Roman Catholics and Church Federation
ON our first page is a cartoon by an artist who for years has been connected with a great daily, and has furnished political cartoons, and cartoons portraying the times, which have been published and copied far and wide. This artist is a student of world-conditions from a religious outlook. He has been studying for a long time the church federation question and he has sent us, unsolicited, the cartoon on our cover-page. Cartoons generally exaggerate by making more prominent some already prominent feature; but in principle they are often strikingly true. Is this the case with Mr. Maybell's cartoon on church federation? It is a serious question; church federation is a living issue to-day. The great meeting held in New York City, Nov. 15 to 21, 1905, so fully reported in this journal, and the subsequent progress made in the general indorsement of that movement, demonstrate federation to be one of the great tendencies in the religious world of to-day. At that meeting was organized the National Federation of Churches, among the objects of which is the unifying of the efforts of the church in "all great movements" that make for righteousness. Among the things which make for righteousness are mentioned the question of saloons, marriage and divorce, Sunday desecration, the social evil, relation of labor to capital, moral and religious training of the young, and the concentration upon these of the united and concerted action of the church. At that conference were represented twenty-eight of the great Protestant denominations of the country. President Roosevelt expressed "his highest sympathy with the movement;" and, showing that he considered it a movement toward national Christianity, he stated: "It is perfectly possible that the movement may have very considerable effect in the Christianizing of Japan, which I feel to be retarded by the divisions among ourselves, and by the failure to recognize the fact that the Christian church in Japan must of course assume essentially a Japanese national form." Enthusiastic leaders in the movement have rejected the word "evangelical" so as to include all the religious forces in the movement, and they look not simply for county and state and national federation, but to international federation. Over and over it was stated in the great conference that the object of the federation was to make the united church felt in civic and political matters; as Bishop Goodsell stated it: "A church of many votes is sure of respectful interest." It was stated again and again in that convention, and it has been manifested in local matters in various parts of the country, that to this federation Roman Catholics were welcomed. While there was decided objection to Unitarians uniting with the federation, there is no objection to Roman Catholics, as they are considered Trinitarians. The same tendency has also been shown in the steady drift of Protestants toward ritualism. It would have been tantamount to a dismissal from the ministry a few years ago for a Presbyterian pastor to seek and obtain the blessing of Cardinal Gibbons upon a cross presented to a pupil of the Presbyterian Sunday-school of Washington Heights, D. C. Cardinal Gibbons, of course, blessed the cross. Instances are on record of Protestants dedicating their churches to saints, praying to saints, setting apart some particular day in honor of the saint to whom the church is dedicated. The tendency in the Protestant church to the keeping of traditional holy days is also shown; and the demand for a union of church and state, which is a peculiarly Catholic custom, has been growing for years among Protestants, and centering around the Sunday question; and the Sunday question itself is becoming not simply a local matter, but a state-wide, nation-wide, world-wide affair and even cropped up at the Peace Conference at The Hague. The next year, July 29 to Aug. 1, 1906, was held another federation meeting. That was for the purpose of the federation of all the Catholic societies of America into one body. With the same identical purpose as that of the Protestant federation, of making the Catholic Church felt regarding social and political evils, marriage, divorce, corruption in politics, and the Sunday question. In their objects they declare that "religion is to be fostered and inculcated in every department of education from the lowest to the highest." "We wish to make Christian principles to rule everywhere in the state, in business, in labor unions, in all the civic, social, financial, and industrial relations of men." The official communication of Cardinal Merry del Val, conveying the pope's blessing upon the convention, states, "Finally, to endeavor to renovate public and private life in conforming with the teachings of Jesus Christ." Of course this means the teachings of Jesus Christ as interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church. This Federation of Catholic Societies declares that it is not connected with any political party. On the other hand, they state, "Yet we can not, and shall not, keep away from politics." They will work for the common good, but where "Catholic interests, religious and civil, are greatly affected," the whole power of the federation will be used to promote those interests. The objects are identical in both federations. It was President Roosevelt who expressed his "highest sympathy with the movement" for Protestant federation of churches, and it was President Roosevelt who addressed the Catholic Convention at Detroit the same year in these words: "I believe most heartily in the work you are doing in your American Federation of Catholic Societies." The Catholic Union and Times of Aug. 2, 1906, stated: "Federation is a magnificent organization that is bound to root out prevailing and ruling national evils; a patriotic undertaking in which Catholic and non-Catholic may join hands." It was the Protestant federation in New York City who voiced their earnest and ardent desire to unite their combined forces with that of the Roman Catholic Church; all of which shows very clearly that the purposes of the two are identical. Differences Between the Federation.
