I was very pleased and honored to receive yet another gift of a rare book from from Ron Bullock of Old Working Books & Bindery, the book you see in the above photo!

If you like technical things, you can read how I converted a paperback book into html text.

FOREWORD

One of the crying needs of today is to popularize the prophetic teaching of our Great Reformers. The growth of Roman Catholicism in Protestant lands by immigration, and its bid for popular leadership, and the audacious canvass of Protestants all over our land by the priests, for money to build their churches and schools and sustain their propaganda, causes us to ask why Protestants have lost their Protest. For Rome is semper idem (a Latin phrase that means “always the same”) and has never changed. We are convinced that the reason is—the loss of the knowledge of the Papacy in Prophecy, which was the mighty tonic that nerved the Reformers to fight and die. No man can dally with Rome who sees her as God sees her.

We herewith make an attempt to supply this lack to the general public, in as reduced a form as the subject will allow, trusting and praying that God will use it to awaken many dormant Christians to the peril of Antichrist’s domination.

What we have given in this tract is but a brief introduction to a vast subject, and it is our earnest hope that it will be the means of so awakening interest in the readers, that they will be led to search the larger standard works written upon it.

If that be the result, we shall count it the highest kind of success.

How John Knew Christ

“Art thou he that should come or look we for another?” —Luke 7:19-22.

John the Baptist was in prison and things did not look very sunny for him just then, and doubts formed in his mind as to whether he had been deceived in the Messiah. To settle these doubts and clear his spiritual atmosphere, he resolved to send a direct request to Jesus Himself. Two of his disciples are called and sent with the question, “Art Thou He that should come or look we for another?” His soul needs a clear “Yes” or “No” to this appeal. He must have it, nothing else will suffice.

The men come to Jesus and deliver the message, thereby requesting the Lord to tell them plainly whether He be the Messiah or not.

How did the Master answer this anguished appeal? Did He give a simple, direct, unequivocal affirmative or negative, to ease the tension of the breaking heart of the faithful John in prison? It would have been easy for the Lord to have done this. We are prone to think He ought to have done this, but He did not.

What did He do?

How did He answer the eager prophet’s request? Listen,—

“In that same hour He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind He gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.”

What does all this mean?

Is this an answer to the Baptist’s question?

It apparently is not, and yet it is.

Yes, and it is the greatest and best answer Christ could give to this man. Christ adapts His words to the minds of His hearers. To the uneducated woman of Samaria He says, “I that speak unto thee am He.”

To the great prophet, steeped in the prophetic Word of God, he works miracles which fulfil the prophetic scriptures concerning the Messiah, (See Is. 35:3-5; 61-1, etc.) John knowing these prophecies and looking eagerly for their fulfilment, would at once recognize such as credentials of supreme authority, and would be more convinced by them than by any number of bold claims of a man without them.

There is nothing more re-assuring to genuine faith than the perception of the fulfilment of “the more sure word of prophecy,” for which one has been watching through the clouds and mists of many a long weary year.

John was re-assured and satisfied, and joyfully reconciled to his dark, mysterious martyrdom. And millions more have, since that time, under the influence of the same prophetic word, gone gladly to the rack and flame, for love of that same Christ.

Fulfilled prophecy had conclusively proven to John that, this was indeed the Christ foretold of old. He was the very Messiah, the long expected Coming One.

It was therefore useless to look for another.

A Future Antichrist Taught by Some

The foregoing applies with overwhelming force to the prophecies concerning Antichrist. We hear a great deal today about the Antichrist who is still to come. Many of our leading Bible teachers are telling us that he is soon coming, and that when he is come he will do terrible things. He is to be a superman, a special offspring or incarnation of Satan: while some go as far as to say that he will be Antiochus Epiphanes literally risen from the dead. We have in one book, widely sold, read of the doings of this man in detail, all carefully mapped-out like a railroad timetable. And we confess that, as set forth therein, the record is as gruesome and blood curdling as words can possibly make it.

Among the teachers who look for this future Antichrist, we count many, if not most of our dearest friends in the cause of Christ. We have been working shoulder to shoulder with them for a quarter of a century. We have read their books; have been with them in conventions; have discussed with them the different phases of this burning subject; and have earnestly endeavored to see eye to eye with them, and have tried honestly to adopt their view of prophecy on this point; all this because they are brethren beloved for their work’s sake.

But we confess again that, the more we have studied “the sure word of prophecy” and compared it with their findings, the more we are compelled to differ from them on this one point. We are in full agreement with them on all fundamental points, and as to the personal, premillennial coming of our Blessed Lord. But concerning Antichrist we differ. We are very sorry to have to say this, but fidelity to God’s Word and its fulfilment demands it.

The Faith of the Reformers

While these aforementioned brethren, beloved in the Lord, are looking for a still future Antichrist; there are others, the descendants of a long line of mighty Christian worthies and warriors, who see the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning Antichrist, in the Papacy. That is to say, the dynasty of Popes during the past twelve or fourteen centuries, is the full and complete fulfilment of those prophecies that foretell the coming of the Man of Sin, the Antichrist.

Let not the dear reader who reads this for the first time be startled. This is no new teaching. This is the faith of the great Reformers who were Spirit-taught and Spirit-filled men; whose work has stood the test of time and remains to this day, and is still a blessing to us, in fact the foundation of all evangelical religion now existing.

Behold a few of the paves of the men of God who have held this Spirit-given interpretation of prophecy,—The Waldenses (AD 1180), Wycliffe, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Sir Isaac Newton, Bunyan. And coming to more modern times, Gaussen, Elliott, Finney, Moody, A. J. Gordon, Hudson Taylor, Spurgeon, Grattan Guinness, F. B. Meyer, Campbell Morgan, A. C. Dixon, etc.

It was this belief, viz.: that the Pope was the very Antichrist spoken of in the Word of God, which made the Reformers brave as lions and gave them courage to face the Inquisition with its dungeons, rack and flame, singing as they went. We have asked ourselves many times during the past twenty-five years,—Were these noble armies of martyrs buoyed up by a false faith? Was it an imaginary interpretation that caused them to “love not their lives unto the death?” Impossible. Did God sustain them on lies? To state the proposition is to annihilate it at one breath. Just as easy to sustain life on a painted loaf. We are compelled to believe that the Reformers’ interpretation of prophecy was right. It was Spirit-given and therefore God’s Truth.

The Truth Perverted

But earnest enquirers will ask,—“How came it about that this teaching did not continue in the whole of the Protestant Church, which owed its very life to it? And where did the other teaching come from?”

The teaching that the Papacy was Antichrist was so self-evident, so simple, so clear and so incriminating that, it threatened to shake the whole fabric of Popedom to pieces.

This had to be offset somehow.

The Jesuits were appointed to combat this teaching.

Two of their number, Ribera and Alcasar, invented systems of interpretation intended to shield the Papacy and sidetrack Protestantism. In the year AD 1585 Ribera founded the Futurist system of interpretation of prophecy, and sent it forth on its work of chloroforming the Protestants. His subtle teaching was something as follows:—“Why, you Protestants are all off the track. You imagine the Pope is the Antichrist. You are all wrong, for these (stated) reasons. The real Antichrist is still future and will come in the last few years of the world’s history.” And many of our leading Bible teachers have adopted this error and are earnestly teaching it to others.

Alcasar, another Jesuit, invented the Praeterist system of interpretation in AD 1603, which declares there is no Antichrist to come. In fact there is no Second Coming of Christ, He came in the year AD 70 at the fall of Jerusalem, and Antichrist must have come before Him. This system is being serenely followed by our postmillennial brethren in great numbers of Protestant pulpits today.

Both the Praeterists and the Futurists have fallen into the cunningly laid Jesuit trap. The Jesuits have succeeded in splitting the Protestant Church into three camps, The Praeterist Futurist, and the Historical which still holds with the Reformers, and keeps the Truth alive and the witness against the real Antichrist. And the sad thing about it all is that these divisions are shooting at each other. The Futurists belabour the Praeterists because they are not biblical, and the Praeterists deride the Futurists for believing such trash. But the fact is that, the Futurist brethren who attack the post-millennial brethren with such avidity, are as much wrong as they on this point.

Rome has no kick against the teaching of a future Antichrist.

Rome does not persecute those who hold it and teach it.

Why?

Because it is her child.

Because it has robbed Protestantism of its real witness against her.

Brethren, we are fallen into the Jesuit trap.

How and When the Error was Absorbed

This Jesuit teaching did not pass into the Protestant Church for a long while. It did not deceive the Reformers or their immediate followers. It had no chance while they were on the scene. Not until the year AD 1826 was it effective. Then the bait was swallowed by the Rev. S. R. Maitland, D.D., librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who endeavored to introduce it into Great Britain by publishing it.

Four years later, Mr. J. N. Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren, looking about him for some novelty in the interpretation of the Apocalypse, found this adopted it, and incorporated it into his works. This is in line with the well known character of the Plymouth Brethren, who criticize the churches and aim to be different from them in teaching and work. This denomination has persistently propagated the teaching of a future Antichrist ever since their origin at the time of Darby.

Now, disguise it how they will, those modern teachers who are proclaiming a still future Antichrist, are following the Plymouth Brethren. Some do not care to have it mentioned to them, while others frankly admit it and read the works of Darby and of others of that sect. This is by no means an impeachment of the Plymouth Brethren, for we are glad to admit that most of their teachings are admirable. But in this one matter they have grievously erred.

The source of a stream indicates its nature. The Jesuits originated in a fierce hatred of Protestantism, and only exist now to overthrow it by fair means or foul. And the fact that the futurist interpretation originated with them, for ever determines its traitorous character, and it should be shunned and combated by all Protestants who are indeed children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

The True Interpretation

We are by no means attempting an exhaustive treatise in this little volume. Other far more competent witnesses have done this. We aim to present a few of the evidences in small compass, in a simple, popular way, that demonstrate that the Pope and the Papal Church are the true fulfilment of all that is written concerning Antichrist and his connections. We desire to arouse our sleeping brethren in all the different Protestant Churches, and bring this mighty God-given interpretation of prophecy within the reach of a public which may not have time to peruse the large volumes written on it. It is heart rending to see the lethargy that has fallen on the Churches in this matter as a result of Jesuit intrigue, so that the very prophecies that were given to light the Church through this dark time have absolute no light for her. Therefore we believe there is a present need for such a little book as this, and we send it forth in God’s name. We make no claim to any great originality in this tract but own our indebtedness to the following,—Albert Close, of England; Dr. A. J. Gordon, late of Boston, Mass., and Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, of England, the latter being in our humble estimation the greatest prophetic gift God has given to the modern Church. And we record with gratitude that it was our great privilege to have been a student in his college in London, and to have sat at his feet.

We will now open the prophetic word with a view to answering the question which is constantly before us,—“Art thou, O Papal Antichrist, he that should come, or look we for another?”

It is our object to select from the prophetic Scriptures a few of those passages which undoubtedly refer to the Antichrist, and are held to refer to him by all well balanced expositors, though he appears under various names, such as —“The Little Horn,” “The Man of Sin,” “The Beast ,” etc.

Continued in Part 2.

Continued from Chapter III. Winning The Worker.

TO ASSUME authority in the name of Public Safety has characterized from earliest times most forms of revolt, and it was in the name of Public Safety that the Catholic hierarchy of America launched their attack on American morals in the summer of 1934.

Addressing his archdiocese, Cardinal Hayes said: “Public Safety demands that we establish quarantine against epidemics, enforce measures against unsanitary conditions, and guard our water supply lest contagion, infection and contamination harm the physical well-being of our people. To be consistent we should be equally concerned about the general moral tone of the nation. A serious lowering of the moral standards of any community menaces the common good and weakens if it does not destroy the sanctions that guarantee peace and prosperity. . . . Evil motion pictures undermine the moral foundation of the State.”

Other Catholic archbishops and bishops issued similar proclamations. In Boston, Father Sullivan, the Jesuit, as the Cardinal’s spokesman, said: “The present campaign against indecent motion pictures is a campaign for the preservation of our national morality, the very foundation of our governmental structure, and for the preservation of our national ideals,”

All through the land there was an assumption of authority in the Fascist manner by the Church, and a “Call to Arms” was issued. The Pope’s blessing was obtained for the crusade, and millions of Christian soldiers enrolled and pledged themselves to fight. “Militant action should be resorted to if necessary” the bishops had declared. The crusaders were ready!

The Legion of Decency began as an assault on supposedly evil motion pictures. Pictures offered an immediate and convenient target for Catholic Action on a nation-wide scale. There were movie theaters everywhere, in every town and in every village. Every Catholic parish established its Legion at the word of the bishops and got busy. The Liberties Union Committee protested in vain that “religious censorship is subversive of the religious liberty clauses in our basic law.” In the First Humanist Church of New York City, Rev. Dr. Charles L. Potter exclaimed: “It is bad in a democracy to have one group set up a moral censorship over the rest. Who gave the Roman Catholic Church . . . the right to dictate the morals of this nation?” The Church paid no heed to such rebukes. Where her interests are concerned she declines to attach importance to theories of human rights and liberties. Besides, had she not declared in her episcopal manifestos that Public Safety demanded and justified her intervention.

The Catholic bishops, in launching the League, called salacious pictures “the country’s greatest menace.” What they meant was that salacious pictures were an expression of what they considered the country’s greatest menace — Neo-Paganism.

It is difficult to define Neo-Paganism. It is a questioning of the worth of Christian ethics, and a practical disregard of the conclusions drawn therefrom. It constitutes a grave threat to Catholicism which stands or falls by the old standard of morals. Catholics like to say that there is an issue between Western Civilization and Neo-Paganism and that in fighting for the former they are defending law, order, art, social welfare, and of course the American Constitution. They invoke the sentiment of patriotism in their struggle with the ugly monster that threatens. They warn that Neo-Paganism means atheism, Communism, and devilry in every form, “Could Satan himself devise a more successfully insidious attack on our national morality and ideals than that which the gentlemen of the motion picture industry devised to reward us for the wealth we heaped upon them and the trust we reposed in them?” The Catholic hierarchy are naturally fearful lest the contamination spread among their flocks. Were such to happen, the Church’s influence and their influence would be undermined. Confessions revealed the havoc caused in souls by modern dances, modern literature, the theater, the bathing beach, the night club, Nudism, birth control, secular education, and other manifestations of American “naturalism.” In a lament issued at Rome on the eve of Lent (1935), His Holiness declared: “The pagan tendencies in present-day life afflict all open and attentive eyes. For many people life is specifically and paganly given over only to pleasure, to the quest after pleasure, and to amusement that is specifically and paganly immodest, with an immodesty that often exceeds that of ancient pagan life, inasmuch as it is addicted to what is termed with a horrible word and horrible blasphemy, the practice and cult of Nudism.”

In the early stages of the Legion’s activities the boycott weapon was invoked. Cardinal Dougherty ordered “his” people to stay away from motion pictures good and bad. “Nothing,” he said, “is left for us except the boycott. The Catholic people of this diocese are, therefore, urged to register their united protest against immoral and indecent films by remaining away entirely from all motion picture theaters.” Archbishop Glennon allowed “his” people to frequent theaters which excluded all indecent pictures. “If the picture house,” he said, “shows both types of pictures, we’ll tell our people to stay away from both.” To show the sweet reasonableness of his decision, he said that no employer would keep a man in employment on the grounds that he was sober two days a week, although drunk the other four.

Then labor kicked and warned the Church that to boycott theaters would mean more unemployment. In Philadelphia their leaders declared: “It is obvious that the blanket boycott if enforced as planned can only lead to hardship and unemployment not only among musicians but among operators, stagehands, ushers, ticket-sellers, doormen, managers, and all others employed in the theaters.” The Church did not wish to antagonize labor anew, nor to alienate her Catholic children who found employment in the theaters, so she modified her stand and restricted the Legion’s energies to boycotting specific films. Meanwhile, strange as it may appear, the bishops displayed little interest in what should have been their vital concern—the discrimination between “decency” and “indecency” in films. The great thing, in their eyes, was to have the mighty Legion going strong for the glory of God and of the Church, and to have a good number of movies banned. It did not matter much which!

The work of applying Catholic moral theology to the classification of movies into good, bad and indifferent was usually left to pious women who had no scientific training as moralists, but who were deeply interested in pruriency. They drew up the famous “lists.” Of these the most important, in fact the “official” list, came from Chicago. It was drawn up by a young lady, unaided! This girl held in her hands, so to say, the moral consciences of millions of American Catholics. Her judgment on what might be naughty for young men and old, maidens and matrons, soldiers and sailors, nuns and priests and even bishops was final, and authoritative!

The ten million Catholics who pledged themselves solemnly, standing in the churches with uplifted hands, “to form a right conscience about pictures that are dangerous to my moral life” took the Chicago maid’s word as to what constituted the eternal difference between good and evil, right and wrong in screen drama. For American Catholics she became a holy Delphian oracle.

In connection with the Legion of Decency there soon appeared another anomaly. In various dioceses “Councils” were set up to spread and perpetuate its work. For these Councils a personnel had to be chosen. The individual bishops were faced with a problem. Whom should they choose as members of their Councils? Devout, irreproachable, scholarly laymen who would, supposedly, be sensitive to the canons of decency? Or public men, politicians who knew more about polling votes and wangling jobs, than about the finer points of Catholic theology? .

His Eminence Cardinal Hayes in setting up the Council of the Legion for the archdiocese of New York, gave a lead in this thorny matter by plumping for politicians and public men. He made Mr. Alfred E. Smith, his chairman, and added as councilors, ex-Mayor John P. O’Brien, Judge Alfred J. Talley, Martin Quigley, Arthur O’Leary, George MacDonald, and his own representative, Father E.R. Moore. His Eminence thus officially vindicated the moral outlook of Tammany Hall by entrusting to it a strong vote in the supervision of matters of conscience and chastity in his diocese.

We now broach the subject of the developments and the objectives of the Legion.

In New York, although Father Moore, as the Cardinal’s mouthpiece, informed the Press that “The Legion has not any intentions of setting itself up as a guardian of society and public morals at this time,” it soon began to show its hand.

In St. Patrick’s Cathedral Father Graham announced that the movement would be directed against the legitimate stage. “You are urged,” he told the congregation, “to ignore producers and authors who lend themselves only to plays that are salacious.” Working with two colleagues, Fathers Woods and Furlong, Father Graham drew up a “White List” of Broadway plays. Of thirty Broadway plays current at the time, only four were passed as “white”! Next came the move against Nudism. Speaking on behalf of the Archdiocesan Council, Mr. Alfred E. Smith reminded the Press that the Appellate Division had ruled that existing laws did not justify conviction in cases of Nudism-cult, and added: “If, as the learned Appellate Division ruled, the present penal law is not adequate to prevent public mingling and exhibitions of naked men and women, if such action is not an offence against public decency, this Legion will ask the Legislature to speedily remedy this defect in the law and make it so. It seems to us inconsistent to make a stand for decency on the screen and ignore this latest challenge to the enforcement of decency in reality. We cannot overlook indecency in the substance while condemning it in the shadow.”

The contention of Nudists that the nude human body is distinct from the lewd human body is regarded by the Legion as a deceitful sophism. The contention that there is no more essential connection between morality and clothing than between morality and cheese is regarded by the Legion as a blasphemy. Though more and more of the scaffolding about the human body is being removed, with propriety, as the years go by, the Legion in accordance with the Church’s view, holds that if all were removed the structure would suffer a (moral) collapse.

No doubt, the Legion was acting under a hint from Rome in making this assault on Nudism, for within a month of the date of the introduction of the Anti-Nudism Bill at Albany, His Holiness launched his scathing denunciation. Henceforth nudists may expect to experience the same kind of hostility from the Catholic Church that birth controllers have experienced in this country. The Catholic Church has said “No!” to this cult and her “No!” is final.

The New York Catholic “cleanup” has extended to the magazine stands, the burlesque theaters, and the red-light districts through the agency of the Public Welfare and Police departments. It is also engaged in dealing with “immoral literature.” At a meeting of the Catholic Writers Guild (March 4, 1935), Monsignor Lavelle spoke as follows: “There should be a nation-wide movement to suppress pernicious and indecent books. If this were done, as far as literature is concerned, the effect would be the same as in the battle against indecent moving pictures.” Mgr. Lavelle’s views on what Catholic conduct should be with respect to literature were given in his letter read in all the churches of the diocese on February 3, 1935. These views were meant for the public in general as.well as for Catholics: “Exclusion from homes of all books and pamphlets hostile to religion and good works or that ventilate obscene news and licentious scandals… . All our people, men, women, and children, should pledge themselves not to buy or read anything that offends against decency or that is obnoxious to the enlightened Catholic conscience.”

One wonders what percentage of current books, published in New York, would satisfy the Lavelle canon. By “enlightened Catholic conscience” Mgr. Lavelle means a Catholic conscience that is illuminated by grace and faith, in other words, a devout and delicate conscience. The present writer knows of no non-Catholic book that would not offend in some manner or other such a conscience.

In Chicago, the anti-book campaign gives promise of being vigorous when launched. Catholic student-sodalists, at a meeting that numbered five hundred, resolved: “In recent years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of salacious books and magazines in wide circulation resulting in the moral tone of much of our modern literature becoming more and more offensive to the sodalists. Therefore be it resolved that the operation of the Legion be extended to decreasing the number and circulation of the salacious books and magazines to improve the moral tone of that part of literature which has become offensive to our ideals.”

The threat voiced by the student-sodalists of Chicago, namely, that of “decreasing the number and circulation” of books that Catholics disapprove of, is no idle threat. The general public would be amazed if they realized what power the Catholic Church exercises over the book trade. In the first place, publishers for the most part are in absolute terror of publishing a book that is calculated to hurt Catholic sensibilities. They take shelter under the pretense that their policy is to publish only “tolerant” books, thereby accepting the Catholice viewpoint that al] books which are critical of Catholic practices or policies are intolerant. Few publishers endorse in practice the foreword at the head of this book: “We must have in this country the right to speak our honest thoughts or we shall perish.”

Thus Catholics block books at the source by keeping most publishers under their thumbs, at least in so far as concerns books about Catholicism. But should some books, critical of Catholicism, filter through, their resources are sufficient to deal with the situation. Catholics have considerable influence with distributing agencies. Through them they hold up or hamper a book that they are determined to kill. Should the book get by the distributing agencies and reach the bookstores and reviewers, the Church pursues it still. Catholic ladies visit the bookstores and threaten the proprietors. “You have a book there that is offensive to Catholics! You know what Catholics will be compelled to do if you persist in selling it? You understand?” As regards reviewers, it is a sad but absolutely true fact that none of the great reviewers feel comfortable in handling a book that is “offensive to Catholics.” It happens at times that they think it more prudent not to make any reference whatsoever to such a book in their columns.

In New York there is a diocesan Literature Committee that issues a Book Survey, a quarterly in which are listed “good books,” namely, such as are inoffensive to Catholics, and at the same time have some claim to being “worth while.” Dr. Blanche Mary Kelly edits the Book Survey.

Sometimes Dr. Kelly, or one of her censors, is too liberal and protests are made from shocked Catholics. Such protests led her last year (1934) to remove from her “White List” a book that had formerly appeared on it, a novel entitled Livingstones by a young Englishman, Derrick Leon. The excommunication of this book, which won for it a considerable amount of publicity, was referred to in the Book Survey. The reference concluded thus: “We are sorry if anyone bought the book on our recommendation.”

Reporters elicited from Dr. Blanche Mary Kelly that on second thought and recensorship she had decided that the book offended against the second canon of the Literature Committee’s qualifications for the “White List,” namely, that a book must not “offend the Christian sense of truth and decency.” By Christian is, of course, meant Catholic. The canon is the same as that of Mgr. Lavelle. “Enlightened Catholic conscience” and “Christian sense” are synonyms for a Catholic.

If the Catholic dream come true, and Catholic Literature Committees all over the country have the final say in what the American public may read, that public will be in a far worse case than peoples that lived under the Inquisition. For after all, the Literature Committees of the Inquisition were composed of scholarly Dominican and Franciscan theologians, men of learning and of such science as was then available. Whereas the modern lay Catholic Literature Committees are composed of men and women who are equipped neither with theology nor with much scientific or literary discernment.

Catholic indifference to the taste and judgment of non-Catholics was dramatically instanced by the exclusion from Boston of Sean O’Casey’s play Within the Gates. Mayor F. W. Mansfield, a devout Catholic, declared that the play as published “was nothing but a dirty book full of common- place smut.” The Jesuit, Father Sullivan, as spokesman for the Legion, and for Cardinal O’Connell, said that Within the Gates was “a sympathetic portrayal of the immoralities described, and even more so the clear setting forth of the futility of religion as an effective force in meeting the problems of life.” Catholicism of Boston gave O’Casey his answer by showing how religion (if it was religion) could be “an effective force” in meeting the problems of its existence.

Catholics answer the charge that such censorship as Mayor Mansfield exercised is “arbitrary” by declaring that a much more arbitrary censorship is exercised by critics and stage managers who offer the public naughty plays to the exclusion of edifying ones. Actually the Catholic attitude might be voiced thus: “I am competent to judge in moral matters and no one else is. There is need of a judge; Public Safety demands one. Therefore, I will be the judge!” The mentality is, of course, obviously Fascist. What else did Mussolini or Hitler say in presence of another field of circumstances? “I am competent to rule the State and no one else is! There is need of a ruler; Public Safety demands one. Therefore I will be the ruler!” The assumption of authority to override the will of the majority, even though merely and sincerely for the good of public morals, is a dangerous precedent in a country like ours. It is un-American and in effect seditious.

It is curious that from the start no attempt was made by the hierarchy to define “decency” or to lay down the principles on which a definition should be based. Such a procedure would have invited discussion. An intelligent understanding of “decency” might have awakened doubts and hesitancies in the minds of Catholic laymen and laywomen. The bishops preferred to eschew theology, philosophy and psychology, and leave their followers under the impression that “hot stuff” in general is subversive of morals and indecent! They aimed, they said, “to bring productions up to right moral standards.” But what are right moral standards in the portrayal of crime or of night club life? Is night club life so essentially evil that it may never be portrayed? Are gangster pictures immoral unless the gangster is made out to be a detestable skunk? If so, Macbeth was not written “up to right moral standards,” for the murdering pair in it are far from hateful! It has been claimed that the Catholic Church suffered “a humiliating defeat” in its anti-movie campaign and that the whole spectacle was Gilbertian and “illustrated vividly the bankruptcy of Church leadership and intelligence.” The fact that box-office receipts showed no falling off is brought forward as a fact to substantiate this point of view.

On the other hand, Catholic leaders have claimed that the victory is complete and the objective gained. “Give credit where credit is due,” says Father R. E. Moore. “The producers have cooperated. Without this cooperation no clean-up would have been possible and let us not cavil about motives. Today the leaven of the nation’s screen entertainment is immeasurably higher than it was before the Legion of Decency began its campaign.” Rabbis and Protestant ministers, who took their part in the movement, also declare that the moral tone of the movies is higher. The producers say that the movement cost them $10,000,000 in expenses incurred by recasting some films and scrapping others.

In any case, the result of the campaign is not to be judged solely by improvement in moral tone. The campaign was a trial of strength for the Church and an exercise in mobilization. The Church succeeded in demonstrating both her power and her capacity in organizing. Today she is immensely stronger for the display she gave in these respects. Furthermore, she showed her skill in hoodwinking the public and seizing authority to put over her own moral views on the whole nation. Not a Jew or Protestant or freethinker in America but has had to submit to the Church’s dictation as to what is right and what is wrong for him.or her to witness or the screen.

In the name of Public Safety the Church has laid the foundations of a far-reaching censorship of manners and morals. What she has done in the field of the motion picture industry she will presently attempt and achieve in other fields, especially that of literature.

She means to be the official censor of America.

In time the turn of science and philosophy will come and the Church will take steps to eradicate “error” from the schools and universities. As I have already said, “error has no rights in her eyes.” Being “the Pillar and the ground of truth,” it is her mission and her duty to make truth prevail and to vanquish its contradictory. The day when the schools and colleges are purified in this sense is still far off, no doubt, but the Church is patient and long-lived.

What man in Boston wields more power that Cardinal O’Connell? Who in Chicago is stronger than Cardinal Mundelein? Who in New York City than Cardinal Hayes? In Philadelphia, Cardinal Dougherty is a power, and in Baltimore Archbishop Curley—and so on, in most of our great cities, the Roman pennant flies! At the voice of a priest the Senate of the United States was cowed into rejecting the World Court on which it was set. We have seen but the beginnings of the age of priestly control. Our books, our theaters, our amusements are under the Church’s scrutiny, and what force can prevent her from doing as she will “in the name of Public Safety”?

(To be continued.)

All chapters of Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett

Continued from Chapter II. Catholic Action.

“THE Catholic Church, since her emergence as the most powerful society in America, has until recently been singularly inactive in the field of Social Justice. Although a large percentage of her followers belong to the laboring classes, the Church has taken little interest in their problems. Her policy has been to side with the moneyed and privileged class and to frown upon the proletariat. Some of her most conspicuous leaders, such as Cardinal O’Connell, for instance, have been mouthpieces for the principles of the bankers. Very few have consistently advocated industrial and social reform.

It is true that the Church has been shrewd enough to pay lip service to elementary principles of Social Justice. Thus in 1919 the bishops, in a pastoral, declared: “The laborer’s right to a decent livelihood is the first moral charge upon industry.” Catholic preachers and Catholic journals have from time to time referred to the social program of Leo XIII and his encyclical on Labor. One journal, America (a Jesuit publication), boasts that for a quarter of a century it has advocated “collective bargaining, the right of labor to organize, decent working conditions and a living wage for all.” But though there be a few pastorals and paragraphs to the credit of the Church’s interest in Social Justice, there was never a drive of Catholic Action to curb the capitalist or defend the exploited worker. Such drives are reserved for objectives that the Church considers more important.

American labor, Catholic and non-Catholic, has not been blind to the indifference, and indeed the hypocrisy, of the Catholic Church. Here was a Church, wealthy and powerful, that professed to be “the friend of the poor” and that preached charity and justice, and yet favored the oppressor and neglected the oppressed. Workers beheld cardinals, bishops, monsignori gorgeously attired, ceremoniously waited upon, sumptuously banqueted, palatially housed, transported in limousines, sedulously careful not to hurt the feelings of their millionaire patrons and friends, and yet pretending at the same time to have the interests of the poor at heart! Their real interest was to safeguard the status quo in which they throve, to defend the social order that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. No wonder the Church, with her harsh denunciations of Socialism, became an eyesore to the American workers.

Pius XI, referring to the fact that so many Catholics have “deserted the camp of the Church and passed over to the ranks of socialism,” alleging, as their reason for doing so, that “the Church and those professing attachment to the Church favor the rich and neglect workingmen,” admits that “some” Catholics were unjust to their employees. “Such men,” he added, “are the cause that the Church, without deserving it, may have the appearance and be accused of taking sides with the wealthy and of being little moved by the needs and sufferings of the disinherited.” How many American Catholic workers would agree with Pius XI that the charge against the Church which he recapitulates is undeserved?

The answer that the Church makes, in this country and elsewhere, to the charge that she has neglected the cause of the poor is to point to her hundreds of hospitals and charitable institutions, and her organizations (such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society) for distributing relief. But this answer is not to the point. In fact, it is no answer at all!

No one in his senses would condemn the Church for her works of mercy. So far as they go they are entirely admirable. But they do not even touch the fringe of the social problem. What comfort is it to the tens of millions of exploited workers to know that there is a Catholic food and clothes dole awaiting tens of thousands who are in uttermost distress? It would, on the other hand, be a comfort to them to know that the Catholic Church was fighting with all her might, tooth and nail, against the conditions that produce hunger and nakedness; that priests and bishops, with their coats off, were united in a mighty drive, at the head of their followers, to insist that justice be done to the workingman. But the Church never espoused the cause of the poor in the only manner that was worth while, either in this or in any other country.

The Catholic Church in America has been as cold and indifferent to and as neglectful of the worker as of the Negro. She is ready to admit, and actually does admit, her shameful neglect of the latter but not of the former. Yet everyone knows that the colored man and the grimy, toil-stained man have been treated by her with like indifference.

If it be true, as the most loyal of American Catholic apologists, Dr. James J. Walsh, writes, that “Cardinals represent the spirit of the Church,” we have in Cardinal O’Connell’s attitude towards capital and labor an insight into that spirit. The Cardinal, as we shall see later, is the epitome of oldfashioned snobbishness and conservatism; an unfailing friend of the aristocrat, the capitalist and the banker, and an unwavering opponent of the cause of labor. He has preached in his cathedral against the workers and lauded the rich. He had the effrontery, in 1930, to preach in the presence of Mr. Green and other officials of the A. F. of L. of the “interest of the Church in labor.” The message he gave to the A. F. of L. was to surrender, or as he put it, to “co-operate with Capital.”

Cardinal O’Connell, as dean and ranking leader of the hierarchy, for twenty years has guided the policy of the Catholic Church here. That policy has been to conciliate the rich and to milk the poor. The Church, which insists on “Sharing the wealth” of all her children, looks askance at workers who teach socialistic doctrines of distribution of unearned riches.

Writes a Catholic who professes his readiness to die for the Church or the Pope?: “We find no solid union of Catholics fighting against the present immoral capitalistic system. We find no solidarity of the faithful in an attempt to bring to this earth the City of God. No, we find only harmless ‘clean-movie’ drives! What kind of [Catholic] action is it that allows textile mill operatives to be treated like slaves? What kind of Catholicism is it that softly closes its eyes at the diurnal exploitation of the proletariat on the part of the capitalist overlords? You know what kind of Catholicism it is. It is that of which the Marxist can well say, ‘religion is the dope of the people.’ ”

The writer, a student of Columbia University, quotes effectively in his letter from great Catholic theologians who taught that poverty was a source of temptation and an evil state from which one should try to escape. He contrasts this teaching with that of Cardinal O’Connell and with the practice of the Church in America, and winds up: “Do not chide Father Coughlin. Raise up twenty Coughlins. Instead of one fighting priest let us have twenty fighting bishops. That is what Catholicism means today!” It would be easy to quote from scores of Catholic correspondents remarks similar to those of the Columbia student. It is evident that there is widespread shame among thoughtful Catholics over the conduct of the Church in regard to labor.

But now a change or what looks like a change has come about suddenly. What is its meaning? Whence comes the reversal of the time-honored policy of avoiding any action that capital would find disagreeable? Whence this seething newborn zeal for Social Justice? Bishops, Jesuits, Calvert Associates and Knights of Columbus are tumbling over one another in a mad rush to grasp the hand of the worker and slap him on the back! Today nothing is too good for labor; nothing too bad to be said about capitalists!

The plain fact is that the American bishops have taken fright. They found that they had lost influence with their own Catholic workers and were hated and despised by non-Catholic workers. It became evident that they could never hope to pursue successfully their great schemes unless the workers were conciliated and persuaded to envisage the Church with a more friendly eye. The situation had become very desperate and only desperate remedies were worth trying. The Church commenced her great campaign on the industrial front forthwith, and proclaimed a “new deal” for Labor. She is determined to make a bid at being “the worker’s Church.”

The papal encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno” made a timely appearance. It was completed in May, 1931, and placed in the hands of the American bishops as an instrument of propaganda. It is an astute document, capable of being interpreted in a liberal sense; capable also of being employed as a check to radicalism. It enfolds splendid shibboleths and a few fiery phrases to arouse labor to a sense of the “progressiveness” of Rome. On the other hand, it is drawn up with an eye to conserving all the important interests of capital. It is both liberal and conservative; profound and platitudinous; practical and too general for application. It is called, for the purposes of Catholic propaganda, “a charter of freedom for the worker,” but in reality it is a sheet anchor for the old social order of capitalism and competition.

The encyclical offered a glorious opportunity for priests with the gift of eloquence, or the itch to write, to win fame and publicity. Bishops and superiors let them go ahead, and “red” sermons were delivered under the high vaults of Catholic cathedrals. With obvious guilelessness the learned Jesuit Father L. K. Patterson wrote in America: “Now is the time for Catholic priests and scholars to speak out fearlessly in defense of Social Justice. A mere banal enunciation of general principles is not sufficient; we must be ruthless in applying ‘Quadragesimo Anno’ to concrete conditions. Little or nothing in the New Deal seems radical in the light of that Encyclical. Indeed, one wonders if it goes far enough… . Educated Catholics, where do you stand? We can break the grip of privilege; and the sway of selfish groups; unhorse the munition makers; if we but really desire to do so. Thus we will forestall the ‘hatchet-man’!”

The “new deal” that the Catholic Church is offering to the American worker is propagandized by The Catholic Worker of New York. This clever and piously-bright paper plays up the “advanced” doctrines and dicta of the clergy. It gives Father Haas, for example, two columns for his attack on the manner in which Section 7-A has been administered, and another column for his plea for a $2,500 a year “family wage” for workers. “All American workers must be assured of a yearly income that will maintain them at a decent standard of living and this amount should be set at not less than $2,500 (a livable family income in 1946).”

The most revealing contribution (in the March issue) is one from a Jesuit, Father Winter, who is busy of late organizing unemployed in Denver. He started a “Catholic Worker’s Protective Alliance” which he says “does the same work for the jobless as the Communists do, sending committees to the relief stations, insisting on fair play, visiting families who appeal to us.” Father Winter has so closely copied the kindness and charity of the Communists that he proudly boasts: “They said Father Winter is a Communist but does not know it!” He goes on to report that many men have come back to the Church because “at last the Church is doing something for the unemployed.” Then follows the revealing sentence which tells of some of his men who were formerly Communists: “They give their coal, their food, their days and nights to the work, just as they did when they were with the Communists.”

Whether the American workers will be won over by the pious camaraderie of Dorothy Day of The Catholic Worker, the roseate promises of Father Haas, the pseudo~-Communist charities of Father Winter, and the “red paragraphs” of the Pope’s encyclical remains to be seen. But it is likely that the Church will have to devise some more original and some more substantial bait for them before they troop in millions to the shelter of her fold.

A contributor to the American Mercury calls the Catholic campaign to win the workers a “counter-attack.” “In the past few years, with Father Coughlin in the van, numerous Catholic leaders have been not at all backward in denouncing the present social order. They employ the Pope’s words, in his famous labor encyclical, “the tyrannical despotism” of capitalism. Some of the statements of these priests and lay spokesmen sound more like Union Square diatribes than utterances of the most conservative religionists. To say the least, they have done their part well in the counter-attack of the Church.”

We turn now to the encyclical itself, “Quadragesimo Anno,” the basis of Catholic labor doctrine; the instrument that Pius XI put into the hands of the American Church for the conquest of the workers.

In effect it is both a treatise on industrialism and social ethics, and a political document. In its latter aspect, which we shall deal with in a subsequent chapter, it is Catholic Fascism; in its former aspect it is age-old Thomism (the philosophical and theological school of Thomas Aquinas), changeless, conservative and unimaginative.

We notice that Pius XI, early in his letter, lays claim to divine authority to teach the true eternal doctrine of industrial ethics. “We lay down the principle, long since clearly established by Leo XIII, that it is Our right and Our duty to deal authoritatively with social and economic problems.” We propose to omit from this brief analysis the many touching and edifying aphorisms on charity and morals, and the many laudatory references to Leo XIII and Pius X. “Economic life must be inspired by Christian principles” summarizes the mystical elements of the encyclical.

Pius XI does not lighten the burden of religious duty that his predecessors placed on the backs of Catholic workers. For instance, he insists that the labor unions they join should be Catholic, or at very least “Christian.” Never may Catholic workers join “un-Christian” (Socialist) unions. If there be none but “neutral” unions, the workers must seek the permission of their bishops before joining. Pius writes: “These {neutral unions} should always respect justice and equity and leave their Catholic members full freedom to follow the dictates of their conscience and obey the precepts of the Church. It belongs to the Bishops to permit Catholic workingmen to join these Unions, where they judge that circumstances render it necessary, and there appears no danger for religion, observing however the rules and precautions recommended by Our Predecessor of saintly memory, Pius X.”

Practically speaking, this paragraph (with the final ominous insistence on obedience to the reactionary Pius X’s rules and precautions) excludes Catholic workers from all American labor unions. There is not one that meets all the requirements of Pius X and Pius XI.

