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July '3, 1912 J THE!
A CRUCIAL TEST OF ROME'S WEAKNESS.
BY JUAN ORTS GONZALEZ.
The most misleading characteristic of the
Roman Catholic Church is her apparent efficiency
in making her people religious.
Some Protestants seem to have lost sight of
the real vitality and powerful strength of
Protestantism. These same Protestants do not
realize where such vitality and strength lies
and they give unlimited credit to the Roman
Catholic Church in regard to her efficiency in
training her people and in making them deeply
concerned with religion.
It would be a source of amusement for me,
were it not so perniciously misleading to see
written in prominent Protestant magazines
and to hear from the lips of prominent Protestant
speakers how intensely religious are the
habits of Roman Catholic people; how much
Catholics do for their church and priesthood;
how obedient Catholics are to their religious
leaders. Moreover, these Protestants see how
the Roman Cavholic churches are crowded with
people while the Protestant churches become
more and more empty. They see how splendidly
Roman Catholic enterprises are financed
q ft r? f lio rwioof *1J mi-. .?
uuu twu puv-oiuuvu uyiiciu. nicy see now
Protestant pastors and Protestant enterprises
strive against debt for lack of financial support.
They see how submissive and reverent Catholics
are to their priests and how indifferent and
even irreverent many P rotes tan tis are to their
pastors. They see how regularly Catholics attend
their Sunday mass and how irregularly
Protestants attend their religious services.
When these misguided Prbtestants see such
striking differences between the apparent attitude
of Catholics and Protestants they believe
that Protestantism is in a bad plight
from which it can be disentangled only by
imitating Roman methods and practices. Yea
more, these blind Protestants see the growth of
socialism, the increase of anarchy, the shame
of the Black Hand Society, the spread of public
bribery, the White Slave trade and the propagation,
the multiplicity and the acuteness of
many social evils which darkly obscure the horizon
of the future in America. When they
see such things these blind Protestants are
wont to exclaim in despair, "Behold how Protestantism
has failed In building up America,
behold how greatly we need the Roman Catholic
Church to come to our rescue.
I have upon the table on which I am writing
this article several Catholic reviews and daily
papers received last week. The best and most
convincing arguments used by Catholic editors
to demonstrate the need of Roman Catholic
influence in building up common wealth
in America are quoted from articles by Protestant
pastors in Protestant magazines. At
the same time the Catholic editors take advantage
of the unwise complaints of Protestants
to emphasize 'how Protestantism itself
confesses "its fruitlessness, its barrenness"
and "its utter failure," to build up a strong
commonwealth.
I hope to speak more in detail about these
dangerous misrepresentations when I deal with
the question of the Public and the Parochial
School. In the present article I only wish to
say in regard to all these problems, that I can
not fully explain the lack of sound information
revealed by the utterances uf some Protestant
writers who ought to be better informed
on matters of such vital importance.
Are such pressing problems peculiar only to
America t Are not the same problems hundreds
of times more acute and worse in France,
Italy, Spain, Portugal and South America,
which for centuries have been entirely Roman
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^
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
Catholic in religious belief? Are not the same
problems more acute and worse in Germany
and England exactly in proportion as the
Protestant influence has been curtailed and restrained
by Roman Catholic influence? Even
here, where are these fearful problems in their
worst and most acute form? Is it not in Chicago,
New York, San Francisco, where there
are great masses of Catholics and where Catholic
influences seems to predominate.
Is it not a fact, that even now, in the country
villages and in the towns and States where
Protestantism remains unspoiled and undisturbed
in its task, that the best and highest
types of good citizenship and Christian consecration
are to be found? Then let us be honest
and face the truth frankly. Let us exam;
ine all these questions according to factB and
not according to mere appearances.
I am in a position to know something about
Roman Catholic devotion to their church and
their regular attendance upon its services, their
willing support of the priests and their reverence
for the priesthood and I assert unhesitatingly
that Protestantism has nothing to learn
from Catholics in regard to these things. Yea
more, Protestants are far superior to Roman
Catholics in every one of these particulars.
