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SEPTEMBER 17, 1955.
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
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Istory Is Refu
Episcopalian’s Attack On Church
HONOLULU, Hawaii, (Radio,
NC)—The testimony of history
was offered here to refute an at
tack made on the Catholic
Church at an international Pro
testant meeting here.
.At the same time, the del
egates were taken to task for of
fering insult to a large propor
tion of Hawaii’s population while
they are guests in the islands.
. An Episcopalian missionary
bishop told the 58th general con
vention of his church, in a wide
ly publicized speech, which the
delegates applauded, that the
Catholic Church is “a religion of
exploitation and superstition.”
Bishop John J. Scanlan, Aux
iliary of the Catholic Diocese of
Honolulu, pointed out in prompt
reply that “it ill becomes a
Christian clergyman to attack'
the teachings and the motives of
that Church which is the mother
of our Christian civilization.” He
added that self-examination doc-
trinally and historically by the
Episcopalians of the Catholic
Church might lead many along
the path taken by such former
Anglicans as John Henry Car
dinal Newman. !
The Episcopalian attack was
prominently carried in the daily
press. It came from the Rt. Rev.
Louis C. Melcher an Episcopa
lian missionary bishop in Cen
tral Brazil, and according to the
daily paper was applauded by
some 1,500 delegates come from
all over the world.
(Press reports quoted Bishop
Melcher as calling upon the
Episcopalians to increase their
effort to convert the people of
Latin America, where Catholic
ism is strong. He was reported
to have called the Catholic
Church “a religion of exploita
tion and superstition,” and to
have said that it has failed to
meet the mental, moral and spi
ritual needs of humanity. He es
timated that there are 25,000
Roman Catholic priests in Latin
America to serve 150 million
communicants, and that there
are 50,000 priests for 35 million
Catholics in the United States.)
(Later, a second attack on the
Catholic Church by an Episco
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palian bishop made its appear
ance in a prepared speech dis
tributed to reporters in advance
of delivery. The speech was one
the Rt. Rev. Egmont M. Kris-
chke, Episcopalian Bishop of
Southwestern Brazil, was to de
liver before a foreign mission
meeting. Just several hours in
advance of scheduled delivery,
the church’s public relations of
fice announced that there would
be several revisions in the pre
pared text because of “an un
fortunate choice of words which
gave a false impression.”
(The changes in the text delet
ed all reference of the. Roman
Catholic Church by name. One
passage of the advance text said:
“Latin American people have
been nurtured in an extremely
debased form of Christianity.
They are religiously undernour
ished.” This was changed to read
simply “Latin peoples are relig
iously undernourished.”
(Another passage which at first
said: “All Latin American nations
have the great majority of their
people scattered over immense
rural areas where t h e Roman
Church exploits their illiteracy
and credulity in a most sordid
way,” was changed to read “ . . .
their illiteracy and credulitjr have
been exploited in an appallin,
way.”)
Bishop Melcher said afterwards
that he had not been misquoted
in the news stories but that he
was misinterpreted. He contended
that his point was that the Cath-
o 1 i c Church, undermanned in
Latin America, has failed to car
ry Christianity to the people
there.
Bishop Scanlan said in a state
ment that Bishop Melcher’s
charge was in “bad taste,” and he
expressed regret that “the del
egates should choose this occasion
to offend the largest religious
group in the Hawaiian Islands
while they are the guests of the
Hawaiian people.”
The Catholic prelate offered as
the “unchanging and unchange
able” truths taught by the Cathol
ic Church a virtual paraphrase of
the Nicene Creed, and cited not
able Papal Encyclicals.
“Certainly no thinking person,”
said Bishop Scanlan, “will refer
to these teachings as superstition.
These are teachings which have
formed the basis of our civiliza
tion—a civilization which has
produced as its by-products. the
highest achievements of man.”
In refuting the charge of “ex
ploitation,” Bishop Scanlan said
that, “if to carry out the com
mand to go and teach all nations
is exploitation, then the Catholic
Church does exploit, because for
twenty centuries it has sent out
its missionaries to every part of
the earth to bring those teachings
to those who did not possess
them.”
“That kind of exploitation was
exemplified here in Hawaii by
Father Damien,” Bishop Scanlan
continued, “and it is exemplified
by the hundreds and thousands
of priests, Brothers and Sisters
who left their homes and traveled
to distant lands, moved by an
ideal, not by hope of material
gain.”
That the Catholic Church’s
work is not 100 per cent effective
is due not to the lack of noble
purpose among its missionaries,
or to lack of truth in its teachings,
Bishop Scanlan pointed oat, but
rather to the obstacles of human
frailty and ignorance with which
they have to contend.
Bishop Scanlan concluded by
saying it “ill becomes” Bishop
Melcher to term as superstition
and exploitation “the beliefs and
practices of that Church which
lifted the world out of slavery
and immorality, which alone for
1,500 years was the civilizing
force in Europe, whose teachings
today are accepted by 450 mil
lion people, and which today y
recognized as the chief spiritual
bulwark against atheistic com
munism.”
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