Curiously enough, although Pius XI desiderates (wishes to see) “Associations of Employers,” he lays down no rules or precautions whereby the Catholic industrial magnate should go on his knees to his bishop before joining his “Association.” There is one law for the poor Catholic worker and another for the Catholic millionaire!

In the papal estimation, “Associations of Employers” are presumed to have “respect for justice and equity” while “Labor Unions” are presumed to have no such virtue.

“Quadragesimo Anno” contains, as we have stated, some fine outbursts of liberal sentiment. Pius XI waves the red flag in half a dozen paragraphs. With holy wrath he denounces certain financial monsters. He points a warning finger at some abuses of government. How he undoes all the good effect of this bravery we shall see later.

Here then is Pius XI, the friend of the worker. “The immense number of propertyless wage-earners on the one hand, and the superabundant riches of the fortunate few on the other is an unanswerable argument that earthly goods so abundantly produced in this age of industrialism are far from rightly distributed and equitably shared among various classes of men.”

Again: “It is patent that in our days not only is wealth accumulated but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few. .. . This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able to govern credit… This accumulation of power, the characteristic note of the modern economic order, is a natural result of limitless free competition which permits the survival of those only who are the strongest, which often means those who fight most relentlessly, who pay least heed to the dictates of conscience . . . the whole economic life has become hard, cruel, and relentless in a ghastly measure . . . the intermingling and scandalous confusion of duties and offices of civil authority and of economics has produced crying evils and has gone so far as to degrade the majesty of the State.”

Again: “Certain forms of property must be reserved to the State since they carry with them an opportunity of domination too great to be left to private individuals without injury to the country at large.”

Again: “Every effort must be made that at least in future a just share only of the fruits of production be permitted to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy and that an ample sufficiency be supplied to the workingmen.”

Added to these resounding trumpet calls, we have many wise if unoriginal platitudes, for instance: “It would be well if various nations in common counsel and endeavor strove to promote a healthy economic cooperation by prudent pacts and institutions, since in economic matters they are largely dependent one upon the other, and need one another’s help.”

From the foregoing one might expect that His Holiness would proceed to declare that the capitalistic system was in general unjust; that the wage-contract in common use was neither just nor valid inasmuch as one party to the contract has to sign under moral duress; that “the superabundant riches of the fortunate few” should be forfeited and shared; that free competition should be ruthlessly restricted. But, to the reader’s astonishment and disappointment, Pius XI goes on to justify the actual status quo. On every point indicated he retreats hastily from the advanced posts he seemed to have occupied, and takes shelter in downright reaction.

Here then is Pius XI, the upholder of the capitalist and the enemy of labor. “The [capitalistic} system is not to be condemned. And surely it is not vicious of its very nature.” Continuing, in an involved, casuistic sentence, he explains that “it violates right order” when it takes every advantage to itself and completely disregards social justice, the common good and the human dignity of the worker. Pius XI does not assert that this actually happens, nor does he admit that anything short of these enormities would be “a violation of right order.”

As regards “free competition” he declares that “within certain limits it is just and productive of good results.” He does not say what the “limits” are; only it should not be “the ruling principle” of economic life.

Next as regards the vital matter of the wage-contract: “Those who hold that the wage-contract is essentially unjust and that in its place must be introduced the contract of partnership are certainly in error.”

Again: “Entirely false is the principle widely propagated today that the worth of labor and therefore the equitable return to be made for it, should equal the worth of its net result. Thus the right to the full product of his toil is claimed for the wage-earner. How erroneous this is appears from what we have written above concerning capital and labor.”

This condemnation is no doubt logical in the light of Thomistic principles of “ownership,” but it is harsh in the light of modern conditions and modern conceptions.

Let us proceed further. When Pius XI declares that “the wage paid to a workingman must be sufficient for the support of himself and his family,” he seems to be fair, if not generous, to the worker. But he follows up this declaration with the qualification: “It is right indeed that the rest of the family contribute according to their power toward the common maintenance.” He seems to imply that the employer is not bound to pay a full family wage to the father in the case where some of the children, or perhaps the wife, is earning.

Pius XI takes an unequivocal stand against “excessive” wages, if indeed such are ever paid. He says: “All are aware that a scale of wages too low no less than too high causes unemployment. . . . To lower or raise wages unduly with a view to private profit and with no consideration for the common good, is contrary to social justice.”

Pius XI is adamant as regards the rights of property-owners. “It belongs to commutative justice to respect the possessions of others.” He teaches also that “the misuse or non-use of ownership does not destroy the right itself” . . . “it is unlawful for the State to exhaust the means of individuals by crushing taxes and tributes” . . . “man’s natural right of possessing and transmitting property by inheritance cannot be taken away by the State from man.”

Pius admits that the State may (“provided the natural and divine law be observed”) specify more accurately what is licit and what is illicit for property-owners “in the use of their possessions,” but he hastens to add that “it is plain that the State may not discharge this duty in an arbitrary way.” The encyclical has been written into the Congressional Record at the instance of Huey Long, whose “Share the Wealth” program it very pointedly blasts!

All this teaching implies that the “fortunate few” may continue to hold their “superabundant riches” with the Pope’s blessing subject only to the obligations of charity and of “certain other virtues.” In strict justice they are not bound either to use their wealth well or to make any use of it at all. With regard to superfluous income, if, instead of devoting it to the general good, the owner invests it “in searching favorable opportunities for employment, provided the labor employed produces results that are really useful,” he meets all the ‘demands of virtue. The State may of course tax property but not unduly, nor may the State interfere in an “arbitrary way” in directing how superfluous income or property be employed.

Such is a brief analysis of what has so falsely been called a “charter of freedom” for the worker and “the death-knell of the capitalist.” It is precisely the kind of worker’s charter that one might expect to emanate from the mind of a priestly capitalist and an infallible autocrat.

“Quadragesimo Anno” has, of course, been lauded to the skies by others than Catholics. There are few members of President Roosevelt’s Cabinet who have not sung its praises. In a recent interview* Senator Gerald P. Nye called it “the most magnificent contribution to social and economic reconstruction which it had been my privilege to study.” General Hugh S. Johnson referred to it as a document “unsurpassed by the mind of man.”

None the less, it seems to the present writer that “Quadragesimo Anno” teaches “Social Order” rather than “Social Justice.” No intelligent worker, who studied its contents, would be content to abide by its doctrines or would see in them any broadening of his hopes.

Nevertheless, on account of its “purple patches,” coming as it does from a Pope of Rome, it makes an excellent basis for Catholic propaganda. One can figure a Catholic spellbinder addressing a mob of unemployed: “Hear what the Pope says —and you know how careful Popes are not to overstate a case! ‘The whole economic life has become hard, cruel, and relentless in a ghastly degree’! What do you think of that? Hear him again! ‘Immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few’—he says ‘despotic domination’ and he means it! He says, ‘In future a just share only of the fruits of production will be permitted to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy and an ample sufficiency must be supplied to the workingmen!? What about that? What’s wrong with the Pope or the Catholic Church?”

Continued in Chapter IV. Public Safety

All chapters of Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett

Continued from Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett.

CATHOLIC Action is best described as the new phase of Catholicism. There was always something kindred to it in the Catholic Church, but it is only in recent times that it has become an instrument of social power which obtrudes itself daily on the notice of the public. In America it is a force that has to be reckoned with; a force that is applied here, there and everywhere. It does not always succeed, nor is it always wisely applied, but no thoughtful American can deny its startling significance.

In theory, Catholic Action is the work and service of lay Catholics in the cause of religion, under the guidance of the bishops. In practice it is the Catholic group fighting their way to control America. In this fight they are far from disregarding the noble cause of humanitarianism. Catholics can point to as many constructive works of charity as any other religious group. But the motif latent in Catholic Action is not pure humanitarianism. It is a sterner and more practical purpose.

In medieval times the Church gained supremacy in various countries through her influence over nobles and soldiers. Today she aims at the old supremacy by mass action of her organized subjects, and by systematic penetration of various groupings. Writing of the need of trained propagandists in the “apostolate of industry,” the present Pope states: “Undoubtedly the first and immediate apostle of the working men must themselves be working men, while the apostles of the industrial and commercial world should themselves be employers and merchants. It is your chief duty, Venerable Brethren, and that of your clergy to seek diligently, to select prudently, and train fittingly these lay apostles amongst working men and employers.”

Though Catholic laymen as such have no jurisdiction in the Church, they are today the chief agents in the work and development of the Church. They are ready and willing to help the great cause. Priests and bishops mingle with them, guiding and advising them, and taking the lead openly when important issues are at stake. But the heavy work, the spade work, is done by the laity, men and women, to whom “the Catholic Cause” appeals.

There was a time—it is now past—when only pious Catholics took part in the work of the Church. But today many Catholics who cannot qualify as pious are busy about Catholic Action. Catholicism, in America at least, has ceased to be a matter of religious observance. Catholicism now is something that partakes of clannishness, and that is constituted in large part by social and political and “club” affiliations. Among the hundreds of Catholic leaders who are outstanding for their loyalty to the cause are to be found quite a few who have little if any regard for Catholic doctrines or observances. Catholic Action would be a far less serious factor in this country were its only agents pious and devout Catholics. The starting point of the wave of Catholic Action in this country may be traced back to the inauguration of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in 1921. On that occasion Archbishop Hanna declared: “We have co-ordinated and united the Catholic power of this country. It now knows where and when to act and is encouraged by the consciousness of its unity. We feel ourselves powerful because our reunion has become visible.” From that day Catholic strength has grown apace, and Catholic organizations have multiplied.

In no country of the world is there such thoroughgoing organization as among American Catholics. Every class, every cross section of sex, occupation, age and local affiliation is appropriately grouped. From “hello-girls” to dentists, from poets to policemen, Catholics are billeted in their societies and taught to be “Catholic-conscious.” There are clubs or guilds or confraternities of Catholic lawyers, nurses, writers, army officers, naval officers, customs officers, stenographers, factory girls, and so forth. Some societies are nationwide, like the Holy Name, with 2,000,000 members; the Knights of Columbus, with 500,000; the Sacred Heart League; the National Council of Catholic Men; the National Council of Catholic Women; and the Catholic Daughters of America, to mention but a few.

New organizations spring into existence every month. Only last May (1935) a “Catholic War Veterans Association” was established under the patronage of Bishop Molloy of Brooklyn. Already it has several “posts” and it aims at becoming not only a nation-wide but an international organization. Women auxiliaries are attached to the “posts” under the snappy name of “Yeomanettes.” “I am sure,” announced the chaplain, Father Higgins, “that we will have the holy backing of Cardinal Hayes and that the entire hierarchy will likewise approve.” Contemporaneously with the Catholic War Veterans, the Catholic College Graduates felt inspired to do more than they were doing for Catholic Action and to set up a new organization, so that their leadership in Catholic life might become more effective. Father Parsons S. J.;,” explaining the new move, writes: “After all the big trends are the result of big men and big influences, and we must not blame the graduate if he himself feels that the tremendous forces that are within him as a result of his Catholic culture have not been released for the benefit of his country and our civilization. … Organize! Pool the intellects and the wills of as many of the graduates as can be got together. Give them a common objective. Fire their imaginations with the vision of a great movement which takes its roots from deep within the traditions that formed our Western civilization. Let them be daring. Let them be even revolutionary if the need be for that,” (italics ours).

The rank and file of Catholics realize very clearly the power that comes from union, and the importance of organization. As an example of Catholic insight into the value of standing together, I quote from the remarks made at a Bronx Holy Name meeting by one of the officers. “Catholic men,” he said, “should unite in order to be able to tell legislatures that they must not introduce bills which are inimical to the ideals of the family or the ideals of the Catholic Church. They should organize so as to be strong enough to insist that school teachers who teach ‘pernicious doctrines’ be removed.”

The words “strength,” “power,” “organization” are an ever-present refrain in addresses delivered at Catholic society meetings. Speakers harp on these words and stir up in their hearers a sense of solidarity and a fighting spirit. According to Cardinal Hayes, it is “praiseworthy and important” for Catholics “to portray the majesty, the dignity, the power and the growth of Catholic life.” To err on the side of modesty in such a matter is less a virtue than a sin.

“We must have great numbers, but they must be intelligent numbers,” said District Attorney William F. X. Geoghan at a Knights of Columbus rally in Brooklyn. “It should be realized that with an increase in numbers we shall greatly increase our strength and power for good … We should bear in mind that in the future we may wish to seek State Aid for our Catholic educational system.”

The scope of Catholic Action is so immense and varied that it is quite impossible to deal comprehensively with it in one chapter. It reaches out into every field, from literature to athletics, from interpreting Catholic liturgy to picketing consulates, from training Girl Scouts to heckling Communists. It opposes here; it supports there. It is constructive and destructive; it recompenses and it punishes; it fills mailbags and closes theaters. In later chapters we shall deal with some of its largest manifestations, in reference to. Mexico, Birth Control, Neo-Paganism, and other matters. Here we shall deal mainly with its tendencies and characteristics.

As an example of the wide scope of a Catholic society devoted to Catholic Action, we may take the work done by the Catholic Daughters of America for the year 1933-34. During the year the members of the “courts” of this society subscribed $925,124 for educational and “benevolent” activities. Of this sum $20,000 went to Rome for “welfare work”; $21,000, for Catholic Church Extension; and $25,000 to the Knights of Columbus. During the ten years 1924-1934, almost $5,000,000 was subscribed by the Daughters for these and other like objects.

During the year in question, one hundred of the Daughters entered convents; others worked (in 45 states) in Convert Leagues; Social Study Clubs; Catholic Press, Welfare, and Legislation Committees, and other such activities. Thousands of members devote their time to organizing retreats; giving catechetical instruction; and teaching in religious vacation schools. It was considered by the Supreme Directorate that the annual report demonstrated “the unlimited resourcefulness and marvelous courage of the personnel of the C. D. of A.”

Catholic Action is busy, all over the country, about libraries, Catholic colleges, Newman Clubs, vocations, public morals, politics of course, and every form of human activity. “A Catholic bookshelf in the public library is the way Catholics of Dubuque, Iowa, have solved the problem of the dissemination of Catholic literature,” writes a correspondent to America. Elsewhere the same problem is solved by the surreptitious removal of anti-Catholic books and the demand on the part of Catholics for pro-Catholic books which forces the hands of librarians. When colleges need funds to extend, a meeting of laymen is arranged and a drive for funds is organized. The more prominent Catholic laymen are “selected” by the local Church authorities to lead the drive. Thus, recently, when Seyton Hall, South Orange, needed a new gymnasium (to cost $250,000), one hundred and fifty laymen were “selected” to collect the money. More nuns are required and a group of Catholic ladies open a recruiting office in the Bronx called “The Little Flower Mission Circle” and ship four hundred girls to convents within nine years. At Malvern, Long Island, the Board of Education decided, with reason, that Newman Clubs in public high schools were against the state law and forbade them. The pastor, Father Burke, and a local politician, Major Murray, took up the challenge. Father Burke made the extraordinary claim that Newman Clubs are not “under the auspices of the Catholic Church” and the matter became a political issue in the local elections. Meanwhile Father A. J. Owen, a Jesuit, writes to America (a Jesuit publication) urging Catholics to interfere in the affairs of public schools even though they do not (and of course should not) send their children to them. He finds fault with Catholics for neglecting to watch over the morals and religious interests of non-Catholic children. “This neglect on the part of Catholics in many communities has allowed subversive elements to control schools and has naturally led to abuses which are daily becoming more evident. Such abuses will continue until every Catholic realizes his right and duty to concern himself with the educational system his taxes indirectly and directly support. The exercise of this right and the fulfillment of this obligation clearly come within the scope of positive Catholic Action.”

This brings us to the burning topic of Catholic claims and Catholic Action in the field of Education.

Catholics lose no opportunity of denouncing State schools as godless and demoralizing. They insist that there should be religious education given to all. “Education without God,” they say, “is Education without Education.” They point out that “God is written into the Constitution” and that it is unconstitutional and un-American to exclude the teaching of God’s word and the inculcation of divine worship in schools paid for by the citizens. It is to this point of view that Father Owen refers in his letter given above. Another prominent Catholic, Professor F. X. Polo, states the position thus: “An adequate method of bringing the necessary knowledge of God to American youth is the core of the question of including the teaching of religion in the curriculum of our splendid public school system. It would be an astounding anomaly and a disastrous tragedy in the life cycle of America if we raised up at public expense a youth entirely ignorant of the God who is written very definitely into our fundamental law as the Creator and Author of the laws of Nature and the Source of our inalienable rights.”

I dwell on this Catholic policy of “interfering” in the curriculum of public schools in order to contrast it with the definite stand against any interference whatsoever on the part of the State or the public with the curriculum of their own Catholic schools.

The Church has always opposed the setting up of a Federal Department of Education lest it might give Federal authorities the right to meddle with parochial schools or colleges. When Mussolini declared to the Pope that the State was supreme in education and that in this matter he was “intractable,” the Pope (giving a lead to Catholic bishops the world over) replied: “We can never agree to anything that restricts or denies the right given by God to the Church and the family in the field of education. On this point we are not merely intractable, we are uncompromising.”

In order to have complete control of the education of Catholic children, the Church in America had Catholic schools and colleges built, at Catholic expense, and of course with the sole object of accommodating Catholics. The State did not interfere, beyond pointing out that it could not constitutionally support such private sectarian schools with public moneys. To do that would be to endow a particular religious faith and to nullify both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.

In time, as Catholics grew bolder, they began to make claims against the State, saying: “We educate 2,500,000 American children and save the State $265,000,000 yearly. In the meantime we pay taxes to support the Public Schools which our children do not attend. This is unfair. We are doubly taxed. The State should aid our schools.” Writes Michael Williams”: “Catholics do call attention to the fact that in justice they have the right to compensation for the expense involved in setting up their own schools and in giving education in citizenship,” (italics ours).

In other words, the Church demands that she have the exclusive right to decide when and where and how to erect schools (without any reference whatsoever to taxpayers) and that the taxpayer should be compelled to foot the bill. What in essence she demands is the imposition on non-Catholic citizens of the odious injustice of “taxation without representation.”

Is the Church serious about this claim? The answer is to be found in the recent effort made in the Ohio Legislature to have the Davis School Aid Bill passed. This bill was designed to give “emergency aid” to the amount of about $2,000,000 to the Catholic parochial schools of Ohio. For two years the Catholics have prepared for the fight in the House of Representatives. In the elections they secured pledges from nearly fifty members to support the bill. In the Senate the Davis Bill passed, 17 votes for and 15 against. However, it was blocked in the House of Representatives, 86 against and 42 for. Says the Catholic News: “Bigotry and fear of political consequences combined to deny the Parochial Schools the temporary aid which they sought from the State.” Catholics attributed the defeat of what they considered a perfectly just and constitutional bill to the venom and hatred of their enemies. They lauded a Protestant, Mr. H. H. Root, for printing and circulating at his own expense 75,000 postcards that were used in flooding the mailbags of members of the Houses, in favor of the measure.

A bill which was no less unconstitutional, though less serious in scope, the Kelly-Corbett Transportation Bill, designed to give Catholic schoolchildren the right to use public school busses in going to school, passed both Houses in Albany recently but was vetoed by Governor Lehman to the immense annoyance and disappointment of New York Catholics. Had it received the Governor’s signature and become a state law, Catholic Action would have won its first skirmish against the “tolerance” provisions of the Constitution.

Needless to say the Catholic fight for state aid for parochial schools is only in its first phase. Every year, from now on, we shall see the fight renewed until victory is achieved.

Catholic Action is essentially optimistic, bold, and at times reckless. Nowhere is there a braver or more hopeful spirit than among American Catholics. They feel or proclaim they feel on the upgrade. “All is well” all the time with them. Among them critics and doubting Thomases are few and inarticulate. On his seventy-seventh birthday, which he celebrated recently, Mgr. Lavelle of St. Patrick’s told reporters: “There has never been a period in our recollection when Catholics were more devoted to their duties and their Holy Faith.” Catholics are marching into battle today with cheery songs on their lips. They pay little heed to the few croakers who mourn the “terrible leakages” in their ranks. Their esprit de corps is excellent.

Their boldness in planning is exceptional. Gigantic undertakings are faced without faltering. “We Catholics,” writes John Wiltbye, “undertake the most impossible things, and in the current patois, we generally get away with them.” Schemes that other organizations would shrink from undertaking are commonplace among Catholics. As an example we may take the March (1935) “Drive for Action” of the Knights of Columbus. This “mobilization” was planned to embrace the United States and Canada, and the two countries were divided up into twenty-six areas. Each area was placed in charge of a distinguished layman, a general, judge, senator, corporation president, ex-mayor or ex-governor. The purpose of the drive was manifold, embracing the chief items of nation-wide Catholic Action, and an increase of membership for the order itself. The mobilization headquarters was located in the Empire State Building, of which the Chairman of the Board, Mr. A. E. Smith, is a leading Knight. The Supreme Knight, Martin H. Carmody, put before the organization the purpose of raising the membership from 500,000 to 1,000,000, and added: “The campaign is not simply for the purpose of getting new members for the Order but to supply a greater and stronger co-operation between the laity and the heads of the diocese and parish.”

His Holiness, through Cardinal Pacelli, wrote a long letter expressing “high approbation” of the Knights and keen interest in their work: “It is my earnest hope and fervent prayer that this laudable endeavor to enroll the Catholic manhood of North America in the ranks of the Knights of Columbus may be a brilliant success. .. . The need is great: the present challenges to Catholic Action.”

In the first week of the “drive” about 10,000 new members were enrolled, which was claimed as a record: “the largest number of new members to join an organization in so short a period in the history of fraternal movements” (Supreme Knight Carmody). Apropos of the drive, Mr. Michael F. Walsh, State Deputy of New York, speaking in the Columbus Club, Brooklyn (April 1), is reported in the Press thus: “When I appeal to you for increased membership, I hasten to explain that we are not anxious to bring within our ranks a mob thirsty for destruction. If we can attract other men into our organization we will have accomplished Catholic Action.”

What is noteworthy about such Catholic enterprises is the speed with which “the call” is spread among Catholics in every corner of the country, and the enthusiasm with which Catholic journals, Catholic broadcasting stations and Catholic pulpits lend support in disseminating suitable propaganda.

We turn now to some characteristics of Catholic Action and consider it first under its punitive or retaliatory aspect. When Catholic sensibilities are “outraged” vengeance in some appropriate form is taken. When remarks made in Mexico by Ambassador Daniels were considered by Catholics here to be laudatory of the Calles regime, he was promptly denounced and a clamor for his recall was raised. Alderman Deutsch was brought to book by Catholics on a like charge. He did not see eye to eye with them about Mexico and he was chastened for it. Dr. Charles L. Fama, of New York City, was appointed to a public office by Mayor LaGuardia and it was recalled by Catholics that in times past he had “attacked” the Catholics. The Mayor was called upon to oust him from office. Alderman Hart, as Catholic spokesman, declared: “There is no room in this country for intolerance; there is no room on the payroll of this city for a bigot.” Meanwhile the Board of Estimates withholds Dr. Fama’s salary!

The Protestant Defense League tried to interest Senator Borah in investigating “religious persecution in New York” as a preliminary to the investigation of “religious persecution in Mexico” but the Senator declined to act. He is reported as telling the League that the investigation would be a “delicate” matter! The Press of New York displayed little inclination either to take up the cause of Dr. Fama or to back the demand of the Protestant League. What Heywood Broun wrote a few years back is still apparently true: “Every New York editor lives in terror of the Catholic group.”

Those who have had the misfortune to deliver lectures or to publish articles critical of some phase of Catholicism have experienced in abundance the punitive character of Catholic Action—shoals-of abusive letters, the majority of which are anonymous—offensive remarks over the telephone—cancellation of business deals—and threats of various kinds. No other religious group in America displays so sensitive a concern about “the honor” of its creed as does the Catholic. “Catholics,” wrote Mr. H. L. Mencken, “take criticism very badly.” He might have said that they do not take it at all; they refuse to take it and hurl it back at the critic’s head.

The well-known sensitivity of Catholics to anything that even remotely seems to reflect on their religion brings about ludicrous situations at times. One of these situations is described in a paragraph of the New Yorker entitled “Vegetables.” The story has to do with a sister magazine, Vogue, belonging to the Condé Nast organization. It happened that Vogue purchased from Anton Bruehl a picture of a crib made out of vegetables. It was an interesting and quite inoffensive piece of art but a member of the Condé Nast staff expressed horror at the implied irreverence and warned that there would be Catholic reactions if the picture were published. She, as a pious Catholic, considered it a sacrilege to build a crib out of vegetables instead of ordinary bits of straw and wood. Some of the Condé Nast people sided with her; more thought her view absurd. Back of the concern over the issue was the latent fear of Catholic Action. As a compromise it was decided to consult Catholic ecclesiastical dignitaries on the matter. These accomplished theologians examined the picture carefully and gave it their imprimatur. Also they admitted frankly that only in the United States could such a question and such a situation have arisen.

Sensitivity to the Church’s honor, which flourishes in ignorant Catholics as well as in educated Catholics, makes it a perilous matter to give a lecture, however fair and impartial, on a Catholic subject unless one be a priest or a well-known Catholic. An incident will serve to illustrate the point. The present writer, in a public lecture, stated that professed fathers of the Society of Jesus took solemn vows in accordance with their Constitutions. He was at once interrupted by a militant Catholic who declared that it was a lie to say that the Jesuit Order had Constitutions. He added, which was not in question at the time, that he had known Jesuits all his life and that they were all saintly men. It was utterly useless to point out that the fact that there were Jesuit Constitutions was not derogatory to the Order and that the fact could be verified by visiting any important library and inspecting a copy of the said Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The interrupter, according to the accepted practice of Catholic Actionists involved in a public argument, held his ground in holy contempt of facts.

In her book My Fight for Birth Control, Margaret Sanger gives a comparatively recent example of the sinister in Catholic Action. It happened in connection with the raid on her Clinical Research Bureau on March 23, 1929. The police who searched her offices carried away confidential medical case records. When her lawyer protested to the magistrate that such records were “privileged,” he ordered them to be restored. When they were returned 150 case records were still missing and Mrs. Sanger never succeeded in recovering them. Whose records were they?

Soon Mrs. Sanger found out that the missing case records were those of Catholic women who had visited the clinic. Some of them came to tell her that “they had received mysterious and anonymous telephone calls telling them that if they continued to go to the clinic their cases would be exposed in the newspapers.” Mrs. Sanger maintains that the raid was engineered by “high Church authorities” for the very purpose that was accomplished, namely, of frightening off from it Catholic clients under threat of publicity. Mrs. Mary Sullivan, policewoman, was the Catholic hero of the fray.

Catholic Action is usually, but not always, unanimously endorsed by Catholics. Once in a while a dissenting minority is vocal among them. This is the case in the Catholic opposition to the Child Labor Amendment. Mgr. John A. Ryan, The Catholic Worker of New York, and a few individual Catholics like Frank P. Walsh support the measure but their influence is inconsiderable against that of Cardinal O’Connell, the dean of the hierarchy, Archbishop Glennon of St. Louis, and the other bishops.

The Catholic case against the amendment is that if it were adopted the authority of Catholic parents over their children would be imperiled. Father Corrigan, representing Cardinal O’Connell, gave evidence against the amendment at a legislative hearing in Boston and said that “if the Amendment became effective Washington authorities could decide whether a child should receive training in the religious faith of his parents.” The Catholic Press in general denounced the Amendment as “a practically irrevocable provision granting unlimited power over the youth of the country to Congress.” In New York it is recognized that the defeat of the Amendment was due “to the combined forces of manufacturers and many Catholic leaders, political and clerical.”

This opposition to a measure which appeals to the enlightened sentiment of the American people is an example of the narrow selfishness of Catholic Action. No matter how great the benefit of the Amendment to the people at large, the possibility of its endangering the Church’s influence under some utterly unlikely contingency, suffices to make Catholics oppose it.

In summing up the meaning and significance of Catholic Action in America it would be unfair and ungenerous not to acknowledge the fine citizenship and noble humanity of millions of Catholics who help support Catholic hospitals and charitable institutions; Catholic vacation schools, where 250,000 supplement their education; Catholic rural life bureaus and organizations; Catholic Boy and Girl Scout movements; and a thousand and one other undertakings of Catholic Action that improve the well-being of American citizens.

On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that Catholic Action as a whole is directed to the end of changing America, root and branch, into another people and another culture.

It goes on here, there, everywhere; restless and entirely irresistible; a potent and subtle force shaping anew our national destiny. Yet there is no one, as it seems, capable of appraising its significance and dramatizing its meaning for the understanding of the people.

Myopic political observers who smoke thoughtful cigarettes in editorial watchtowers wax excited over symptoms of passing political currents in the Middle West, but have neither the vision to see nor the art to interpret the most momentous thing that is happening today. Even the depression itself, great as are the effects that it has produced, and great as will be, in all likelihood, its further effects, is a matter of less consequence to the destiny of America than is the ever-deepening surge of Catholic Action.

Continued in Chapter III. Winning The Worker

All chapters of Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett

I got discouraged to see the article I just posted from The Converted Catholic Magazine, The Enigma of The Jesuits by J.J. Murphy, the same article I already posted from the Lutheran Library a year earlier! I found that article on onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. I deleted the older one because I think what I posted today to be better.

To my encouragement, on the April 1946 edition of The Converted Catholic Magazine I saw a list recommended books, and one of the books, Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett, looked interesting because it says that the author, E. Boyd Barrett, is an ex-Jesuit! I consider any former Catholic priest, especially ex-Jesuits, to be excellent sources of information. They are literally risking their lives to publish books like this!

Copyright, 1935, by JULIAN MESSNER, Inc.

CHAPTER I. Twilight Revolt

FROM an insignificant group of 25,000 adherents, shepherded by thirty poor priests, in 1789, the Catholic Church of America has grown to be a congregation of 20,000,000, led by thirty thousand priests. From being propertyless, she has become a rich institution, whose wealth exceeds two billion dollars. From being a despised and scattered flock, she has become the most perfectly organized body in the world enjoying immense influence and power. Bearing in mind her material and spiritual autonomy, her individualism, her close-knit interests and definite aims, her sharp separateness from all other institutions, one must regard her as a unique entity in the nation, an entity whose swift and ceaseless growth indicates a great destiny.

The American people watched with concern and suspicion the development of the Catholic Church in this country. They strove to thwart her growth with contempt and occasional blows. They had little sympathy for her. Wrote Cardinal Gibbons in 1876: “Upon the Church’s fair and heavenly brow her enemies put a hideous mask and in that guise exhibited her to the insults and mockery of the public.” Fifty years later the same kind of injustice was complained of by Archbishop McNicholas: “The Catholic Church has been held up to men as an object to be hated and feared. She has been described as anti-Christ; the epitome of evil. She has been scorned as an alien incapable of assimilating American ideals. She is said to await only the opportunity to effect the destruction of American institutions.”

But neither animosity nor injury succeeded in stemming the tide of Catholicism. The battle was lost. Irony, contempt and blows failed of their purpose. The “mustard seed” has grown into a mighty tree. Today the American people are silent about the Catholic Church: silent and apprehensive.

The Catholic Church has dug herself securely into American life and her social status has improved from year to year. She is highly esteemed for her good citizenship. In a hundred walks of life Catholics rank as leaders. In the Great War Catholics were as foolishly patriotic as other citizens and as generous in the sacrifices they made. In commercial and civil life individual Catholics mix and mingle and their identity as Catholics is completely submerged until, perhaps, some practical interest of the Church crops up and then their religious affiliation is revealed.

The Catholic Church has gained in the esteem of religious-minded and conservative Americans because of two salient characteristics; namely, her consistency in moral doctrine and her constancy of purpose.

The Church has a moral code and has stuck to it. In no serious respect has she deviated from traditional morals. In an age of subversive and bewildering theories she has remained her sober, dogmatic self. With unwavering consistency she has opposed divorce, free love in all its forms, contraception in its modern mechanical forms, godless education and Marxism. On the whole she has been splendidly faithful to her duty of teaching “hard sayings” while other Churches have shamelessly compromised on many moral doctrines.

Her constancy of purpose in pursuing the ambitions which she holds to be legitimate is equally outstanding. From the first she has laid claim to a unique divine mission which entitles her to “teach all nations.” She has held and still holds it her exclusive right and duty to teach Americans, “to make America Catholic” (Archbishop Ireland). In holding, as she holds, that she is “the pillar and the ground of truth” and that her teaching is inerrant and indefectible, she is perfectly logical in her conduct: Her ambition to dominate American thought and regulate American manners is self-confessed. “She has no secrets to keep back… . Everything in the Catholic Church is open and above board” (Cardinal Gibbons). She calls on all Americans to hear her voice and obey her counsels. Error has no rights in her eyes, nor is it ever lawful to hide the truth. No other church shares with her this sublime, if often misrepresented, intolerance.

The Catholic Church in America is strong; stronger than any other group; stronger perhaps than any possible confederation of groups. Her strength does not derive from her property alone, nor from the mere numbers of her children however many they be, but from the enduring cohesion which possesses her organization and from the mysterious, inflammable texture of the Catholic mind.

Her strength has grown apace under the remarkably able leadership of the present Pope, Pius XI. He has given the best of his singular ability to the supervision and direction of the Catholic campaign in America. For him our country is a battlefield on which is being waged the greatest struggle of the Church’s history. The conquest of America is the supreme objective at which he aims. He despairs of the Old World with its interminable outbreaks against the Church and the multiplicity of divisions between peoples that entail internecine strife among his children. Besides, the Old World is in receivership. Pius is well aware that the Catholic Church can never hope again to dominate the civilized world until America kneels, beaten and penitent, at her feet.

It is characteristic of the Pope’s strategy in guiding American Catholics that he has launched them on Catholic Action, and that he has taught them to enlarge and remodel the Catholic Press.

Catholic Action is not avowedly politics, indeed, in theory is far removed therefrom. It is the share the laity takes in “the apostolate of the bishops”; work done by laymen and laywomen on behalf of the Church under obedience to their pastors. But in fact, a large proportion of Catholic Action partakes of politics, and is a political penetration, an infiltration into the political world of a new force and agency. In writing to the Knights of Columbus, Cardinal Pacelli, on behalf of His Holiness, delicately avowed this aim. He urged on the Knights to a widespread rally of Catholic manhood as necessary for “the practical solution of those problems of social and civil life which put such severe tests on the souls of Catholics.”

In teaching American Catholics this new phase of Catholicism, this active phase, and in sanctifying it with his blessing, Pius XI rendered inevitable many significant changes in the life-course of this nation.

Of the new Catholic Press there will be much to say later on. It suffices for the moment to refer to its outspoken boldness and to its remarkable success in stirring up the spirit of the Catholic masses and awakening in them a sense of their immense power. Thanks largely to their Press, a seething energy fills American Catholics. From end to end of the land they are men of action, united, confident of the future, and militant. Of late they have given many remarkable displays of their mobility as a force to influence public manners. The Legion of Decency was such a display. At the word of the bishops ten thousand meetings were held; a hundred thousand inflammatory pieces were printed in the Catholic Press; ten million Catholics signed pledges. The move was so sudden and violent that a score of non-Catholic bodies were carried along with it and joined ranks with the Catholics. The energy and organizing genius of Catholic Action was demonstrated. No such stupendous social maneuver could be achieved by any other American group.

Writes the editor of the Catholic journal, Commonweal: “The Catholic Church today is positively active on a scale and with an intensity of disciplined energy which is of vital concern to all thoughtful men and women who wish to know something of the great forces which are contending today for the leadership and control of the thoughts and actions of mankind. . . . That the Catholic Church is, to say the least, certainly one of the major forces of the world .. . is generally admitted. Its own claim, of course, is that it is incomparably, uniquely, the supreme spiritual power in all the world.”

This “admittedly major force of the world” is focused today on the problem of the future of this country. The possibilities of the situation provoke deep and enduring interest. To minds that distrust Catholicism, what is called “the menace of Rome” looms greater than ever before. To minds that see in Catholicism the regenerative force of the world, the future is bright with hope.

The importance of mass meetings as well as mass movements in maintaining the morale of their subjects is well known to the Catholic hierarchy of America. No diocese is left long without a well-staged display of numbers and strength. The effect of these demonstrations on the Catholic mind is well illustrated by a story told of a poor woman who attended a vast meeting organized by Archbishop Curley at Baltimore in June, 1934, to celebrate “The Birth of Maryland.” There were 70,000 priests, nuns, papal knights and laity present. The poor woman had come a long journey but what she witnessed compensated her for her pains. “When you see all this,” she cried, “you can only say that the Catholic Church can do anything.”

The purpose of the meeting was avowedly to remind the American people of the contribution which the Catholic Church had made in the person of Lord Baltimore, to the doctrine of religious freedom. The Jesuit editor of America, in commenting, described it as “another of those events which bear overwhelming testimony to the fact that the Catholic Church is bound up with all that is great in America’s past, present, and future.” His bold claim that America’s future greatness already belongs demonstrably to the Catholic Church is indicative of the profound confidence that Catholics feel as regards the future career of the Church in this country.

What is the official view of the Catholic Church about America? What does she think of our moral condition? How does she envisage her duty towards us?

Frankly, the Church has a poor opinion of the social and moral status of the nation. She sees America hastening to destruction and decay. “America is in a sad state today with vast groups of our people clamoring for new gods, new standards of morality, and in their mad desire they are worshipping material wealth and deifying self.” The disease she diagnoses as Neo-Paganism. Americans are no longer godly; they are godless; godless in education, in social relations, in industrial relations, and largely godless in government. “The world… outside the Catholic Church .. . is almost entirely pagan, completely materialistic in its philosophy and outlook … with the breakdown of family life and the sanctity of marriage.” This disease permeates every walk of life and corrupts young and old alike. It is the forerunner of something still worse: Communism. Communism is militant bloody Paganism with its sword unsheathed to strike down the Church. “Bolshevism is already battering at our doors,” cries Bishop F. C. Kelley.

Officially the Catholic Church sees America in the direst straits in the matter of morals and religion, and sees Catholicism as the only possible way of salvation for the nation. She sees in Catholic Action all that is left of true American Action. She sees herself as the last defender of true Americanism. She claims, for instance, that the banishment of religion from public schools is an invasion of the Constitution and that the endowment of purely secular education is an unrighteous as well as an un-American favoring of atheism.

Having consecrated the slogan “Catholic Action means American Action,” the Church no longer regards any “interfering” on her part with American manners and customs as un-American. All that she does is, she claims, done in the best interests of America. Her program, a long and varied one, provides for the reform of theaters; the censorship of books and reviews; the prevention of birth control propaganda; the defeat of the eugenics movement; the introduction of religion into the public schools; the obtaining of State aid for sectarian schools; the reform of industrial relations in accordance with papal encyclicals; the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the Vatican; the acquisition of a more than presidential veto on legislation and on the policy of the Foreign Office, etc. Even these items comprise but a part of the Church’s program, In general that program constitutes the domination, for the good of America, of American thought, manners, and government by the Catholic Church.

The program, did it remain a mere matter of pious hope and a subject of prayer, would be harmless, but the American Catholic hierarchy is not content with passive Christianity. It is busy mobilizing all its forces to put across its program. It feels assured that it will outlive opposition and will succeed in the end. What are ten or twenty years in the life of the Catholic Church? What is a century for that matter? But confidence in the inevitability of victory does not damp its present ardor for immediate action. Thanks to the present disintegration of American life the hour for action has struck. There is today a Catholic camp where banners float and bugles blare. The great campaign has begun.

That the Catholic Church is deadly in earnest in campaigning to “save America from herself” cannot be doubted. It is fully in accord with her traditions and her psychology. In whatever country she may be, the moment she feels herself strong enough to dominate thought, conduct and government, . she makes the attempt to do so. “The Church has always done so,” writes Hilaire Belloc, “and always will, please God!” She regards it alike as her duty and her divine mission. She is subject to that “expansiveness” or, as it is called, apostolicity, which is the characteristic of the Catholic spirit.

The revolt, or revolution, or uprising—whatever it may be called—which she has engineered in our midst is the necessary result of her faith. It is a unique phenomenon in our history because no other church or organization is like the Catholic Church. It could not have happened sooner because heretofore the Catholic Church was not strong enough to make the attempt.

