ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND HISTORY.
By Editor
A PRETTY big breeze has been stirred up in San Francisco over the use of Myers' Ancient History in the public schools. It was adopted by the school board, but some of the Roman Catholics, and friends of that sect, offered some serious objections because it stated some things which were considered adverse to Roman Catholicism. The agent of the publishers, Mr. Tappan, endeavored to answer these charges, and stated that "it is generally regarded as a non-partisan, fair-minded, and interesting account of the times treated." Among the charges which Archbishop Riordan brings against the work are the following, which we quote from the full report given by the Examiner March 15:— First—The history makes the statement that "the religion which Rome gave to her conquerors was quite different from that taught by Christ and his apostles."—Page 7. Another sentence from the history is: "Viewed as to its first essential (i.e., as a protest against the formalism and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church) it [Protestantism] was a renaissance of primitive Christianity."—Page 364. Second—"The Paganizing of Christianity" is the title of a paragraph on page 42. The Christians of the empire are said to have mingled pagan notions and rites with Christianity. To say this is, in the opinion of a Catholic, the same as to say Jesus Christ lied. Catholics believe that the doctrine of the church has not been corrupted and cannot be corrupted, and to say that it has been is Protestant teaching. Third and fourth—The history is accused of stating that the church's dogmas are untrue, and that her belief is unreasonable. Mr. Tappan replies:— Nothing whatever is said to imply that the present dogmas of the church are untrue. The dogmas referred to were some of those of the Middle Ages. . . . In no place is anything said to indicate that the church's belief is now unreasonable. To this Archbishop Riordan responds as follows:— These answers are very unhappy, and betray an utter unacquaintance with the tenets of the Catholic Church. The church of to-day does not deny the dogmas of the Middle Ages. She is infallible. In the teaching of truth she has never made a mistake. Her belief now is the same as her belief a thousand years ago. She never held in one century what she had to disown in the next. This is the very A B C of Catholic doctrine. Protestants naturally deny this. They think that the church has been corrupted, and has taught corrupt doctrines, which she has been forced to disown. Catholics repel the accusation, and Mr. Myers, in stating the Protestant theory as a matter of fact, is in this, too, sectarian. We have not space for more of Archbishop Riordan's remarks at present. The foregoing is insufficient for this time. We will have something further to say upon it next week. What we do wish to call attention to is that the statements here quoted from Myers' History are absolutely true. It would seem that he who knows anything about the New Testament and the religion of the fourth century, knows that they were vastly different, and in many points absolutely antagonistic. It is also known that many of "the rites and notions of paganism" were brought over into the Roman Catholic Church. Some of the very days now observed by that church and by some Protestants are of purely pagan origin. It is absolutely impossible for a truthful historian to record the facts of the Middle Ages without being considered sectarian by the Roman Catholic Church; and if the stating of the true facts makes the writer a Protestant, and his history a sectarian Protestant history, all glory to the history; for, the history being true, the very fact that Protestantism is in harmony with the history, proves that true. What Archbishop Riordan says of the unchangeableness and infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church in the last paragraph, we will leave with our readers till a later issue. We wish them, however, to read it and ponder it in the light of the present. Next week we shall have more to say in regard to the matter.