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ROMANISM, A PERIL TO MORALITY
(Concluded from Last Week.)
truth of our original propo
sition is proven by the posi
tion of the Catholic Church
- with regard to STEALING.
The Bible says, “Thou shalt
not steal.’’ Rome says you may.
In Crisis Theolog. Diss. 23, cap.
2, Art. 1, page 474, Cardenas
says: “Servants may secretly steal
from their masters as much as they
judge their labor is worth more than
the wages they received.” In other
words, if you have a Catholic work
ing for you and you pay him SIOO.OO
per month, and he feels like his
wages should be $150.00, the Cath
olic Church teaches he has the right
to steal that extra $50.00.
Gordonus says: “A woman may
take the property of her husband, to
supply her spiritual wants, and to
act like other women.” Sympathy
for many women makes me almost to
agree with the Catholics here.
Francis Xavier Fegeli says (Pars.
3, cap. 6, quest. 11, page 158):
“After a son has secretly robbed his
father as a compensation, the con
fessor need not enforce restitution, if
lie has taken no more than a just re
ward for his labor.”
And even in cases wdiere stealing
is stealing in the eyes of the Catholic
Church, it has a sliding scale, which
fixes the amount of the sin for the
stealing according to the amount of
the property stolen. If you steal
much, the s n is great; if you steal a
little, the sin is small. Now, back
to one of their greatest interpreters:
Liguori says: “There are many
opinions about the amount which
may be stolen to constitute a mortal
sin. Navar has said, too scrupulous
ly, that to steal a half piece of gold
is a mortal sin; whi’e others, too lax,
hold that to steal less than ten pieces
of gold, can not be a serious sin.
But Tol, Meeh, Less, etc., have more
wisely ruled that to steal two pieces
of gold constitutes a mortal sin
s lf any one steals small sums at dif
ferent times ,either from the same or
different persons, not having any in
tention of stealing large sums, nor
causing great damage, his sin is not
mortal.”
Rome evidently proceeds on the
theory of a little childhood jingle I
used to hear:
3
’Taint a sin to steal the wind;
’Tis <a sin to steal a pin;
Ts the greater to steal a tater;
’Tis the bigger to steal a nigger.
r i
It certainly does not recognize the
principle that stealing is stealing, and
that there is no difference in the prin
ciple before Almighty God in the
stealing of a penny and the theft of
a million.
6. Our proposition is proven by
the position of the Roman Church
in regard to ADULTERY.
Despite the command of God, “thou
shalt not commit adultery,” the Cath
olic Church, in many ways, condones
and permits the c’omm.sslon of this
awful sin and crime.
Liguori, in his Question 2, asks the
question, “May a servant bring a lad
der and help his master to go up and
commit adultery? Buss and others
think that he may do it, and I am of
the same opinion.*’
Mr. Gladstone, that grand old man
of England, in his “Romanism and
the Republic,”
shows how the crime of adultery has
the sanction of the church in this
wise: “The Catholic Chu.ch'deny
all civil and Christian marriages to
be true anti lawful marriage when
not performed within the Roman
Catholic Church, and Pope Pius IX.
calls it “filthy concubinage.” They
have divided between a husband and
wife in England, says Mr. Gladstone,
because they were not married by a
Romish priest: this man having em
braced the Romigh faith for the sake
of getting rid of his noble and ex
cellent wife.” Mr. Gladstone calls
Attention to the fact and wonders
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Sermon by T. F. CALLAWAY, Pastor Tabernacle Baptist
Church, Macon, Georgia.
that the menace to human society
contained in the act had not been
more taken account of in England.
Here is the picture. A man anjl
a woman are married by a Protestant
preacher. After a few years he- gets
tired of her. He falls in love with
another woman, who happens to be
a Catholic. The Catholic priest tells
him that the first marriage was no
marriage, anyhow. Get a divorce
from the civil law and come right
back to me and I will marry you to
the one you love and send you on
your way rejoicing. This has been
done hundreds of times, thus putting
the stamp of the Catholic Church
upon adultery in the eyes of God
and man.