Its coming has been foretold in various terms. Dean Inge, the inveterate hater of the Church, wrote a decade ago: “The determined effort of the Roman Catholic Church to capture the great Republic of the West makes the most interesting chapter in modern religious history.” Years later the Catholic poet Theodore Maynard wrote: “The plain fact is that America will soon become the decisive battle-ground of the faith.” Maynard did not envisage the struggle as a revolution, though it is difficult to call it anything else. Yet, though a revolution, it is not formally seditious. The Church is under arms against those she considers the enemies of this nation, and so far she is fighting under the forms of lawful civic strife.

To American citizens who are not so profoundly apprehensive about the future of their country as is the Catholic Church, the present turmoil seems unjustifiable. They consider that the Catholic Church is aggressive. Catholics, they say, have not suffered any injustices or hardships. They have been favored if anything, and certainly enjoy the same privileges as other citizens. There is no discrimination against them or against their Church. Their case is not like that of the German Catholics under Bismarck when their rights and liberties seemed to be endangered by the Kulturkampf. American Catholics, in assaulting the institutions, manners and morals of this country, are not conducting a war of defense but one of attack and aggression. It is from them that threats issue and not from the government or the major portion of the population.

Be that as it may, the revolt is in motion and the question to be asked is, how far is it likely to go? With what additional powers will the Catholic Church be satisfied? What is the ultimate objective at which she aims? Does she intend, should the power be hers, to change and modify the Constitution? Does she mean to discard the American principle of the separation of Church and State? In fine, does she aim at being the established church of the United States?

This last question, a disturbing one for non-Catholics, was authoritatively answered (as it then seemed) by Alfred E. Smith, the Catholic lay leader of America, during his presidential campaign in 1928. He stated more than once and unequivocally: “I believe in the American doctrine of the absolute separation of Church and State.” This statement became known as Smith’s Credo. It was accepted at once by American Catholics, lay and clerical, as their Credo also. They all said “Amen” to it. And since that time neither the hierarchy nor the laity have repudiated it. Indeed, we frequently find reiterations of Smith’s Credo from important Catholic apologists. Thus recently Father Elliot. Ross, the Paulist, wrote: “Catholics in the United States yield nothing to their fellow-citizens in their devotion to the American principle of religious liberty and separation of Church and State.”

Smith’s Credo reassured American non-Catholics and silenced for the time being the taunt of “divided allegiance” that has for so long been uttered against Catholics. But Smith’s Credo did not solve the terrible dilemma of American Catholics. It was impotent to wipe out the Roman decrees and encyclicals which establish as Roman Catholic doctrine the desirability of the union of Church and State. In point of fact, Smith’s Credo was heresy. Objectively at least, it was a bid to trick and deceive the American people into a false conception of Catholic doctrine on the relationship that ought to exist between Church and State.

A year after Mr. Smith’s pronouncement, namely, in 1929, this writer ventured on a prophecy: “Pius XI… has no choice but to administer a sharp rebuke to his recalcitrant American Children and assert his authority. No doubt he will wait a little while until the election heat has cooled down. Perhaps too his rebuke will be indirect; there may be no mention of America at all in his encyclical but everyone will know for whom it is intended.”

On the last day of the following year, Pius XI issued his encyclical “Casti Connubii” in which he definitely repudiated the “absolute separation” heresy of Alfred E. Smith and enlarged upon the desirability of “union and association” between Church and State. He was in fact putting before the American Catholic Church the ultimate objective at which she should aim.

As this recent and really authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church on the burning question of the relationship of Church and State is vitally important, and as it is given the minimum of publicity by American Catholics, it may be well to quote it fairly fully.” It has obvious reference, as indeed has the whole encyclical, to American conditions, as viewed from the Vatican.

We earnestly exhort in the Lord all those who hold the reins of power that they establish and maintain firmly harmony and friendship with this Church of Christ so that through the united activity and energy of both powers the tremendous evils, fruits of those wanton liberties which assail both marriage and the family and are a menace to both Church and State, may be effectively frustrated.

Governments can assist the Church greatly in the execution of its important office if in laying down their ordinances they take account of what is prescribed by divine and ecclesiastical law, and if penalties are fixed for offenders. . . . There will be no peril or lessening of the rights and integrity of the State from its association with the Church. Such suspicion and fear is empty and groundless as Leo XIII has already so clearly set forth.

Continuing, and making the teaching of Leo XIII his own, Pius XI says:

“It is in the interest of everybody that there be a harmonious relationship” between Church and State, and that “if the civil power combines in a friendly manner with the spiritual power of the Church it necessarily follows that both parties will greatly benefit.”

He adds:

“The dignity of the State will be enhanced and with religion as its guide there will never be a rule that is not just; while for the Church there will be a safeguard and defense which will operate to the public good of the faithful.”

Pius XI then holds up to the American people as “a clear and recent example” the solemn Convention between the Vatican and Italian Government whereby the latter “assigns as civil effects of the sacrament of matrimony all that is attributed to it in Canon Law.”

There follows the official Catholic teaching, from the lips of Pius XI, which blasts the Smith Credo and all the equivocal misrepresentations of Catholic doctrine that the American Catholic Church has foisted on the American people. Pius XI says: “This” [the Vatican-Mussolini pact] “might well be a striking example to all of how even in this our day, in which sad to say the absolute separation of the civil power from the Church and indeed from every religion is so often taught, the one supreme authority can be united and associated with the other without detriment to the rights and supreme power of either thus protecting Christian parents from pernicious evils and menacing ruin.” (Italics are ours.)

To return to the questions asked earlier: Does the Church intend, should the power be hers, to change and modify the Constitution? Does she mean to discard the American principle of the separation of Church and State? In fine (ultimately), does she aim at being the established church of the United States? One cannot doubt, in view of the present Pope’s teaching, which indeed is simply the reiteration of age-old Catholic doctrine, that the answers should all be in the affirmative.

If the aim of Catholic Action is to fulfill the mission of the Church, to dominate and chasten the soul and the manners of America, why should Catholic Action stop short of setting up Catholicism in a position of supreme authority in this country? The uprising that has begun, the strong nation-wide Catholic movement “to save America,” the revolt against the Neo-Pagan state of the nation, can have, logically, no other termination than that outlined above by His Holiness.

Translated into strictly Catholic thought and language, the foregoing ideas are well expressed by Michael Williams, one of the lay leaders of American Catholicism. Having stated that the ecclesiastical statistics for 1934 “amply prove that the Church in the United States is advancing steadily and strongly, practically all along its far-flung front” and that “the epic of Christianity lies concealed beneath the surface of the statistics,” he concludes: “Meanwhile all Catholics with even a modicum of imagination cannot fail to be thrilled with the vision of the vast Catholic force . . . the force of the Church in action, permeating the national life, the leaven in its mass, uplifting its ideals, directing its way toward the only road which is consonant with humanity’s true nature; the road of Christian civilization.”

Continued in CHAPTER II. Catholic Action.

All chapters of Rome Stoops to Conquer, by E. Boyd Barrett

This is from The Converted Catholic Magazine of September 1946. I can’t find J.J. Murphy’s bio on the WWW, but I know he was a former Roman Catholic priest because the cover of The Converted Catholic Magazine says, “EDITED BY FORMER ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS.”

ROMAN CATHOLICS will not believe how much their own church has been opposed to the Jesuits, and think that anti-Jesuitism is the product of Protestant intolerance. They do not know that the Jesuits are a faction in their church that has sought for centuries, against the bitterest opposition from Catholics, to completely dominate the policies and practices of Roman Catholicism. Precisely because the Jesuits today have practically succeeded in their aim, the evils they created and fostered in society are now pooh-poohed as mere inventions of prejudiced Protestants.

Entirely overlooked is the mine of incriminating evidence against the perversities of Jesuitism to be found in the writings of unimpeachable Catholic authors. Among them is the devout Catholic genius Blaise Pascal, whose integrity has never been questioned. His famous Provincial Letters are a sample, and were written in 1656, when the last and unsuccessful attempt to stave off the lax moral practices of the Jesuits was being made in France.

The greatest of all Catholic authorities, the infallible Pope of Rome, condemned and abolished the Jesuit Order in terms that leave no doubt concerning the immoral principles it practiced. They can be read today in historical works just as they appeared in the famous papal Brief penned by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.

(NOTE: I’m sure J.J. Murphy did not believe the Pope is infallible. He’s using that word to say if a Pope cannot err, and the “infallible” Pope Clement XIV correctly banned the Jesuits in 1773 “forever”, why did Pius VII restore the Jesuits in 1814?)

Speaking of this Brief the Encyclopedia Britannica (XV,346) gives this summary of it:

“Finally on the 21st of July, 1773, the famous Brief Dominus ac Re demptor, appeared suppressing the Society of Jesus. This remarkable document . .. briefly sketches the objects and history of the Jesuits themselves. It speaks of their defiance of their own Constitution, expressly revived by Pope Paul V, forbidding them to meddle in polities; of the great ruin to souls . . . their condescension to heathen usages in the East . . .

“Seeing that the Catholic sovereigns had been forced to expel them, that many bishops and other eminent persons demanded their extinction, and that the Society had ceased to fulfill the intention of its institute, the Pope declared it necessary . . . that it should be suppressed, extinguished, abolished and abrogated forever, with its houses, colleges, and schools … It has been necessary to cite these captions of the Brief because the apologists of the Society (of the Jesuits) allege that no motive influenced the Pope save the desire of peace at any price, and that he did not believe in the culpability of the Fathers. The categorical charges made in the document rebut this plea.”

John Adams, early and distinguished President of the United States, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on May 6, 1816, made an accurate prediction of the power the Jesuits would come to wield in this country. How truly prophetic this was may be seen from newspaper pictures of President Truman, accompanied by Jesuit Father Gannon, walking in procession behind two cardinals to receive an honorary degree from the Jesuit University of Fordham, in May of this year 1946. It was something that fifty or even twenty five years ago could not have been conceived of as possible.

Following is what John Adams had to say. It is quoted from volume six, page 604, of the official edition of the writing of Thomas Jefferson:

I do not like the late resurrection of e Jesuits, They have a general now in Russia, in correspondence with the Jesuits in the United States, who are more numerous than anybody knows. Shall we not have swarms of them here? In the shape of printers, editors, writers, schoolmasters, etc.?”

At that time the Jesuits were contriving by every means to defeat the ban of the Pope. They managed to deceive the church itself and remained organized in Russia, the United States, and elsewhere under the pretext that the papal decree of suppression had not been promulgated in those particular territories and therefore did not bind them in those countries. This is another instance of the juggling of legalisms in which the Jesuits specialize. They have made a science of using one phase of the law to defeat another.

In spite of their definite and solemn suppression by the supreme authority of their church, the Jesuits not only survived but came back into power. This time, they decided that they would get control of the Vatican, the supreme power of the church itself, so that never again could they be suppressed. In addition, this precaution would also open up to them the surest and easiest way to dominate the whole church. This was the strategy they planned and successfully carried through: to get control of the Vatican court, then to glamorize the papacy as a means to centralize in it supreme authority over every phase of the world-wide church. The dogma of the infallibility of the pope in 1870 fulfilled their greatest ambition. From then on their power over the universal church was rapidly consolidated.

Dr. William Walker Rockwell of Union Theological Seminary wrote years ago of the Jesuit march to power. But what they had attained at that time was only the groundwork of the triumphs they are reaping today when they have succeeded in rallying Western Europe, Protestant England and the United States, into a budding crusade of holy war against Soviet Russia.

In the July, 1914, issue of the Harvard Theological Review, Dr. Rockwell wrote as follows of the Jesuit Order:

“The 19th century saw the dead rise. And the 20th sees it at the right hand of power in the Church of Rome. The outstanding political fact in the history of the Catholic Church is the risorgimento (Italian: “Rising Again”) of the Jesuits. Called back from suppression and repudiation precisely a century ago, on August 7, 1814, they have worked their way to such influence in the game of ecclesiastical polities, as played under Pius IX and Pius X… that the Jesuits are trumps.

“Certainly the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, the Syllabus in 1864, the definition of papal infallibility and absolute sovereignty in 1870, the condemnation of Modernism in 1907, and at this very moment the codification of canon law by the centralized authority of a papal autocracy based on divine right—these are monuments to the principles for which the Jesuits have contended on their march to power.”

The historian, Robert M. Johnson, in his book, Roman Theocracy and the Republic (p. 17), describes the Jesuits and their policies as follows:

“A veiled and secret power that had for many centuries sucked into its own dark vortex all the directing force, intelligence, and purposeness of the Catholic Church—that of the Jesuits and their allies, Deep and devious was their way, nearly undistinguishable their track… Unmarked by any badge or distinctive dress, with lay associates as well as clerical, they were to be found in every rank of life, generally intelligent, frequently ambitious, without exception zealous, disciplined, and yielding unquestioned obedience to the General of the Order . . . The secrecy and centralization of their activity combined to make of the Jesuits a force greater and more enduring than that of kings and emperors, greater than that of the Head of the Catholic church itself . . . Secret in their ways, more anxious to disappear behind the pomp of the throne than to obscure it by the announcement of their achievements, striving more to, bring new splendor and strength to the Papacy . . .”

Here in the United States, as they did in Europe, the Jesuits use their schools to get control of the future leaders of the country. In Italy, they concentrate on the sons of the nobility, in France on the sons of the military, while in democratic America they choose leaders from the ranks of the ordinary people and push them into positions of political prominence. Our Federal government now (1946!) has Catholics in countless key positions. The Jesuit School for Foreign Service at Georgetown, established in 1919, has worked hundreds of its protégés into our State Department.

Recognizing the growing power of labor, the Jesuits have also established labor schools to train their carefully chosen candidates for leadership in the AFL (American Federation of Labor) and the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). Philip Murray, head of the CIO, is a Roman Catholic, and also Matthew Woll, vice-president of AFL. Many others are prominent in the Labor movement.

This article is from a PDF file of the March 1949 edition of The Converted Catholic Magazine. L.H. (Leo Herbert) Lehmann (1895-1950) was a former Catholic priest who received the light of the Gospel through reading the Bible. It’s interesting to me that he went to his heavenly reward the year I was born.

If only J.D. Vance’s grandmother knew of L.H. Lehmann’s testimony! If she had known, she would not have told her grandson that there’s no difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and he might not have joined the Church of Rome.

In my opinion, if there’s going to be a true spiritual revival in America, it has to be back to not only the true Gospel of Christ, but also to the principles of the Protestant Reformation.

YOU ARE A PROTESTANT because of the historic change that came about in the Christian Church at the time of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Catholic propagandists say that event was the greatest tragedy of history, and that you are really a Roman Catholic by blood, a Protestant merely because of mistaken leadership. They say this because the Protestant Reformation revealed the corrupt nature of Roman Catholic teaching, and thereby destroyed a great part of the worldly power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church among the nations of Europe.

As far as you are concerned, however, the Protestant Reformation has brought great blessings which have been passed on to you today in America. If Protestants are misled, as many are being misled today, by the false claims and clever propaganda being spread amongst them by Roman Catholic campaigns, then these blessings in the spiritual and the social order will not be passed to your children after you.

FAITH AND FREEDOM

The two main changes that came about as a result of the Protestant Reformation concerned: 1) the reassertion of the true faith in Christ and His saving work; 2) a new culture of freedom in the social order. A change back to the Roman Catholic teaching on these two vital matters would mean abandonment of the true evangelical way of salvation, and, as a consequence, a return to a social order somewhat similar to what Europe experienced during the Middle Ages. This is the issue at stake in the struggle today between the forces of the Roman Catholic Church and those of Protestantism. This is what is behind the great drive of Roman Catholic propagandists today to induce Protestants to become Roman Catholics and to make America Catholic.

It is therefore necessary, first of all, to understand what your Protestant faith means to you. If Protestants are not convinced of the vital importance of what they believe about salvation, then the culture which flows from that belief is not important either.

Martin Luther, more than 400 years ago, clearly understood and strenuously fought for these social liberties that resulted from his reassertion of the Gospel teaching of salvation by grace through faith. In his famous treatise, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, published in October, 1520, Luther explained it in this way: “I cry aloud on behalf of liberty and conscience, and I proclaim with confidence that no kind of law can with any justice be imposed on Christians, whether by men or by angels, except so far as they themselves will; for we are free from all.”

UNIQUE TEACHING OF SALVATION

As a Protestant, you know and believe in a salvation that is quite different to that taught to Roman Catholic people. What Roman Catholics have to believe about salvation is the old, pagan anti-Christian way, by which men are not changed from a state of slavery to God and to other men. The “newness” of the Christian Gospel teaching about salvation consists in the almost incredible proclamation that man’s status has been changed, not only from slavery to other men, but also from a state of slavery to God Himself, into one of divine sonship with God. “And if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” (Rom. 8:17.)

No other religion ever dared to offer such a great salvation. And any church organization that proclaims and teaches this great salvation cannot make use of that teaching as a weapon of power over its followers. It is for this reason that Protestant countries tend to ever-increasing liberty and social betterment, while Roman Catholic-dominated countries remain in a backward state morally and socially.

As a believer in this great salvation, you can claim this double liberation. Your Protestant concept of salvation in the spiritual order is synonymous with freedom and liberation in the social order. For it stands to reason, that if you are saved from sin in such a way that your status is changed from that of a slave into one of sonship with God, you can never allow other men to tyrannize over you in your social and community life. With Luther above quoted, you can cry aloud on behalf of liberty of conscience, and joyfully proclaim with confidence that no dictatorship of men, either in church or state, can be imposed upon you.

FAITH STANDS ALONE

All men crave liberty and freedom but not all men are willing to submit themselves to the power that will make them free. Believing Protestants will always therefore be in the minority. You may be overwhelmed at the thought of the huge masses of people who belong to the Roman Catholic Church, as well as by the magnificence of its ritual and its spectacular political power. Yet the faith and freedom you enjoy today was won for you by men who dared to stand up and separate themselves from that huge organization (the Roman Catholic Church) in order to assert the freedom that is to be found in Christ.

Membership in the Roman Catholic Church will give you the comfort of a crowd, but will rob you of the personal liberties which belong with the individual acceptance of Christ as your full and perfect Saviour.

HERE’S YOUR SCORE!

AS A PROTESTANT:

1. You are assured, on the Word of God, of complete salvation without the intermediary of a priesthood.

Your salvation is “to the uttermost.” It is “perfected” by the one, unrepeatable sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, offered “once for all,” and “forever.”

2. You have no fear of condemnation after death.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1.)

3. Your sins are completely forgiven—both the ‘guilt’ and the ‘punishment’ are taken away.

As a Catholic, you would have to depend on a half-forgiveness by a priest in confession; you would have to believe that a priest’s absolution (all other regulations being complied with) can take away only the guilt of your sins, that you yourself would have to suffer the punishment for them, both in this life and the next.

4. You can dispense with Purgatory, since “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from ALL sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7.)

You need not be deceived by a.recent Knights of Columbus advertisement headed: “Not Quite Good Enough…” and which goes on to say: “That’s the way most of us feel: not quite good enough for heaven, not quite bad enough for hell.”

5. Your soul’s destiny is not in the hands of priests, bishops and popes, but in the hands of your true Saviour Jesus Christ, pierced for your sake.

These are the only hands that can save. The hands of men are powerless to save your soul.

6. Your final authority is the Word of God Himself.

You must have a secure authority on which to rest your hope of salvation. No man can be such a final infallible authority. The ‘Rock’ on which all your hopes and aspirations rest is Christ.

7. The pastor of your church acts as the ‘minister of God’s Word.’

He does not rob you of the power of Christ and use it for the aggrandizement of his church organization or of himself. He does not pretend to be able to offer a sacrifice to appease God (partially) for your sins and to be able to forgive you your sins (partially) in confession. He puts you in touch with your only Saviour, Who accomplished for you a “perfect” work of salvation and forgiveness. When God “perfects” something, how can a man come along and say he can make up for a deficiency in it or add to it?

8. You enjoy a two-fold liberation: from sin and from the dictatorial power of men in Church and State.

As a Christian saved completely from the power of sin, your whole status toward God and man is changed. From being a slave to God you become a son of God. It is obvious, therefore, that you can never be a slave of any man or organization in Church or State. This is where your Protestant culture of freedom comes from.

9. The power of authority resides in you, not in any dictator or institution outside of you.

Those who rule you in Church and State are merely delegated by you to act for you in the public forum. You, together with others in your community, can withdraw that delegated power whenever there is danger of its being abused and appoint others pledged not to do so. This is the root of Christian freedom as you know it in your democratic, representative form of government, in spiritual things as well as in things pertaining to the social and political order.

10. Your marriage, education of your children, your charitable institutions such as hospitals, orphanages, medical science, recreation, theaters and other amusements, what you may read, write and speak in public, as well as the conduct of things in your town or community, are not arranged for you by Roman Catholic law and practice, as they would be if Protestants in your community or country declined in number to the extent that would enable Catholic Church authorities to assume power.

The freedom now enjoyed by Catholics in your Protestant community life would then be denied you and your church by the dominant Catholic power. As in Spain today, you would have no legal status as a Protestant; there would be no tax exemption for your church, and Protestant schools would be forbidden.

WOULD YOU SWEAR TO THIS OATH?

Protestants who become Roman Catholics are obliged to take the following oath on the Bible:

OATH FOR PROTESTANTS

[Following is the complete official text of the solemn oath which Protestants must take before being baptized and received into the Catholic Church]:

“I, (Name), having before my eyes the holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand, and knowing that no one can be saved without that faith which the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church holds, believes, and teaches, against which I have greatly erred, inasmuch as I have held and believed doctrines opposed to her teaching:

“So help me God. and these His holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand.”

Note that you would here swear, on the Word of God Himself in the Bible, not to take God at His Word, but to take the word of a man instead!

IS ROMAN CATHOLICISM MORE ATTRACTIVE?

I have already fully explained all the so-called advantages and attractions to be enjoyed by becoming a Roman Catholic. To many these are most appealing, and they are made even more appealing by the way in which Roman Catholic propagandists advertise them. In the K-of-C ad about Purgatory quoted above, for instance, you are told: “Purgatory is one of the most human and comforting of our Catholic beliefs.”

Although Catholics are made to think so, and many Protestants are also deceived by it, this is downright falsehood. “It gives us a place for squaring our lesser obligations with God,” this ad says, “should death overtake us before we have reached perfection.”

In the first place, by our own works we can never “square ourselves with God” (atone for our sins); and secondly, we, by our own works or sufferings, can never reach “perfection.” Jesus Christ, our Saviour, has “squared” things with God for us, and He has “perfected forever those that are sanctified.” Besides, it is no comfort to have to believe that, after all that has been suffered by Christ and by ourselves, after all the sacrifices of the Mass, confessions, penances, novenas, money contributions, etc., we still have to descend into a lake of fire after we die, and remain there at the mercy of priests and others on earth.

Are drinking, gambling and other indulgences allowed to Catholics but frowned on by Protestants as attractive as they are said to be? It must be admitted that they do appeal to weak human nature, but they are a source of shame and remorse to the spiritual man. There is great joy in not yielding to those things; headaches, heartaches and stark tragedy result from indulgence in them. The fruits of the spirit, on the other hand are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. (Gal. 5:22)

Do you want to be sure of your salvation?

Do you want to have Christ as your own personal Saviour, without a priest between you and God, the Pope between you and your Government ?

Do you want the Word of God in place of the word of man as your infallible guide?

Do you want to have a clean, decent community in which to live and bring up your children?

Do you want the culture and institutions of your country and community to remain free of Roman ecclesiastical control?

Do you want to be sure to pass on the heritage of these blessings to your children and your children’s children?

Then remain a Protestant! Cooperate with your pastor and church so that your community will remain Protestant. Live your Christian life, “not in word only, but in power.” Resist the blandishments and clever inducements offered you by radio, by books and pamphlets, and by misleading advertisements of Roman Catholic propagandists. And since they are flooding the country with this false propaganda to change the traditional Protestant faith and culture of America and make it Catholic, you must help spread the truth and the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to which you owe all the blessings you now enjoy.

Listen to Paul’s warning (Col. 2:8):

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

By L.H. Lehmann

“Leo Herbert Lehmann (1895-1950) was an Irish author, editor, and director of a Protestant ministry, Christ’s Mission in New York. He was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church who later in life converted to Protestantism and served as the editor of The Converted Catholic Magazine. He authored magazine articles, books and pamphlets, condemning the programs and activities of the Roman Catholic Church.” – Source: Wikipedia article.

This article is from the Converted Catholic Magazine that was reprinted in October 1944 and January 1945.

THE AVERAGE AGE of criminals in America in 1890 is said to have been 48 years; in 1933, 26 years and in 1938-40, about 19 years. War conditions after 1940 brought an alarming increase in juvenile delinquency that lowered the average crime age to sixteen. As a consequence, there has been a growing demand for the teaching of religion in the public schools as a possible deterrent to crime increase among American youth. The demand is loudest from spokesmen of the Roman Catholic church, which not only aims to have religion made a part of the public school curriculum but claims the right of being the sole educator of all youth.

Catholic spokesmen, from the pope down, are vociferous in condemning American public school education as “Godless” because of the very wise and necessary provision of our Constitution to keep secular education and church teaching rigidly apart. This, however, does not mean a denial of the benefits of good religious and ethical training as a part of the education of the youth of this country. Religion, in fact, has always been an essential part of the general education of youth in America, but denominational teaching has been kept out of the classroom. Our Constitutional amendment concerning separation of church and state not only does not prohibit the profession and teaching of true religion, but it guarantees and safeguards liberty of conscience and of worship to all religions not subversive of the American way of life. What it does prohibit is the “establishment” by law and tax support of any religion. The teaching of the religion of any church in the classrooms of the public schools would soon lead to that.

Many states are relaxing or changing their constitutional provisions to allow school boards to cooperate with religious organizations by devoting “released” time from school to religious instruction. To many this seems to be the entering wedge for the actual introduction of specific church teaching into the classroom. From that it would be but one step further to other privileges fostering this or that religious organization at public expense and upholding religious teaching by public law.

This is happening because many have been convinced that the alarming increase in crime among young people today can best be overcome by uniting the teaching of religion with mathematics and other school subjects heretofore taught in a “Godless” way, as the Catholics call it. But before admitting that the mixing of religious and non-religious teaching would lessen the prevalence of crime, two things should be carefully considered :

(1) Has the teaching of religion in private schools lessened crime among their pupils compared with pupils from public schools?

(2) Is all religious teaching productive of correct ethical conduct?

CATHOLIC CRIME STATISTICS

If New York City be taken as a sample of war-time juvenile delinquency, the Roman Catholic church must take the largest share of responsibility. Father George B. Ford, Roman Catholic chaplain at Columbia University and authority on social matters, is on record as admitting that more than three-fifths of the juvenile delinquents arrested in New York City in the early part of 1943 were Roman Catholics, As quoted in the newspaper PM of February 29, 1944, he declared:

“During the first four months of 1948, 64 per cent of the juvenile delinquents in Children’s Court were Catholic. This means the Catholic church has something to be greatly concerned about.”

How grave an indictment of the Roman Catholic church this is may be judged from the fact that only about one-fifth of the total population of New York City is Roman Catholic.

The same amazing percentage of Roman Catholics is to be found among the most hardened adult criminals in jails and penitentiaries. A sample of this may be seen at Clinton Prison, Dannemora, N. Y., which is called the “Siberia of America,” both because of its frigid climate and the high percentage of long-termers and lifers. In a feature article in the N. Y. Daily Mirror of March 12, 1941, lauding efforts of the Roman Catholic church to reform the many Catholics there, it is revealed that of the total prison population of 1,989 at Dannemora, twelve hundred are Roman Catholics. Reporting the results of a religious survey of all the jails of Connecticut the Catholic Commonweal magazine for October 9, 1942, says: “Catholics far outnumber Protestants in Connecticut jails, possibly by four to one.”

Despite facts such as these, Catholic spokesmen in America continue to condemn the public schools of the United States as the breeding centers of American crime. They point to America’s “great horde of practicing pagans in the medical and legal professions,” to educators in American schools “misinforming and misdirecting students,” and predict in dire terms the complete undermining of Western civilization unless religion (the Roman Catholic religion) is taught in our public schools and secular colleges and universities. Their diatribes against our American democratic way of life are too closely reminiscent of the Fascist outpourings of Mussolini and Hitler in the heyday of their power.

In the N. Y. Times of May 17, 1943, Jesuit Father Francis P. Le Buffe declared :

“Thanks to our godless American public school, which is un-American, we have a generation today which does not know God.”

The amazing part of it all is the supineness (mental or moral slackness) of groups of otherwise intelligent, alert business and professional men who listen to such utterances, accepting them without question, overwhelmed, it seems, by the oracular and pontifical manner in which they are delivered.

An outstanding example of this was an address of the Jesuit president of Fordham University, the Rev. Robert I. Gannon, before a no less august body than the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York at their 172nd Annual Banquet in 1940, and repeated by him many times since at important public gatherings. The speaker’s main object of attack was our public school education—because it does not permit the teaching of religion, that is, of course, the Roman Catholic religion. To this lack he ascribed the high percentage of criminals inside and outside of our jails. Sneering at Ezra Cook’s truly American and practical adage: “Better build schoolrooms for the boys than cells and gibbets for the man”, he added “but now every time we put in an order for a classroom, we have to include an order for two sanitary cells and a chromium gibbet“!

He quoted glibly from a report by the Citizens’ Committee on the Control of Crime in New York to prove how crime is on the rapid increase with no signs of abatement, and that “one New Yorker in every 53 was arrested in the course of the past year—not for traffic violations or for leaving ash cans uncovered, but for serious violations of the law”. He further proved to his amazed audience that the rest of the country is even worse in this regard than New York. Since the honorable body of outstanding citizens who comprise the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York made no protest nor questioned the speaker’s conclusion, they must all have gone home convinced that we are a wayward, if not lost nation solely because the teaching of the Catholic religion is divorced from our public school system of education.

Had any member of Father Gannon’s audience been quick and brave enough to tackle the underlying significance of his statistics on crime, the Jesuit’s pre-arranged conclusion could have been proved utterly false and misleading. For he carefully avoided any approach to the well known and provable fact that an abnormally high proportion of our prison populations is the product of the Roman Catholic church and its educational system where religion, the Roman Catholic religion, is the most important subject in the curriculum. In order to confirm and explain this fact, the writer of this article personally interviewed Mr. H. C. Kane, the chief observer in the criminal courts for that same Committee on the Control of Crime from whose report Father Gannon quoted his findings. Mr. Kane’s frank opinion was, that the teaching of religion in the public schools would seem to provide no deterrent to crime, since Roman Catholics numerically top all crime lists and the Catholic church exceeds all others in teaching religion in schools.

The statistics below fully bear out this conclusion. They are not taken from anti-Catholic sources, not even from the cold, impartial figures supplied by Government bureaus. In order to be scrupulously fair, I have taken them from official Catholic sources, from the published results of a lengthy and careful survey made by the Fr. Leo Kalmer, O.F.M., Chaplain at Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet, Ill, from 1917 to 1936, the year of publication. His facts and figures were supplied to him by thirty-six Roman Catholic prison chaplains throughout the country. There can therefore be no possibility that the figures have been unfairly made up by us to overstress the greater prevalence of crime among Catholics.

On page 54, Table II, are shown the following percentages of Catholics in the prisons named:

In judging these percentages it must be remembered that Catholics, according to their church’s own estimates, form only about 16% (in 1944) of the total population of the United States, On Page 76 of Father Kalmer’s book, Table III shows that in a selection of 28 States, the average Catholic population is slightly higher, but still only 17.24%, whereas the average Catholic prison population in those same 28 States is 33.62%.

But if we select a few typical States, we find the following:

New York: 26.73% of total population is Catholic and 56.46% of prison population is Catholic.

Arizona: 33.16% of total population is Catholic and 53.26% of prison population is Catholic.

California: 16.83% of total population is Catholic and 43.61% of prison population is Catholic.

Wisconsin: 23.79% of total population is Catholic and 43.52% of prison population is Catholic.

Wyoming: 7.13% of total population is Catholic and 32.18% of prison population is Catholic.

Not all of the Catholic criminals listed above by the Catholic prison chaplains attended parochial schools. The percentages are as follows: attended Catholic schools only: 20.82%; attended both Catholic and public schools: 26.89%; attended public schools only: 35.85%; attended no school: 16.64%.

It should be noted that these Catholic prison chaplains put forward the argument, as in their favor, that the majority of Catholics committed to prison are either of foreign birth or parentage, mostly Italian, Spanish, Polish, Austrian and Irish. This, however, does not serve to exculpate the Catholic church, since these are Catholic countries par excellence, where “Roman Catholic culture” is most effective. On the contrary, it only serves to show that our much-maligned traditional American secular education and non-Catholic culture cannot be blamed for the crime increase in this country. The balance, therefore, in every instance—both as to religion and type of schooling—is in favor of non-Catholic upbringing and our secular public school education.

If we turn to official government statistics of the number of criminals committed to prisons each year, we find that a consistently abnormal 50 per cent or more of them are Roman Catholics. This can be seen from the most recent Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Correction in the State of New York to the State Legislature. In the latest available report for the year ending June 30, 1942, we find the following figures of prisoners committed to the two largest New York prisons— Clinton (Dannemora) and Sing Sing:

For the year 1940, when Father Gannon delivered his diatribe before the N. Y. State Chamber of Commerce against the “Godlessness” of American secular education, the following figures on the religious affiliation of criminals committed to the above two prisons were submitted to the New York Legislature by the Commissioner of Correction (page 18):

There were no “pagans” committed that year to these two prisons.

The same average of 50 per cent Roman Catholic criminals committed to these two jails is listed consistently year after year in these reports. The significance of this high percentage can be judged by the fact that Roman Catholics make up only about 25 per cent of the total population of New York State.

THE NATURE OF CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS TEACHING

This second aspect of education and crime requires probing into a matter that tolerant Americans want to avoid. Everybody is afraid to connect crime with any religious teaching. Yet if it could be proved that crime were more prevalent, say, among Mormons, Methodists or Mennonites in proportion to crime among other religious sects, Catholic authorities would not hesitate to ask whether this is not due to the moral teachings of those sects. One should not hesitate, therefore, to pose this same question with regard to Roman Catholicism, since it is an admitted fact that crime among Roman Catholics is more than twice what it should be (all other things being equal) in proportion to the relative number of Catholics in the United States.

Space here permits consideration of only one principle of Roman Catholic moral theology which could easily have a direct bearing on the question, namely, the condoning of theft and robbery under certain circumstances. This is known among Catholic theologians as “occult compensation”. It is also contained in catechisms and textbooks of Catholic doctrine used in Catholic schools in the United States. It is to be found, for instance, in The Manual of Christian Doctrine, which went into its 49th edition in 1928, and which bears the nihil obstat of M. S. Fisher, S.T.L., censor librorum, and of Arthur J. Scanlon, S.T.D., censor deputatus, along with the imprimatur of Cardinal-Archbishop Dougherty of Philadelphia, and is published by John J. McVey, Philadelphia, Pa. In the preface we are told that, “This book is intended as a manual of religious instruction not only in the novitiate and scholasticate of teaching congregations, but also in the classes of high school, academies and colleges.” On page 295, this textbook describes and discusses theft, its nature and various forms, such as larceny, robbery, cheating, fraud, extortion, etc. On page 297, we have the following regarding the condoning of theft:

“Q. What are the causes that excuse from theft?”

“A. 1, Extreme necessity, when a person takes only what is necessary, and does not thereby reduce to the same necessity the person whose property he takes. 2, Secret compensation, on condition that the debt so canceled be certain, that the creditor cannot recover his property by any other means, and that he take, as far as possible, things of the same kind as he had given.”

Facsimile photograph from page 297 of The Manual of Christian Doctrine.

The N. Y. State Commissioner of Correction in his report for 1942 on juvenile delinquency (p. 112) states: “Stealing is the reason for court appearances of the largest group among boys, 4,807 or 58.7 per cent having been referred for stealing in some form.

Now, moral conduct can be no better than the moral principles upon which it is based. Most crimes are directly connected with thievery and robbery. If a Roman Catholic youth, for instance, can persuade himself that he has “extreme necessity” for an automobile, he will consider himself justified in stealing it legitimately according to the above teaching, provided he knows that the owner will not be thereby impoverished. The doctrine of “secret compensation” applies mostly to employees who consider they are being underpaid for their labor. A twenty-dollar-a-week cashier in a sidestreet cafeteria may consider herself underpaid and apply this principle to justify her pilfering of odd dimes and quarters from the cash register whenever she can safely do so. Many a cashier in a large bank or commercial business corporation has done just this until he found himself in jail for large-scale embezzlement. A desperate man could also easily argue himself into thinking that he is justly entitled to some of the surplus money of a rich victim and will go after it with a gun. Likewise grafting politicians seize upon the argument implicit in this teaching to justify their conviction that they are worth much more to the community than their elected offices pay them. Such a one was “sewer-pipe Connolly” of the Borough of Queens, N. Y., whose self-appropriations left large areas of New York City without an adequate sewer system.

This doctrine of “secret compensation” was, of course, unheard of in Christianity, even in the Catholic church, prior to the Jesuit casuists of the seventeenth century. It was invented by them along with other unethical doctrines such as “mental reservation”, “the end justifies the means”, “the end sanctifies the means” etc., to make Catholicism popular with the masses. It also helped to thinly rationalize their own exploits. Thus Catholic textbooks of moral theology today make no pretension of showing that these principles of conduct take their origin from the Ten Commandments or from Christian revelation. They merely propound them as accepted Catholic doctrine and trace them back to Gury, the Jesuit fountainhead.

When Protestants uncover and attack this doctrine of “secret compensation”, the Jesuits have a stock argument ready to meet it. Their alibi sounds like this: “The Catholic doctrine of secret compensation is limited to cases of dire emergency; its application is strictly qualified and limited. No Catholic takes it in the sense of a free-for-all license to steal.”

The sophistry in this confusing of strict theory and loose practice is common to many other Catholic doctrines. It is found in the teaching about the worshiping of saints and their images. In theory the veneration of statues and medals can be rationalized and stripped of all appearance of superstition and idolatry. But in practice among the common people this means nothing. The millions of ignorant Catholics, from the semi-feudal peasantry of Europe to the Mexican peons and the superstitious-minded Latin Americans, attribute magical qualities to these images and feel that the Catholic church wholly approves of it. So with the doctrine of “secret compensation”. Finespun distinctions of theologians mean nothing to the masses, above all to children, even if you grant that nuns and other Catholic teachers know and take the pains to emphasize these scholastic subtleties.

The blunt fact, confirmed by countless cases, is that many Catholics just get the one idea from this teaching, namely, that stealing is not essentially evil at all times, but, on the contrary, fair and reasonable if one needs something badly enough and the owner does not. How this conviction can be stretched to cover untold cases is easy to imagine. It is limited only by the envy and self-prejudice of the individual conscience—which vary immeasurably from person to person.

All in all, it is most unfortunate that any religion is permitted to teach such a principle as part of the curriculum of American school education, much more if it should ever be taught in the public schools on the pretext of helping to lessen crime among the youth of America.

The fact of the matter is, that religion does not belong primarily in the school at all. It belongs in the home and church, and can only enter the school if the children bring it with them. The aim of the school is to educate, not to sanctify our children. It is the children who should sanctify the school, which they can do only if they come from homes and churches where true religious development is fostered.

By J.J. Murphy

This article is from The Converted Catholic Magazine and was made available online by The Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry, LutheranLibrary.org. I got the text from a PDF file with four columns! Just try to read that from a mobile phone!

I think J.J. Murphy may have been a former Roman Catholic priest because he’s the author of many articles in the Converted Catholic Magazine. Unfortunately I can’t find his bio. Maybe one of the visitors of this website can lead me to a resource about him?

This article was written sometime in the first half of the 20th century when the level of literacy in Catholic educated children was low. It improved in the second half of the 20th century. I went to Catholic school and learned to read by 7 years old. Was that because of government pressure on Catholic parochial schools?

