persecution; it is to embrace a religion whose dogma of human dignity and equality—listen to Leo XIII. as he expounds it—adds to American greatness the placet of higher Rome. Of the relative value of the word of God and man he thus speaks:— The Bible is the word of God, and it enlightens me; but a zealous Christian is another Christ to me. Combined action can do much, but the supreme combination is that of virtue and sympathetic interest in a single person. . . . Councils have done much for religion, but men and women have done more, for they made the councils. . . . It was not new enactments that saved us, but new men—Ignatius, Philip, Neri, Teresa, and Francis de Sales, and Vincent de Paul, and their like. . . . American bishops, priests, and laity, working together in an apostolic spirit, will missionize the entire land in half a decade of years. The parish priest should so engage in every good work that his conduct would build him "a pulpit in every household in his town," and so enable him to introduce the Catholic religion to men’s notice under the most favorable circumstances. "The parish priest should watch the local papers and defend and advocate the truths of religion, natural and revealed. He should carefully provide that Catholic journals come to each family." "Let every family have its little library on doctrinal and controversial books and pamphlets, its Catholic paper and magazine; every man and woman their little list of non-Catholic friends, . . . to whom they are ever talking and lending books." Many of the things said on this topic are good, as presenting the human side of the question; but it is all human. It is the penance, the sacraments, the church, but not one word of the free grace and pardon of Christ to all who will believe him. 4. What prospects are there for her success? They are many indeed. a. Is not what Rome herein says regarding the unsettled condition of the great mass of Protestants true? She says, "The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of people’s minds or are being thrust out." Is not this so as regards the Protestant churches themselves? The older dogmas of Protestantism, prominent above all others, were, as expressed by D’Aubigne, Book 14, chap. 1:— It [the Reformation] had proclaimed for its teacher the word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. . . . The gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world and with politics. . . . The Reformation was destined to exercise no other influence over princes and people than that which proceeds from the gospel of peace. But for the word of God the Protestant churches have substituted creeds; the word of God has been discredited before the people by the ruthless hand of the "higher criticism" of Protestant pastors. Faith, simple faith in Jesus Christ, has been superseded and Christ rejected by appeals to civil law. The spiritual weapons of the Holy Ghost, the weapons not carnal, have been cast aside, and the church has laid hold of carnal weapons, the boycott, the threat, the civil law. The power of godliness has been denied by turning from Christ to the world. b. The ignorance of the people. Rome thinks the people prejudiced because they are ignorant; but knowledge of Rome by every honest heart would lead to summary rejection of all her claims. There is no need of being ignorant. The "more sure word of prophecy" has clearly predicted her career, and the truthful pen of authentic history has traced in letters of blood and fire her whole career. But these are covered up or denied by Rome. This we should expect. Her influence is such that truthful records of her turpitude and cruelty of the past have been expunged from histories, school and otherwise, while the misdeeds of a blinded "Protestantism," in reality papal, remain. And not a few Protestant teachers and papers are apologists or defenders of Roman Catholicism today. What should we expect in view of this but that when the matter is explained in Rome’s way and indorsed by "Protestants," by words and their own present day prac99tices, the mass of the people would say: "We will follow the one admitted by all to be the church of Christ. Rome claims she is the only church of Christ, and that Protestants are not even churches of Christ at all; Protestants admit that Rome is a church of Christ, and each of their organizations are no more than that; to be sure we will take Rome." It is good logic from the premises. c. Rome's power in the press and in politics. Says Father Elliott:— In most places the secular press carefully excludes everything hostile to Catholicity, and opens its columns to communications from respectable Catholics, especially the clergy. It is true. Catholics are one-sixth to one-eighth of the population, but it is safe to say that double the space is given to Catholic news that is given to Protestant news. All this has its influence on a people which read but little beyond the daily or weekly newspaper. "There are multitudes of converts," says Mr. Elliott, "who were first drawn to us by a paragraph in the daily paper." d. Rome's power in politics. We have often spoken of this. She is enabled, from the fact that her people are united, to turn any general election as she pleases. Despite the combined protest and influence of the Protestant churches, she has for years been able to obtain more money from the government for the Catholic Indian schools than all the Protestant churches together. See the article by Mr. Magan in another column. e. The religion of Rome. It is a mighty element in her success. It appeals to the selfishness of the human heart. It is the glory of man, of self, and not the glory of God. It is human means, human deeds, human ceremonies, versus the power of simple faith in the Christ of God. It is penance or money rather than forsaking of sin. It is having one's own salvation to the church rather than considering it a matter of personal responsibility, personal relation between the soul and God. Add to all these Rome's unity, her persistence, her unchangeableness of purpose, her flexible policy, and what has a weakened and apostate Protestantism to meet it? There is but one way of salvation, and that is personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting wholly in God's mercy, giving up all for him. Rome presents, with all the assurance of absolute truth, an easier way. The majority of the people want the easier way. Reader, the easy way, the broad road, ends in death; the way of Christ, the way of persecution, though it be, ends in life everlasting. Will you go with Rome in her temporary success here, or with Christ to eternal glory?