Nor is that all. The Catholic
Church winks at and Condones adul
tery in another way, and that is in
the dispensations frequently granted
by the Pope, authorizing a member of
that church to put away his wife and
marry another.
The Catholic Church long has
boasted that it stood against divorces.
Yet this law of the church has been
violated time and again by the Pone
himself usually, however, in the
case of kings or others, who are able
to remember the church with a fat
purse byway of gratitude.
Notice just a few of them to sus
tain my contention:
The Pope desired to unite Spain
and England against his old enemy,
Louis XIL, of France. So the Pope,
while Henry VIII. was still a -true
Catholic, granted him a dispensation
to marry his brother’s wife, and
would have granted as many more di
vorces as Henry desired, if his poli
ties had continued to suit the Pope.
(Burnett’s Hist. Reform, vol. 1, page
46.)
Alphonsus, of Portugal, 1243, di
vorced his queen and espoused the
Princess Beatrix. The repudiation
and nwptuals were antliorized by a
bull of his holiness. (Mariana, V. 3,
page 29.)
LadTas, King of Hungary, divorced
Beatrix, of Aragon, and married Anne
of Foix. The separation from one
and the union with the other were by
the express authority of Pope Alex
ander. (Mariana, Vol. 5, page 2 9 9.)
Louis, the French King, disliked
his queen, Jeanne, who was crooked,
infirm, barren and deformed. He ac
cordingly dismissed her and married
Anne. Pope Alexander obliged him
with a divorce. His holiness, how
ever, charged his fee. Thirty thous
and ducats, the title and duchy of
Valentine, with a revenue of twenty
thousand pounds; the Princess Char
lot.ta, sister of the Queen of Navarra,
to bis son, Borgia. (Daniel, Vol. 7,
page 10.)
Yet they boast of the “Holy Cath
olic Church.” It is “Holely,” all
right. Just as full of them as a
seive.
7. That the Roman Catholic
Church, as a system, not only docs not
condemn, but condones, and in many
cases, actually commands the com
mission of the most revolting crimes,
is shown by the position of that
Church in regard to MURDER.
I expect to prove from Rome’s own
laws and declarations, that murder,
especially of Protestants, is not con
demned, is permitted, encouraged and
actually commanded by that church.
Melina, in h’s work, page 1725,
says: “An adulterer may lawfully
1 ill the busband of the woman, if
the husband, having surprised him
with his wife, do assault him.” On
page 1766, he further says: “A thief
having entered into a house to steal,
in conscience may kill him who would
punish him for h’s theft, if he can
not escape otherwise.” Again, in
page 1768 (Vol. 3, Disput. 16), he
says: “Priests may kill the laity to
preserve their goods.”
But the attitude of Reine to mur
der is best seen when we investigate
her position with regard to heretics,
or Protestants. The “Rambler,” one
of the most prominent Roman Cath
olic papers in England, some years
ago, says: “You ask if the Pope
were lord of this land and you were
in a minority, what would he do to
you? That, we say, would depend
entirely on circumstances. If it would
benefit the cause of Catholicism, he
would tolerate you ;if expedient, he
would imprison, banish you; proba
bly he might even hang you. But be
assured of one tiling, he would never
tolerate you for the sake of your
glorious principles of civil and re
ligious liberty.”
In the Theologia Moralis, page
1577, we read, “A man who has been
excommunicated by the Pope may lie
killed anywhere, as Escobar and
Deaux teach, because the Pope has
an indirect jurisdiction over the
whole world, even'in temporal things,
as all Catholics maintain, and as
Suarez proves against the King of
England.” Does that look like the
Roman Church condemns murder?
La Croix says: “A man condemned
by the Pope may be killed wherever
he is found.” (Vol. 1, page 294.)
No, the Roman church does not Con
demn the man who murders a Protes
tant or heretic. The Roman Church
dees, however, encourage its mem
bers to murder Protestants and
heretics. Pope Urban 11., Decree,
lOSS, says: “Those are not to be
accounted murderers or homicides
who, when burning with love and
zeal for their Catholic mother against
excommunicated Protestants, shall
happen to kill a few of them.”