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC church authorities apply to themselves in the most literal sense the words of Jesus Christ, “All power is given to me in heaven and on earth.” They claim supreme and unquestionable power over the intellectual, social and moral lives of all men both as individuals and as nations. This authoritarian rule is centered primarily in the Pope. It is exercised in every field of thought and action, including first and foremost the field of education. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical on education, issued December 31, 1929, categorically declared:

“In the first place, education belongs preeminently to the [Catholic] Church for two supernatural reasons . . . AS for the scope of the Church’s educative mission, it extends over all peoples without any limitation, according to Christ’s command: ‘Teach ye all nations.’ Nor is there a civil power which can oppose or prevent it… And the Church has been able to do so much because her educative mission extends also to the non-faithful . . .”

The Catholic church’s contempt for the prerogatives of the State and its sovereign people is matched by its arrogant claim to be the only educator of the world. In its opinion the State’s sole right and duty in regard to education is to collect taxes for the establishment and maintenance of Catholic schools. Even in the past century the Catholic church did not hesitate to make this claim openly in this Protestant, democratic country. Orestes Brownson, well-known Catholic author and publisher, wrote at that time as follows:

“We deny, of course, as Catholics, the right of the civil government to educate; for education is a function of the spiritual society [the Roman Catholic church] much as preaching and the administration of the sacraments … We deny the competency of the State to educate even for its own order, or its right to establish purely secular schools.” (Orestes A. Brownson’s Views, page 64.)

ATTACK ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

To the mind of the Catholic church everything is black or white. What the church condemns is absolute evil, what it approves is absolute good. How this applies to education can be seen from the words of Jesuit Father Paul L. Blakely in an article bitterly castigating the public schools in the Sept. 20, 1930, issue of America (a Jesuit publication):

“’The school, if not a temple’ quotes Pope Pius XI, ‘is a den.’ The public school has never claimed to be a temple. Whatever its pretensions in this respect, it is, most assuredly, something which Catholics must oppose . . . If Catholics do not oppose public schools, what is the meaning of the Encyclical of 1929?”

How Catholics are taught to fight tooth and nail against public-school education is illustrated in the pamphlet by the above-mentioned Jesuit, published by the America press, May An American Oppose the Public School? There the following orders are laid down:

“Our first duty to the public school is not to pay taxes for its maintenance.” “The first duty of every Catholic father to the public school is to keep his children out of it.”

“But for the Catholic father, who, without episcopal sanction, sends his child to the public school when he could enter him at a Catholic institution, there is no excuse in heaven or on earth. He has begun the career of a Herod; it will be no fault of his if he is not guilty of soul-murder.”

“And every parish school in the land is a protest … and an active, energetic opposition to the damnable doctrine that a Catholic may approve of that system in which religion is dissociated from education.”

The truth of the matter is that the Catholic church as an international authoritarian system is essentially opposed not only to democracy but also to the principle of free public education on which it is grounded. It finds that illiterate people are most subject to its commands, and to this end makes it a prime point of policy to keep them illiterate. It is no accident that people dominated by Roman Catholicism for centuries are illiterate. Over 60% of the Portuguese cannot read. This same is true of Spain, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Mexico, and the nations of Latin America. Quebec has always been the most illiterate province in Canada and till 1943, education there was not compulsory. In a Protestant country like the United States, where competition forces Catholicism to use make-up, it seldom reveals its underlying contempt for mass education, even for mere literacy. But occasionally its bitterness boils over. Such was the self-revelation in the following lines quoted from the Jesuit magazine America (October 31, 1931):

“This business of teaching every child indiscriminately how to read and write results in nothing more than mass illiteracy. The man who reads and writes badly, as the great majority do today, is more illiterate than the man who does not read at all . . . One heresy breeds another. This indiscriminate ‘education’ applied to all alike under State systems is the result of the heresy of the equality of man.

The bulwark of American democracy is the public school. To undermine the public school, America’s living object lesson in equality and tolerance, the Catholic church has incessantly defamed it. First it objected to it because it read verses from the Bible. Once it succeeded in banishing from many state school systems this symbolic token of religious belief, it started denouncing the system as Godless and pagan. It continues to denounce it as socialistic, Communistic, atheistic, criminal, immoral and un-American in an effort to prejudice people against it. The excerpts from Catholic sources that follow will serve to implement this point.

Jesuit Father Francis P. Le Buffe’s speech at a communion breakfast of New York City employees was quoted in the N. Y. Times of May 17, 1943, as follows:

“Thanks to our Godless American public school system, which is un-American, we have a generation that does not know God.”

Jesuit Father Robert I. Gannon, President of Fordham University, at the 172nd annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, ridiculed the public schools as breeders of unbalanced criminals. The Catholic Brooklyn Tablet of Dec. 14, 1940, quoted him as saying that “now every time we put in an order for a classroom, we have to include an order for two sanitary cells and a chromium gibbet.”

Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen in an attack on the fundamentals of democracy in his Catholic Hour radio broadcast of Sunday, Jan. 18, 1942, declared his opposition to our public schools as follows:

“A system of education which ignores, sometimes repudiates religion and morality, which trains the intellect but ignores the will, which teaches that there is no such thing as right and wrong … is not worth preserving. Let it perish!”

In their fierce hatred of the public school system of America some propagandists stoop to vilest calumnies:

“The object then of these Godless irreligious Public Schools is to spread among the people the worst of religions, the no-religion, the religion which pleases the most hardened adulterers and criminals—the religion of irrational animals. The moral character of the Public Schools in many of our cities has sunk so low, that even courtesans have disguised themselves as school girls in order the more surely to ply their foul vocation.”

CATHOLIC INFILTRATION

In their plan to overthrow the American public-school system and substitute in its place a sectarian system of education supported by the State, a sort of union of Church and State, the Catholic hierarchy is following a carefully laid strategy. It aims at driving a wedge into the present public-school system by securing ‘released time’ for sectarian religious instruction. It is interesting to note that as early as 1940 Dr. George Shuster, leading Catholic propagandist, admitted in the winter edition of The American Scholar that Catholic strategists were the real originators of the ‘released time’ movement:

“Realizing that segregation was impossible, wide awake Catholic leaders started a movement to foster religious instruction in the public schools.”

Several other wedges were forced into the system at every possible opportunity by obtaining for private parish schools various forms of government support. The Jesuit monthly, The Catholic Mind, in December, 1948, argued the case this way:

“Extra-curricular services such as free transportation, books, food, etc. and subsidies such as Federal grants-in-aid are based on needs that are shared equally by the pupils of government and voluntary schools. To deny them to the pupils of one group of schools only, allowing them to the pupils of the other group, violates justice and the right of the parent to direct the education of the child, That is not the American way.”

Catholics have frequently secured public funds from the Federal government for the building, maintenance and repair of parochial schools. The following account from the Press Herald Bureau of Washington, D. C., on September 10, 1943, is a sample of what is being done in many dioceses but without press notices:

“The Federal Works Agency has allocated $33,457 to rebuild the two-story school at Brunswick, which was recently burned down. This includes re-equipping the school. The applicant is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, Maine.”

Whenever the opportunity arises Catholics proceed to take over public school buildings for their purposes. Oftener than not they can find guileless Protestant ministers to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. In Milltown, N. J., according to The Christian Science Monitor of July 6, 1943, the pupils of Milltown’s only public school “are dismissed as pupils of a secular school at 11:10 a.m. and immediately, with some exceptions, the same pupils become members of a religious school.” After this went on for a while, Dr. Charles H. Elliot, New Jersey Commissioner of Education, intervened declaring the use of a public school for sectarian purposes to be contrary to the law of the State, even though sanctioned by the local Board of Education.

The Brockton Daily Enterprise of Brockton, Massachusetts, in its issue of Dec. 16, 1943, carried a news article under the headline, “Asks Franklin Public School Space For Use By Parochial Pupils.” The paper went on to tell how the local pastor of St. Rocco’s Roman Catholic church had requested the use of a public-school building as a parochial school for his parish. The priest seemed so certain of getting his request that he didn’t bother appearing in person before the school board. The Catholic mayor appointed a committee to consider the matter.

Last year a bill was introduced into the legislature of the state of Alabama to appropriate $5,000 a year toward the maintenance of a parochial school in Mobile.

In some Catholic sections of the country the Catholic church virtually takes over the public schools without any legal transfer. Father J. A. Burns of Catholic University, Washington, D. C., in a book entitled Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the United States (p. 329) speaks of this as follows:

“But in many districts throughout the Southwest in which the population is entirely or almost entirely Catholic, the public schools naturally reflect the attitude of the people toward religion and assume more or less of a Catholic tone.”

PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS

Catholics often pretend that their parochial schools are in every respect the same as public schools, except that at short specified periods the Catholic religion is taught. The facts are quite the contrary. The parochial school aims at giving its young impressionable pupils a Catholic class-consciousness, at giving them a one-sided Catholic view on all social, political and religious problems. For this reason the textbooks used in public-school classes do not suit their sectarian purpose; the Second Council of Baltimore, in 1833, insisted on Catholic textbooks whenever possible and on the revision of public-school textbooks whenever there was no alternative but to use them.

Father Edward McGlynn, who was excommunicated because of his defense of the public-school system, rightly said of parochial schools that they “are, promoted by those who, educated in foreign lands, are but half democratic.” It might also be added that many teachers in these schools for generations were able to speak only broken English. Father Burns in the above-quoted book (p. 130) gives us the following picture:

“Catholics were eager to have the Brothers and Sisters in their schools, even though fresh from Germany or France .. . Often, indeed, they took up the work of teaching in English-speaking schools after being in the country only a few weeks. The Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur, for instance, reached Cincinnati October 30, 1840, and on the 18th of the January following when they opened school only one of the band was able to speak English fluently. The case was typical… The Sister who could speak English went from class to class in order to help until the teachers had acquired enough English to talk with their pupils. Sometimes a Sister would leave the room and returning with a slate, read from it what she wished to say.”

Even today there are several hundred parochial schools in this country where fully half of the course is taught in a foreign language, and English itself takes a secondary place. The Roman Catholic church conducts parochial schools in the following languages: French, German, Italian, Polish, Slovak, Bohemian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Ruthenian. A picture of one of these Catholic foreign schools was drawn by a Roman Catholic priest in the Catholic Standard and Times, official organ of the Philadelphia archdiocese, in its issue of Jan. 29, 1910:

“A girl enters the convent; she is perhaps possessed of an elementary education, and perhaps she is not. If she has advanced to the threshold of high school she has done well. . . Three years later, perhaps but two later, little Wladislawa, whom you prepared for First Holy Communion four or five years ago, is hurried out to your neighbor’s parish, where she is doing a work that will soon wear the life out of her, for it is beyond her power. There has been no time for training her along educational lines, certainly not along pedagogical lines …”

The Catholic people themselves as a matter of fact never wanted the parochial school. They felt no need for it. Even today after over a hundred years of effort, backed by threats of excommunication, 57 percent of the Catholic youth attends public schools. This is confirmed by Thomas F. Byron, a Roman Catholic of Lowell, Massachusetts:

“For the parochial school was never desired by the American Catholic people, neither were they even so much as asked to say whether they wanted it or not, nor do they for the most part regard it with any feeling but that of irksomeness now. The thinking class of Catholics would be glad to get rid of it, if this could only be done quietly and without public scandal. To the minds of nine Catholics out of every ten, the parochial school was no more needed in this country than a fifth wheel for a coach.”

It is not only Catholic laymen who resent the zeal of school-boosting prelates who have an eye set on higher ecclesiastical honors. Many Catholic priests resent the narrow, un-American atmosphere of parochial schools. Few of them have the courage to express their opinions in public as did the anonymous priest who wrote “The Heresy of the Parochial School” in the February, 1928, issue of the Atlantic Monthly. However he expressed their deep conviction when he said:

“We are a people self-ostracized. Our children may not sit in the classroom with the children of the unorthodox. We must have our own schools, our own charities, our own graveyards .. . When the Catholic child is six years old, he is taken to an inquisition as relentless as that over which presided the notorious Torquemada. More violence is done to tender souls by the intellectual lack of the parochial schoolroom than was done to the bodies of other victims in the past… There is but one quality that proves the excellence of a religion. It is the excellence of the lives lived by its devotees. When the American bishops cease their school-building crusade and begin the work of developing Christian character there will be hope for the Catholic church in America.”

Catholics should attend public schools to learn racial and religious tolerance. With this instruction in secular knowledge they could unite as much outside Catholic instruction as they pleased in their own schools. What is preventing them from instituting a system of religious instruction similar to that of the Jewish religion which is outlined by Morris Fine, as quoted in Bishop Noll’s scurrilous attack on the public school system in a book called, Public Enemy No. 1? Mr. Fine says:

“In New York City, for example, there exists a system of weekday schools maintained by the Jewish community which provides not one but five to twelve hours of instruction each week. In addition there are Sabbath schools, Sunday schools and Yiddish schools.”

When the Catholic church is unable to impose its rulings on its so-called communicants, it invariably attempts to get the State to act as its agent. Most Catholics disregard the rules and threats of the Catholic church in regard to birth control, so the church is attempting to make its birth control regulations a matter of State law. Likewise with parochial school attendance. Half the Catholics ignore the parochial schools, so the church is trying desperately to make the State support these schools so that the attendance of Catholics will become a matter of State law.

This discussion of public and parochial schools was clearly synopsized in the words written in an editorial of the N. Y. Times on January 13, 1930, in criticism of Pope Pius XI’s attack on the public-school system:

“The Pope’s encyclical sounds a note that will startle Americans, for it assails an institution dearest to them— the public school—without which it is hardly conceivable that democracy could long exist. As was said only yesterday by a critical authority, despite its shortcomings and mistakes, the public school has ‘already contributed to society more than all the other agencies combined.’ Under its tuitions not only are the elemental lessons which the race has learned taught to children of diverse traditions, racial qualities and religious faiths, but these children have been prepared to live together as citizens in a self-governing state . . . If other churches were to make like claim—that is, that ‘the educative mission belongs preéminently’ to them for their children, and were to lay like inhibitions, the very foundations of this Republic would be disturbed.”

THE AMERICAN WAY

Many Protestant ministers have been led by Catholic propaganda into opposing the public-school system on the grounds that it does not teach religion. They fail to realize that the Catholic church opposes public schools, not because they fail to teach religion as such, but because they do not teach Roman Catholicism. Rome’s aim and ideal is to dominate education to the exclusion of all other religions, as it does under Catholic dictatorships in Spain, Portugal and Argentina. Its first step in this direction within the United States is to undermine the public-school system as it now stands by making its parochial schools State supported. From then on its aggressiveness, working through Catholic public school teachers and otherwise, will gradually seize control of the entire school system. Those who think such designs fantastic have only to reflect on how our small Catholic minority has already obtained the balance of political power in our predominantly Protestant country.

Religious education is a good thing, and everyone favors it. But it has nothing in common with sectarian religious control of our public schools, which would strike at the root of our democratic government. It would lead here, as in Argentina, to segregation of Jew from Gentile, of Protestant from Catholic. It would departmentalize our American school system into a ‘ghetto’ for Jews, an heretical section for Protestants, a schismatic division for Orthodox Greek Catholics, and various limbos for Mohammedans, agnostics and other classes of unbelievers and religious dissidents. This is not the American way which teaches that various creeds must learn to work and live together in mutual tolerance. Our American way is against sectarianism in public schools, not because it opposes religion, but because it wishes to preserve religious freedom from the inroads of any politically powerful religious sect.

ILLITERACY IN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES

Countries that Roman Catholicism has dominated for centuries, like Spain, Portugal, Central and South America, and the Philippines are largely illiterate. The pitifully inarticulate and voiceless millions of these Catholic countries, imprisoned in mind and soul, remain helpless victims of superstition and ignorance. Dr. Frank C. Laubach, author of The Silent Billion Speak and a devout Protestant, has organized a world movement that is meeting with remarkable success in combating illiteracy. He has well earned the title, “Apostle of the Illiterates.” Last year he left for Latin America, under the joint auspices of two Protestant missionary organizations, ‘The Committee on Co-operation in Latin America,’ and ‘The Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature.’ Illiteracy in Latin America varies between 60 and 80 per cent, depending on the locality.

It is no mere accident that Catholic countries are kept ignorant. Catholicism demands a docility and blind obedience that can be obtained with the least difficulty only from the illiterate. What happens in a Catholic country is illustrated in Spain. Gerald Brenan in his scholarly new work, The Spanish Labyrinth, (pp. 49-51) says:

“Until 1836 education had been entirely in the hands of the higher clergy and the religious orders . . . In the elementary schools the children of the poor were deliberately not taught to read, but only to sew and to recite catechism.”

This condition extended down to 1910, when, as the author tells us:

… the Catholic religion and catechism were compulsorily taught in all the schools and the parish priest had a right to supervise this. So far did this sometimes go that parents used to complain that in State Schools the children passed half their class hours in saying the rosary and in absorbing sacred history and never learned to read.”

Educational conditions in modern Italy are described in an article by Peter Wilson, published in the Italian edition of Union Jack, British Army paper:

“The educational system in Italy is divided into four sections. The elementary which begins at five years of age and goes on until a child is 10… But the only free education is the elementary one. If you’re too poor to pay school fees—well, you just don’t go to school after you’re 10.”

Here in America one does not have to go south of the border to find that Catholic disapproval of education has left its mark. Quebec, dominated by Roman Catholicism, has been the only province in Canada where education was not compulsory. At this late date measures are now being taken to remedy this lamentable condition, following an exposé of conditions in Quebec in the October 19, 1942, issue of Life. An official publication of the Canadian government based on the census of 1931, Illiteracy and School Attendance, Census monograph No. 5, shows that in the male population over ten years of age the percentage of illiteracy for Roman Catholic French Canadians is 6.18 percent as contrasted with 0.88 percent for the British races of Canada, who are overwhelmingly Protestant.

The hierarchy of Quebec never took any steps to urge or oblige Catholic parents to educate their children, except in Catholic doctrine. It did, however, forbid them, under penalty of non-forgiveness of sins to send their children to any school except a Catholic school. In an official communication of August 31, 1942, Cardinal Villeneuve declared :

“To parents, who, having been duly warned, continue to send their children to a non-Catholic school without the permission of the bishop, confessors must refuse absolution.”

(Diocesan Discipline, art. 454, b.)

In refusing such elementary rights as that of education to children, Cardinal Villeneuve is only living up to the condemnation of all modern liberties contained in the encyclicals of Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII. Cardinal Villeneuve is officially on record as having publicly condemned these same liberties in practically the same words as those used by the Popes. Life magazine in its issue of October 19, 1942, quoted him as follows:

“It is never permitted . . . to grant freedom of thought, writing or teaching, and the undifferentiated freedom of religions, as so many rights which nature has given to man.”

I wonder how this happened?! She graduated from high school with honors but can’t read or write.

This is an interview by Gordon Comstock with author Darryl Eberhart. Gordon Comstock is the host of a podcast called The Ministry of Truth.

Darryl discusses the Vatican in politics today with the numerous Military Orders or Knights who fill government positions, as well as the corporate world, often called the new world order or globalism. I found an audio file of the interview on https://archive.org/download/JesuitsNewWorldOrder/TheJesuitsNewWorldOrder.mp3.

I transcribed the talk and highlighted in bold what Darryl said that I found particularly interesting.

Introduction by the host, Gordon Comstock

This is the Ministry of Truth, I’m Gordon Comstock, and we have a returning guest today. He’s been on the show, oh gosh, three or four times. This might even be his fifth time. Boy, he reads a lot, and they’re of course the kind of books that are hard to obtain nowadays. We’re not supposed to read these kinds of books, I suppose. And he’s got a very interesting background in military intelligence. And I think he really knows his stuff.

Before I was ever introduced to him, I was reading his writings online quite a bit. So I was quite happy to finally talk to him. And he’s become a regular on the show. And frankly, and this doesn’t happen very often in life, I have trouble finding areas where I would disagree with my guest today. And our guest is Darryl Eberhart. Welcome aboard, Darryl.

Darryl Eberhart’s background

Thanks for the nice introduction. I’m 61 years old (in 2012?). I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that on any of the podcasts. Sometimes I get a little tuckered out and tired of fighting these guys. But let me give your listeners kind of an introduction to me, both the intel and the religious side, because I’ve got this great concern that they’ll accuse, since I’ve been writing so much about Roman Catholicism and especially the Jesuit order, and I’m not comparing myself to Abraham Lincoln, but whenever they were plotting to assassinate Lincoln, they passed the word around that in a lot of the northern newspapers, as a matter of fact, that were Democratic newspapers. And actually Lincoln claimed up to half of the newspapers in his time were controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. But they accused him of being a baptized Catholic who had gone astray. They figured that would steady the arms of the Roman Catholic assassins, and a lot of the low-level conspirators were Roman Catholic. And I just wanted to let people know that I have never been a Roman Catholic. I was never secretly baptized as a Roman Catholic. I am not an apostate Catholic, although I do know quite a bit about the Catholic Church.

But anyway, let me tell them about my intel. I spent 26 years in the intelligence community, and 20 years of that was U.S. military. I’m a retired military. Eleven-and-a-half years in the U.S. Air Force intelligence, and eight-and-a-half years in Army intelligence. And then after I retired from the military, I worked six years as a Department of Defense civilian at the National Security Agency, largely because I got trained in Russian and Arabic languages. I had worked as an analyst, a linguist, a reporter, and then later I got a direct commission to captain. And so I was then in military intelligence. I was a chief warrant officer before then, after I’d switched over from the Air Force.

And I’d been writing two newsletters for the past decade-plus, tackling the tough topics and examining the tough issues. And when I first started writing, I just pretty much spoke in general terms of the globalist rich elite, talked a little bit about what are actually just front groups, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers, etc. They’re just 100% front groups. And as a matter of fact, a lot of smaller groups within the secret societies are front groups for the Jesuits.

The Jesuits and Black Pope control of the secret societies

The Jesuits, as I have maintained and others, like Greg Szymanski, Eric Jon Phelps, all of our research ties together and confirms what each of us has worked on separately. And it goes back to a lot of guys who have written good books, like Edmond Paris, The Secret History of the Jesuits. It just all dovetails and points to the same point, and that is that the Jesuits sit at the very top of the secret society’s pyramid, controlling Freemasonry, controlling their own Jesuit order, and through that controlling the entire hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church because the Black Pope actually rules over the White Pope.

He’s the Black Pope, the Jesuit Superior General, is the power behind the throne of the White Pope, the one that we see patting children on heads. But the real leader of the Roman Catholic hierarchy is the Jesuit Superior General, who’s also in charge of the very wealthy Knights of Malta who are co-located and co-headquartered at the Jesuit Superior General’s palace there in the Vatican. So this man is by far, I think, the most powerful man in the world, and through the wealthy controls through the Vatican Bank, and again through these wealthy Knights of Malta who hold a lot of key banking positions.

The Rothschild banking family: Jewish front-men for the Jesuits

The Rothschilds, people like to point to them and say, hey, look, these are Jews, and they’re running everything. The Rothschilds are Jesuits who just happen to have a Jewish background, but one of their titles is Guardians of the Vatican Treasury, and that ought to tell us something. They’re employees.

More of Darryl’s background

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I just wanted to let them know that I’ve got a good background in intelligence, but interestingly, despite having for 26 years there, almost the full 26 years, I had a top secret special intelligence clearance with all kinds of extra caveats and that, and I knew almost nothing about the Jesuits. I knew a little bit about the Catholic Church, and I’ll explain why with my religious background here.

I was raised Methodist. My mom was Methodist. My dad was Roman Catholic, but my dad got in trouble because he didn’t raise us Catholic, and the priest was angry with him for years.

Darryl’s experience with a Catholic priest

So again, I was never baptized a Roman Catholic, and I never – actually, I didn’t go to a Roman Catholic church until I actually got in my 20s. I went a couple of times with my dad to Mass, but again, I was raised Methodist. Now, I have to say this. Ninety percent of my relatives are Roman Catholic, including my dad is over 80 years in the Catholic Church. Ninety percent of my friends are Roman Catholic because I’m in a very heavily Roman Catholic area that anywhere you go in any direction, about five to six miles until you get down off the mountain, it’s either 70 to 90 percent Roman Catholic or higher.

Decades ago, by the way, I married a beautiful and wonderful Roman Catholic lady, and that’s when I took Roman Catholic catechism classes. I was still in the Air Force up at Syracuse University studying Russian language, and I went to those classes, and I never converted to Catholicism. As a matter of fact, the priest kind of threw me out after about six sessions because I kept asking questions. And I wasn’t a Bible scholar at the time, but I had read enough of the Bible to just raise questions like, hey, Jesus Christ healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and Paul said that Simon Peter took his wife with him when he went around.

It sounds like Peter was married. Why do you guys have to be celibate priests when it looks like Peter had a wife there? And the priest said, oh, is that in the Bible? And then I nailed him on about four or five other things, and finally he just came up after about the sixth session and put his arm around me because I was embarrassing him by asking him questions he couldn’t answer or making him look stupid because he kept saying, is that really in the Bible? I said, yeah, it is.

I said, Christ said, don’t call anyone on Earth Father. Now, obviously he’s not talking about your earthly daddy, but he was talking in a religious – so why do we have to call you guys Father? And he goes, is that in the Bible? I said, yeah, it is. And give one more. And I goes, Jesus Christ said that we shouldn’t do repetitious prayers like the heathen do. Why do you guys pray the rosary and just keep going over the same thing over and over and over again? And he goes, is that in the Bible?

And I’m not picking just on Catholic priests because I knew six Methodist ministers, and I’d say probably about four or five of them didn’t know that much about the Bible. As a matter of fact, their main training was in administration and raising money and public speaking and running socials and things like that. And I think, as a matter of fact, the last couple of Methodist ministers that I knew said they only had one Bible course.

And, of course, Roman Catholic priests, if you talk to ex-priests, they get very little Bible training. And theirs is almost all the traditions of the church, the church, old church fathers, especially the ones that the Catholics consider the most important. And that’s their main study. They also don’t get into the Bible.

So anyway, because of that, this guy (the Catholic priest trying to teach Darryl catechism), he just came up, put his arm around me and said, you don’t have to come back anymore, my son. And I didn’t want to go back anymore anyway, Gordon, because the snow was getting about three to four feet deeper up in Syracuse. I had a hellacious winter that year. And so it worked out well, but he definitely didn’t want me to come back.

More of Darryl’s background

So I am not Roman Catholic, although I love a lot of individual Roman Catholics. And I want to just make that point. Again, I just went to Mass a couple of times with my dad, kind of rebellious there because I was kind of disgusted by the Methodist church. And for six or seven years, I went to independent fundamental churches here when I came back after leaving the National Security Agency. And I got so disgusted with them because everything was pre-trib rapture, once saved, always saved. We’re not to be involved in fighting evil. We’re only here to win souls, and we’re to obey government no matter how evil it is, don’t you know? And that just drove me crazy. So basically, I just read the Bible, and I get together with a couple of friends.

Recommended book for Roman Catholics

And by the way, before we finish, I’d like to give a book. It’s the best book for giving to a Roman Catholic that really, in a nice and kind way, it’s Lorraine Boettner’s book called Roman Catholicism. They’ve attacked this man horribly. It was written, I think, in 1962. But Roman Catholics tell me it’s the best book to give to a Roman Catholic to witness to them as to the unbiblical, unscriptural doctrines and practices in the church because Boettner, he’s a man, Lorraine Boettner, just runs comparisons. This is what the Bible says. This is what the Catholic Church does or practices or says. And anyone who looks at that with an honest and open heart is going to see that basically, and I don’t know how to say it in a kinder way or anything. Roman Catholicism is basically paganism with a very thin Christian veneer.

And the sad part is that there are Roman Catholics, and I know Roman Catholics, that are real Christians that are in that church. And maybe before we get done, we’ll read that verse, Revelation 18, where it says come out of her my people.

The good news I have is that my best friend and his wife, and he was a Eucharistic minister. She taught, I forget, catechism type classes in the church school. And both very, very devout Roman Catholics, both from devout Roman Catholic, large Roman Catholic families. And after over 50 years, each of them in the Roman Catholic Church, they, by reading the Bible and Boettner’s book, they came out of the church. So it’s not an impossibility. It does happen.

Rome Catholicism not Biblical

And Roman Catholics, many of them have no idea. They know there’s some evil at the top because of the pedophile priest thing, but many of them have no idea because most of them do not read the Bible. They have no idea of how many Catholic practices like celibacy, infallibility (of the Pope), purgatory, again, indulgences, mass cards for the dead, people trying to pay and pray their relatives out of purgatory, that none of that’s in the Bible.

As a matter of fact, I challenge Catholics when I meet them, hey, sit down and read your Catholic Bible and see if you can find one pope. See if you can find one cardinal. See if you can find one archbishop. That whole entire hierarchical system is not there in the Bible. As a matter of fact, Paul and Peter, examples in the New Testament, when anyone ran up and fell at their feet and tried to kiss their toes or praise them as gods, they said, get up, get up, get up. We’re just men like you.

And compare that to the pope, many of the popes that have lived in such wealth and with many palaces and the cardinals the same way, and again through selling indulgences – that’s what got Luther so fired up. A lot of people forget that some of the reformers were Roman Catholics. Luther was an Augustinian monk who tried so hard to reform the system from within.

The Dominican Girolamo Savonarola, who was in Florence, led a great revival. He made one little mistake. He criticized, I think it was Pope Alexander VI, his corrupt papal court. Of course, he was immediately excommunicated and murdered, exterminated, executed. And that happened so frequently throughout history. We need to remember that many courageous Roman Catholics have tried to challenge the system from within, and papal Rome does not like to be challenged about anything.

Darryl’s attitude toward Roman Catholicism

I’d like to read just a couple of little things that I threw in some of my writings when I started writing more and more about Roman Catholicism. It will repeat a little bit what I said, but I think people need to know this. And here’s a little statement I put in some of my newsletters when I started to really go like after the Jesuit order.

I am not a Roman Catholic. I also am most definitely not anti-Roman Catholic as far as individual Roman Catholics go. My dad, 90% of my relatives are Roman Catholic, and the majority of my friends are Roman Catholic, still to this day, I might add.

Jesuits, Freemasonry, Knights of Malta, the CIA, etc.

I am, however, against the top levels of secret societies, from the hierarchy of the Jesuit order to the hierarchy of Freemasonry. And by the way, if I can find that quote, I’ll read it later. But there was a historian that said if you trace up to the very top of Freemasonry, you will find out that the leader of the head Freemason in the world and the Jesuit superior general are one and the same person.

And we need to remember that, that the Jesuit order took over French and British and German Freemasonry over a century ago. So the Jesuit order controls the higher levels of Freemasonry, which gives them so much power because when you start looking at the intelligence community, Gordon, you find out that just about every head of the central intelligence agency was either a 33-degree Freemason like Alan Dulles whom John Fitzgerald Kennedy fired, or they were Knights of Malta, which is a religious military order within the Roman Catholic Church under the direct command of the Jesuit superior general. I think that’s kind of interesting.

Five Knights of Malta, the first one that was in charge was William Wild Bill Donovan. You had John McCone, William Casey, William Colby, and George Tenet. There’s at least five, plus the head of the decades headlong of counterintelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency also sat at the Vatican desk, and the Israel desk was James Jesus Angleton, who just happened to be the CIA liaison to the Warren Commission.

And you can tell another Knight of Malta in the FBI, one of the assistant FBI directors, Carthus Deloach, just happened to be the FBI liaison to the Warren Commission, Whitewash Commission I call it. And we can tell the flow of information that went to the Warren Commission was completely sanitized and edited by these two Knights of Malta.

So when you start looking at that in World War II where the head of Soviet intelligence is a Knight of Malta who’s used as a Jesuit priest for his couriers named Prince Anton Terkel, you look at the German intelligence on the eastern front. It’s run by a Roman Catholic Knight of Malta named Reinhard Galen, who ends up after the war coming over and helping Donovan, who was the head of the old Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. They set up the CIA together, two Roman Catholic Knights of Malta.

By the way, William Joseph Wild Bill Donovan, I have a picture of him getting the Order of Sylvester there at the Vatican. The man was heavily decorated by the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican, for his lifetime of service to the Catholic Church, even while he was the head of the OSS and then afterwards as a CIA director. So isn’t that kind of interesting, Gordon, that these guys are getting awards? Our top intelligence guys are getting awards from the Roman Catholic Church.

Gordon: Well, you know, as you know, the Bible talks a lot about nations being empowered by demonic entities. And when you read through that litany of the crossovers between the Nazi echelon that were hooked up with the Knights of Malta, how they just very easily made that transition from crumbling Nazi Germany to rising United States 20th century power. And it’s almost, boy, to me, I can just envision those demons crossing over from the Nazis to us. And we’re seeing the fruits of that now all around us with entities like Blackwater and, of course, all of the draconian legislation like the Patriot Act.

Persecution of Bible Believers by the Roman Catholic Church

Darryl: That includes stuff that says that the president is allowed to torture people. And where does torture come from? It doesn’t come from any Protestant church. It doesn’t come from any evangelical or any kind of fundamental church. There’s only one church that is really tortured like big time, and that is the Roman Catholic Church and the Inquisition alone from, according to several reputable historians that officially ran 1203-1808, butchered up to 50 million Bible-believing Christians.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had Richard Bennett on. He’s an ex-priest of 22 years, but he did this DVD on the Inquisition. It’s subtitled, 605 Years of Papal Torture and Death. It’s 58 minutes long. It’s in color, very professionally done, has nice music on it. As a matter of fact, it has an introductory song about the Inquisition. But the first two-thirds of the DVD deals with that official Inquisition that took the lives, again, of up to 50 million Bible-believing Christians.

Many women were burned. And you think with wet wood and just slowly roasted and toasted at the stake, how cruel. Eighty popes in a row approved the Inquisition.

But again, it’s very professionally done, and the first two-thirds deals with that 1203 to 1808 time frame. But the last third deals with that forgotten Holocaust. Some people call it the Vatican Holocaust.

And they’re talking about in Croatia in the 1940s. Croatia was a part of Yugoslavia, then broke away, became a puppet state to the Nazis. And this fascist state butchered, tortured up to 1 million innocent Serb Orthodox Christians, men, women, and children, to the point where they impelled children alive on stakes. They crucified Orthodox priests to wooden doors. They skinned people alive. They buried people alive. They burned people alive. They sawed them. They cut their eyes out, made necklaces from them. And I know you’re very familiar with this.

Gordon: Yeah, I read that book, The Vatican’s Holocaust by Avro Manhattan.

Darryl: And he has pictures in there of both the perpetrators. We need to think about this because there are ten FEMA regions in the U.S. There are ten Jesuit provincials assigned to the U.S. I don’t think that’s coincidence. And when we think that two Jesuit prelates, they were Jesuit monsignors who were in archbishop positions in Zagreb and Sarajevo, respectively. Aloysius Stepanich, who also was the military vicar to the Ustashi military killing squads that ran around. And Ivan Saric. So these two Jesuit archbishops ran and choreographed this horrible religious holocaust, basically. (Of Serbian Orthodox believers.)

Gordon: And the people who led the bloodthirsty mobs were Franciscan priests, correct?

Darryl: Yes. And some of the worst commandants were, like you said, Franciscan priests, monks, and friars. They sometimes led the Ustashi units. And if they weren’t the actual officer in charge, then they were an advisor that participated in and urged the torture. And as the one writer wrote, he said they weren’t content just to kill people. They had to horribly torture them first.

So, you know, it boggles the mind of people who have not been brought up Roman Catholic and who do not know the history of the Roman Catholic Church to think of a church that calls itself Christian doing this type of thing.

Gordon: So that was a carryover. That was still the Inquisition, right? The Inquisition never really officially went away.

Darryl: No, no. And that was a modern-day Inquisition that we need to look at because, as one writer, I think it was Manhattan himself, said, it serves as a model of what the Roman Catholic Church would like to do if they could ever, you know, wherever they have power, to establish themselves as a state church and to totally, as the one Edmond Paris wrote, convert or die with everyone else. And, of course, some of the Orthodox people did convert.

If we don’t learn the lessons of history, as Santayana said, those lessons repeat. And God help us if we, when FEMA takes over and the governors are the real power behind them, are those ten Jesuit provincials, because we know what these people can do.

The hatred of the Roman Catholic hierarchy towards non-Catholics.

Here’s a little thing I’d like to read. I had stuck into several of the newsletters when I started writing more about Roman Catholicism. I put, why am I writing more and more about Roman Catholicism? I’ve been writing more on the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy, and especially its Jesuit order in recent newsletters, because I keep uncovering more and more about the deep hatred that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has for independent Bible-believing Christians, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews. And by the way, during World War II, it was just a bloodbath that mainly went after Protestants in northern Germany, Orthodox Christians not just in Serbia, but in Russia and the Ukraine, and of course Jews, up to six million Jews, despite all of these people that try to say that there were only a couple hundred thousand. Now, I’ve seen the actual pictures of the bulldozing of the bodies and that when the American soldiers went into camp.

Gordon: Let me derail you quickly here, because you just prompted something. Darryl, do you think, as I strongly suspect, that not only during World War II, not only what happened in Croatia with the mass murder and torture of the Serbs, not only was that a carryover of the same Inquisition, but do you think, given that Hitler is still to this day a Catholic in title, he never was excommunicated, and given that it was guys like Franz von Papen, who, was he a cardinal or an archbishop?

Darryl: No, no, he was a Knight of Malta. Knight of Malta. He put Hitler into power.

Gordon: He put Hitler into power, and as we know, Knights of Malta are under the auspices of the Vatican. Do you consider that the far more infamous Holocaust that we see so many movies and books about, like Schindler’s List and whatnot, do you think that that also was a carryover of the Inquisition?

Darryl: Without doubt, there’s no doubt in my mind that that was another, it was just part of the modern-day Inquisition. Serbia wasn’t the only one. World War II was an entire Inquisition that the Catholic Church has long hated Orthodox Christians, and that’s why the Nazi SS units, a lot of them in the Central Security Service and that, they were priests that put on the black uniform. The head of the Nazi SS was not little Pogno’s nephew Heinrich Himmler, Kurt Heinrich Himmler. The real head of it was his uncle, who was a Roman Catholic priest, a Jesuit. That’s right. Subordinate to the Jesuit superior general, Ledeckowski.

But those priests followed in with the killer units, just like the Ustashi had the Franciscan priests, monks and friars. These Jesuit priests and other Roman Catholic priests were even wearing the black uniform of the Nazi SS, and they were with the killer squads that came in behind the regular German military whenever they, you know, invaded into Ukraine and then further into the Soviet Union.

So, yeah, it was – Eric Jon Phelps, when I first looked at his book, I thought, wow, could it be that this thing (WW II) was just totally orchestrated to slaughter as many Protestants and Jews and Orthodox Christians as possible? And I don’t know how anyone can really take an honest look at World War II and not come to that conclusion. Where did almost all the firebombing take place? In northern Germany, not in Catholic Bavaria. What happened to the poor German Protestants up in the northeastern parts, like in Prussia, in that they were force-marched during winter. Women and children died along the way. Some people think up to a million. With that, and the people that died in the camps in the northern part, the Americans in British camps were horrible. They allowed malnutrition. They allowed weather and everything, exposure of these people. They were horribly treated. The amount of food they were given in that, like I said, force-marched in the middle of winter. And then, of course, the Jews, they went after them big time, and the Orthodox Christians.

Roman Catholic power in key government positions.

So I don’t see how anyone can really be honest, whether he’s Roman Catholic or non-Roman Catholic, look at World War II and not just see a massive religious side that was orchestrated by having Knights of Malta running the intelligence services on both sides. And we all need to keep that in mind.

I worked 26 years in the intelligence community. When you have top positions like the CIA counterintelligence desk, when you hold the head of the CIA, the head of the FBI, then you can murder anybody. And that’s what happened with John Kennedy. And then cover it up, because you have all your people at the key choke points, and no mid-level analyst or something’s going to be able to get anything. He’ll get murdered if he tries to go outside of channels. And that’s what they did with the two liaison positions with Kennedy and everyone around Kennedy. And that’s something that you and I have talked about before, is the alternative medium.

Much of it blames everything on the Jews, mentioning the Rothschilds and that, or the head of the Federal Reserve, and not ever getting to the secret societies and the control of the secret societies by the Jesuit superior general, where they have control of these. Not only the intelligence agencies, but they are able then to use, through the CIA cooperation with special forces, Navy SEALs, they are able to use our most elite military to murder people and cover it up. And having key people in Congress, almost every key committee is held by a Roman Catholic, generally.

