Note and Comment by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Jul 25, 1912

Note and Comment

By Editor

Rome's Last Stand

THE Herald and Presbyter of July 10, 1912, devotes considerable space to the consideration of the new patriotic organization known as the Guardians of Liberty. In speaking of the attitude of the Roman Catholic journals toward this organization, it quotes the Christian Herald as follows:—

Catholic journals have attacked the Guardians of Liberty on the ground that the new organization is a revival of Knownothingism. Nothing could be farther from the fact. But Rome is afraid of the new organization, knowing that her own methods of political and ecclesiastical campaigning in this country will not bear the searchlight. Her truckling with presidential candidates; her arrogant claim of equality with royalty for her cardinals at public functions; her attitude toward civil marriage, and her imposition of the ban of illegitimacy on ecclesiastical marriages between Catholics and Protestants; her wide-spread interference in politics, and her dictation to the "bosses;" her declaration that "the church will not come to her own until there are more Catholics in Congress;" and her demand, reiterated in her church organs throughout the country, that American Catholics should work together "to make of the United States, according to a dream that is no longer visionary, the first Catholic nation in the world,"—these are among the reasons why the free and independent American people must jealously guard their privileges against a power which has been repudiated in every country in Europe, with one solitary exception.

The Herald and Presbyter feels that the whole Roman situation is put in a nutshell by the editor of Zion's Herald, whom it quotes as follows:—

Unless all signs fail, the last stand of the Roman Catholic Church for supremacy is to be made here. . . . This is the explanation of recent events that have found their way into public print. Rome is determined to conquer in the United States. Her power in the Old World is all but gone. France has left her, Portugal has repudiated her. Spain has broken with her, Italy openly defies her. What is there left? Austria?—Yes, but hardly anything else. If Rome is to continue a power, then she must be supreme on this side of the Atlantic. And here in the United States is to be made the last stand. . . . Do we want a Roman Catholic America? If not, we must be prepared to meet the challenge of the present.

To this the editor of the Herald and Presbyter adds:—

For Rome, as such, within its own rightful bounds, there is no thought or purpose of opposition. To it, as the enemy of civil and religious liberty, there must be steadfast and persistent antagonism. The Guardians of Liberty intend to shoot just where the Roman hierarchy is trying to put itself. If it persists in pushing itself there, it will certainly be hit by something.