But the Catholic Church does not
stop with encouraging the murder of
Protestants. It actually commands
It.
The Council of Lateran, A.’ D.
1215, decreed, and that decree is still
binding: “We excommunicate and
anathematize every heresy that ex
alts itself against the most holy
orthodox and Catholic faith, con
demning all heretics, by whatever
name they may be known Secu-
lar powers of all ranks and degrees
are to be warned, induced and, if
necessary compelled by ecclesiastical
censure, to swear that they will exert
themselves to the utmost in defense
of the fa-th, and TO E V TR T PATE
ALL HERETICS DENOUNCED BY
THE CHURCH WHO SHALL BE
FOUND _IN THEIR TERRITORIES.
.... Catholics wlio shall assume the
cross for the extermination of here
tics shall enjoy the same indulgences
PfiiOH PATHM IPI2M TH£ SAKiE NOW THAT
riuhlHH Uii iluLlvejhl it HAS ALWAYS
Full reprint of main points of the celebrated Senate Document
No. 190, in which the Taft Commission reported to President
McKinley the terrible conditions that Roman Catholicism had pro
duced in the Philippine Islands.
That official document quoted almost in full, as it was sent to
the Senate by President McKinley, embodying the sworn testimony
taken in the Islands.
Critical examination of those principles and practices of the
Roman Catholic Church which necessarily make it a deadly menace
to Democratic principles and a Republ can form of government, as
well as to civil and religious liberty, and to the morality of the
people.
The terrible evils of the confessional box shown up, as demon
strated from •Roman Catholic sources; historical examples given.*
Is Hernan Catholicism In America Icknlkal wi'Ji that of the Popes ?
, OR
i Cpsn Letters to Cardinal eihSots,
By THOS. E. WATSON. PRICE, 50 CENTS, POSTPAID,
- THE JEFFERSONIAN PUBLISHING CO.,
THOMSON, GEORGIA.
and are to he protected by the sonic
privileges as are granted to those who
go to the help of the Holy Land
It is of faith that the Pope has the
right of deposing heretical and rent
kings. Monarchs so deposed by the
Pope are converted into notorious
tyrants and may be killed by the first
who can reach them. If the public
cause can not meet with its defense
in the death of a tyrant, it is lawful
for the first who arrives to assassinate
him.”
Think of it. The “Holy Catholic
Church of the Infallible Pope” decree
ing the murder of every one who is
so presumptuous as to reject that
church. They say they will deliver
us to the secular powers for execu
tion and if these secular powers re
fused to do their duty, any member
of the Catholic' Church is authorized
to do it, and is promised a full in
dulgence and blessed reward if he
does it.
Bear in mind, friends, that this
decree of the Catholic Church has
been put into most awful and deadly
effect, whether that church has ob
tained sufficient power to do it. The
bloody days of the Inquisition bear
horrible testimony to that fact. Dur
ing those terrible days, those who re
fused to become Catholics were
burned, hacked to pieces, drowned,
choked, suffocated and in every con
ceivable way tortured and killed.
Thousands upon thousands of lives
were destroyed. In Spain the popu
lation decreased, instead of gaining,
in seventy years, from 10,000,000 to
6,000,000.
Thank God, not a country now will
stand for such ecclesiastical butchery.
The Inquisition has been driven to
the wall of the Vatican. But it is the
beast of Rome that she never
changes. Upon the authority of their
own laws, I say that if the Catholic
Church had the power today in the
United States she would set her men
in to exterminate every last Protes
tant of us, just, as she did in Crusad
ing days and in the case of the Sara
cens.
8. The truth of our proposition
could be shown by a glance at the
RESULTS OF ROMANISM wherever
it has secured a foothoid and become
a power.
But we will desist from entering
into detail there. Time will not per
mit, neither will the proprieties of
the occasion, us to tell of the slimy
trail of the serpent found in papal
lands; of the licentious lives of mul
t tudes of Popes and priests; of the
ignorance, the sin, the snupersition
(Continued on Page Twelve, 2d Col.)
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