It’s interesting. I started when I was updating some of my news articles. I will tell this story, and you know it. At one time, I had 106 articles up on the web. 106. And a lot of them dealt with assassination, like the assassination of Kennedy, the assassination of John Paul I, the assassination of Oscar Romero, the archbishop down in El Salvador, and the assassination of Lincoln.

And when you look around and start digging a little bit outside of mainstream publishing and the current American textbooks, you find out in all of these that the culprits are the Jesuits and the rest of the Vatican, the papacy. Clearly, their fingerprints are all over the assassination of Lincoln. My goodness, they even helped John Harrison Surratt to escape up to Canada, where two Roman Catholic priests hide him out, one of the arch-conspirators, and then they ferry him over to England and down to the papacy, where he becomes part of the Pope’s own personal bodyguard.

So to have that kind of power – but Burke McCarty in her book pointed out that during the time – and she wrote an interesting book, The Suppressed Truth, about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. That book was published in 1924, and when she did, she’s got a great quote in there, and I’ll just paraphrase it because I don’t have it right in front of me. But she said that during the Wilson administration – he served two terms, I think that would be 1913 to 1921. Remember, he’s the president and said, I’ll never send your boys overseas, just like FDR later. But anyway, she said during his administration, the head of the Army, the head of the Navy, the head of the emergency fleet, the head of the post office, and she named a couple others, and she said just about every single department in the U.S. government – now remember, this is in the 1920s, the early 20s – she said it was held by a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus. Now the Roman Catholic population at that time was one-sixth the entire U.S. population. But there they’re holding every single key position.

Lincoln said that in his time, half of the newspapers – I mentioned it earlier – half the newspapers were run by the Roman Catholic Church. And then F.Tupper Saussy, when he came out with his book, Rulers of Evil, showed how in the Reagan administration, almost all his top advisors were Roman Catholic. And almost every key position – intelligence, finance, in both the Senate and the House – were all held by Roman Catholics.

And it’s interesting, when you think back, Gordon, if you go to an independent fundamental church, you’ll find out these guys have all been taught in their seminaries. We don’t get involved in politics. But when you go to Roman Catholic churches, when they have their Knights of Columbus, and they try to recruit young Roman Catholics into that, they tell their people, get into law enforcement.Get into government. Become mayor. Become governor. Become president.

They’re talking two sides there. They infiltrate, and Protestants have trouble understanding that because we wouldn’t think of infiltrating a Catholic church. But the Jesuits are masters of infiltration, and they have their people infiltrate even seminaries of these independent fundamental associations and everything. And they tell these people, now, you need to obey government no matter how evil it is, no matter how fascist it is, because don’t you know government’s from God? And you guys need to stay out of politics. You’re only here to win souls. You don’t get involved in anything. And then they’re telling their people, get involved in law enforcement. Get involved in politics.

You go to a lot of these northern, northeastern cities, Midwest, North Chicago, New York, Boston, you’ll find out that a very large number of the police officers, especially in the middle and higher levels, are Knights of Columbus. And you can see that on a website, spirituallysmart.com. It’s under Blue Mass. Spirituallysmart.com. I think it’s one of the first ones in his left-hand column on his home page. He has Blue Mass there. And they have all kinds of pictures. Jeb Bush is a fourth degree, I believe, Knight of Columbus. They have a picture of him getting his ceremony there. They have a picture of President, the current baby Bush, shaking hands with a bunch of Knights of Columbus. They have pictures of some of these top people in the New York police force. I think one of them was a former Homeland Security or FEMA female. It was a very high-ranking one. They’re all Knights of Columbus!

So what does that bode for us? We need to remember something, Gordon, and that is that the Ustashi was a Roman Catholic militia called Catholic Action in Yugoslavia. Whenever the German troops poured across the border, these people turned on their own government, turned on their own constitution, their own people, and betrayed them and showed the German troops, where the arms were stored, where aircraft were hidden away. And they basically were a fifth column.

I hope most of the listeners understand that fifth column from the Spanish Civil War there where General Mola and Franco said he had a fifth column. In other words, he had people friendly to him behind the enemy’s line pretending to be good guys when they were actually betraying them. But he claimed to have, in Madrid, to have a fifth column.

Well, throughout all of Europe in World War II, there were fifth columns in France and Yugoslavia that betrayed their own people, their own country, their own government, their own military. They assassinated King Alexander of Yugoslavia.

But the Ustashi, we need to remember, was a Roman Catholic militia, basically a terrorist group before World War II. And then once Pavelich was put into power, Pavelich, an interesting character who said a good Ustashi is someone who can cut a child out of its mother’s womb. And having the two archbishops there, once they took power, well, guess what happened to the Roman Catholic militia, Catholic Action Ustashi? They became the regular military forces, and they went around being the killer squads.

I’ve heard a million and a half to two million strong for the Knights of Columbus. There are signs all over where I live. I mean, you see all these signs. They have chapters and stuff. They sell insurance. They sell little gambling tickets, basically, that are based on the lottery here in Pennsylvania. These guys are wealthy. They’re powerful.

And we need to think, what are they going to do when we go under total martial law in a fascist state here? Are these guys going to be just like the Ustashi in Croatia? That’s something to think about because the Knights, and you’ve probably seen it, that fourth-degree oath of the Knights of Columbus. Now, they’ve probably mellowed it some, but it was a horrible blood oath that was read into the congressional record in the early 1900s. Knights of Columbus. We don’t need militias that have an oath to a foreign potentate, and that’s what the pope is. And if people think that’s hard, it’s just the truth.

Gordon: When you say foreign potentate, now, that brings up a good point because we talk a lot about the dangers of Roman Catholicism and the Jesuits and the upper echelon of that hierarchy. But that upper echelon, foreign potentate, isn’t the real threat, the real source of all this threat, is that the Vatican? Because the Vatican, people think it’s just a religious system still. No, that’s a nation state, is it not?

Darryl: It is. The Vatican State has diplomatic relations with something like over 80 or 100 countries. I forget. But they’re a member of the United Nations. The pope goes and speaks there, and I’m pretty sure they are. And I know they’ve got diplomatic relations with all of the major countries in the world. As a matter of fact, they were restored with Mussolini in the concordant that he signed with the papacy. And of course, some people tend to forget Hitler also signed a concordant with the papacy.

And you mentioned earlier, Hitler was never excommunicated. Neither was Mussolini. As a matter of fact, when Hitler died, or some people say he didn’t really die, he went to Argentina. But anyway, when he was supposedly committed suicide, they had a high requiem mass for him in Spain, officiated, I think, by three Roman Catholics. Generally, that’s only for like a cardinal or something. And they had that for him.

But Mussolini, Hitler, none of the worst of these mass murderers was ever excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. How could they? These guys were working for them.

Gordon: That’s not good PR within your own camp if you excommunicate your top murderers that carry out your orders for you.

Let me go ahead and finish a little bit here. I put here, we Americans have for the most part – oh, let’s say one other thing. You mentioned a good point. A lot of people tend to think of Roman Catholicism as just a religion. No. The Roman Catholic Church is probably the most powerful geopolitical faction in the world because of controlling secret societies, plus having a billion adherents, plus having a Vatican bank. And then they have another bank too. But all their stockholdings in that, the Knights of Malta are big bankers. So they’re filthy rich. And so we need to think of them. They are the most powerful, in my mind, geopolitical and financial power on the entire planet. They’re not just a religion.

So anyway, I put here, we Americans have for the most part been largely ignorant of the well-documented history of the Roman Catholic Church in conducting brutal religious genocide, the Inquisition, Holy Wars, and Holy Crusades against all the aforementioned groups. Talking again, Bible-believing Christians, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews. Sadly, many Americans believe the ecumenical rhetoric of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy, that she has changed her ways and now loves all the separated brethren.

Well, we now know that the current Pope Benedict XVI has come out and said, well, that liberal stuff you kind of heard out of Vatican II is they’re just spinning that the wrong way. There’s no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church. And I’ve got quotes somewhere, some by him, and some of his recent documents where he said any church that came out of the Protestant Reformation is not a church.

So guess what, Protestants, you’re back to being heretics and not separated brethren. And by the way, the ecumenical movement totally run by Roman Catholics. There’s a Roman Catholic priest named Forrest and that, but you’ll find it almost all of these, the Billy Graham things and that, there’s always priests there.

Paul and Jan Crouch, you can almost always see a priest in the background there. Jack Van Impe praises Mary and the Marian apparitions and the Popes. So a lot of these so-called Protestant evangelists and that are just… Oh, well, Billy Graham himself has an honorary degree from a Roman Catholic Institute of Higher Learning.

Darryl: They’re all subverted. Yeah, they’re working for the other side. And we need to realize that these people are pied pipers. As a matter of fact, Billy Graham, when a Roman Catholic comes forward at his crusade wanting to truly learn more about Christ, what does Billy Graham and those counselors do? They turn them over to the local Roman Catholic Church. They go back to your Roman Catholic Church and learn there.

I mean, again, I’m not trying to be mean to anyone because I love a lot of individual Roman Catholics, but Roman Catholicism is basically pagan. It’s the old Babylonian religion. It’s paganism with a thin veneer of Christianity. It moved into the power vacuum whenever the imperial pagan Roman Empire fell, and the Pope basically took over as the ghost rose from the ashes of the pagan imperial Roman Empire.

Gordon: Well, Darryl, this gets into eschatology. You have these pre-tribbers, these futurist Christians nowadays who are expecting some kind of revived Roman Empire in the future. And what they are obtusely not seeing is that when the secular government of Rome fell, it wasn’t—just a few years went by, and then it morphed into— Basically what I’m trying to say is their revived Roman Empire is Roman Catholicism because it became—it carried on Rome and engulfed all the other states around it, infiltrated. So it’s right in front of them. It’s always been in front of them.

Darryl: It’s always been the number one persecutor of Christians. True Bible-believing Christians, including the—and I’m sure you covered the Waldensians. I know you read about them. You know how they treated the Waldensians, but they called the Albigensians, the Waldensians, Heretics, Manichaeans, Dualists, all kinds of dirty names. But they were basically just simple Bible-believing Christians who were always—let me repeat that. They didn’t leave the Catholic Church. They were always outside the Catholic Church. And because Catholics in France and that started—who would see—and they compared how the wonderful lives of these people—they were hardworking, industrious, moral people. And so the Catholic Church was starting to lose—their adherents were leaving in droves to join these people, and that’s when they crushed the entire southern population of southern France. They exterminated the Albigensians in a series of crusades. I think they started somewhere around 1208. And they basically used some of the same crusaders who had been down in the Middle East and turned them loose, including rapists and murderers, out of the prisons to slaughter these people. And that’s why I started writing more and more about Roman Catholicism, just because I don’t know how to say this in any other way than the Roman Catholic Church is basically—especially the Jesuit Order in the last four centuries—it’s international murder incorporated. They’re just mass murderers, masters of assassination of individuals, but also masters of religious genocide.

And we need to speak out about it. We need to—Roman Catholics need to learn. I think if Roman Catholics in America could learn one-tenth of the history of their church, suppose a church—but again, remember, it’s an official nation-state, the Vatican State, that was restored by Mussolini with his concordat, I think it was in 1924. But anyway, by the way, Roman Catholicism also became the state religion again there, so the deadly wound kind of got healed there whenever they got back as a Vatican state. But the point—I’d like to let people know what my web—if you don’t mind, let them know the website, because there’s a lot of articles up there, and I have written more about Roman Catholicism. My website is toughissues.org—issues is plural—toughissues, I-S-S-U-E-S.org. (The domain name went off-line) I had to change it.

We’ll go back to that story. I had 106 articles up there on the web at one time, mostly newsletters, and they had been hacked into because I think I’d written about assassinations and the POWMIA issue. They don’t like you to write about that, all the guys we left behind. And so it got messed with several times. We finally got it all back up on two different websites, and the one website was simply hooked into the first website, and the lady that was running—and I won’t go into detail here—but she pulled all 106 articles and newsletters I had up there because I’d used several quotes from Seventh-day Adventists. And unfortunately, I’d also used quotes by Hitler, but that didn’t make me a Nazi.

I’m not a Seventh-day Adventist, by the way. I’d used quotes by Stalin. That didn’t make me a communist. But anyway, I’ll use quotes by anybody if I think they’re pretty good. But anyway, 106 got knocked out, and I’ve been slowly rebuilding it back, and I’ve got 39 articles up there. And since you and I have both been talking about genocide here, I would really like the listeners to just read two articles I’ve got up there.

One’s called Bloody Hands and Wicked Hearts. It’ll just show up under Bloody Hands. The other one is Death by Government and Death by Church. It’ll show up there, Death by Government. Read Bloody Hands and Death by Government. And you’ll find out it’s not the Jews, the Zionist Jews, that are running around fomenting all the wars and fomenting World War I and World War II. It is the Roman Catholic Church, very clearly.

And there was a man named Edmond Paris who was born Roman Catholic, a French author who wrote several books like Convert or Die, but he wrote The Secret History of the Jesuits.

(Transcribed up to 49 and a half minutes of the audio file. The main points are covered.)

Charles Chiniquy

This was taken from the first part of chapter 5 of Fifty Years in the Church of Rome
By Charles Chiniquy.

The day following that of the meeting at which Mr. Tache had given his reasons for boasting that he had whipped the priest, I wrote to my mother: “For God’s sake, come for me; I can stay here no longer. If you knew what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard for some time past, you would not delay your coming a single day.”

Indeed, such was the impression left upon me by that flagellation, and by the speeches which I had heard, that had it not been for the crossing of the St. Lawrence, I would have started for Murray Bay on the day after the secret meeting at which I had heard things that so terribly frightened me. How I regretted the happy and peaceful days spent with my mother in reading the beautiful chapters of the Bible, so well chosen by her to instruct and interest me! What a difference there was between our conversations after these readings, and the conversations I heard at St. Thomas!

Happily my parents’ desire to see me again was as great as mine to go back to them. So that a few weeks later my mother came for me. She pressed me to her heart, and brought me back to the arms of my father.

I arrived at home on the 17th of July, 1821, and spent the afternoon and evening till late by my father’s side. With what pleasure did he see me working difficult problems in algebra, and even in geometry! for under my teacher, Mr. Jones, I had really made rapid progress in those branches. More than once I noticed tears of joy in my father’s eyes when, taking my slate, he saw that my calculations were correct. He also examined me in grammar. “What an admirable teacher this Mr. Jones must be,” he would say, “to have advanced a child so much in the short space of fourteen months!”

How sweet to me, but how short, were those hours of happiness passed between my good mother and my father! We had family worship. I read the fifteenth chapter of Luke, the return of the prodigal son. My mother then sang a hymn of joy and gratitude, and I went to bed with my heart full of happiness to take the sweetest sleep of my life. But, O God! what an awful awakening Thou hadst prepared for me!

About four o’clock in the morning heartrending screams fell upon my ear. I recognized my mother’s voice.

“What is the matter, dear mother?”

“Oh, my dear child, you have no more a father! He is dead!”

In saying these words she lost consciousness and fell on the floor!

While a friend who had passed the night with us gave her proper care, I hastened to my father’s bed. I pressed him to my heart, I kissed him, I covered him with my tears, I moved his head, I pressed his hands, I tried to lift him up on his pillow: I could not believe that he was dead! It seemed to me that even if dead he would come back to life that God could not thus take my father away from me at the very moment when I had come back to him after so long an absence! I knelt to pray to God for the life of my father. But my tears and cries were useless. He was dead! He was already cold as ice!

Two days after he was buried. My mother was so overwhelmed with grief that she could not follow the funeral procession. I remained with her as her only earthly support. Poor mother! How many tears thou hast shed! What sobs came from thine afflicted heart in those days of supreme grief!

Though I was very young, I could understand the greatness of our loss, and I mingled my tears with those of my mother.

What pen can portray what takes place in the heart of a woman when God takes suddenly her husband away in the prime of his life, and leaves her alone, plunged in misery, with three small children, two of whom are even too young to know their loss! How long are the hours of the day for the poor widow who is left alone, and without means, among strangers! How painful the sleepless night to the heart which has lost everything! How empty a house is left by the eternal absence of him who was its master, support, and father! Every object in the house and every step she takes remind her of her loss and sinks the sword deeper which pierces her heart. Oh, how bitter are the tears which flow from her eyes when her youngest child, who as yet does not understand the mystery of death, throws himself into her arms and says: “Mamma, where is papa? Why does he not come back? I am lonely!”

My poor mother passed through those heartrending trials. I heard her sobs during the long hours of the day, and also during the longer hours of the night. Many times I have seen her fall upon her knees to implore God to be merciful to her and to her three unhappy orphans. I could do nothing then to comfort her, but love her, pray and weep with her!

Only a few days had elapsed after the burial of my father when I saw Mr. Courtois, the parish priest, coming to our house (he who had tried to take away our Bible from us). He had the reputation of being rich, and as we were poor and unhappy since my father’s death, my first thought was that he had come to comfort and to help us. I could see that my mother had the same hopes. She welcomed him as an angel from heaven. The least gleam of hope is so sweet to one who is unhappy!

From his very first words, however, I could see that our hopes were not to be realized. He tried to be sympathetic, and even said something about the confidence that we should have in God, especially in times of trial; but his words were cold and dry.

Turning to me, he said:

“Do you continue to read the Bible, my little boy?”

“Yes, sir,” answered I, with a voice trembling with anxiety, for I feared that he would make another effort to take away that treasure, and I had no longer a father to defend it.

Then, addressing my mother, he said:

“Madam, I told you that it was not right for you or your child to read that book.”

My mother cast down her eyes, and answered only by the tears which ran down her cheeks.

That question was followed by a long silence, and the priest then continued:

“Madam, there is something due for the prayers which have been sung, and the services which you requested to be offered for the repose of your husband’s soul. I will be very much obliged to you if you pay me that little debt.”

“Mr. Courtis,” answered my mother, “my husband left me nothing but debts. I have only the work of my own hands to procure a living for my three children, the eldest of whom is before you. For these little orphans’ sake, if not for mine, do not take from us the little that is left.”

“But, madam, you do not reflect. Your husband died suddenly and without any preparation; he is therefore in the flames of purgatory. If you want him to be delivered, you must necessarily unite your personal sacrifices to the prayers of the Church and the masses which we offer.”

“As I said, my husband has left me absolutely without means, and it is impossible for me to give you any money,” replied my mother.

“But, madam, your husband was for a long time the only notary of Mal Bay. He surely must have made much money. I can scarcely think that he has left you without any means to help him now that his desolation and sufferings are far greater than yours.”

“My husband did indeed coin much money, but he spent still more. Thanks to God, we have not been in want while he lived. But lately he got this house built, and what is still due on it makes me fear that I will lose it. He also bought a piece of land not long ago, only half of which is paid and I will, therefore, probably not be able to keep it. Hence I may soon, with my poor orphans, be deprived of everything that is left us. In the meantime I hope, sir, that you are not a man to take away from us our last piece of bread.”

“But, madam, the masses offered for the rest of your husband’s soul must be paid for,” answered the priest.

My mother covered her face with her handkerchief and wept.

As for me, I did not mingle my tears with hers this time. My feelings were not those of grief, but of anger and unspeakable horror. My eyes were fixed on the face of that man who tortured my mother’s heart. I looked with tearless eyes upon the man who added to my mother’s anguish, and made her weep more bitterly than ever. My hands were clenched, as if ready to strike. All my muscles trembled; my teeth chattered as if from intense cold. My greatest sorrow was my weakness in the presence of that big man, and my not being able to send him away from our house, and driving him far away from my mother.

I felt inclined to say to him: “Are you not ashamed, you who are so rich, to come to take away the last piece of bread from our mouths?” But my physical and moral strength were not sufficient to accomplish the task before me, and I was filled with regret and disappointment.

After a long silence, my mother raised her eyes, reddened with tears, towards the priest and said:

“Sir, you see that cow in the meadow, not far from our house? Her milk and the butter made from it form the principal part of my children’s food. I hope you will not take her away from us. If, however, such a sacrifice must be made to deliver my poor husband’s soul from purgatory, take her as payment of the masses to be offered to extinguish those devouring flames.”

The priest instantly arose, saying, “Very well, madam,” and went out.

Our eyes anxiously followed him; but instead of walking towards the little gate which was in front of the house, he directed his steps towards the meadow, and drove the cow before him in the direction of his home.

At that sight I screamed with despair: “Oh, my mother! he is taking our cow away! What will become of us?”

Lord Nairn had given us that splendid cow when it was three months old. Her mother had been brought from Scotland, and belonged to one of the best breeds of that country. I fed her with my own hands, and had often shared my bread with her. I loved her as a child always loves an animal which he has brought up himself. She seemed to understand and love me also. From whatever distance she could see me, she would run to me to receive my caresses, and whatever else I might have to give her. My mother herself milked her; and her rich milk was such delicious and substantial food for us.

My mother also cried out with grief as she saw the priest taking away the only means heaven had left her to feed her children.

Throwing myself into her arms, I asked her: “Why have you given away our cow? What will become of us? We shall surely die of hunger?”

“Dear child,” she answered. “I did not think the priest would be so cruel as to take away the last resource which God had left us. Ah! if I had believed him to be so unmerciful I would never have spoken to him as I did. As you say, my dear child, what will become of us? But have you not often read to me in your Bible that God is the Father of the widow and the orphan? We shall pray to that God who is willing to be your father and mine: He will listen to us, and see our tears. Let us kneel down and ask Him to be merciful to us, and to give us back the support which the priest deprived us.”

We both knelt down. She took my right hand with her left, and, lifting the other hand towards heaven, she offered a prayer to the God of mercies for her poor children such as I have never since heard. Her words were often choked by her sobs. But when she could not speak with her voice, she spoke with her burning eyes raised to heaven, and with her hand uplifted. I also prayed to God with her, and repeated her words, which were broken by my sobs.

When her prayer was ended she remained for a long time pale and trembling. Cold sweat was flowing on her face, and she fell on the floor. I thought she was going to die. I ran for cold water, which I gave her, saying: “Dear mother! Oh, do not leave me alone upon earth!” After drinking a few drops she felt better, and taking my hand, she put it to her trembling lips; then drawing me near her, and pressing me to her bosom, she said: “Dear child, if ever you become a priest, I ask of you never to be so hard-hearted towards poor widows as are the priests of today.” When she said these words, I felt her burning tears falling upon my cheek.

The memory of these tears has never left me. I felt them constantly during the twenty-five years I spent in preaching the inconceivable superstitions of Rome.

Continued from The Papal System – XL. The Jesuits.

Romanism never showed such symptoms of approaching dissolution as it exhibits at this moment (in 1872). With the exception of England and the United States, ruin threatens the papal system everywhere. Irish emigration into Britain gives Catholicism the appearance of progress in Scotland and England. Germany and Ireland are rapidly increasing the Romanists in these States. And yet, what population north and south Britain and the United States gain, Ireland and Germany lose. It is but a transfer of papal forces, and not an augmentation of the army of the pontiff. So far from that, every year emigration sets thousands at liberty from priestly chains among ourselves, who, had they remained in the countries of their nativity, would have been bound still.

But in all the world besides, in what a sorry state the infallible Church is? The scepter of the king priest is broken in Italy, and his triple crown destined for some antiquarian collection. And never was there a ruler over whose dethronement his subjects had greater joy. His spiritual authority is barely tolerated in that Italy where it received adoration for centuries, and where Protestant churches are now springing up in scores; and will soon rise up in thousands. In France the women respect his holiness; the children obey him; and the men smile at his chattering claims to infallibility; in Spain, the dominion of the popes has reached the last stage of decay; and soon it will utterly perish in the land which gave birth to St. Dominic of inquisitorial fame; in Austria, the House of Hapsburgh has left the Roman bishop to support his tottering spiritual empire himself; and it has given full permission to his enemies to make war upon his ancient and iniquitous rule; in Germany, neither Catholic nor Protestant pays him the customary reverence; and the principles of Dollinger threaten to snatch from his priestly sovereignty the last section of that mighty nation whose destinies Luther did so much to shape.

The paramount influence of the Jesuits over the pope has weakened the bonds by which the great body of liberal priests and people throughout the world were united to the “Holy Father.” The preposterous dogma of infallibility, known by hosts of priests to be false in its application to Pius IX., and known by a smaller and more learned number to be equally destitute of truth in reference to any of his predecessors, is tossing the papal ship furiously; and will yet open her seams and plunge her beneath the billows of destruction.

An elderly lady of the Catholic faith, some months since in Europe, in speaking of the calamities of the poor old pope, told a gentleman that she intended to leave the Church of Rome, “For God Almighty was evidently becoming a Protestant.” If he was ever anything else, it is clear that the whole energies of his government are in that direction now, and that the papacy must soon vanish from the earth.

The Roman bishops have built a mountain of superstitions upon the gospel; the mountain is broad as the Catholic world, and high enough to insult the angels and defy the Almighty; but that gospel is volcanic in its nature; it cannot be kept quiet; already the mountain heaves and labors; and soon the gigantic power of the cross underneath it will tear the mountain to pieces, scatter it to the four winds of heaven, and send its doctrines of burning love all over the earth.

The popes have erected a vast temple, in which they have enthroned the Roman Dagon; it has mighty walls, and many worshipers; and TRUTH, like Samson, has been there for ages, blind, it was supposed, and certainly a prisoner; but Truth has now seized the principal pillar of that idol temple, with the strength of omnipotence; it totters; the whole building trembles; and soon, amid the songs of angels, the jubilant shouts of holy men, and the blessings of Immanuel, Truth will hurl that temple from its foundations, and fling its fragments into the abyss; then—

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run,
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
‘Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

APPENDIX.

In the preface to the bull enjoining this celebrated standard of doctrine, Pius orders it to be received by “All who may happen henceforward to be placed over cathedral and superior churches, or who may have to take care respecting their dignities, canonries, and any other ecclesiastical benefices whatsoever, having the cure of souls;” and by “all persons who shall have charge of monasteries, convents, houses, and any other places, of all regular orders, even of military ones, under whatever name or title.”

“I, N. (the person’s name), with steadfast faith, believe and profess all and every particular contained in the symbol of faith, which the Holy Roman Church uses, to wit:

“’I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; by whom all things were made: who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnated of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, and was made man, was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and will again come with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will not be an end; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who, together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified; who spake through the prophets; and one Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins, and I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.’

“The apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions and the other observances and constitutions of the same Church I most steadfastly admit and embrace. I likewise admit the Holy Scripture according to that sense which our Holy Mother Church has held and does hold, whose province it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. Nor will I ever understand or interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the holy fathers.” [This doctrine would remove all understanding of Scripture out of the Catholic Church.] “I also profess that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all necessary for each individual, to wit: Baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders (clerical), and matrimony, and that they confer grace, and that of these, baptism, confirmation and orders cannot be repeated without sacrilege. I also receive and admit all the received and approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of all the above-mentioned sacraments. I embrace and receive all and everything which in the Holy Synod of Trent has been defined and declared concerning original sin and justification. I profess, likewise, that in the mass is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead, and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there takes place a conversion of the entire substance of the bread into the body and of the entire substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also confess that under one kind alone, Christ is taken whole and entire, and a true sacrament. I steadfastly hold that there exists a purgatory, and that the souls there detained are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful; in like manner also that the saints reigning along with Christ are to be venerated and invoked, and that they offer up prayers for us, and that their relics are to be venerated. I steadfastly assert that the images of Christ and of the ever Virgin Mother of God, and in like manner of other saints are to be kept and retained, and that due honor and veneration are to be awarded to them. I also maintain that the power of indulgences has been left by Christ in his Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to the Christian people. I recognize the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church as the mother” [several churches were founded earlier] “and mistress of all churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of St. Peter prince of apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ. All other things also delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and ecumenical councils, and particularly by the holy Synod of Trent, I undoubtingly receive and profess, and at the same time all things contrary, and all heresies whatsoever condemned by the Church, and rejected and anathematized I in like manner condemn, reject, and anathematize. This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved, which at present I readily profess and truly hold, I. N., promise, vow and swear, that I will most steadfastly retain and confess the same entire and undefiled to the last breath of life (with God’s help), and that I will take care, as far as shall be in my power, that it be held, taught, and preached by my subjects, or those whose charge shall devolve on me in virtue of my office. So help me God, and these Holy Gospels of God.

“But we will that the present letter be read according to custom in our Apostolic Chancery. And that they may the more readily be open to all, let them be written out in its Quinternum (a volume named after the number of its leaves),and also be printed.

“Be it, therefore, lawful for no person whatever to infringe this page of our will and command, or to contravene it by any rash daring. But if any one shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul.

“Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1564, on the ides of November, and in the fifth year of our pontificate.

“I, N., elected to the church of N., will from this time henceforth, be faithful and obedient to the blessed apostle Peter, and to the Holy Roman Church and to our lord N., Pope N., and to his canonical successors. I will not aid by advice or consent or deed, in any injury to them in life or limb; or to their arrest, or to any violence being in any way offered to them; or any injuries, under any pretext whatsoever. I will not knowingly reveal to any one, to their injury, the advice which they shall commit to me by themselves or their messengers, or by letter. Saving my order, I will assist in retaining and defending the Roman Papacy, and the royalties of St. Peter against everyone. I will honorably deal with the legate of the Apostolic See in going and returning; and will assist him in his need. I will take care to preserve, defend, increase, and advance the rights, honors, privileges, and authority of the Holy Roman Church, of our lord the pope, and his aforesaid successors. Nor will I assist by counsel, deed or treaty, in any machinations against our lord himself, or the same Roman Church, which may be evil or prejudicial to their persons, right, honor, state, and power. And if I shall know of any such attempts being treated of, or set on foot, by any persons whatsoever, I will hinder them to the utmost of my power; and as soon as I possibly can, will signify it to the same our lord, or to some other who shall be able to give him information. I will, with all my power, observe, and cause others to observe the rules of the holy fathers, the apostolic decrees, ordinances, or dispositions, provisions, and commands. To the utmost of my power I will persecute and attack (pro posse persequar et impugnabo) heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the same our lord, and his aforesaid successors. When called to a synod I will come, unless prevented by some canonical , hindrance. Every three years I will, in my own person, visit the threshold of the apostles; and I will give to our lord and his successors aforesaid an account of my whole pastoral office, and of all things in any way concerning the state of my church, the discipline of the clergy and people, and the salvation of the souls which are committed to my trust; and on the other hand I will humbly receive, and with the utmost diligence obey the apostolic (papal) commands. But if I shall be detained by lawful hindrance, I will fulfill all that is above mentioned by an appointed messenger, having special charge of this matter, from among my chapter or some other ecclesiastical dignitary, or person of station; or in failure of these, by a priest of the diocese; and in failure of all the clergy, by some other presbyter, secular or regular, of respectable honesty and piety, fully instructed in all things aforesaid. But I will give information concerning any hindrances of this kind, by lawful proofs to be transmitted by said messenger to the cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who presides in the congregation of the sacred council.

“I will neither sell nor give, nor pawn the possessions belonging to my table; nor will I enfeoff (give possessions in exchange for a service) them anew, nor alienate them in any manner, even with the consent of the chapter of my church, without the advice of the Roman Pontiff. And if I shall in any way proceed to alienate them, I am willing in reality to incur the penalties contained in a certain constitution passed upon this subject. So help me God, and the Holy Gospels of God.”

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All chapters of The Papal System by William

Continued from XXXIX. The Four Great Founders of Monkish Institutions.

Never in the annals of the world has there been a body of men so small and yet so much dreaded. No warriors, no sect, no organized body of similar proportions has been credited with such numerous and, vast undertakings, or greeted with such continued showers of curses and bitter dislikes. We confess to a sort of admiration for the Jesuits; not for their principles, nor for their master, nor for their practices, but for their towering intellects, their audacious effrontery, their unbounded self-denial, and their unparalleled supremacy in the enunciation of atrocious maxims under godly names, As Attila, Alexander, or Napoleon stand forth, with few equals, in the triumphs of butchery, master spirits impressing men with awe, so the Jesuits appear in the records of mental and other kinds of warfare, Alexanders, Attilas, Napoleons, conquerors of sciences, of kings, of nations, of popes; for a time the master spirits of the world; then hurled from power, suppressed, scattered, sheltered in heretical countries from the wrath of the pontiff, and finally restored, and seizing supreme power in that Church which confiscated their possessions, and branded them with its heavy condemnation.

Ignatius Loyola was the eighth son, and thirteenth child of Bertram, Lord of Ognez and Loyola in Spain. He was born A.D. 1491. He served as a page in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella for a short period. He was fond of a life of activity; his crowning desire was to reach an excellence in something above that to which others attained. In his twenty-ninth year he was an officer in the Spanish army, and a war was raging between his country and France; he was besieged in Pampeluna, and wounded in both legs, he fell in the breach made in the wall of the citadel.

The French treated him with the greatest courtesy and humanity. He was carefully sent to the home of his childhood, where loving attentions might soothe pain, and heal wounds.

The broken leg was badly set; and as Ignatius had an excellent opinion of his handsome appearance, and a princess whose love he prized, he had it re-broken twice, and each time well set, as was supposed; and on one occasion he had a piece of protruding bone sawed off, that he might be himself again a splendid cavalier.

He wanted novels to entertain his lonely spirit during his long sufferings, but he found no books except “The Life of Christ,” and “The Flowers of Sanctity.” Ignatius reads and is converted; he sacrifices everything to his new hopes, and with all the unbending will of a resolute soldier he gives himself up to the claims of a new ambition. When he is able he goes to the altar of Our Lady of Montserrat, and there yields himself up to God as his only master in the future, and Mary as his only mistress. He hangs up his sword on the wall of the chapel; and from that hour, as he viewed his course, he was entering upon a heavenly warfare where carnal weapons would be useless.

He retired for some time to a secluded cave and gave himself up to penances, prayers and meditations. Here he had extraordinary revelations of the overflowing love of God; and though he had been very ignorant of all religious things, in this cave he was “inspired with the most sublime science, so that he discoursed upon the great, the unspeakable mysteries of the faith, in terms, and with a zeal that captivated and astounded the most learned theologians.” And as the same Catholic writer says: “It was in this retreat that the faithful servant of Jesus and Mary composed under inspiration (?) the ‘Spiritual Exercises,’ a work which Francis de Sales said had converted more sinners than there were letters in it.”

At thirty-three years of age he went to a Grammar School with children at Barcelona; afterwards he studied at Alcala, Salamanca and Paris. He never reached a respectable grade of scholarship, and the “Spiritual Exercises” was his only literary production.

Probably about this part of his life he was denounced to the Inquisition of Valladolid as one of the heretical Illuminati; and had he not fled to France he might have shared the cruel fate of many wiser and infinitely better men. It does strike us as a little absurd that saint Ignatius Loyola should be making quick steps and long paces with the familiars of the inquisition after him.

But realizing its great advantages, he was ever after an enthusiastic admirer of that kind instrument of St. Dominic, designed to advance the service of the God of Love.

This order was solemnly confirmed on the 27th of September, 1540, by Paul III. The society at first contained only ten persons, and was limited in the bull of confirmation to sixty. The principal motive which led to their establishment by the pontiff was the vow of “obedience to the Holy See, with the express obligation of going, without remuneration, to whatsoever part of the world it should please the pope to send them.” They are under the law at this day.

After three days spent in prayer, Loyola received every vote but his own for the generalship; but pretended that he was too modest for such vast responsibilities, and he declined it. After other days of prayer, he was elected again. Ignatius still protested against the choice. He at last, however, agreed to leave the decision to his confessor, Father Theodosius, of the Minor Brethren, by whose opinion the most cunning Spaniard of his day had an honor forced upon him, the conferring of which upon any one else would have broken his aspiring heart.

Three ladies insisted on being placed under the oversight of Loyola as nuns. One of them had been a benefactress of the general in other days; but the gallant ex-soldier declared: That the direction of those three women gave him more trouble than the government of a society which now spread itself over the surface of Europe. He fasted and prayed to be delivered from this burden, and then appealed to the Holy Father, who generously authorized Ignatius to dismiss the Lady Rosella and her two companions. And from that time no nuns have been directly connected with the Jesuits. But another order, the nuns of the Sacred Heart, sprung up afterwards, with rules like the Jesuits. These ladies, according to Nicolini, are now under the absolute direction of the sons of Loyola.

“Ad majorem Gloriam Dei:” for the greater glory of God. These words were inscribed by the first Jesuit on everything belonging to his community, and they occupy the same place in that order still. Surely, if ever the saying of the celebrated Frenchman, that language was but a cloak to conceal the thoughts of men, was fully verified, it was in the use of such a motto by the Jesuits.

The candidate for membership in the order must have a “comely presence, youth, health, strength, facility of speech, and steadiness of purpose. Lukewarm devotion, want of learning, and of ability to acquire it, a dull memory, bodily defects, disease, and advanced age, render the postulant less acceptable.”

The noviciate lasts two years, but it may be shortened or extended at the general’s pleasure. The novice must spend one month in spiritual exercises, another in one of the hospitals ministering to the sick, and another in wandering around, without money, and in begging from door to door. Novices must discharge the most servile duties of the house into which they have entered; they are required to impart instruction in Christian learning to boys or ignorant adults; and when they have made some progress in these labors, they may preach and hear confessions. Before they are received into the order, they have to take its vows.

Learning has ever been the highest ambition of the Jesuit. To reach this end, the order has schools wherever it exists. In these institutions the scholars are trained for the service of the society. The scholars in them are the APPROVED, who have passed their noviciate, and the RECEIVED, who are still on trial to test their ability to acquire learning.

This class has two sections, the temporal and the spiritual coadjutors. The temporal coadjutors are never admitted to holy orders. They are the porters, cooks, stewards, and agents of the society. The spiritual coadjutors are priests. The rectors of colleges and the superiors of religious houses are chosen from this class. The coadjutors may assist in the deliberations of a general congregation, but they have no voice in the election of general.

The coadjutors have to take a solemn obligation on assuming their place in the society, in which occur the words: “Before you, most reverend father, General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and your successors.” The idea being that his voice is to command the obedience of the coadjutor, as if Jehovah addressed him.

The professed are properly the Society of Jesus. These men must be priests, above twenty-five years of age, and persons of eminence in learning. Their admission is the immediate act of the general. They have to take a solemn obligation before the general and vice-general “holding the place of God.” To this class alone the more important affairs of the order are communicated.

This officer is elected for life by the general congregation. He must receive a majority of votes. The election is conducted in many respects like the formalities attending the choice of a pope. When the new general is proclaimed, the brethren fall down on both knees before him, and kiss his hand.

Four assistants under him, but appointed by the general congregation, preside over the four divisions of the Jesuit world. An admonitor, elected by the same body, watches the general continually; and if he sees him swerving from duty, it is his business, after devout prayer, with great humility, to give him wholesome advice. The general is the most absolute master of his subjects on earth. There never was a ruler out of the throne of God invested with such despotical authority.

The superior appoints a confessor for every Jesuit, to whom, at stated times, he must reveal the secrets of his heart. And while compulsory confession is always a crime, in ordinary cases in the Catholic Church, it is strictly confidential, under the heaviest penalties; but, among the Jesuits, the confessor must report to his superior whatever may touch the reputation of an individual, or afford an index to his secret disposition, or feelings. For sins thus confessed there is no absolution till the superior has decided the question; or, if it is of sufficient importance, the general himself. In this way the devout penitent is kept in suspense and terror about his absolution; by the same means, the most perfect system of discovering the secrets of the whole order is in constant operation. For through the supposed wickedness of making a defective confession, the conscientious Catholic must tell everything. And the presumption is that this confessor is appointed from a knowledge of his special fitness to extract coveted information.

Every Jesuit is bound to report whatever he may know or suspect relative to the conduct, the secret habits, or the concealed dispositions of his brothers. From the highest to the lowest, each Jesuit is watched by his neighbor, and a report of his observations and surmises is duly forwarded to his superior. The order is but a brotherhood of sacred DETECTIVES, with, perhaps, a well-grounded suspicion that each member needs watching; and the society is busy, in this way, destroying confidence, breaking up peace, and filling every heart in its horrible fraternity with apprehension, grief, or terror.