I know that few of my readers will accept my
words without proofs. The reasons for my
statements I shall give at once but very briefly
so as not to make this article too long. That
Roman Catholics give plenty of money to support
their church and their priests is an unquestionable
fact. But why? Catholics are
taught that their mothers and daughers and
fathers and sons and relatives and friends enter
at death into Purgatory; that while there
they suffer unspeakable torment, just the same
torment that is suffered in hell according to
some Roman Catholic theologians. Catholics
are taught that with a trifle of money, one dollar
for instance, they can order a mass or some
blessing and through such small sums of money
they mav succeed in hrinopin<? tViai
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ones out of those unspeakable tortures. Are
you surprised that they give so much money
to the priests? It does not seem at all surprising
to me, on the contrary I am surprised
at how little they do for their dear ones if
they truly believe that their dead are suffering
unspeakable pain and that they can be
freed from this painful condition by the expenditure
of money. Listen, so far as my
knowledge goes, Protestant husbands, in Virginia
only, invest more money in life insurance polioioo
fn* 4-V? 1 ~ T~"1 1 11
w?> wi lucu wives uuu cimuren mail Uatholics
do in some Southern States for the liberation
of the souls of their dead and mark well
that according to the Roman Catholic Church
the condition of souls in Purgatory is thousands
of times more distressing than the circumstances
in which the Protestant wives and
children may be left without an insurance
policy.
Do you still admire their willingness to pay
the priests and the sacrifices they may make
to do sot More than that, who gives that
money? The poorest, the most ignorant and
the most suDeratitiona of th^ "Rwmo?
t ? ? v?W a.?wmuu V/abU"
olies. Every one who knows the Roman Catholic
Church from within knows also that eighty
per cent, of her revenue in America comes from
poor foreign laborers, Irish, Polish, Italian or
Mexican.
It is true that the Roman Catholic Church
counts very few millionaires in America but
the Roman Catholics who are in comfortable
circumstances, do less, a great deal less, for
their church than the same class of Protestants
do for Protestantism.
The foreign missionary movement with its
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hundreds of missionaries and its millions of
expenses is something astonishing to Roman.
Catholics and never before seen by them. And
all these men and women who give their lives
and their millions freely and spontaneously to
the service of the Lord come from well informed
and in many instances wealthy Protestant
people while the Roman Catholics when
they become well informed scarcely contribute
anything except for their dead.
1 am making a conservative estimate when 1
say that more than ninety per cent, of the
whole revenue of the Roman Catholic Church
comes from the money paid to extinguish the
flames in Pureatorv.
If the Roman Catholic Church were to proclaim
a free mass and free blessings for the
dead, if they were to promise the mothers and
daughters, fathers and sons, wives and husbands
to free their loved ones from fearful and
unspeakable suffering, then thousands of nunneries
and convents would be closed and millions
of priests, friars, bishops and dignitaries
of the church would starve for I repeat that
more than ninety per cent, of the money collected
by the Roman Catholic Church comes
from the services for the dead.
And will any honest Christian recommend
and praise the willingness and sacrifice of Ro
man Catholics when the little they do is done
largely by the poor, ignorant and superstitious
and that not only by the fabrication of dogma
but also by playing upon and abusing the
sacred feelings of motherhood, fatherhood,
filial love and friendship?
In the next article I expect to explain how
their reverence for the priesthood, their obediance
to the mandates of the church and their
regular attendance upon its services are also
only imaginary.
A VIEW OF DEATH.
BY MARGARET H. BARNETT.
Have you ever heard Chopin's magnificent
funeral march? The music is at first sad and
solemn, and seems to suggest the sorrow of
parting and the gloom of the grave. But it
rises, later, into such triumphant strains, that
one can almost hear the words, "Oh, grave,
where is thy victory; Oh death, where is thy
sting?" The great composer expresses very
aptly in music the Christian idea of death, that
though it causes sorrow, death is the conquer- ?
ed, not the conqueror. Those who have been
separated from loved ones are not bidden not ?
to mniirn hilt rmlv thof +V?"' A
, xwub IUCJT SU1TUW uui, even
as others who have no hope." Their sorrow
should not be hopeless, because Christ has provided
a perfect redemption, one which includes
the '' redemption of the body,'' as well as
the redemption of the soul. Christ has "abolished
death," for, even though the body dies,
even though we suffer the pain of parting with
friends on earth. He has robbed death of its
sting and power, and has made it for his followers
only "to depart, and be with Christ."
Christ has "brought life and immortality to
light." He himself, has conquered death, and
He rose from the grave as the "first fruits of
them that slept." And there is coming a time
when that which is "sown in corruption,''
shall be "raised in incorruption,'' when that
which is "sown in dishonor" shall be ''raised
in glory," when that which is "sown in weakness"
shall be "raised in power;" a time when
"this corruptible shall have part on corrup
tion," when "this mortal shall have put on
immortality;" a time when the sin-freed soul
shall be re-united to its body, glorified and immortal,
and there shall be no more death, no
more partings for death shall be "swa" '
up in victory."
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