The Influence of Catholicism in Spain

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 5, 1912

The Influence of Catholicism in Spain

WHAT Rome has done for the countries of the Old World she is anxious to do for America. What has she done for some of the European states in which for years she has had a free hand? A recent census, or investigation, of conditions in Spain by King Alfonso of that country shows that sixty per cent of the land is uncultivated, that thirty thousand towns and villages have no schools, and that of the seventeen million inhabitants twelve million can neither read nor write. Says the Herald and Presbyter of Oct. 23, 1912:—

It is no wonder that the responsible and influential people of Spain have risen up against the domination of Romanism in their country, and are determined on a policy that will bring more of education, intelligence, and prosperity to their people. After long centuries in which Rome has had complete control of state and school and church, it having been until recently a crime to open a Protestant place of worship, the Spanish people are at the very foot of the scale in everything that makes for popular welfare and national greatness.

Is this the sort of help that America is seeking in welcoming the advances of the Roman Catholic Church? Does it desire the inheritance of ignorance and pauperism which has descended to the unhappy people of Catholic countries? Spain is not an exception. Wherever the influence of the Roman Church has been potent in affairs of state, that influence has been withering and blasting to all human progress and advancement. In those countries where the gospel of Christ has had the freest and most untrammeled course, there we see the greatest enlightenment.

Contrast the countries of Latin Europe with those of northern Europe; compare Spain and Portugal and Italy with England and Germany and the Netherlands. Compare Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico, and the states of Central America with the United States and the British possessions of the north. The growing influence of Rome in America does not offer greater liberty or enlightenment. Rome boasts that she never changes, and we can truly judge her for the future only by her past. Judging from the past, she has been found wanting in all that makes for spirituality and soul liberty in the church and for civil liberty and enlightenment in the state.