In A.D. 1553, Ignatius addressed a letter on obedience to the Portuguese Jesuits, which is still an authoritative document in the society. “Obedience,” says he in this epistle, “is to be rendered to a superior, not on account of his wisdom, goodness, or any other such qualities with which he may be endowed, but solely because he is in God’s place, and wields the authority of him who says: ‘They that hear you, etc.’” How apt the words of the poet:

What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text!

Again: “Take care that you never attempt to bend the will of your superior, which you should esteem as the will of God, to your own will.”

Again: “Among the heavenly bodies the lesser yield themselves to the influence of the greater with perfect order and harmony; and thus among men (Jesuits), should the inferiors allow themselves to be carried forward by the will of the superior, so that the virtue of the upper may permeate the lower spheres.”

Again: “You should not see in the person of the superior a man, liable to errors and to miseries, but Christ himself, who is wisdom in perfection.”

This spirit of obedience, as if demanded by God himself, in the main, has governed the Jesuits. When Lainez was offered a cardinal’s hat, by Paul IV., a distinction which he richly deserved, for he was the ablest man in his day in the whole Catholic Church, in obedience to the rules of his order, he refused the greatest honor in the Roman communion, except the popedom.

Several purposes which the founders of the society cherished are named in its official documents, but its grand business was TO FIGHT PROTESTANTISM. Whatever good will or hatred exists in Romanists towards Protestants, and we have seen both, the Society of Jesus is the only department in the papal Church existing avowedly to extirpate heresy.

When Paul V. wanted the Jesuits to undertake some choral service, from which their constitution relieved them, they strongly protested against such duties, and informed him that “Their society had been established to repel the injurious efforts of the heretics, to oppose the infernal stratagems which had been employed to extinguish the light of Catholic truth; and to resist the barbarous enemies of Christ, who were besieging the holy edifice of the Church, undermining it insensibly.” The Jesuit is a papal detective and warrior, born to fight the hosts of Protestantism. No system of religion under heaven has a body of ecclesiastical soldiers expressly intended to fight the enemies of its institutions except the papacy. But we do not blame it for its military priests; what other religious communities do not require, the popedom may need.

Schools from the beginning were prime instrumentalities with the Jesuits. No American citizen regarding education as one of the chief bulwarks of his country’s liberties, could take a livelier interest in the instruction of the young than the Jesuits. Only that with the disciples of Loyola, the question was not the extension of knowledge by proper agencies, but BY JESUITS. For education imparted by others they cared not a jot; but for instruction imparted in their colleges they had the highest regard. It placed at their disposal abundant material out of which to select talented sons for Loyola; this was the primary cause of their enthusiasm as teachers. It gave them immense influence over the whole future of the young nobles and princes, whose culture they sought and imparted. And in their splendid schools they did, for a long time, train up a large number of the future rulers of Europe, who cherished a profound regard for their teachers.

Then, in their colleges an education was given, surpassing any Protestant institution accessible to large numbers of that faith; and many parents who detested Romanism, on the assurance of the unctuous fathers that the faith of their sons would receive no interference, were confiding enough to entrust their dear ones to the training of men who were Jesuits, that they might fight Protestantism.

They were confessors, and the most popular that ever dealt in the foul secrets of their neighbors. Nearly every Catholic prince and princess in Europe, at one time, had one of these polished ecclesiastics to hear the record of his or her iniquities. The royal profligate and his mistress, the highhanded criminal of noble birth, the walking embodiment of all vices, had the popular confessor from the college of Loyola. His master had received in the cave at the commencement of his holy life the power of healing troubled consciences, and every follower of Ignatius inherited the remedy. This balm was nothing else than treating enormous sins as if they were trifles, and granting absolution for them on condition that a slight penance should be performed.

“Henriquez and others of our fathers, quoted by Escobar, say that: It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us a box on the ear, although he should run away, provided it is not done through hatred or revenge. . . . . . . And the reason is, that it is as lawful to pursue the thief who has stolen your honor, as the man that has carried off your property.” Dueling was common when this doctrine was invented.

“Peter Navarre declares that, by the universal consent of the casuists, it is lawful to kill the calumniator if there be no other way of averting the affront.”

“Father Baldelle, as quoted by Escobar, says: You may lawfully take the life of another for saying: You have told a lie; if there is no other way of shutting his mouth.”

“Father Lamy says: An ecclesiastic or a monk may warrantably kill a monk or a defamer, who threatens to publish the scandalous crimes of his community, or his own crimes, when there is no other way of stopping him.”

“Father Bauny says: A person asks a soldier to beat his neighbor, or to set fire to the barn of a man who has injured him. In the absence of the soldier is the man who employed him bound to make good the damage? My opinion is that he is not. For none can be bound to make restitution where there has been no violation of justice; and is justice violated by asking another to do us a favor?”

“Escobar says: Promises are not binding when the person in making them did not intend to bind himself.”

“Father Bauny says: Absolution may be given even to him who candidly avows, that the hope of being absolved induced him to sin with more freedom than he would otherwise have done.”

Many other queer opinions about sin have been expressed by Jesuits; the whole body seem necessarily involved in every publication of one member, though we cannot believe that all Jesuits hold such sentiments. But it is certain that the men from whom Pascal quotes uttered the statements he presents as theirs. And it is easily seen that confessors who take away guilt from murder and falsehood, from lying, and iniquity, from sin in general, would be extremely welcome to sinners of all grades.

At one period they were the spiritual directors of nearly all Catholic monarchs, and as a result had boundless influence over governments and nations. They were very gentle with converts. In India, Francis Nobili put on the dress and submitted to the penances endured by a Brahmin, and claimed to be a priest of that order sent to restore the “Fourth road to truth,” long since lost. Heathen children were often baptized under pretense of giving them medicine, and their names registered as converts. In other baptisms they disguised the name of the cross, and the objects of the Catholic religion; they allowed the women to wear the image of the god Taly around their necks, and share in other acts of idolatry. And so outrageously impious and heathenish did they become, that Clement XI. had to send the Patriarch of Antioch to examine into their proceedings; who severely condemned their practices.

The true Jesuit is a man of devout aspect. Not gloomy, not scornful, but presenting the appearance of holy and loving simplicity. The pictures of Loyola, Lainez, Xavier, Aquaviva, Ricci, La Chaise, and Francis Borgia, are before us. They look like saints of unusual spirituality of mind, men living above all selfish passions and earthly considerations. Their faces insinuate an idea of their sanctity and kindness.

Then, when they met sin, their rebukes were gentle; they spoke kindly to the erring one; seemed to be deeply interested in his welfare; and if he offered any excuses for his sins they were instantly accepted. A secular priest or an ordinary monk would denounce the sinner, foretell the divine wrath, and perhaps show a little of their own; but the sons of Loyola had only meek and loving words and looks for the worst of men, unless they were heretics.

The Protestant idea of a Jesuit is just the reverse of the impression he leaves on the masses of his Catholic acquaintances. To us he is full of ambition, treachery, and hatred; to some Catholics he looks no better; but to the masses of them he is a celestial lamb, more Christ-like than any other Roman priest.

A minister well known to the writer, was once in conversation with a half intoxicated Catholic whom he knew, and he was trying to persuade him to give up liquor. He spoke to him kindly. “Why,” said the man, “you are a regular Jesuit, you treat me as if I were a man, as if you did not want to insult me. The secular clergy would tell me I was going to the pit, and would readily turn away from me, but the Jesuit always respects my feelings even though I am not what I ought to be.” This was the course marked out for the sons of Loyola from the beginning.

When the pope sent the Jesuits, Salmeron and Brouet, as his nuncios into Ireland, Ignatius, then living, gave them this counsel: “After having studied the character and manners of each person, endeavor to conform yourself to them as much as duty will permit. When the Enemy attacks a just man, he does not let him see his snares, he hides them and assails him indirectly; he entices him by degrees, and surprises him in his snares. Thus it is proper to follow a similar track to extricate men out of sin.”

How well the sons of Loyola have taken their father’s advice and imitated the cunning of the Wicked One is so thoroughly known, that it needs no comment. This pliability of disposition, this mightiest human development of the power of insinuation, has ever been a marvelous weapon with the Jesuits.

Under the tyrannical reign of Louis XIV., the Jesuits moved the king like a puppet, by appearing to yield, by executing a number of hypocritical performances.

They subscribed the articles of the Gallican Church to please the king, though they did not believe them. They refused to publish the bull of excommunication against the firstborn son of the Roman Church. They persuaded him that he would always remain a good Catholic, while they confessed and absolved him, And for their consummate double dealing they had a full license to persecute the Jansenists and Protestants.

The spies are a kind of fifth order, known only to the general and a few friends. They are men of all ranks, and ladies in all positions of society. Though bound by no vows, they belong to the order. They are rewarded by good positions where the Jesuits have influence, by great liberality in pardoning their sins, or by money if it is needed. This class, mixing with all conditions of men, report the affairs of the world to the followers of Ignatius.

The Jesuit is a man of several characters. The brethren have been very extensive merchants; and some of them probably are still engaged in business.

Possevin, a celebrated Jesuit, thinking that a blow could be successfully inflicted upon Protestantism in Sweden through the popish tendencies of John III., son of the great Gustavus Vasa, instead of a papal legate, which he really was, entered Sweden under an assumed name and as the ambassador of the widow of the Emperor Maximilian.

Christina, the daughter of the renowned Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden, was visited in her palace by two handsome young Italian nobleman, who stated that they were traveling for their improvement. These aristocratic young men were Jesuits, who led the apostate and unmarried daughter of a glorious father into the embraces of Rome.

At the siege of Rome, when Pius IX. fled from his loving children, (obvious sarcasm!) one day a fine-looking man with beard and mustache was observed going from place to place, “praising the soldiers for their valor, encouraging the citizens not to desert their walls, and cursing the French, the Pope, and especially the Jesuits. One day some national guards perceived a kind of telegraph in a house, almost over the wall of the city, belonging to the Jesuits. They burst in and found three men making signals to the enemy. They were Jesuits, and one of them was the unknown man.”

So full of apparent patriotism when in the company of the brave men defending old Rome against the pope and Oudinot. A Jesuit might be a leading Protestant, a prominent politician, the wife of a cabinet officer, a servant in a family, as Hogan found one, —anything, anywhere. They are everywhere, in every guise, judging from the past.

On the first of September, 1759, the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal, and sent to Italy on government and other vessels, to the number of fifteen hundred, to the Holy Father.

On the sixth of August, 1762, the expulsion of the Jesuits from France was commanded, and the decree was executed two years later.

On the second of April, 1767, the Jesuits were exiled from Spain, the home of the inquisition, and the birthplace of Loyola; and six thousand of these holy fathers were soon on the mighty deep, sent by ungrateful Spain to the pope.

The King of Naples, in November, 1767, drove them out of his territories.

The Duke of Parma, in 1768, sent them from his country.

On the thirteenth of March, 1820, they were driven out of Russia by the Emperor Alexander.

In 1835, the order was again suppressed in Spain; the Cortez and the sovereign uniting in the work.

They were again banished from Portugal by Don Pedro, A.D. 1834.

Except Russia, the countries casting forth the Jesuits were all intensely Catholic, and yet they could not bear to live on the same soil with these “holy brethren.” Perhaps it was on account of their exceeding piety that their fellow-worshipers of the papal Church preferred their exile. Perhaps their sufferings and disgrace were but another illustration of the truth that the righteous are always persecuted. Possibly it might be only a proof that the wicked sometimes receive their due, or at any rate a part of it.

If ever a pope acted infallibly right, the above named pontiff exhibited unerring judgment when on the 21st of July, 1773, he issued a bull, in which he declared: “After mature deliberation, out of our certain knowledge, and plenitude of power, we do extinguish and suppress the often mentioned society.”

He had several times been threatened with death if he performed this daring act; he stated when he signed the bull that, “This suppression would be his death;” and sometime after a slow and unusually deadly poison discovered its malignant effects in his system, and after lingering torments he expired, poisoned, as he supposed, by a wafer, and as was generally believed, by a Jesuit.

How many of the order were involved in this crime it is impossible to tell; for the honor of human nature we trust the number was not large. But upon the Society of Jesus that crime rests with a withering curse and an indelible infamy.

Immediately after death, the body of Clement turned black; the muscles of the spine were detached and decomposed; the removal of the pontifical robes from the dead body brought away a great portion of the skin; the hair of his head remained on the pillow where he rested, and, with trifling friction the nails fell off. Ganganelli was in perfect health before the suppression of the Jesuits.

When the Jesuits fell by the pen of Clement, they had 22,782 members, scattered over the world.

On the 7th of August, 1814, Pius VII. reestablished the Society of Jesus according to its ancient rules. It exists today all over the nations. And while its power outside the Catholic Church is not so visible as in former times, inside of that great sect Jesuitism is triumphant. At no period since Loyola started his order have his wily children enjoyed such imperial dominion in the Roman Church. They guide the aged pontiff; they regulate the public movements of his entire followers; they ruled the late council so numerously attended in the Eternal City. Their enemies in the Catholic Church are numerous, talented, learned, and, in some cases, truly pious. But they have the priest king, the mastery, and any amount of audacity, energy, and unscrupulous ambition. They were never so favored with papal benedictions at any former period,

But God is mighty. He sits upon the foam-crested billow in its mighty upheavals; he drives and bends the whirlwind, whose gigantic arms hug the mountain-sides; from the falling of a sparrow to the jar that shivers a world, nothing escapes his eye, or lives outside the circle of his government. The death-plotting little spider, surrounded by his intricate and cunning web-trap, is insignificant enough to us. The Jesuit, in his schemes of craft, and in his heartlessness and lust of empire, is just as contemptible in the sight of God.

Protestants are sometimes in an ocean of terror, pursued, as they suppose, by the fierce Egyptian warriors of stout old Loyola. They should always remember at such a time that this is a Red Sea, through which, for them, Jehovah has made a safe road, and in which, for the enemies of their faith, he has prepared a sure grave. They should remember that beyond these angry waters and fierce warriors of St. Ignatius, there is a Canaan of rest and triumph, wide as the world, and populous as the human race, where their banner of salvation, by grace alone, shall float in serene majesty over every hill and valley, over every continent and ocean, and over every priest once proud and superstitious, and every heart once lost; and where the hallelujahs of a whole earth redeemed shall mingle with the jubilant songs of all heaven triumphant in celebrating the death of paganism, Christian and heathen, and the victory of Jesus as the Saviour and Lord of Adam’s whole family!

Continued in The Papal System – XLI. Conclusion.

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

Continued from XXXVIII. The Scriptures.

It is certain that in the second century some began to accept the doctrine that to give up business, society, and matrimony, and lead a solitary life, in meditation and prayer, was the holiest earthly state. And from that time the conviction spread with amazing rapidity, and fell, with overpowering force upon the consciences of men. In the beginning of the fourth century there were many thousands of monks in the deserts of Egypt, and in the caves along the banks of the Nile. The life of an Eremite (a religious recluse) in that day was regarded as possessing an order of sanctity beyond anything else in the Church of God.

Antony the Great, of an illustrious family of Coma, near Heraclea in Egypt, was the great chief of all the monks in and around his country in the commencement of the fourth century. His influence over these singular beings was unbounded; and though they were under no law to obey him, yet his example and his instructions had almost the authority of a direct revelation among the entire unmarried brotherhood. Under his leadership their principles spread into churches; seized and hurried off to the caves the young and frivolous and fashionable; triumphed over all obstacles and habits; over all the countries where Christianity was supreme; and over the strongest instincts of human nature itself.

And had it not been for Paphnutius, an Egyptian monkish bishop in the Council of Nice, Antony’s celibacy would have doomed the whole Christian clergy to a single life.

Antony was left an orphan when young; he never could read or write; he gave his inheritance to his native village; and his personal effects to the poor; he became acquainted with the most eminent men of his time, and even the emperor, who had frequently heard of his fame, wished to enjoy his society; his food was bread and salt; his drink was water; and he never breakfasted before sunset. He often fasted for two or three successive days; he watched most of the night, and continued in prayer till daybreak; he sometimes lay upon a mat, but generally upon the floor; he never bathed himself; he never suffered himself to be idle; he zealously defended the oppressed, and frequently left the solitude for the city in their defense; he could foresee the future; he was honored by the whole people wherever he went, but he returned to the desert as soon as ever he could; he was accustomed to say that “as fishes are nourished in the water, so the solitude is the world prepared for monks.” He was said to have contended with devils openly; he performed many miracles; Athanasius, of Trinitarian fame, was his warm friend, and wrote his biography. Antony the Great established the monks on a foundation from which fifteen hundred years, and torrents of their iniquities, have only partially dislodged them. Antony was the first great leader in the Christian Church, in the monastic crusade against the divinely planted instincts of human nature.

This famous father of monks was born in Italy, A.D. 480. When fourteen, he was sent to Rome for his education, but soon ran to Sublacum forty miles off, where he lived in a gloomy cave for three years. The monks of a neighboring convent elected him their abbot, but soon becoming wearied with the severity of his discipline, they made it desirable for him to relinquish the position. He returned to the cave, where he was speedily joined by many monks, who submitted to his rule; and in a comparatively short time, he established twelve monasteries. After twenty-five years spent at Sublacum, he located on Mount Cassino, about fifty miles from Naples; here he laid the foundations of an order that soon spread over all Europe, and carried the name of Benedict to the extreme limits of western civilization. There were many monks in the Latin Church before his day, but they were without system and had no element of permanence in their institutions. Benedict supplied what was lacking, and soon superb houses, filled with his sons, dotted every center of Christian population among the western nations.

In the winter, his monks arose at two A.M. and went to the church, where, after spending some time in vigils, they continued till morning, committing psalms, reading, and in the exercise of private meditation. At sunrise, they assembled for matins; after which they labored four hours, read two hours, then they dined and read in private till half-past two, when they met again for worship; then they labored till vespers. Their work was agriculture, gardening, and various mechanical trades. They ate twice a day at a common table, first at noon, and then in the evening. To each was allowed one pound of bread, and a little wine for the day. On the public table there were two kinds of porridge, but no meat. Flesh was always allowed to the sick. At meals, conversation was prohibited, and some one always read aloud. They all served as cooks and waiters, each discharging the duty for a week at a time. Their clothing was coarse; each was furnished with two suits, a knife, a needle, and other necessaries, They were allowed no conversation after they retired, nor any jesting at any time. They had no correspondence with anyone except through the abbot. They slept in separate beds without undressing, in rooms accommodating ten or twenty, with a light burning, and an inspector in each room. These were the leading, though not all the precepts of St. Benedict’s rule. And while it was observed faithfully, his monks must have been like angels to the reckless, thieving, licentious, and even moderately moral people in whose midst they dwelt.

Benedict, according to Gregory the Great, broke a glass with poison in it by making the sign of the cross over it; the poison being intended by some monks to kill him. He made the iron of a spade which fell into the water come up again and join the handle, These are but samples of the prodigies (extraordinary wonders) performed by this wonderful monk.

On the supposition that the title of Dominic was properly earned we have sometimes felt that similar deeds required us to confer it upon a well-known Roman emperor; and to speak of him as Saint Nero. Dominic was born A.D. 1170, at Callahorra, in Spain. He was descended from the illustrious house of Guzman, received his education in Valencia, and his first appointment was a canonry in Osma, Dominic had some mind, untiring activity, fierce cruelty, and astern faith in a ferocious God. He gathered around him men of a spirit like his own, and instituted a new order of monks. Innocent III. promised to confirm his fraternity, but died before the documents were perfected. The papal approbation was given to Dominic’s monks by Honorius III., A.D. 1216. The new fraternity had great prosperity. Many learned men have flourished in its cloisters; and were it not for the favorite child of Dominic and his monks, the inquisition, the world would have thought more favorably of him and his friars.

This singular being came of a good family; when he was converted, he renounced his paternal possessions, and laying aside his shoes, he put on the cowl and sackcloth. According to the monk Paris, he appeared at Rome, A.D. 1227, to obtain the recognition of an order of friars which he proposed to establish. Francis at that time had a sad countenance, untrimmed hair, and a dirty, overhanging brow. Innocent, if Paris was correctly informed, said to the future saint: “Go to the pigs, brother, roll with them, and to them present your rules.” Francis rolled with the swine, until completely covered with dirt, and returning, claimed the pontiff’s approval of his monks, on the ground of his obedience, The pope astonished at his appearance, and apparently caught by his reasoning, ordered him to cleanse himself, and soon after he gave his approval to the new monastic institution.

Francis was a very zealous, if not a very cultivated preacher; in Rome, they regarded his oratorical efforts with contempt; to rebuke them on one occasion he went to the suburbs of their city and gathered the “crows, kites, magpies, and some other birds, and commanded them to keep silent while he proclaimed to them the Word of the Lord; and they drew near, and without chirping, listened to him for half a day.” This circumstance, according to the same authority, gave him immediate and unbounded popularity in the Eternal City, throughout Italy, and all over Europe.

St. Francis was twenty-five years of age when he was converted by a dream. His acts after this change were often like those of a lunatic. On one occasion, he broke a fast in his hunger, for which he had himself dragged naked through the streets and scourged, the announcement being made as he went along: “See the glutton who gorged himself with fowl unknown to you.”

Francis had a method in his madness; and his order soon became one of the most powerful instruments in the papal Church.

Antony, Benedict, Dominic, and Francis were the founders and fathers of all the leading monastic systems in the East, and in the West.

Continued in The Papal System – XL. The Jesuits

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

Continued from The Papal System – XXXVII. The Inquisition.

The early Christians cherished the Bible next to the Saviour; and they used extreme caution to protect it from uninspired additions. Their jealousy on this account prevented them, for a considerable period, from receiving the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, the book of Revelation, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, as parts of the inspired writings. Not a few forged documents, claiming divine authority, compelled the primitive Church to be very careful about the works, regarded as the Word of Jehovah. But neither the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, nor the pretended Gospels and Epistles of the New, found a place in the Bible of the early Church.

Josephus gives the Old Testament books, regarded as inspired in the Saviour’s day. According to his testimony they are: “The five books of Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind, till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years. But as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was done, in their times, in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been esteemed of like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.” These are substantially the Old Testament and the apocrypha of Protestants; the former worthy of all reverence, the latter as Josephus intimates, uninspired.

Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in the second century, has the same books in his Old Testament canon, which we have, except Nehemiah, Esther, and Lamentations; the two first of which, he probably included in Ezra, and the last in Jeremiah. The catalogue of Origen is almost the same.

About the beginning of the fifth century the New Testament as it is now, and the Old, with a little hesitation about one or two apocryphal books, were received by the churches everywhere.

Scarcely had the Saviour entered heaven, when his disciples began the work of Scripture translation and circulation. And when we consider their limited means, and the absence of organized effort among them, their success is astonishing. In the first century the Syrian version, known as the Peshito, was made for the Jews of Palestine. About the same time a Latin translation was made for the people of Italy. And versions in the tongue of Old Rome followed each other with such rapidity that Augustine says: “Those who have translated the Bible into Greek can be numbered, but not so the Latin versions, for in the first ages of the Church whoever got hold of a Greek codex ventured to translate it into Latin, however slight his knowledge of either language.”

Jerome, in the latter part of the fourth century, at the request of many prominent men, undertook to correct the most popular Latin versions of the New Testament, and to make a new translation of the Old. His work is known as the Latin Vulgate, and was made in the mother tongue of the people for whom it was intended.

A translation was made into the Coptic tongue for the people of Egypt in the third century.

A version was prepared in the fourth century, in the sacred language of the Ethiopians, called the Gees.

A Persian translation was completed about the same time.

Ulfila, after inventing the Gothic alphabet, A.D. 375, translated the Scriptures into the language of that nation.

Panteus, a distinguished Christian, on a visit to India, found disciples in that country with the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.

The Bible was given, in their own tongue, to Georgians, in the sixth century, and to the Armenians a little later.

The early Christians, when a portion of any nation received the Gospel, immediately made a translation of the Scriptures into their language; so that the Divine Word, as early as the fourth century, was circulated through all nations, “Greek and barbarian, and studied by them as the oracles of God.” No age of Bible distribution has ever exceeded the first four centuries, if it has ever equaled them, taking their disadvantages into account.

Alcuin, at the request of Charlemagne, corrected the Vulgate for use in his empire; and, by presenting him with a copy on the anniversary of his accession to the throne, A. D. 801, gave him exquisite delight.

Holy Bede translated John into English in the eighth century for the benefit of his countrymen.

Passing over centuries of gross and ever-growing darkness in the churches, East and West, when Christ was obscured by the glories of Mary, we meet another kind of Christians who dislike the Bible.

In Toulouse, the sacred writings began to enjoy some circulation and much love, in the early part of the thirteenth century. The clergy took the alarm, and, at a council held there A.D. 1229, in the fourteenth canon, they “prohibited laymen to have the books of the Old or New Testament, unless a Psalter, a Breviary, and a Rosary, and they forbade their translation in the vulgar tongue.” Possibly, a majority of the ecclesiastics at the synod supposed that the Breviary and Rosary, as well as the Psalter, were inspired writings.

What a change from the days of Augustine, when he importuned his friend Jerome to correct the versions in the Latin or vernacular tongue, that the people might have the whole truth as God gave it!

John Wycliffe, an English priest, gave his countrymen the Bible in their native language in A.D. 1380. His preaching and writings produced a profound sensation, and his supporters were numerous. The soldiers, the knights, the nobles, and the thinkers of the nation, who had no pecuniary interest in the corrupt state of the Church, were his sturdy friends. His Bible was productive of immediate and extensive results. Among the clergy, its appearance excited indignation. A canon of Leicester said:

“Master John Wycliffe has translated the Gospel out of Latin into English, which Christ had entrusted to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might minister it to the laity, and the weaker sort, according to the state of the times and the wants of men. So that by this means the Gospel is made vulgar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it used to be even to the most learned of the clergy, and those of the best understanding. And what was before the chief gift of the clergy and doctors of the Church is made forever common to the laity.”

In this spirit the clergy lashed the passions of the people against Wycliffe, and had not the powerful Duke of Lancaster and some influential persons protected him, he would have been slain. But after his death the Council of Constance tried and condemned him, and issued the following decree: “Wherefore, the procurator-fiscal, being urgent, and the edict having been set forth, for hearing sentence on this day, this holy synod declares, defines and records, that the same John Wycliffe was a notorious and pertinacious heretic, and that he died in heresy, by anathematizing him, and condemning his memory.”

And it decrees and ordains “that his body and bones (if they can be distinguished from the other bodies of the faithful) be dug up and cast away from the Church’s burying place, according to the canonical and legitimate appointments.” In pursuance of this decree some time after, the bones of the great translator were dug up and publicly burned!

Sixtus V., a pope of formidable powers, published a Bible in Italian with a bull in the preface recommending its general reading, and declaring the advantages which would result from its perusal. Llorente tells us that after the death of Sixtus it was solemnly condemned by the Spanish inquisition, Even his infallibility could not save it.

This famous ecclesiastical assembly issued decrees about the materials composing the Word of God, and the manner of treating the Bible unknown to any council ever gathered in Christendom. In the Catholic Church its decisions have received a measure of reverence never accorded to the decrees of any other ecclesiastical convention. It makes the

The following is the decree:

“The Holy Ecumenical and General Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit, the same three legates of the Apostolical See presiding, having always in view this object, namely, that all errors being removed, there might be preserved in the Church the purity of the gospel; which was promised before by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, but which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did with his own mouth first declare, and afterwards order to be preached to every creature, by his apostles, as the source of all saving truth and moral discipline, and perceiving that this truth and discipline are contained in written books and in unwritten tradition, which being received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or from the Holy Spirit dictating to the apostles, has reached even to us, as though it were transmitted BY HAND, following the examples of the orthodox fathers, receives and venerates with the same affection and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, since one God is the author of both, and also traditions themselves relating both to faith and morals, which have been, as it were, orally declared either by Christ or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved by continual succession in the Catholic Church. It has thought fit, moreover, to annex to this decree a list of the sacred books, that no doubt may occur to any one as to what are received by the synod. They are the underwritten: of the Old Testament, five of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four of Kings, two of Chronicles, the first of Ezra, and the second, which is called Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, the Psalter of David of a hundred and fifty psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, with Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve lesser prophets, to wit, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, two of Maccabees, the first and second.”

The Catholic canon for the New Testament is the same as our own.

“But if any one shall not receive these books entire, with all their parts, as they are wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and in the old Latin vulgate edition, for sacred and canonical, and shall knowingly and intentionally despise the traditions aforesaid; let him be accursed.”

Such is the revelation recognized by the Roman Church: The Holy Scriptures; and the apocryphal books bridging the chasm between the New and Old Testaments, not regarded as of divine authority by Josephus, the Jews, the Saviour, or the early Christians, a batch of writings supposed to have been put in the sacred canon at Trent to give Catholics something like scriptural authority for making prayers and offerings for the dead. When Judas Maccabeus, the celebrated Jewish captain, came to bury some of his own men, who had fallen in battle, he found under their coats things consecrated to idols, and he “made a gathering throughout the company amounting to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver, and he sent it to Jerusalem to offer up a sin-offering, doing therein very well and honestly in that he was mindful of the resurrection; for if he had not hoped that they that were slain would have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. Wherefore he made a reconciliation for the dead that they might be delivered from sin.” 2 Maccab. xii. 43-45.

Here is purgatory, and here are prayers and masses for the dead. Little wonder that “some in the Council of Trent said, that tradition was the only foundation of the Catholic doctrine,” for it or any other folly can be found in tradition. But no doctrine in which Catholics differ from Evangelical Protestants can be found in the Bible. And not only is the Apocrypha placed on the same footing as the Bible, but every tradition supposed to have been handed down from the Saviour or his apostles is placed on the same basis.

We would not believe an “unwritten tradition ” that pretended to come down from Cicero, Horace, or Sallust. The changes which any statement must undergo, in passing through many hundreds of men, running over eighteen centuries, without a well known record to correct and protect it, are immense. Any statement resting upon such a basis is destitute of the faintest claim upon human credulity.

The decree of the Council of Trent is: “Moreover the same Holy Synod decrees and declares, that this same Old Vulgate edition which has stood the test of so many ages’ use in the Church, in public readings, disputings, preachings and expoundings, be deemed authentic, and that no one on any pretense dare or presume to reject it.”

When the Council of Trent authenticated the Vulgate it was full of errors. Neglected for centuries; handed down by ignorant copyists, its mistakes were so numerous and glaring that the council itself, immediately after recognizing its paramount claims, appointed a committee of six to correct it; and it urged them to hasten the work that it might be completed before the synod adjourned.

By “authentic” the fathers of Trent understood that the Vulgate was the only Bible which the Church solemnly recognized as the Word of God. And since the decree of Trent the Romish denomination has had no Bible but the Vulgate; translations in modern languages may receive the approval of individual bishops, but they are destitute of Church authority. Even the Vatican codex, confessedly the most valuable copy of the Scriptures in existence, has no ecclesiastical recognition in the Catholic communion,

The decision of the Council of Trent is:

“And also for the restraint of wanton wits, it decrees that in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edifying of Christian doctrine, no one relying on his own prudence shall dare to interpret the Holy Scripture, twisting it to his own meaning against the sense which has been and is held by Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Scripture, nor against the unanimous consent of the fathers, even though such interpretations should never be published. Let those who shall act contrary to this decree be denounced by the ordinaries, and punished with the penalties rightly appointed.”

Truly here is comfort. The whole Christian world, in Bible reading, are to be bound in soul, in every faculty, and must take Rome’s interpretations of all Scripture, or the dreamy contradictions and absurd follies of the fathers. No man on the Bible must exercise his reason.

A large committee of the Council of Trent composed ten “Rules for prohibited Books.” These laws were confirmed by Pius IV., March 24th, 1564, and from them the infamous Index Expurgatorius derived its authoritative existence. The fourth rule is:

“Since it is clear from experience, that if the holy Scriptures are everywhere indiscriminately permitted in the vulgar tongue, more detriment than profit arises therefrom by reason of the rashness of men. In this matter let it be at the option of the bishop or inquisitor, so that with the advice of the parish priest, or the confessor, they can permit to them the reading of books translated by Catholic authors in the vulgar tongue, even to such persons, as in their judgment would incur no loss, but obtain an increase of faith and piety from this kind of reading, which power they may have with respect to the Scriptures. But whosoever shall presume to keep or read them without such power, let him not be able to obtain the absolution of his sins until the books are returned to the ordinary. But the booksellers who shall sell the Bible, written in the vulgar tongue, to any one not having the aforesaid power, or who shall grant it in any other way, shall forfeit the price of the books that it may be converted by the bishop to pious uses; and they shall be subject to other punishments at the discretion of the same bishop, according to the character of the crime. But regulars may not read or buy them unless they have obtained authority from those placed over them.”

Richard of Mans declared in the Council of Trent,

“that the doctrines of faith were now so cleared, that we ought no more to learn them out of Scripture, which, it is true, was read heretofore in the Church for the instruction of the people, whereas, now it is read in the Church only to pray, and ought to serve every one for this end only, and not to study. But at the least, the study of it should be prohibited to every one that is not first confirmed in school divinity.”

One sometimes is inclined, when he examines such a decree, and such a saying, to ask: Are these the utterances of the Prince of Darkness and his spirit friends, or the decisions of a conclave of infidels? No doctrines more offensive to God could be broached in any quarter of the universe, however famed for the antiquity of its rebellion.

The Bible in a Catholic translation is a Protestant and dangerous book in the hands of a Romanist, and the holy father and his shrewd friends must guard the papal sheep against such a book at all hazards. – Neither layman nor ecclesiastic in the Church of the Fisherman can be safely entrusted with a book intended for the perusal of the world; the first part of which was written in Hebrew, the vernacular of the Jewish people when the Spirit gave it; and the second in Greek, a language understood in Palestine, Syria, Italy and Greece, when it was penned; at the time the most extensively spoken language among the tongues of our race.

A few years since, Mr. Seymour, an English clergyman, the author of the well-known work, “Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome,” sought to purchase a Bible in the Eternal City. For this purpose he visited the book-shop belonging to the Propaganda Fide, the great missionary society of the Catholic Church; then he went to that patronized by the pope; to that connected with the Collegio Romano, and sustained by the order of Jesuits; to that established for the English and other foreigners; to those who sold old and second-hand books; to every bookselling establishment in Rome; and “I found,” says he, “that the Holy Scriptures were not for sale. And when I asked each bookseller the reason why he had not such an important volume, the answer was: ‘It is prohibited.’”

The only Bible he could find in Rome was Martini’s, in twenty-four volumes, at a cost of four pounds, or twenty dollars.

Before the Commissioners of Education appointed by the Government for Ireland, it was stated in evidence, that of the four hundred students for the priesthood, attending Maynooth College, only ten had Bibles or Testaments, while everyone had a copy of the works of the Jesuits Bailey and Delahogue.

What a strange sight the Church of Christ presents, in banishing the Bible from her schools, colleges, and churches! This is not the Church of Jerome, who spent so much time and toil in perfecting and translating a Bible in the vulgar tongue. Nor of the early fathers, who made translations for every country where the gospel was received. The Church of the Bible-haters, which has burned Bibles and those who translated them, and myriads who read them, had no representatives in Christ’s day, nor for centuries afterward.

Continued in XXXIX. The Four Great Founders of Monkish Institutions

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

Continued from XXXVI. Roman Catholics Who Were Worthy Of All Honor.

In the early part of the thirteenth century the people of Toulouse in France rebelled against the popes to show their obedience to Jesus. The head of the Church was alarmed, and proclaimed a crusade against these servants of God. War, waged by the most ferocious men that ever were enlisted in human slaughter, scourged these early Protestants; but as they would not all come boldly out to be slain, it was necessary to search for them that they might be destroyed, and a new system for this object was adopted, and it was called

This institution was established about A.D. 1215. It began under Innocent III. Dominic, a Spaniard, was its founder. He was a man of fiery zeal, considerable genius, some eloquence, a stubborn will, boundless hatred, a superstitious heart; and of an activity which left nothing possible undone.

His mother, before his birth, dreamt that her offspring should be a whelp, carrying in his mouth a lighted torch; that after he was born he should put the world in an uproar by his fierce barkings; and set it on fire by his torch. His followers interpreted the dream of his doctrine which gave light to the world.

The standard of the inquisition of Goa bears a picture of Dominic, with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other; at his feet are a globe bearing a crucifix, and a dog with the end of a fiery torch in his mouth, pouring its flames upon the globe; and above his head is the motto: “misericordia et justitia,” mercy and justice. Of Dominic’s mercy the world has seen little; of the justice of his inquisition the Omniscient eye never detected one bright ray.

Nowhere in Catholic Christendom did the Holy Office attain such power, or practice such shocking barbarities, as in Spain.

Though it existed in that land before 1478, only in that year was it everywhere established; and placed in a position so commanding, that for centuries it was the great fact in Spanish life and history.

Its professed object was the destruction of heresy, Mohammedanism and Judaism in Spain. But Llorente declares that the true motive for the establishment of the inquisition by Ferdinand V. was to carry on a rigorous system of confiscation against the Jews, so that their wealth might be seized for the royal treasury. Sixtus IV. sanctioned the measure, to gain the point dearest to the court of Rome: an increase of domination. Covetousness, papal ambition, and superstition united their efforts in the erection of the most formidable and WICKED TRIBUNAL that ever terrified mankind,

The Holy Office, with a few restrictions on its modes of procedure, could try any ecclesiastic in Spain, however exalted his rank. The laymen of the nation were entirely at its mercy, from the humblest peasant to the most illustrious noble or prince. Its victims might be boys in their eleventh and girls in their tenth year; even children so young might be tortured and executed with the usual cruelties.

A victim of the Holy Office never saw the accusation preferred against him; was never confronted with the witnesses; nor were their names ever communicated to him directly or indirectly; everything that could give him the slightest clue to his denouncers was artfully concealed. He was invited to confess his sins from his earliest years; to relate anything he had ever said against Holy Mother Church; and any act he had ever performed against religion; and if he would confess nothing under the persuasions of terror and torture, he was then examined in reference to the charges brought against him. The object of this strange procedure was to obtain a knowledge of other offenses than those upon which the accusation was based.

There were advocates in the inquisition who belonged to that dread tribunal. These pleaders were sworn to secrecy; and they were bound to use every effort to make their clients confess. They never saw a prisoner except in the presence of an inquisitor. A notorious heretic was forbidden the services of these lawyers; nor were they permitted to give any advice to a sufferer if they believed he had departed from the faith.

No one outside of its walls could be safely informed about the number or names of the incarcerated; their crimes, their health, or their affairs. Nothing was to be communicated except such matters as the inquisitors themselves saw fit to publish. The unwilling inmates were to be regarded as dead, as far as relatives and friends were concerned. And if by a rare accident they should emerge from their living tomb, no hint must be given of the hidden horrors of St. Dominic’s tribunal.

Juan, né Sotomayer, a native of Murcia in Spain, was condemned to do penance as a suspected Jew by the inquisition; he conversed with several about his confession and trial after his liberation; for this indiscretion he was arrested again, and sentenced to receive two hundred lashes, and to be imprisoned for life.

Weary months may roll past before the coming of an Auto da Fé.

An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance, carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries, of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning. – From Wikipedia

He may be tormented by the most dreadful apprehensions, but a hint of his approaching fate never reaches him until he reads it in the figures on his dress, or in his place in the procession as he marches forth in the Act of Faith.

No pains of heart, of racked limbs, or of disease must occasion any disturbance in the silent cells of the Holy Office. It is said that once a poor prisoner coughed, the jailers admonished him to be quiet; they commanded him a second time to desist; and because he could not, they stripped him and beat him very severely; and as he continued to cough they repeated their violence until he died under their hands. There must be no psalms or hymns sung, no prayers offered to God in an audible voice, no conversation between prisoners on any occasion, A jailer, in the exercise of almost unexampled compassion, permitted a mother and her two daughters, who were imprisoned in different cells, to spend half an hour together; for this Peter ab Herara was thrown into prison, and subjected to such cruelties that his mind became disordered; then after a year spent in his own dungeons, he was led out with a halter about his neck as if he had been an odious malefactor; and he was ordered to receive two hundred lashes through the city, and to be sent to the galleys for six years.

Mass is never celebrated for the prisoners of the Holy Office, nor is there any privilege of Catholic worship granted them.

Near relatives have been in the same inquisition for years without knowing it till they met at an Auto da Fé.