There is this difference, however: in the Protestant is the spirit of compromise. Just as soon as the Protestant ground is forsaken, of the Bible and the Bible alone as the norm of faith, Jesus Christ as the Head, the Holy Spirit as the power, compromise must necessarily follow. Having left the law of her very existence, the Protestant church becomes a shuttlecock between the two forces of tradition on the one side, and ritualism on the other. Whatever we may say regarding the Roman Catholic Church, it is consistent to its creed. It holds to the Bible, but it holds to the Bible as interpreted by Roman Catholic tradition, and they do not propose to depart from that. Protestants are solacing themselves that the Roman Catholic Church is changing; that her ultramontane doctrines are being discarded in this enlightened age; that she is no longer held by the decrees of popes and councils; but this claim does not come from Roman Catholics themselves. They declare that the church is unchangeable and that, in fact, she can not change. Pope Leo XIII stated in his encyclical on Christian unity in 1896: "The fathers of the church are unanimous in considering as outside the Catholic communion any one who in the least degree deviates from even one point of the doctrine proposed by the authoritative magistratum of the church." And he declares in the same encyclical that "it is absolutely necessary that he [the pope] should have received real and sovereign authority which the whole community is bound to obey." In harmony with this, such stalwart Catholics, and so recognized by that church, as Father Phelan of the Western Watchman, the dean of Catholic editors, the ablest, perhaps, in the United States, declares that "Protestantism is dead." Here is one utterance in the Western Watchman of Jan. 30, 1908, in the sermon which Father Phelan gives for Sunday, the second of February. He declares: "Heresies have devastated the Christian commonwealth. We list them." It is thus he speaks of Protestantism: "IT IS SURELY DYING; IT IS ALMOST DEAD; it lasted nearly 400 years. Protestantism was born in the sanctuary here; a priest started it; it lasted its allotted time; it was an effort of man to take from God's vicegerent his power to make the church of God a man's church; to bring the kings into the sanctuary; to bring the throne within the precincts of God's temple; it has lived its time, 400 years is a very short time; but it lived, and it made a tremendous amount of disturbance in its day. In the last 400 years Protestantism has caused the church a great deal of unhappiness. We hear more of its ravages than people who live in Catholic lands; but while in its day it has given a great deal of trouble, IT IS COMING TO AN END." On the other hand we find Protestants continually championing the Roman Catholic Church, continually apologizing for it, continually defending it. Speaking of the Catholic Centenary, the Homiletic Review says: "The fanatical hatreds of the past have been outlived and forgotten." "This great church has evidently proved to be a salutary factor in American life." "It still numbers upward of thirteen millions, with its chief strength in the great cities where its good influences are needed most." The Independent of April 30, on the same great Catholic centennial, declares: "We can not afford to do without the Catholic Church; it is Christian; it teaches positively the great Christian doctrines." "Archbishop Farley may well feel a holy pride in the growth of his church." "A chief bishop in the Vatican can still be accepted as well as one in Canterbury Cathedral, each leading, and neither enslaving, his followers." "The Catholic Church in this country has a worthy history, and we hope for it its full part in holding our country to the Christian faith." We would like to have some of our readers find one single utterance in Roman Catholic journals expressing the same sentiments regarding Protestantism. The Outlook of May 9 has an editorial along the same line stating the same sentiments. It declares: "But America to-day stands in peculiar need of that contribution which the Roman Catholic Church is peculiarly fitted to furnish. . . . One of the chief lessons Americans need to learn is REVERENCE FOR CONSTITUTED AUTHORITY, AND WILLING OBEDIENCE TO LAW. THIS LESSON THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IS PECULIARLY FITTED TO TEACH." And just recently we have a noted Protestant minister, Dr. Newman Smyth, writing a book on "Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism." Of course he thinks that there will be a great change in the Roman Catholic Church; it will grow more liberal; but all this dream is on the part of Protestants and not on the part of Roman Catholics. Looking upon it from this view-point, noting the position where each body stands, the one in a compromising, apologetic, vacillating attitude, the other in that of uncompromising loyalty to its principles; the one accepting of Catholicism as a part of the Christian faith; the other utterly condemning Protestantism as heresy; and yet Protestantism continually pleading for unity in church federation for political purposes in which the Roman Catholic Church is the tried teacher for centuries—we would like to ask our Christian friends and candid readers if Mr. Maybell's cartoon has not some basis for existence, and that, if there be union at all between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church in church federation, it will not be the yielding of Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.