Rome and Temperance by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 43.

Rome and Temperance

By Editor

We now learn from Prof. Joseph Schroeder, of the Catholic University, Washington, that Ablegate Satolli's decision on the liquor question was, in the language of the Advance, “that his famous order was not a universal ban upon liquor dealers; it was not a pronouncement upon the liquor question at all; it was merely written to sustain and strengthen episcopal authority.” Delegate Satolli “simply declined to nullify a regulation prescribed by the Bishop of Columbus for that bishop's own diocese.” Moreover, the professor goes out of his way to add, the pope's viceregent, so far from condemning the use of liquor, is accustomed to take ‘a little somethin’ himself, on the principle of Paul's well-known advice to Timothy. Furthermore he has never decreed ‘that Catholic saloon keepers, because of their business, should be excluded from Catholic societies.’” Our “Protestant” friends are disappointed, but it cannot be helped. Rome is not, never has been, nor never will be, a temperance church. It is not politic. She admits the good principles, but she knows that they are not practicable in the world which she wishes to use.