Their dearest ones may be dying, or may have yielded to the Last Enemy; revolutions or wasting wars may be filling their country with desolation and carnage, but they can know nothing of what is passing. “Soon after my imprisonment,” says Da Costa, “I heard an alarm of fire, and I asked one of the guards, who was a little more kind than the rest, where it had taken place, and if it had caused much damage? I was told that the prisoners of the inquisition were not to busy themselves with anything that occurred outside.” What a scene of silent horror, even when instruments of bodily torture were not applied, awaited a victim of the inquisition!

If his goods are perishable they are forthwith sold; otherwise the inquisition takes possession of all its prisoners own until their cases are decided; when, if a man is declared innocent, he has to pay the expenses of his support, and prosecution; and if he is condemned, the Holy Office claims his estate.

The husband must inform on the wife, the son on the father, and brothers upon each other. The holiest ties to which affection has given birth, or which nature has joined, are to be rudely disregarded; and loved ones are to hasten before “those despicable scholastic theologians too ignorant and prejudiced to be able to ascertain the truth between the doctrines of Luther and those of Roman Catholicism,” who are called Lords Inquisitors, and give them information which will quickly prompt them to inflict the most atrocious outrages ever suffered out of the abyss.

They will pretend friendship for the accused, and even compassion, and say to them: “You did believe these sort of persons, who taught such and such things, to be good men, you willingly heard them and gave them somewhat of your substance; or received them sometimes into your house because you were a simple man and loved them.” If any prisoner admitted such acts, he was sure to be burned. Fox tells about a lady, who with her two daughters and a niece was apprehended at Seville for heresy; they were tortured without betraying Jesus. When it was over one of the inquisitors sent for the youngest daughter, and pretending great compassion for her in her sufferings, he bound himself with a solemn oath not to betray her if she would disclose all to him; and to secure the release of her mother and sister and cousin and of herself, made confident by his oath, she revealed all the tenets of their faith. When the perjured wretch ordered her to be put to the rack that he might compel her to reveal other matters; but she firmly refused, and they were all burned at the next Auto da Fé.

Ferdinand Valdes, Archbishop of Seville and Inquisitor-General in 1561, among eight-one rules for the Holy Office, issued the following:

“When sufficient proof exists to authorize proceedings against the memory and property of a deceased person, according to the ancient instruction, the accusation of the fiscal shall be signified to the children, the heirs or other interested persons, each of whom shall receive a copy of the notification. If no person presents himself to defend the memory of the accused, or to appeal against the seizure of his goods, the inquisitors shall appoint a defender and pursue the trial, considering him as a party. If any one interested appears, his rights shall be respected. Until the affair is terminated, the sequestration of the property cannot take place, because it has passed into other hands, yet the possessors shall be deprived of it if the deceased is found guilty.”

And, as an illustration of the character of such a plundering law, Eleonora de Vibero, who had been some time dead and buried without any doubt of her piety, was accused of Lutheranism by the fiscal of the inquisition; a manifest slander, as she had received the sacraments and the Eucharist at her death. The fiscal supported his charge by several witnesses, who had been tortured or threatened, and she was condemned. Her body was dug up and burned, with her effigy; her property was confiscated, her house torn down, and a decree was issued forbidding it to be rebuilt; and a monument, with an inscription commemorating the deed of vengeance, was erected upon its site. Truly it was a serious thing to live in the land of these inquisitors, and an awkward business to die in it, if one had property or descendants.

Limborch says: “They never proceed to torture unless there is alack of other proofs; when the prisoner cannot make his innocence appear plainly to the judge, and at the same time he cannot be fully convicted by witnesses or the evidence of the thing.” If there is no testimony to convict a prisoner, and the inquisitor either suspect him or covet his property, then he may tear him on the rack until he terrifies him into some confession, which will justify the dainty conscience of the inquisitor in sending him to the faggots or the galleys and seizing his estate. What room such a law gave to torture the innocent! To rack, plunder, scourge and burn as good Catholics as any of the demon-hearted followers of fierce St. Dominic!

And hosts of the faithful children of Rome did suffer these enormous wrongs prepared for her enemies. Every work on the inquisition describes the story of Maria de Bohorques and her sister Jane, daughters of a gentleman in Seville. Maria was a girl of cultivated mind, of great courage, of unwavering faith in Jesus, the God of the New Testament, which she loved. She was thrown into the inquisition, and then confessed her love for Christ and His Word; she nobly defended her faith against the cunning wild beasts in human shape who were surely dragging her to a death which, had it been worse, they themselves richly deserved. When on the rack they made her say that her sister Jane had not reproved her for the opinions she entertained. As her body was chained to the stake, they bade her recite the Creed, which she did readily, and immediately began to explain it in a Protestant sense, showing a soul sustained by the strength of the Almighty. To stop her, they strangled her and pitched her body into the flames.

Her sister was immediately imprisoned on the flimsy pretext that she had not reproved Maria. As they found she was soon to become a mother, they allowed her to remain in a superior cell until the birth of her child, eight days after which it was removed, and she was forthwith transferred to a low dungeon. On the fifteenth day after her confinement, she appeared before the inquisitors. When charges were made which she could not disprove, which amounted to nothing; and as they had not testimony to convict her, even according to their own barbarous code, they took this young mother and dislocated her joints, gashed her arms and ankles with ropes which cut to the bone; “Passed a cord over her breast thinking to add new pangs, and by an additional outrage of decency as well as humanity, extort some cry that might serve to incriminate husband or friend. But when the tormentor weighed down the bar, her frame gave way, the ribs crushed inwards; blood flowed from her mouth and nostrils; she was carried to her cell, where she lingered for another week, and then the God of pity took her to Himself.” In process of time, the Holy Office declared her innocent. Surely the self-confessed murderers of this young mother deserve the maledictions of the whole human race, and especially of all Catholics, for wickedly killing such a blameless and worthy member of their Church.

This law governed every department of the Church of Rome, even in her most blood-thirsty days. The inquisition tried a prisoner, and handed him over to the secular judge for sentence and execution; and, with a hypocrisy worthy of “the harlot drunken with the blood of saints,” entreated him to deal very tenderly with the erring one, and not to injure him. But if he paid the least attention to this customary and false appeal, he would be the next victim to be dislocated, burned and tortured, till his life would be worth little. This practice is the foundation of a famous and false saying current in some Catholic circles, that “the Church of Rome never persecuted any one.” If the first Napoleon were living and said: “I never fought a battle, I never killed a man; it was cruel soldiers who performed these horrid deeds,” he would tell the truth, as Rome does about the history of her atrocious and countless murders.

The room in which the engines of anguish were used was lined with thick quilting, to cover every crevice and deaden the sound.

Sometimes the prisoner had hard, small ropes placed around each naked arm and leg, in two different parts of each limb; these were suddenly drawn tight with great force by several men, and the poor victim was cut to the bone in eight distinct places. This dreadful infliction was repeated on the same person three or four times in succession, as soon as he was able to bear it.

By a cunning process of twisting the arms behind the back, such a violent contortion was produced as dislocated both shoulders, and resulted in the discharge of a considerable quantity of blood from the mouth. The shoulders were carefully set, and the same torture renewed several times.

And in these violent dislocations and wounds, according to the testimony of the author of the “Book of Martyrs,” the unhappy females who fell into the hands of the inquisitors, had not the least favor shown them on account of the softness of their sex or the prohibitions of decency.

Sometimes the prisoner had a rope passed under his arms, which were tied behind his back, by which he was drawn up into the air with a pulley, and left to swing for a time; then suddenly he is let down near the ground, and by the shock of the jerking fall, all his joints are dislocated.

Tn another torture, the feet were smeared with grease, and the soles placed close to a hot fire, and there are left to burn till the victim would confess.

Dr. Wylie, the author of “The Papacy,” in 1847, was in a dismantled inquisition, nearly surrounded by the waters of Lake Leman, called the Castle of Chillon, describing which he says:

“We entered one apartment which was evidently the hall of torture; for there, with the rust of centuries upon it, stood the gaunt apparatus of the inquisition; the corda, queen of torments, was used there. The person who endured the corda had his arms tied behind his back, then a rope was attached to them; a heavy iron weight was hung at his feet. When all was ready, the executioners suddenly hoisted him up to the ceiling by means of the rope which passed through a pulley in the top of the beam; the arms were painfully wrenched backwards, and the weight of the body, increased by the weight attached to the feet, in most cases sufficed to tear the arms from their sockets. If he refused to confess, he was suddenly let down with a jerk which completed the dislocation. While suspended, the prisoner was sometimes whipped, or had a hot iron thrust into various parts of his body, his tormentors admonishing him all the while to speak the truth. At each of the four corners of the room was a pulley fixed, showing that the apartment had been fitted up for the VEGLI. The veglia resembled a smith’s anvil with a spike on the top, ending in an iron die, Through the pulleys in the four corners of the room ran four ropes; these were tied to the naked arms and legs of the sufferer, and twisted so as to cut to the bone. He was lifted up and set down exactly with his back-bone on the die, which, as the whole weight of the body rested on it, wrought by degrees into the bone. This torture, which was excruciating, was to last eleven hours if the prisoner did not confess.

“In a small adjoining apartment was shown a recess in the wall, with a trap-door below it. In that recess, said the guide, stood an image of the Virgin. The prisoner accused of heresy was brought and made to kneel upon the trap-door, and, in the presence of the Virgin, to abjure heresy. To prevent his apostasy, the moment he made his confession the bolt was drawn, and the man lay a mangled corpse on the rocks below.”

Elizabeth Vasconellos was brought into the hall of torture; her back was stripped, and she was whipped with a scourge of knotted cords for some time. Soon after, with a red hot iron the executioner burned her on the breast in three places, and sent her to prison without any application for the painful sores. A month later she was scourged with the same brutal formalities as on the previous occasion. At a subsequent audience one of her shoes was removed and a red hot iron slipper was placed upon her foot, which burned her to the bone, and made her faint away.

Llorente, formerly secretary of the inquisition, and chancellor of the University of Toledo in Spain, says: “I shall not describe the different modes of torture employed by the inquisition, as that has been done by many historians already; I shall only say that NONE OF THEM CAN BE ACCUSED OF EXAGGERATION.”

Here is a witness with the records of the inquisition before him; with a full knowledge of the horrors ascribed to its torture-chambers by the writers of the world, and he declares that none of these authors can be accused of exaggeration. Little wonder that Spanish mobs would aid the familiars of the inquisition in dragging a prisoner to its cells; or that Spanish parents would not lift a finger to hinder the same officials from hurrying off a manly son or a lovely daughter to their frightful tribunal. The Holy Office had terrified the nation out of its manhood. Neither the Almighty nor the Wicked One was half so much dreaded as the inquisition.

Its mildest penalties were imprisonment, confinement on the galleys, or several hundred lashes administered on the public streets.

This article was prominent in the punishments inflicted by the inquisitors. It was a woollen garment of a yellow color, descending to the knees, with crosses on it. Sometimes a prisoner was released and ordered to wear it for years. And wherever he appeared he was frowned upon, hooted, greeted with oaths, regarded with horror, shunned by all as quickly as his badge of inquisitorial vengeance was recognized. If he laid it aside his doom was appalling, and if he continued to wear it the famishings of hunger, the daggers of hate, and the execrations of a whole community drove him to despair and the grave.

Those condemned to the stake had their likenesses painted on the sanbenito, surrounded by flames, and by devils described in hideous attitudes, The sanbenitos of all who were put to death, and of those who were condemned to wear them for a term of years, as a punishment, with the names of their owners, their crimes and punishments, painted upon them, were hung in the churches in which they once worshipped, that their memories might be held in everlasting detestation, and that eternal infamy might rest upon their relatives and friends.

The children and grand-children of those whom it has condemned are prohibited from following any honorable employment; they must not wear any garment of silk or fine wool, or any ornament of gold, silver, or precious stones. Surely the children might be innocent if the father was worthy of the flames; and the grand-children, in most cases unborn, might have been spared a penalty, which justice never inflicted, and which only INIQUITY in a state of rampant rage could have suggested.

By this law the hosts whose parents and grand-parents had incurred the wrath of the Holy Office were stigmatized; driven from respectable callings; and placed at the mercy of rapacious informers and sacerdotal tyrants.

The flames ended the earthly lives of those condemned to death by the inquisition; unless when, as a special favor, they were strangled, before their bodies were consumed.

The name for such an exhibition is curious, it ought to have been called: The Act of Burning Love. But the nomenclature of the inquisition is peculiar. The Holy Office, for instance, is a remarkable designation for such an institution. Governed by example, it is probable that Satan calls his hottest furnace, The Arctic Freezer; or his temptation to the assassin who commits some murder marked by fiendish barbarity, Benevolent Suggestions. An Auto da Fé was one of the grandest entertainments given in Catholic countries; it was arranged with special magnificence; the court, nobility, foreign ambassadors, and all the dignitaries of the Church were there; the people thronged to behold it in multitudes; and learned in time to be delighted by its barbarities.

The mode of conducting an Auto da Fé in Portugal was atrocious. The prisoners are seized by the secular magistrates in presence of the inquisitors and loaded with chains; they are removed for a short time to a public prison, and there they are taken before the chief justice, who, without making a single inquiry into their crime asks them separately: In what faith they intend to die? If they answer: In the Catholic; they are immediately sentenced to be strangled, and their bodies are commanded to be burned to ashes; if they say they will die in another faith than the Romish, they are condemned to die by the flames. At the place of execution a stake twelve feet high is erected for each sufferer; half a yard from the top a little seat is made for the martyr. A quantity of dry furze surrounds the stake. The negative and relapsed are first strangled and their bodies are given to the flames; afterwards the others go up a ladder between two Jesuits, who exhort them to be reconciled to the Church; failing to heed which the executioner ascending places them upon their seats, and chains them close to the stake. Again the Jesuits admonish them, and if the response is unfavorable they withdraw, giving them the cheering information that, The devil is standing at their elbow to receive them, and carry them with him into hell fire. Upon this a great shout is raised: Let the dogs’ beards be made, which is done by thrusting burning furzes fastened on long poles against their faces. This cruel act is repeated until their faces are frightfully scorched and blackened; and it is always accompanied by jubilant shouts. The furze is then kindled at the bottom of the stake, the flame of which scarcely reaches higher than the seats occupied by the saints of God; and if they are exposed to the wind it seldom ascends to their knees. In a calm day they will be dead in thirty minutes; in boisterous weather their sufferings may extend over two hours.

An eye witness quoted by Limborch, says: “Heytor Dias and Maria Pinteyra were burned alive: the woman expired in half an hour, and the man in twice that time. The king and his brothers were seated in a window so near as to be addressed in very moving terms for a considerable time, by the man as he was burning. But though he only sought a few more faggots, the favor was refused. The wind being fresh, and the man being twelve feet above the ground, six feet higher than the fuel, his back was completely wasted, and as he turned himself his ribs opened before he ceased speaking. All his entreaties could not secure him a larger allowance of wood to shorten his torments and despatch him.”

At an Auto da Fé held in Madrid, June 30th, 1680, in the presence of the king, queen, and court, a young Jewish girl was consigned to the flames. No charge was alleged against her except her race and her religion. She was just entering on her seventeenth year, and she possessed remarkable beauty. At the stake she appealed for mercy to the queen in words which ought to have moved a heart of marble: “Great queen,” she cried, “is not your presence able to bring me some comfort under my misery? Consider my youth, and that I am condemned for a religion which I nursed in with my mother’s milk.” The queen turned away declaring that she pitied the miserable creature, but she did not dare to intercede for her. Any wonder that the blight of heaven should shrivel up the prosperity of a nation that permitted such murders? that it should be stripped of its wealth and greatness, and become the halting cripple, the chattering dotard of earthly states?

Dr. Claudius Buchanan, vice-provost of the college of Fort William, Bengal, visited the inquisition of Goa in the East Indies in 1808, and was the guest of the second inquisitor during his stay. He found the institution in full blast; and his host, in admitting the truthfulness of the narrative of Dellon, a former prisoner of the Holy Office in Goa, confirmed the common reputation of the inquisition as the most dreadful scourge that cursed any people. Though the inquisition was abolished by Napoleon in Spain, it was re-established by Ferdinand VII., July 21st 1814, when for many years it continued to perform its odious work.

When the doors of this diabolical institution were forced in 1849, Father Gavazzi, the well known chaplain general to the Roman army, says that, “He found in one of its prisons a furnace and the remains of a woman’s dress; that everything combined to persuade him that it was used for horrible deaths, and to consume the bodies of victims of inquisitorial hate. He saw between the great hall of judgment and the apartment of the chief jailer a deep trap, a shaft opening into the vaults under the inquisition. As soon as the prisoner confessed his offense, he was sent to the Father Commissary to receive a relaxation of his punishment. With the hope of pardon he approached the apartment of the holy inquisitor, but in the act of setting his foot at the entrance, the trap opened, and the world of the living heard no more of him. He examined some of the matter in the pit below this trap; and he found it to be composed of common earth, rottenness, ashes, and human hair, fetid to the smell and horrible to the sight of the beholder.

He says popular fury reached its greatest height at the cells of St. Pius V. To reach them you must descend into the vaults by very narrow stairs, and along a corridor, equally cramped, you approach the separate cells, which for smallness and stench, are a hundred times more horrible than the dens of lions and tigers in the Colosseum. Looking around he discovered a cell full of skeletons without skulls, buried in lime. The skulls detached from the bodies, had been collected in a hamper by the visitors. These persons never died a natural death; they were doubtless immersed in a bath of slaked lime gradually filled up to their necks, the lime, by little and little, enclosed the sufferers or walled them up all alive. The torment was extreme but slow. As the lime rose higher and higher, the respiration of the victims became more and more painful, because more difficult. So that with the suffocation of the smoke, and the anguish of a compressed breathing, they died in a manner most horrible and desperate. Sometime after death the heads would naturally separate from their bodies and roll away into the hollows left by the shrinking of the lime.

So great, says he, are the atrocities of the inquisition, that they would more than suffice to arouse the detestation of a thousand worlds. He adds: “The Roman inquisition is under the shadow of the Vatican palace, and its prefect is the pope in person.” Pius IX., lauded for his liberality and fatherly benevolence, kept this accursed institution at work until chased from Rome by his enraged subjects; and he left victims in it when he fled.

Under the liberal sway of Victor Emmanuel, the inquisition is dead in Rome beyond the hope of resurrection. The reign of his son in Spain will render its existence impossible in that country.

We suspect that the destruction of the inquisition arose from jealousy—the jealousy of Satan. He cannot bear the superiority of another. And when he saw that the Holy Office far surpassed him in cunning, malignity, and all the other attributes of devilhood, he was mortified, indignant, and bent on mischief. He first tried to overtake the Holy Office in its career of cunning, cruel wickedness; but thoroughly beaten on his own ground, and in his own business; and convinced of the hopelessness of such efforts, he resolved to destroy the favorite instrument of St. Dominic. Jehovah, who for wise reasons permitted its monstrous birth, for purposes of love ordained its destruction. And Satan was allowed to extinguish his rival; and to stand for the future unequaled in atrocious deeds.

On the 14th of September, 1485, Pedro Arbues, an inquisitor in Spain, went to the cathedral of Saragossa to attend matins (a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning). He had a steel skullcap under his hat, and a coat of mail beneath his robes; he carried a lantern and a club, the one rendered needful by the darkness, and the other by his ferocious cruelties. As he knelt, he grasped his weapon. Two Spaniards were soon on their knees beside him, and Pedro, not watching, as was his common custom when praying, unexpectedly received a few vigorous blows, which quickly sent him from judging in an earthly tribunal to stand as a crimson offender at the bar of a holy God. The world seldom rejoiced in the death of a more brutal tyrant.

In 1866, Pius IX. canonized this execrable wretch, and thereby elevated him to the highest rank among Catholic saints. Pedro now is a prayer-hearing intercessor, and is doubtless addressed by large numbers in their supplications. And as Pius IX. is infallible, he must know the crimes which this felon committed; the hideous iniquities for which his honest Catholic neighbors slaughtered him as they would have killed a wild beast; and if he is really unerring, he approves of miscreants like Pedro Arbues; and of the bloody deeds by which outraged men have been stirred up to slay them.

In Parma the inhabitants rescued a woman from the stake, dispersed the executioners, sacked the Franciscan convent, and lashed every friar whom they could catch, belonging to the Holy Office. The whole people were shocked at the thought of burning their fellow citizens. “The hatred,” says Llorente, “which the office of an inquisitor everywhere inspired in the first ages of the Holy Office, caused the death of a great number of Dominicans, and some Cordeliers.” The most violent and barbarous laws were made by many princes to sustain the inquisition, but as in after ages, so at the beginning, the inquisitors were generally inhuman, impious, ignorant, fanatical, envious, and rash, and they and their Holy Office were driven from a great number of places by the populace; and their lives sacrificed as if they had been bandits or pirates; and this not commonly the work of Protestants, but of true men of their own faith. It is well to remember that the inquisition was the creation of priests, and though Charles V., Philip II., and Frederic I. gave it all the holy and accursed aid which powerful rulers could render any institution, for a long while the Catholic masses regarded it as a wicked scourge.

You will search in vain among the musty records of the past, over all the lands and all the ages, for another inquisition. The Romish Church stands alone in having a legal tribunal expressly established to torture, and if desirable, to kill her enemies, Mohammedanism has persecuted Christians at times, but never as is done; and at no period had it a tribunal, with a staff of officers, suits of prisons, and codes of laws devoted exclusively to the enemies of their prophet.

The ten persecutions of pagan Rome were very violent, but they were spasmodic, temporary, based in some instances upon falsehoods which persecution exploded; and they could not well have been protracted longer than the period which they cursed. But Nero and Domitian had no holy office, devoted to the work of discovering and destroying heretics. It is doubtful if heathen Rome could have furnished enough men of the kind, out of which inquisitors, familiars, and the other servants of the Holy Office were made, to man an inquisition of the papal order for twenty successive years. It is more than probable that no system of idolatry, and no form of Christianity, could have produced and engineered such a prodigy of wickedness.

While the papal Church has had gifted and noble men in her sacerdotal ranks; among her monks, and sometimes in the list of her pontiffs, she has had a Dominic and a Carraffa (Paul IY.), men who seemed to possess something additional to human nature, and that increase most evidently did not come from heaven. And of this class of extra-ordinary mortals, she had enough to work the Holy Office for centuries. We could wish that the race was extinct.

The inquisition in Spain moved in its operations with unbounded vigor. Every night its armies of familiars scoured the households of the nation, taking large numbers out of their beds, just aroused out of sleep, to the dismal dens of the Holy Office. Every day the inquisitors were engrossed with the audience room, the torture chamber, or an Auto da Fé. Every hour the spies of the inquisition were dogging the steps of those whom they wished to entrap; watching unfortunate Jews, Moors, and their descendants; they were carrying off fans and snuff-boxes, bearing pictures of heathen classic gods, Hebrew Bibles, and Greek Testaments, and literary books deemed heretical, because the inquisition and its menials were commonly too ignorant to distinguish between the sinless creations of genius and wicked works only filled with the sufferings and love of Jesus.

In the six hundred years of its existence, the inquisition in Spain and in other countries sacrificed myriads of lives with the most atrocious cruelties; it has racked many millions more, and the torture was generally applied to the very utmost verge of life, the physician hired by the Holy Office holding the patient by the wrist to discover the exact amount of agony he could bear without destroying existence. It has crippled millions whom it set at liberty, some of whom it declared innocent after planting its pains all over their bodies; it has robbed its victims of property, for the sake of which exclusively prosecutions frequently began, too great to be represented by figures. And when we try to conceive the woes of its lonely victims in their dark cells; the anguished hearts of loved ones who could hear nothing of them; the terror and pain of the hall of tortures; the slavery of the galleys; the whipping through the streets; the infamy of wearing the sanbenito; the penury and insults heaped on the children and grandchildren of victims—the aggregate imperfectly imagined, shocks and horrifies us, and we are astonished that a column of fire from heaven did not burn up each Holy Office and its wicked tyrants the moment persecution was proposed.

The inquisition accomplished some good. Of an irritable man, a certain person said to his enemy: “Do not be too severe with him, he is useful for one thing, he is capital for trying patience and strengthening it, and finding out where there is any.” So the inquisition has exhibited some of the finest specimens of Christian heroism in the annals of earth or the records of heaven. In its court room and torture hall, and at its executions, lights were uncovered that have flashed over Christendom; that shall flood all time; lights which blinded the eyes of inquisitors and executioners, and which have enabled timid Christians to see their Master’s blood, love and power, and read their title clear to mansions in the skies. Thousands, and tens of thousands of the saints of Jesus, like Maria Bohorques, showed the utmost contempt for suffering; the most extraordinary love for the crucified One; the possession of a heaven-given faith which bone-breaking racks could not crush, nor blazing faggots waste. Like the swimming cork, which floats on the brook a few inches deep, and upon the crest of the greatest wave that ever rode in angry majesty over ocean beds, too deep for a created fathoming line; so in the light displayed by the woes of the inquisition, the Christian sees a faith that will float him over the shallow waters of common troubles, and on the highest peak of the mightiest mountain billow of distress that ever rolled in threatening fury over the ocean of life. But in view of its horrors may we not well ask:

Where was thine arm, O vengeance? where the rod
That smote the foes of Zion and of God?
That crushed proud Ammon when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar.

Continued in XXXVIII. The Scriptures

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

Continued from XXXV. Hymns, And Those Who Composed Them.

Sir Water Scott has a reputation which it would be difficult to excel, and a literary position which he honestly earned; and yet there is throughout his works a vein of rancorous malignity to the Scotch Covenanters as mean as it is unjustifiable.

“Covenanters were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. It originated in disputes with James VI and his son Charles I over church organisation and doctrine, but expanded into political conflict over the limits of royal authority.” – from Wikipedia

He had political and religious prejudices unlike theirs; and they were not perfect; and he uses their faults murderously magnified, to prove them sanctified demons. After the battle of Bothwell Bridge, he describes a few of the leaders of the Presbyterians in a house brooding over their defeat in solemn grief; and Henry Morton, a man with a faith somewhat different, who had fought on their side, joining their company.

The men are all Covenanters, and there is a general desire among them to murder Morton, as a kind of sacrifice to God. The person who leads his fellows in this business is the Reverend Ephraim Macbriar, a preacher of unusual eloquence; and the point that settled his doom with Ephraim, was the repetition of some supplications from the book of Common Prayer. “There lacked but this,” said he, “to root out my carnal reluctance to see his blood shed.” So after twelve at night, Morton must die, as a victim sent by Jehovah to atone for the sins which occasioned the defeat at Bothwell Bridge. It was Sunday, they were Covenanters, and the deed of blood must not be executed till the sacred hours of the Lord’s day are gone. But it is planned on the Sabbath, and in heart committed.

This is Sir Walter Scott’s charge against an intelligent Presbyterian minister, and brethren of his, of influence. This is the spirit in which he generally speaks of these men. A greater injustice never was perpetrated. The Covenanters were not always, nor all angels, but they wielded an influence for liberty, for God, for intelligence, immensely surpassing anything ever performed by all the noble or untitled marauders of the Scottish borders, or their descendants that ever bore the name of Scott, not excepting the sage of Abbotsford and Lord Chancellor Eldon. We admire the life, works, and saintly spirit of the gentle Archbishop Leighton, and the lives and labors of troops of his episcopal and presbyterial brothers on the other side of the Tweed; and we glory in the heroes of the Scottish covenant as presenting some of the brightest examples of faith in Christian history; and the man who paints them as demons in cruelty, and angels in professions, and lauds as a valiant hero, John Graham of Claverhouse, their merciless butcher, is not in these transactions a just man. The sun gathers crystal globules of water from the pure fountain, and he lifts it from the stagnant pool; nor does he pass by one offensive puddle; he sends it to the clouds, and it comes down in refreshing sweetness. The servants of God as children of the light, should recognize worth everywhere, in the foul pool, as well as in the sweet fountain.

Alfred the Great was a Romanist, and though the religion of England in his day was growing very corrupt and superstitious, it is probable that Alfred was a true Christian. He is commonly regarded as the author of several of our local institutions, without which liberty in England and America would be no more real and abiding than in countries peopled by the Latin race. A larger-hearted patriot, a braver hero, a leader more worthy to rule men, never sat on a throne; and, with a few exceptions, never wielded the destinies of a republic.

Charlemagne, in the end of the eighth century, was a Roman Catholic. He abominated the worship of images, and in many things was more enlightened than the people of his age. He was a mighty man in valor, and wisdom, and not unlikely in piety. The eighth century had abundant reason to be proud of him.

Roger Bacon was a monk, and yet a man of a most ingenious and philosophical mind. He lived in the thirteenth century, and gave a glory to his name and age, which the celebrated Lord Bacon of a later day could hardly increase even by his famous “Inductive Philosophy.”

The barons who signed Magna Carta, and compelled the king to grant it, were all Roman Catholics. The first charter of liberty in modern times was extorted from John, king of England, by his Roman Catholic subjects, with Stephen Langton, the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, at their head—a charter which has given liberty to England, and freedom to America; and which has bestowed kindred blessings on other lands. It must be added however, that Innocent III. suspended Langton for his share in procuring the charter, and nullified the deed of liberty as far as he could destroy it. But it would not die, even to please an infallible pope.

Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, has left the world under lasting obligations to him. For carefulness, intelligent selection, perspicuity of style, and for the extent of time and the mass of facts of which his work treats, Paris stands without an equal for centuries. The scholar today, in every land, honors this monk.

William Tell, who kindled the fires of Swiss freedom, which have blazed and sent their light over frozen mountains and happy valleys, over sunny Italy and beautiful France, was a Roman Catholic.

Sir William Wallace, the pride of every Scottish heart, one of the noblest patriots and most valiant heroes that ever struggled for liberty, or honored the land of his birth, was a Roman Catholic.

Columbus, who gave a new world to the nations of the West, and a magnificent country to ourselves—with mighty rivers and mountain ranges, sublime scenery, and vast metallic treasures, a land which does not bear a slave and could not endure a despot— was a Roman Catholic.

John Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, was a Catholic; and through his mighty art, the Reformers sent their Bibles and religious works over states and kingdoms, until the empire of the popes was broken in pieces by the press of the printer of Maintz.

Charles Carrol, of Carrolton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a Catholic, a man of whom no American need be ashamed, a worthy companion of some of the greatest patriots to whom human nature ever gave birth.

We might proceed to specify other worthies, but the number is sufficient. We have known true men among Roman Catholics, and women of honor and kindness, for whom our respect was spontaneous, and our friendship real. We have met them in humble life, and we have seen them elsewhere. And we have often found them good citizens, and kind friends. Our trouble is with their religious system, not with them; and with their leaders, who would use that vast network—the Romish scheme—to destroy the Protestant religion, and the liberties of men.

The world has no greater enemies to political freedom and Bible truth than the rulers of the Catholic Church. There was not a breath of liberty in Rome, nor one Protestant church, till the soldiers of Victor Emmanuel plucked the scepter and the sword from the hands of the crowned priest.

Continued in The Papal System – XXXVII. The Inquisition

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

Continued from The Papal System – XXXIV. The Sincerity of Catholic Priests.

In the ancient churches psalmody (singing of psalms in worship) was quite as prominent as it is in the worship of Christ now; the praises and gratitude of the devout worshiper reached heaven in holy melodies sung with fervor and rapture.

Sometimes the psalm was sung by one person alone, the others only giving their attention; and sometimes by the whole assembly together; sometimes the congregation was divided into two choirs, one half singing one verse, and the other the next; sometimes one person sung the first part of the verse, and all the people united their voices at its close. The ancient and general practice of the churches was for the whole people, men, women, and children, as if with one mouth and one mind, to sing the praises of God. Christ and his apostles united in singing the hymn at the last supper; and, according to Chrysostom, the first churches followed this example: “Women and men,” says he, “old men and children, differ in sex and age, but they differ not in the harmony of singing hymns, for the spirit tempers all their voices together, making one melody of them all.”

The voice in singing was employed in two distinct styles; in the first it received a gentle inflection, an agreeable turn with a proper accent, not differing much from reading, like the musical way of reading psalms in cathedral churches. This was the Alexandrian mode in the time of Athanasius, and the prevailing custom in Africa in the days of Augustine; the other system conformed to art, had a variety of notes for greater sweetness, gave forth the richest melody, and melted into tears, or elevated to heaven, those who shared in the enjoyment of this delightful service.

Singing was extensively used in worship. When the church of St. Ambrose was beset with Arian soldiers, the people inside sung psalms the whole night and day. Psalmody was the exercise of the congregation at all times when no other service occupied them; no occasion was regarded as unseasonable to sing holy psalms and hymns in the church, except during Scripture reading, preaching, or praying. Monks in their devotions, plowmen in the fields, and the Church in all her services gloried in the abounding use of hymns, Even at funerals this custom was prominent. Jerome, speaking of such an occasion, says that “the people made the gilded roof of the temple shake and echo again with their psalms and hallelujahs.”

Singers did not in early times make religion the chief end of their melodies. Sometimes the men who conducted church music took their modes of singing from the practice of the theater, introducing the corruptions and effeminacy of profane music into the solemn devotions of the sanctuary.

In condemnation of this custom Jerome says: “Let young men who sing in the church, sing, not with their voice but with their heart to the Lord; not like tragedians physically preparing their throat and mouth, that they may sing after the fashion of the theater in the Church.” Chrysostom, Augustine, and other fathers urge the same objection against the theatrical music of some religious assemblies and singers in their day.

In the latter end of the second century a defender of the Saviour’s divinity, quoted by Eusebius, attacked Artemon’s heresy, and among other things urged by him to prove its falsehood, he says, “Whatever psalms and hymns were written by the brethren from the beginning celebrate Christ the word of God, by asserting his divinity.” From the first age of the Gospel the brethren had human compositions in praise of Jesus as God.

In A.D. 270 the Council of Antioch complained of Paul of Samosata, the heterodox Bishop of Antioch, that he stopped “the psalms that were sung in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ as the late compositions of modern men, but in honor of himself he had prepared women to sing at the great festival in the midst of the church.” From this statement it is again affirmed that uninspired hymns and psalms in honor of Jesus were in use in the churches at a very early day.

In the beginning of the second century, the celebrated Pliny, in giving the Emperor Trajan an account of the Christians, says: “They were accustomed to meet on a certain day before it was light and sing a hymn alternately to Christ as God.” This hymn could not be one of David’s Psalms, as they are not addressed to “Christ as God.” It is undeniable that in the infancy of the Church, as Cave says: “It was usual for any persons to compose divine songs in honor of Christ, and to sing them in the public assemblies.” These compositions were commonly fragments of Scripture, with slight additions.

In its most ancient form it read: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.” The words, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” were added somewhat later than the first use of the song. The followers of Arius would only sing the doxology thus: “Glory be to the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit.” It was used at the end of nearly every portion of public worship. Another change in its words occurred not long after the first enlargement, then it read: “To Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory, worship, thanksgiving, honor, and adoration, now and forever, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Another very ancient hymn is called “The Angelical Hymn, or Great Doxology.” It was based on the words of the angels at the Saviour’s birth: “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will;” the reading often accepted in early times. This was a very popular hymn.

The Trisagion (thrice holy), or cherubical hymn, is among the earliest songs of the Church. Its first form was: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory, who art blessed forever. Amen.” It, too, had many changes, and continued for centuries to hold a leading place in the worship of the early Christians.

The “Hallelujah,” which was understood to mean, “Praise ye the Lord,” was sung with the greatest fervor, publicly and privately. It was the call for monks to come to their assemblies, when one of their number went around singing it.

Paulinus says: “The whole sheepfold of Christ sings Hallelujah.”

Another early hymn was called “Benedicete,” or the song of the three children in the burning fiery furnace. Chrysostom says of this hymn, “that it was sung in all places throughout the world, and would continue to be sung in future generations.”

The Magnificat, or song of Mary: “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” etc., was publicly sung in the churches of France, as early as A. D. 506.

Clement of Alexandria, about the end of the second century, or beginning of the third, wrote some beautiful hymns, which are still extant (still in existence), though not used. And Gregory of Nazianzen, who died in the end of the fourth century, was celebrated as an author of hymns.

Hilary of Poictiers, who died A.D. 368, is regarded as one of the first writers who composed hymns for use in public worship in the West. Jerome says, that Hilary composed a book of hymns, and such was the merit of these songs that they were ratified and confirmed by the fourth Council of Toledo. But no one of them is extant except a hymn prefixed to his works and sent with an epistle to his daughter Abra.

Ambrose is better known as an author of hymns than any Christian before his day. He composed thirty, which were used in the churches. He wrote the “Deus Creator omnium,” etc.; and one on “The repentance of Peter after the crowing of the Cock,” which were greatly prized in public worship. But the Te Deum was his masterpiece (if it was really his). This hymn is usually ascribed to Ambrose, and with good reason; though Stillingfleet says: “It was composed by Nicettus, about one hundred years after the death of Ambrose,” and the learned Bingham holds the same view.

For fourteen or fifteen centuries, the Te Deum has borne to the shining heights of Paradise the thanks of grateful millions over an abounding harvest; or the jubilant praises of a triumphant nation whose foes have been put to flight, or destroyed. It was probably the chanting of that very hymn which melted young Augustine to tears, as he sat in the church of the ex-governor, Bishop Ambrose, and listened to the finest music in the whole West. The following is the common Catholic version and copy of

“We praise thee O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee: the Father everlasting.
To thee all angels cry aloud: the heavens and all the powers therein.
To thee cherubim and seraphim: continually do cry:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are full: of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious choir of the apostles: praise thee.
The admirable company of the prophets: praise thee.
The white robed army of the martyrs: praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world: doth acknowledge thee.
The Father: of an infinite majesty.
Thy adorable, true: and only Son.
Also the Holy Ghost: the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory: O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting son: of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man: thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sting of death: thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God: in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come: to be our judge.
We pray thee, therefore, to help thy servants: whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy saints: in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people: and bless thine inheritance.
Govern them: and lift them up forever.
Day by day: we magnify thee.
And we praise thy name forever: yea, forever and ever.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, this day: to keep us without sin.
O Lord have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy be showed upon us: as we have hoped in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I hoped: let me not be confounded forever.”

Bishop Mant translates another hymn of Ambrose; of which the following is a part:

Arius, the founder of the ancient sect bearing his name, had a talent for composing hymns; and from the statements of Socrates and Sozomen, he used it with great success in commending his opinions and confounding his religious adversaries. The Arians on all feast days, and times set apart for worship, gathered in bands and marched through the streets of Constantinople, singing responsive verses with such insulting questions in them as: “Where are they that say: Three things are but one power?” These musical warriors would begin their melodious march early in the morning, and continue it during the greater part of the night.

The great Chrysostom, becoming alarmed at the popularity of these heterodox songs, had others composed to counteract their influence. And he too formed processions with splendid silver crosses and lighted tapers borne in front, in which the Trinitarian hymns were sung. A tumult was the result, which led the Emperor to prohibit the Arian hymn chanting in public: an act which would have been more just and Christian, if both parties had been placed on the same footing before the law.

Ephraim the Syrian had respectable gifts as a religious poet. It is said that he wrote three thousand verses. To controvert the heresies rendered popular by Harmonius among his countrymen, he composed hymns in honor of God, and in accordance with the doctrines of the Church. And such was the popularity of Ephraim, that from his day the Syrians sang his odes, and followed the instructions they contained.

Augustine wrote a hymn to check the errors of the Donatists, who were making extensive use of newly composed sacred songs to render their opinions triumphant.

In Ireland, St. Patrick, about the middle of the fifth century, led a chief bard, accustomed to celebrate in song the warlike exploits of his countrymen and the glories of their Druidical divinities, to the Saviour of souls; and Dubrach MacValubair, drawn to the Redeemer, immediately began to make hymns in praise of Christianity.

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History contains a hymn of his, of which the following is a part:

Caedmon, in the year of our Lord 680, had a species of divine inspiration to make hymns, as he asserted, and as his friends believed. One night after caring for his horses, according to his office, he fell asleep at the proper time, and a person appeared to him in his sleep and commanded him to sing; he refused; the command was imperatively repeated, and a subject given him for versification; he forthwith began to make beautiful hymns. In the morning he told his dream and he repeated his hymns. He was soon after elevated from stableman, in Whitby Abbey, to be a brother in the convent, by St. Hilda, the Abbess. He made hymns on creation, the origin of man, the departure of Israel out of Egypt, and their entrance into Canaan, the incarnation, sufferings, resurrection, and ascension of the Saviour, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the apostles, the judgment day, and the delights of heaven. “Whatever was interpreted to him out of Scripture, he soon after put into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility. By his verses the minds of many were often excited to despise the world and aspire to heaven. Others after him in England attempted to compose religious poems, but none could compare with Caedmon.”

This hymn is written in a very old dialect of the Irish Celtic; it has no appeals to saints, angels, or the Virgin Mary. If not the work of St, Patrick, it must have been the composition of some one who lived near his time. This version was made by Dr. Todd, a distinguished Irish scholar:

I bind to myself today
The strong power of the invocation of the Trinity,
The faith of the Trinity in unity,
The Creator of the elements.

I bind to myself today
The power of the incarnation of Christ,
Wit that of his baptism;
The power of the crucifixion,
With that of his burial;
The power of the resurrection,
With that of the ascension
The power of the coming
To the sentence of judgment.

I bind to myself today
The power of God to guide me,
The might of God to uphold me,
The wisdom of God to teach me,
The eye of God to watch over me,
The ear of God to hear me,
The word of God to give me speech,
The hand of God to protect me,
The way of God to prevent me,
The shield of God to shelter me,
The host of God to defend me.

Of the Lord is salvation,
Christ is salvation,
With us ever be
Thy salvation, O Lord.

The hymns of the Greek Church are chiefly the composition of poets who flourished in the eight and ninth centuries, Kosmas, John of Damascus, Theophanes, Joseph of Constantinople, Andreas, Bishop of Crete, and Germanus, Bishop of Constantinople.

A few of the hymns now used in Catholic churches have been handed down from the earliest times and from the middle ages. But Romish hymns are chiefly of modern origin, in their doctrines, semi-deities, and composition. Peter F. Cunningham, of Philadelphia, with the approval of Bishop Wood, has published a little book containing 209 hymns. Of these, sixty-five are about Mary, forty-six about saints and angels, sixty-six about Christ, sixteen about the Father and the Spirit, and a few others not capable of classification under any of these heads, Caedmon had no song addressed to Mary. There is no early hymn written in her praise.

Several hymns in Cunningham’s book, and in the “Mission Book,” are well-known Protestant compositions. Of this class are “Rock of Ages,” by Toplady; “Soldiers of Christ, Arise,” by Charles Wesley; “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” by Charles Wesley; “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne,” by Dr. Watts; “Come Sound His Praise Abroad,” by Dr. Watts; “Children of the Heavenly King,” by Cennick; and “Sweet the Moments, rich in Blessing,” by Allen and Shirley, These Protestant authors would be astonished could they know that their hymns were sung in Catholic churches; and many of the faithful would be utterly confounded if they were aware that heretics had made their holy songs. We present the following as samples of the hymns sung in Catholic churches, either as praises of, or prayers to creatures; of course, the hymns are abridged.

Continued in XXXVI. Roman Catholics Who Were Worthy Of All Honor

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

My good friend Steve in California recommended this video to me. This talk by SDA pastor Steve Wohlberg is very very good. I didn’t know he was raised Jewish. Though I don’t agree with SDA-specific doctrines, the SDA Church is one of the few Churches today that continue to embrace the doctrines and eschatology of the Protestant Reformers. Christians who don’t hold Protestant eschatological doctrines are not Protestants. Christians who don’t identify the office of the papacy as the Antichrist, the biblical man of sin of II Thessalonians 2:3-4, are not true Protestants. Maybe most of them don’t even care to call themselves Protestants. I care. I identify with the Protestant Reformation. I believe the Protestants of the Reformation got it right. That means many churches today are apostate.

The most important points transcribed

• We know time is short. So irrespective of what’s going to happen, let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, because that is how we will get through everything that’s going to happen. And like you said, we have an exciting year ahead of us.
• We are discussing a very interesting topic today and a book that Steve Wohlberg authored and wrote, Israel and the End of the World. It’s a really compact and interesting book, 93 pages.
• There’s a lot of deception in this world. And this book speaks to a very, very important topic at hand and a great deception out there and misinterpretation of Scripture as well. It confuses the literal side with the spiritual side.
• If you look at the very profound prophecy in the Bible, the 70-week prophecy, it points to Jesus Christ’s first coming. And that is taken completely out of context. Jesus came to break down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, and this deception is trying to rebuild that barrier, rebuild that wall.
• Steve Wohlberg’s testimony: I grew up in Southern California in a very secular Jewish home. We celebrated Passover, sometimes Hanukkah, and we all knew we were Jewish, but we didn’t read the Bible, we didn’t pray, and there was really no spiritual life. Unfortunately, that’s the case with many Jewish people. And when I was 20 years old, I started reading the Bible for the first time and I discovered Jesus as my Messiah and as my Savior. And that just completely, you know, that was the fork in the road of my life. And I became alive spiritually through the Holy Spirit and started studying the Bible, especially the book of Revelation. And I’ve been doing this for 45 years. And it didn’t take me too long to realize the more I studied the Bible, and especially as I went out and started giving seminars on Bible prophecy, that the topic of Israel is huge in the minds of the Christian world, especially the Christian prophecy-minded world. They focus on Israel, Jerusalem, a rebuilt temple, Middle East, Armageddon, really in their thinking, earthly Jerusalem and the earthly Jewish state is really ground zero of the end times.
• When it comes to the topic of Israel and the end and prophecy and the temple, there’s more than three opinions. There’s all kinds of opinions out there. And my conviction is, as you know, from reading my book, that we need to really base our conclusions on the Bible, not just the Old Testament, but the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. Jesus really needs to be the center of everything we do. So, that’s what I focus on. And I try to separate the facts from the fiction and help people to really understand what the Bible teaches about Jesus and the end times.
• Trump’s UN ambassador pick says, Israel has biblical right to West Bank. And the article then goes on and says that this pick has become the latest administration nominee to express the belief that Israel has biblical dominion over the occupied West Bank. It’s not just the people in the churches, it’s also now leaders of countries who also believe this.
• And I want to just read a text from the Book of Numbers. And what happened was God brought Israel out of Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai, gave them the Ten Commandments, and then his plan was to bring them into the Promised Land. He said, I am promising to give you this land. But that promise was conditional upon their faith and their obedience to God. So, when he brought them to the edge of the Promised Land, they sent the spies in 12 spies. And they came back and 10 of them said, the land’s beautiful, but there’s too many giants in there and we just can’t do it. And then two of them, that was Caleb and Joshua, they said, God is more than able to do it, to get us into the land, because he’s a big God. And he’s promised that he’ll be with us and he’ll give us this land. And so, unfortunately, the 10 outweighed the two. They tried to stone the two. And finally, as a result of that, God was very unhappy with his people.
• And in Numbers chapter 14, verse 34, notice this: The Lord said, after the number of the days in which you searched the land, so here’s the land, even 40 days, each day for a year shall you bear your iniquities, even 40 years, and you shall know my breach of promise. And what this means is that God had made a promise, but because they didn’t believe in the Lord and his ability to do what he said, then he said, I can’t fulfill my promise. I can’t give you the land. You don’t have a right to the land if you don’t believe. And if you don’t believe and have faith, you’re going to turn around and go back into the wilderness and you’re going to wander for 40 years.

  And so they did that. And eventually they came back to the land. And then in the time of Joshua, Joshua did believe in God, believed in his power, and they did go in and they conquered the land and they were there.

  They were there for many years, but after a while, because of their idolatry and their sins and their lack of faith in God and lack of obedience to him, then what happened was he brought the Assyrians and the Assyrians took the Northern tribes captive and they lost the land. And then Babylon came and took the Southern tribes captive, destroyed Jerusalem, took the Jews captive, including Daniel, and they lost the land. And so their being in the land was conditional upon their faith and their obedience.

  And then they came back to the land after seventy years of Babylonian captivity, they were there. And then Jesus came and he fulfilled the prophecies. He was the Messiah.

  He was the one that they were looking for. Some accepted Jesus, but the majority did not. Sanhedrin turned against Christ, pressured Pontius Pilate to put him to death.

  Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead, went to heaven. And in 70 AD, the armies of Rome came and they again destroyed Jerusalem. They took Jews captive, they crucified Jews.

  It was a terrible catastrophe. And then they lost the land because of their rejection of Jesus. So the idea that Israel has a biblical right to the land needs to be qualified.

  It needs to be clarified that they did have a right to the land when they obeyed him. But when they didn’t obey him and went in the wrong direction, then they lost that right. And ultimately, when you read the New Testament, everything depends upon a person’s response to Jesus.

  Jesus said in John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So whether we perish or whether we have everlasting life depends upon our faith in Jesus. And whether the Jewish state has the favor of God or not, or a right to the land, depends upon individuals who believe in Jesus or whether they don’t.

• One thing that really struck me, one time I was with a group of people and we were walking along. We were near the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Tiberias. We were in the little town of Tiberias. And we were walking around and I saw an ice cream shop. And outside of the shop was the door or going into the shop. And there was a big picture of Mick Jagger pasted on the door. And the music that was coming out was just like American rock and roll. And when I looked at the scene, I thought, I just feel like I’m in America here. This is just like walking around in the streets of Los Angeles.
• It’s no secret that the majority of the state of Israel today is a secular state. Now, there are some, thankfully, that are really searching for the Lord. There are some Jewish believers in Jesus who have accepted Christ as the Messiah.
• There’s also the Orthodox and the Hasidic Jews who don’t believe in Jesus, but hopefully they’re searching for more light. But by and large, the majority of the people over there, they’re very, very secular, just like a lot of people are in America.

  And to put the biblical promises and apply it to them as if there’s no condition at all, it’s just not biblical. And when you don’t see Jesus as the center of all of this, people are missing something.

  Interesting for me, how can they not make this link? Why is there so much focus from our evangelical friends? How can they not see that it’s conditional and that they lack Christ and that Jesus came to divide? And all the symbolism in the Bible that proves that the literal has become spiritual. Why is it so difficult to see this? And why are they so focused on Israel as evangelicals and a lot of the Christians out there? It doesn’t make sense to me. What’s happening is history is being repeated.

  You’ve heard the expression, if we fail to learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And let me share another verse with you, which is in Matthew chapter 16. If you go back, if you rewind, and that’ll help us to understand your question, why are they doing this? But if you go back to Matthew chapter 16:21, the Bible says, “From that time forth, Jesus began to show to his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day.”

  Now, what’s happening here, Jesus is telling his disciples, this is what’s going to happen to me. We’re going to Jerusalem. I’m going to be rejected. I’m going to die. And I’m going to rise from the dead. And that’s what prophecy taught.

  But the chief priests and the elders and the scribes, these were the Jewish leaders, many Jewish rabbis, the Pharisees, they misunderstood those prophecies of the Old Testament. And they read prophecies in the Old Testament, but there were other things. Some things they left out, like they left out Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9, and different other prophecies. And so they concluded that when the Messiah comes, he is going to do certain things. And this is what they believed. This is what they taught. This is what most Jews believed in the time of Jesus. They believed that when the Messiah came, he was going to conquer the Romans. He was going to sit on the throne of David. He was going to rule from Jerusalem. And Israel was going to be exalted above the nations, and that the Messiah and Israel would be the center of the world. And that’s what they believed.

  And when Jesus came, he didn’t come to do that. He didn’t come to exalt Israel. He didn’t come to sit on David’s throne. He didn’t come to conquer the Romans. He didn’t come to do what they thought he was going to do. He was completely different.

  And when they looked at Jesus, and they thought about their sequence of what they believed the Messiah was going to do, the two didn’t fit. They didn’t fit. And so Jesus knew what was going to happen because he wasn’t the kind of Messiah they were looking for. Because in his mind, Israel was not the center of prophecy. He was the center of prophecy. Everything revolved not around the Jews, but around him. He was the fulfillment of all the scriptures.

  In fact, there’s another text I’ll show you. This is a very powerful verse in Luke chapter 24, in verse 44, after the resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, and even the disciples believed the common view. So when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, they were fully expecting Him to sit on the throne. And this was the beginning of the kingdom on earth. And they didn’t, even the disciples didn’t understand. And so, you know, it didn’t happen that way. But after Jesus died, and they thought it’s over, you know, our Messiah, we thought He was the Messiah, now He’s dead.

  But then when Jesus rose from the dead, they were completely amazed and overwhelmed and full of joy. And then in verse 44, Jesus said to them, after the resurrection, he said, these are the words which I spoke to you, while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms. Concerning who? He said, concerning me, concerning me.

  And then He opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And then He said, thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. So after His resurrection, Jesus explained to them that the prophecies that are in Moses and among the prophets, and everything that was written in the Psalms, those prophecies focused on him.

  He said, they came true concerning me. And see, that’s the divide right there. The rabbis thought the prophecies centered around them. And Jesus said, the prophecies center around me. And the rabbis weren’t willing to accept that, so they crucified him. That’s why the elders, the chief priests, the scribes, the teachers of the law, pressured Pontius Pilate to put Jesus to death, because they had a fundamental misunderstanding of prophecy.

  Their basic operating system was the Messiah is coming to make us the center of the earth. He’s going to rule from Jerusalem. And they were wrong. That wasn’t correct. It was centered in Christ and those who are in Christ. And so that’s what happened back then.

  And I hate to say it, but that’s what’s happening today. When you look at the modern eschatology or the sequence of end time events, the Christian world by and large are doing exactly what the rabbis did. They’re making Jerusalem, the Jews, Armageddon, everything is to swirl around Israel. And they’re missing the fact that Jesus is the center of prophecy and those who are connected to Christ become the center of prophecy.

  And one more thing, there’s other forces that are at work. As we study Daniel and Revelation carefully, especially Revelation 13, we see the centrality of Rome and the United States in prophecy. And there are forces that work behind the scenes to get the Christian world focusing in the wrong direction. And this has a lot to do with what happened during the Reformation in the 1500s when the Protestants rose up and saw the heirs of the Roman church. They saw the woman of Revelation 17 riding the beast. They saw the little horn in Daniel 7 with the mouth speaking great things, making war on the saints. They saw the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2, which they applied to the Pope. They saw the beast of Revelation 13 that all the world would wonder.

  And they applied these prophecies to the papacy, to the papal power. And then the Roman church reacted in the Counter-Reformation, and they commissioned the Jesuits to develop theologies that would take the eyes of the Christian world off of the Pope and the papal power. And as time went on, this also became part of the Israel focus, that if they can get people focusing on the Middle East and on the Jews and on a temple and on a Middle East Armageddon, they’ll forget all about who is the woman of Revelation 17 that’s drunk with the blood of the saints. They won’t understand any of that. And that’s really what’s happening today. So the focus on Israel as ground zero is, number one, a repetition of the teachings of the rabbis in many ways.

  And number two, it’s a diversion over there so that people are not seeing the bigger issues and the inroads of Rome in America and the place that America has in Bible prophecy. So there’s a big picture going on, and people’s eyes need to be open, just like the disciples. Like Jesus says, He opened their eyes, and He helped them to understand the scriptures.

  And that’s what we need to try to do today, and that’s what we’re doing right now. It’s a gradual deception over time. Because if you look at the scribes and the Pharisees, it was pure arrogance. I mean, they knew that this was the Christ. But Caiaphas said, it’s better that one die than the nation, rather than the nation that dies. But I mean, if you also look at the Christian world out there, don’t they say Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior? So you understand my disconnect here.

  Yes, they do believe that, but they’re missing things. Because when you look at Jesus, here’s another text, Matthew chapter 21, verse 43, Jesus told this long parable about the householder who planted a vineyard, and then he went into the far country, and he gave the vineyard to the husbandman. And then He describes how the time of the fruit came, and he sent some of his servants, and the husbandman, representing the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, as a whole, not all Jewish people, but as a whole.

  It says that in verse 35, the husbandman took his servants, they beat one, killed another, and stoned another. And so in verse 36, he sent some other servants, and they did the same thing. And in verse 37, Jesus said, last of all, he sent to them his son, and he said, they will reverence my son.

  But when the husbandman saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir come, let us kill him, and let us seize on the inheritance. And they caught him, and they cast him out of the vineyard, and they slew him. And this is describing the Sanhedrin, Jesus is doing this in advance, describing to the Jewish leaders that he’s talking to, what they were going to do to him in a little while.

  They were going to pressure Pontius Pilate to put Him to death. And so He’s telling this parable to them. And then He said, Jesus said to them in verse 40, when the Lord, therefore, of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those husbandmen? And they said to him, he will miserably destroy those wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, which shall render to him the fruits in their seasons.

  So they said what Jesus was wanting them to say. He led them right along, and they didn’t realize what they were actually saying. And so then in verse 42, Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures, the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes.

  Now look at verse 43. He said, therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you. It’s being removed from you. And then he said, and it will be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And that nation bringing forth the fruits were the believers in Jesus. Jewish people who believed in Jesus and Gentiles who were to believe in Jesus. They became the new nation which was to bring forth the fruits.

  And then verse 45 says, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived he spoke about them. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude because they took him for a prophet. The multitudes recognized Christ was a prophet.

  So you look at the end of Jesus’ life, and this was before the final scenes, when He eventually was arrested in Gethsemane, and He was sent to Pontius Pilate, to Herod, to Sanhedrin, and he was rejected, spit on, mocked, crucified. And then finally he rose from the dead. Jesus told the Jewish leaders, He said, this is the consequences of what you have just done. He said, the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you. And it’s going to be given to another nation that’s bearing the fruits of it.

  And what’s happening today is the Christian world, even though they do believe in Jesus, they’re ignoring the scripture. They’re ignoring what Jesus said. And they’re basically saying that whether the state of Israel, whether the leadership in Israel, whether they believe in Jesus or not, they’re still under the umbrella of being the chosen people. And all of the prophecies revolve around them. And that’s just not true. It’s just, it’s not biblical. It’s not according to the New Testament.

  Now, there are certain verses that people will look at and say, what about this verse? What about that verse? But the rabbis did the same thing. The rabbis focused on some scriptures too, but Jesus looked at other scriptures that they weren’t looking at. And He brought all the dots together. He said that He was the center of prophecy. The writings of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms concerning me, Jesus said. And Christians, unfortunately, are doing what the rabbis did. They’re shifting the focus from Christ and His people over to a group of people, many of whom do not believe in Jesus at all. And it’s just, it’s a sad day. It’s a sad day.

  So, they’re so blinded by the desire for things to play out exactly like they wanted to play out that they missed the plain truth of the Bible. And then they cherry pick things they think should, or forms part of their ideal and which isn’t biblical. So, it brings back to self, okay? It’s all about self.

  The first two chapters (of Steve Wohlberg’s book), I think two or three, lays the foundation for the spiritual versus the literal. And Abraham seed, who that really is. And Christ overcame and became Israel. And everyone in Christ, that’s Jew or Gentile, will be spiritual Israel.

• Now, Paul, when he was born, his mom and dad didn’t give him the name Paul. They didn’t name him Paul. They named him Saul. And as Saul grew up, he eventually became the enemy of the Christians. He was very Jewish, was part of the Sanhedrin. And he believed that Jesus was a false messiah and that the Christians were off track. And he felt compelled to round up the Christians, bring them back to Jerusalem and have them put to death.

  And so, on the road to Damascus, when he was trying to carry out his plan, Jesus intervened, the real Jesus intervened.

  And He knocked him down and light just flooded him. And he became blind. And then the voice said from heaven, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You’re persecuting me through my people. And then he said, who are you? Who are you, Lord? And then the voice said, I’m Jesus. I’m the one you’re persecuting.

  And so, at that point, that was the fork in the road for Saul. And he became a believer in Christ, which launched him on his career of writing most of the New Testament. And his name was changed to Paul.

  So Paul wrote most of the New Testament, or at least most of the books. But so he was Saul. He was Jewish, but he didn’t see Jesus. And then he became Paul, centered in Christ. And his whole life changed. And that’s a little bit like me.

  I grew up in, like I said, in a Jewish home in the Hollywood Hills. But as I got into my teen years, I just went off the deep end, got involved in drugs, the wildlife, the parties, the rock and roll concerts, the nightclubs. But then when I was 20 years old, the Lord opened my eyes. And my name didn’t change from Steve 1 to Steve 2, or Jewish Steve to Christian Steve. I’m still Steve. But my whole life changed.

  And now I see Jesus as the center of my life. And so in Galatians 3, verse 16, Paul makes a statement that for many is a radical statement. But it’s a reflection of the fact that Saul is now Paul.

  And he sees Jesus as the center of prophecy. So in verse 16, Paul said now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And and that would that points us back to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God called Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He changed Jacob’s name to Israel and the descendants of Israel. These were the this was the seed of Abraham.

  And in the Old Testament, God made promises, many promises to Abraham and his seed. And many Christians today, they think about that. They look at the Old Testament and they say, well, look, you know, God made these promises to Israel. If you bless Israel, he’ll bless you. If you curse Israel, he’ll curse you. And you know, we need to we need to honor Israel because God made these promises to them. They’re the chosen people.

  But what Paul does is he does a little twist there. Maybe it’s not a little twist. It’s a big twist. He says to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not and to seeds, and the word seeds there is plural. So Paul is saying God didn’t promise Abraham and his seeds. He promised Abraham and his seed these different promises. And then Paul says, so he does not say seeds as of many, but but as of one and to your seed, the promises are to Abraham and his seed.

  And then Paul clarifies, who is that seed? Who is that seed? He says to seeds, not to seeds as of many, but as of one and to your seed, which is Christ. So Christ is the seed of Abraham. And then in verse 29, he says, and if you be Christ’s, actually, let’s look at verse 28. Verse 28 says there is neither Jew nor Greek. There’s neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. He said, if you who are a Gentile, if you be Christ, if you belong to Jesus as a Gentile believer in Jesus, then he said, you are Abraham’s seed. And you are an heir according to the promise. So the promises in the Old Testament to Abraham and his seed, Paul says those apply to Jesus and his people. Christ and those who are in Christ.

  And that’s what Paul said. And that’s New Testament. And that’s not denying the promises in the Old Testament, but it’s seeing them in the New Testament as centered in Jesus.

  And that’s what the rabbis fail to see. And that’s what many Christians today fail to see. And that’s what Saul, before he became Paul, failed to see. But when your eyes are opened to see the centrality of Jesus, that He is the seed, He is the center of prophecy. Then things just kind of kick into place. You know, we change gears and we realize our eyes are open that Jesus is really the center of everything.

• I want to maybe jump to Romans 11, 26, that says, and so all Israel shall be saved. Don’t people use this verse to say, at a certain point, the entire nation will convert and follow Christ? But hasn’t the Bible established the fact that when you say Israel, it’s spiritual Israel by this point? That’s my thinking. If you understand the foundation as in his book as well, and in the word, obviously, then this shouldn’t be a problem, this verse. That you’re not saved by lineage.

  Romans 11, 26 and 27, Romans 9, 10 and 11 are a sequence about Israel and the Jews. And the verse that you quoted in chapter 11, that’s like the capstone of Paul’s arguments. But you have to look at what Paul said in Romans 9 and in Romans 10 and in Romans 11.

  So if you go back to Romans 9, and we can’t look at everything, but in verse 6, Paul says, not as though the word of God has taken an effect, because God has made promises in the Old Testament. And those promises are still valid. So Paul says, it’s not that the word of God has taken an effect. And then he says, for they are not all Israel, meaning God’s Israel, which are of Israel, which are of just the Jewish nation. So here, Paul says, there’s two Israels. There’s two Israels in the New Testament. And Paul says, they’re not all Israel, meaning God’s Israel, who are of Israel. And then he says, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in Isaac shall your seed be called. Isaac was a miracle baby, born when Abraham was old and Sarah was old. He was born by the power of God.

  And then Paul clarifies in verse 8, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, who are just natural descendants of Abraham, he said, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed because they accept Jesus and they are then counted as part of the seed and part of Israel. So you have to see that. And he says a lot more in Romans 9. In Romans 10, he goes into more detail about how Christ is the center of prophecy.

  And then in chapter 11, many people quote verse 1 that says, I say then, has God cast away his people? God forbid. They say, no, God has not cast away the Jews. But if you keep reading, Paul said, for I also am an Israelite, I’m of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he made intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they’ve killed your prophets, dug down your altars, and I’m the only one left and they seek my life. But what did the answer of God say to him? Verse 4, I have reserved to myself, the Lord said, 7,000 men who have not bowed down the knee to the image of Baal.

  And then verse 5 says, even so, then at the present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. So Paul says, has God cast away his people? No. And the proof of that is that he is a believer in Jesus.

  And that just like in the Old Testament, God had 7,000 who didn’t compromise. So in the New Testament times, He still has His 7,000, His remnant. But the remnant are those who have been chosen by grace. Those, the remnant are those among the Jews who believe in Jesus.

  And then he keeps on going in chapter 11 and talks about the cutting off of some of the branches. So he says in verse 15, if the casting away of them, this is the unbelieving Jews, is the reconciling of the world, what shall receiving them be but life from the dead? If they come back, it’ll be like a new life for them.

  And then verse 17, if some of the branches are broken off, those were the Jewish unbelievers, they were broken off. And you, a Gentile being a wild olive tree, you’re grafted in among them. And you partake of the root and the fatness of the olive trees. So the Gentiles then become grafted in. So the unbelieving Jews are cut off and the believing Gentiles come in. Now, then you still have believing Jews who haven’t bowed down the knee, who are the remnant chosen by grace.

  And then you have the Gentiles who are coming in, and they come in and they together become part of the Israel of God. So in verse 25, when he says, I would not brethren that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits. That blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in.

  So when the fullness of the Gentiles come in, they are also part of the Israel of God. And so then verse 26 says, and so, in other words, in this way shall all Israel be saved as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant to them when I take away their sins.

  Now, Jesus can’t take away people’s sins unless they believe in him. So when you look at the context and look at what Paul’s really saying, he’s saying the unbelieving ones have been cut off and the Gentiles are coming in to take their place. And when that fullness of the Gentiles comes in, that means that all Israel will be saved. And the all Israel is not every Jew. The all Israel are the Jews who believe in Jesus, the Gentiles who have come in and who believe in Jesus. And together they are the group that have their sins removed because they have faith in the Messiah.

  And if a person doesn’t have their sins removed by personal faith in the Messiah, they’re not part of the Israel of God. They’re part of the Israel of the flesh. And Paul says they’re broken off. You have to be a believer in Jesus in order to participate in the fullness of the promise.

  What’s happening is these verses are being misinterpreted to support a theology that makes the Jewish state, regardless of whether they believe or not, the chosen people. And yet Paul’s very clear that the remnant are those who are saved by grace. And they’re the group that hasn’t bowed down the knee to Baal. They’re the faithful among the Jewish people, like Paul, who became Paul when he stopped being Saul.

• Israel was supposed to be the light for the rest of the world. What’s the point of being the light for the rest of the world if you can’t save the rest of the world? Hey, wasn’t Rahab, was Rahab a Jew? And Ruth, you know, all of them, they were intertwined within the Israel system, correct? And they were saved. So that’s right. Gentiles who became believers. And, you know, here’s another quick text.

  In Romans chapter 2, Paul makes a very significant statement in verse 28, Romans 2, 28. Paul says, he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.

  So that’s the way Paul was before he was changed by Jesus Christ. He was Jewish, but he was just a Jew of the flesh. He belonged to Sanhedrin. He tried to keep the law, but he was at war with the Christians. And so Paul is now kind of looking back on his own experience and commenting generally. And he said, a person in the eyes of God is really not a Jew if he’s just an outward Jew or he’s just circumcised. But then he says, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, which is in the Holy Spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.

  So Paul’s very clear in Galatians. He says the issue is not Jew or Greek, male, female, Jew or Gentile. That’s not the issue. The issue is Christ.

  What do you do with Christ? And here again, he says, if you’re just circumcised in the eyes of God, it really doesn’t matter. You’re really not a Jew unless you are a Jew on the inside through the Holy Spirit, changing your heart because you believed in Jesus.

  So God loves Jewish people. He wants to reach them now, just like he wanted to reach them back then. And many Jewish people do respond to the Lord. I did. I know other Jewish people who believe in Jesus. And God loves Jewish people, whether they believe in Him or whether they don’t. But they’re not part of His final end time apocalyptic people that He’s going to be working mightily for if they don’t believe in Jesus.

  And it’s something we all have to do. Everybody has to believe in Christ or they don’t. And that’s really the fork in the road. That’s the bottom line. And that’s the offense of the cross. That’s why Paul was persecuted by other Jews, because he taught that the man crucified on the cross is our Messiah.

  We need to humble ourselves and believe in Him or we’re out. We’re out. And that was too much for many of the Jewish people to handle. Paul’s greatest enemies in the book of Acts were the unbelieving Jews who were constantly on his heels, trying to catch him and to kill him. We’re in the same battle.

  I was just going to say He’s calling His people out of her, you know, from all walks of life, not just out of the Jewish nations, but all walks of life. They all embedded into this Babylonian system. And he’s calling all of us out into the truth.

• And one of the big deceptions that’s also being spread around is by modern day prophets. And one of them is Jonathan Cahn.

  A coming war. Funny name, folks, but a name you need to know. The war of Gog and Magog. Yes. Laid out in the book of Ezekiel chapters 38, 39.

  Yeah. Well, Ezekiel is very clear. He says, and this is for the end times, this has never happened before, says when Israel comes back in the world from the nations, comes back, there’s going to be a massive invasion. It’s not Armageddon, but it’s many nations, not all, many. And he names the nations by their ancient names and we can identify them.

  The Dragon’s Prophecy is Jonathan Cahn’s newest book. He has a lot of influence in the Christian world. It’s a bestselling book. And ultimately, the book swirls around Israel, just like he just talked about. And so we analyze Jonathan’s theology in the light of the New Testament.

  Now, what we just saw in that clip, he’s quoting Ezekiel 38 and 39, that talks about all the nations gathering against Israel. And they’re called Gog and Magog. And he’s then applying that to what is going to happen, he thinks, in the future when these different nations come against the Jews.

  But Jonathan is making the same mistake that the rabbis made. Same mistake. And the mistake is he’s not seeing the Old Testament prophecies through the eyes of the Messiah as being centered in the Messiah. So now what he’s not seeing is that the New Testament actually refers to that prophecy.

  It’s in the book of Revelation. And in Revelation chapter 20, it describes the events at the end of the millennium, the end of the thousand years. It says in verse 7, Revelation 20, verse 7, When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and he shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

  And they went up on the breadth of the earth. They surrounded the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. Now, this beloved city is the New Jerusalem.

  It’s very clear. We see that in chapter 21, Revelation 21, verse 2, I, John, saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. So what’s happening in Revelation 20 is at the end of the thousand years, all the nations that have been resurrected, and it mentions the resurrection in verse 5, Revelation 20, verse 5, The rest of the dead do not live again until the thousand years are finished.

  So when all these nations are resurrected, Satan is loosed, and he goes into all these nations, which is all the lost who have ever lived from the days of Cain all the way down to the very end. All these nations are resurrected. Satan goes into them.

  He gathers them for a final battle. And these nations are called Gog and Magog, which is a quote from Ezekiel 38 and 39. And in Ezekiel 38 and 39, all these nations gather around Jerusalem.

  And in Revelation 20, all these nations gather around the New Jerusalem. And in Ezekiel 38 and 39, fire comes down, and they have a judgment of fire. And in Revelation 20, fire comes down and consumes them.

  So the elements are the same. Gog and Magog is in both. The nations in both. Gathering against Jerusalem in both. Fire coming in both. It’s in both.

  But what Jonathan is not seeing is that Revelation 20 reapplies the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and 39. He applies it to the saints and the New Jerusalem, and all the nations at the end of the millennium that ultimately are gathering together to fight against God, and the city of God, and the saints of God. And that’s where they’re judged.

  That’s where the fire comes and destroys them. And Jonathan’s not seeing that. He’s just seeing the Old Testament, the nations gathering around little Jerusalem, and he’s saying that’s what’s going to happen in the end times.

  But he’s not seeing Revelation 20 reapplies that prophecy, just like Paul in Galatians took the promises to Abraham and his seed in the Old Testament, and said the seed is Christ. He applies it to Jesus. And the revelation of Jesus Christ does the same thing with Gog and Magog.

  And Jonathan’s not seeing that. And he’s doing just what the rabbis did. He’s taking the Old Testament prophecies, making them center in the Jews, and he’s not seeing the centrality of the Messiah. And those that are connected to the Messiah, they are the ones to whom those prophecies apply, just like Abraham and his seed’s promises apply to Jesus.

  I mean, all these interpretations are filtered through this whole Israel movement, and not understanding the Scripture. So, it’s filtered. I feel sorry for some of them. They don’t see the true picture and where this is actually leading. Even the 70-week prophecy, similar. It’s the same thing.

  They take that last week, which is the most profound part of that 70-week prophecy, and they just throw it away. And I know you had, I don’t have them all written down, but you had 10 points. And they were quite interesting as to why that cannot be. 10 points. And they were all made sense. That’s right.

  The evangelicals applied the prophecy of Daniel 9:27, when He (Jesus) would confirm a covenant, and in the midst of the week, He would cause the sacrifice to cease. They applied that to the seven years of tribulation, to a rebuilt temple, to the Antichrist, causing the sacrifices to cease.

  But when you look at the context of Daniel 9, it’s clearly not talking about Antichrist at all. It’s talking about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who confirmed the new covenant, and who in the midst of those last seven years, which was three and a half years in, three and a half years was the exact time of Jesus’ public ministry. In the middle of the final seventh week of Daniel, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, and he caused the sacrifice to cease. And old commentaries like Jemison Posset Brown, Matthew Henry, Adam Clark, these great famous old commentaries, they all see Jesus as the one who confirmed the new covenant, Jesus as the one who caused the sacrifices to cease because of his death on the cross.

  So they’re taking this prophecy, and they’re applying it to the Antichrist when it really applies to Jesus. So there’s so much confusion, there’s so much deception, there’s so much distortion, and we need to really realize that the same deceptions that deceive the rabbis are happening right now. And when you read the book of Revelation very carefully, and I love that book, Revelation does talk a lot about Jerusalem, but it’s new Jerusalem.

  Revelation does talk about the temple, but it’s the temple of God in heaven. Revelation does talk about Armageddon, but there’s no reference to the Jews in Revelation 16, which talks about Armageddon. When you read the context of Revelation 16:16, which talks about Armageddon, it’s clearly a global gathering of the kings of the earth against God and those who are followers of Jesus.

  And then the voice thunders from the heavenly temple, Babylon, which represents this global religious deception, collapses, the cities of the nations fall, every island flees away, the mountains are not found. When you read Revelation 16, it’s a global battle against God, between Babylon, and God, and Jesus, and the people that are following Christ.

Continued from The Papal System – XXXIII. The Mass in Latin.

Among Protestants there is a universal conviction that Romish priests are too well educated to believe in transubstantiation; the legendary stories of the saints, the fires of purgatory; and the delusive powers which they claim to exercise in absolving men from their sins. Perhaps no impression in the world is more firmly rooted than this. And among the masses who reject the Church of the Dark Ages, this opinion is as surely true as a text of Scripture. No doctrine could be more baseless. It would be impossible for an intelligent Protestant; who understands his Bible, to receive the monstrous dogma of transubstantiation, and similar papal dreams and follies.

But the priest had not a Protestant education; did not know his Bible; and did not exercise his intelligence. Commonly, he has been brought up from childhood to believe everything the Church of Rome teaches; to regard it as exceedingly wicked to doubt anything for which she demands faith; and to suppress every exercise of his judgment adverse to the Holy Mother. He has been nurtured on miracles, supernatural appearances, and lying wonders from his first conscious moments. These have been communicated to him by the lips of a loving mother, who assured him of their truth, or of some revered priest who came from the presence of God when he stated them; and they were believed by all the kindred and associates of the future priest. In childhood he is assured that Protestants sprung from a rebellious German monk who had many interviews with the devil; and a licentious English King, who wanted, in spite of the holy father, to disgrace and remove his good wife, and elevate his low-born mistress to her place; that their worship is iniquity, and that they shall all be damned. He grows up to regard them, their books, and their religion with horror; and as he knows little, if anything, about their pure Christ-honoring doctrines, there is not much ground for surprise that he clings to the creed of childhood.

In the sacerdotal education of a priest he is brought in contact with nothing Protestant; nothing to shake his faith in the convictions of early days. When he reaches eighty years, his opinions are but the teachings of his mother, and his first spiritual director. He never examined any other creed.

Why would her priests remain in the Church of Rome if they were hypocrites? Threatenings might keep the timid in their old places, but they could not keep all. There is nothing so very attractive in the home of a priest, with no virtuous wife, no loving children, and no real friend; in the confessional where he becomes the pool into which a thousand streams of filth and horror run; nor in his daily life, in which he is the mark for. Protestant dislike, and, unless times are changed, for some Catholic suspicion. If he does not believe his doctrines, why does he not come out and follow some worldly calling?

Protestant clergymen frequently give up the ministry; Catholic priests hardly ever turn away into secular life, The priests of Romanism are full of earnestness as a class. They have their hypocrites, as all systems have. But the trouble is, there are far too many of them full of zeal for their Church. Are not these priests planning and building churches, seminaries, convents, schools and orphans’ homes all over the land? It is not the Catholic laity who are in the van of these enterprises, but the clergy; and at this moment they are moving every energy, and working with untiring zeal in our own and other countries, to build and prop the tottering walls of the papacy.

As he went up and down the Eternal City a delighted pilgrim, believing all the fables he heard, visiting all the famous churches, gathering rich treasures of merit from his devout exercises and holy deeds, and very happy in his fresh stock of spiritual wealth, he learned how easily he could take souls out of purgatory by masses said in particular places in Rome. He loved his parents; he was ardently attached to his mother: “Oh, how I could like to make my mother happy!” said he. And yet soon after he said: “How much I regret that my father and mother are still alive. What delight I should have in delivering them from the fire of purgatory, by my masses, my prayers, and many other admirable works!” At the fountain head of priestly power he felt that he had an opportunity to relieve his father and mother from the pains of purgatory which might never return; and he wished his loving parents in their long home, that he might send them immediately to Paradise. How intensely earnest Luther was! And what reason have we to suppose that priests today, molded and nurtured under the same influences, are less conscientious?

While Seymour, a few years ago, was conversing with some Jesuits at Rome, he tried to prove the unreliability of Catholic miracles by relating the case of a priest who took a whole tribe of Indians to one of our western rivers, and there, without any instruction, baptized them; after which he suspended a little cross around the neck of each by a string, and informing them that they were now Christians, he left them. The missionary priest was at Rome on a visit when Seymour was there, and had informed his Jesuit friend himself of the Indian conversion. Two years after the baptism of the natives the priest visited them again, and was greatly surprised to find that none of them had any sins to confess. There was not a single sin committed by one in the tribe since his baptism; it was a miracle the Jesuit insisted. While the priest was administering the communion to these Indians, one of them was too far off for the priest to put the host into his mouth, but he was kneeling with devout awe, and as the priest was observing him, “The host flew out of his fingers, flew over to the poor Indian, and flew into his mouth.” “Oh!” the Jesuit added, in a tone of the most reverential devotion, “the blessed Jesus so loved that poor savage, that he longed to enter into his heart, and thus miraculously flew into his month.” Seymour says: “There was a fervor, an earnestness, a devotion of manner that showed he fully believed what he thus narrated. The personal character of the man was such that I had no right to doubt him after so solemn a statement.”

There is far less skepticism among Catholics where the Church still retains her hold than among Protestants. The Protestant reasons, hears, or reads both sides, discriminates. The good Catholic receives everything from his Church without scruple, and he believes it.

Catholic priests as a body are intensely earnest; are just as conscientious as ourselves; some of them doubtless, like Luther, before his avowal of Protestantism, or Staupitz, are converted men, but the majority rest on another gospel than Christ’s, and are honestly bent on making this Continent their own. Let us treat them as sincere men, and not as hypocrites; and let us not forget that their unquestionable love for their principles gives them immense power, and calls upon us to put on the whole armor of Christ, that this goodly land may be Immanuel’s, not the pope’s.

Continued in XXXV. Hymns, And Those Who Composed Them

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart