p. 339 | WHAT ROMANISM IS DOING by William Penniman

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 22

WHAT ROMANISM IS DOING.

By William Penniman

BY WILLIAM PENNIMAN.

Romanists mourn over the lost glories of their church. They look back to the time when popes crowned and uncrowned kings, and long to see the day when they can have this power again.

They contend that the taking away of the temporal power of the pope is at the bottom of the wars and rumors of wars which afflict nations, ignoring the fact that the glorious times of papal supremacy were also warlike. It is evident that they intend to restore those “good old times,” if possible; and to accomplish their object they work with an untiring zeal,—a zeal which would be worthy of commendation were they engaged in a better cause. Despairing of at present accomplishing their object with the sword of persecution, their next grand scheme seems to be to make use of the lever of education, and by a deceptive, alluring policy, they have accomplished, and are accomplishing, very much. Says a writer:—

“In the Roman Catholic parochial schools of Springfield, Ill., the grossest idolatry is taught. In ‘The Catholic National Series, First Reader, by Right Rev. Richard Gilmore, D. D., Bishop of Cleveland,’ and published by ‘Benziger Brothers, printers to the Holy Apostolic See,’ page 67, Lesson 57, we have what purports to be a picture of the trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with angels around them, and a child sleeping before them, accompanied with the following doggerel effusion:—

“Child.—O Ma! do tell!—in sleep last night, I saw a place, it was so bright; I saw the angels clad in white, I saw Jesus at the right Of God the Father, in his might; O Ma! how could I have this sight When I was sleeping all the night?”

“Mother.—My child, when sleeping, we may go, In dreams, to Heaven from earth below, That when we die to God we’ll go.”

This is but a specimen. Roman Catholic pictures of priests, nuns, beggars, etc., are interspersed through these elementary books. “The Young Catholic’s Illustrated School Series, First Reader,” contains ninety-four crosses. The catechisms used in these schools in Springfield teach the blasphemous doctrine of transubstantiation, which requires children and adults to adore as God Almighty a wafer made by the priest, and in confessional to regard the priest “as Jesus Christ himself.” The above is a small part of the instruction which Protestant children will receive in attending such schools. In these schools there is but one central idea, and that is Romanism.

The following from Brownson’s Review will show the aims of Romanists:—

“Heretofore we have taken our politics from one or another of the parties which divide the country; and have suffered the enemies of our religion to impose their political doctrines upon us; but it is time for us to begin to teach the country itself those moral and political doctrines which flow from the teachings of our own church. We are at home here, wherever we may have been born; this is our country, as it is to become thoroughly Catholic, and we have a deeper interest in public affairs than any other of our citizens. The sects are only for a day, the church forever.”

Notice their object is “to teach the country” till it becomes “thoroughly Catholic.”

O. A. Brownson, in an address at St. Mary College, spoke of our common-school system as follows: “The education we are aiming to give American children is only fitted to make them infidels, libertines, sharpers, and rogues.” It is evident that Catholics are looking forward to the time when their doctrine

will triumph over all opposition. They make a prediction, and then go to work with untiring zeal to bring it to pass.

Says Archbishop Hughes, in the Freeman’s Journal:—

“We say to them: We were the first, we have been the sternest and the deadliest enemy of the State free school oppression. But we tell them that the whole State school system is foreign and antagonistic to the American political institutions and traditions. It is abhorrent to the national sentiment and spirit. We tell them, again, that whatever is antagonistic to the national fundamental institutions and spirit of a living country needs only time and circumstances to eradicate. Passion has been stimulated to carry and sustain the State school law. But passion must soon cool. Reason and experience will come to the judgment of the question. Our opposition to the State school system will be seen to have been as truly for patriotism as for religion. It will be a proud day for us, perhaps the proudest of our life—for we shall live to see it.”

Our object in giving these quotations is to show what popery and priestcraft are now doing; volumes have been written to record what has been done by the papal power in the past. Although Romanists may talk of patriotism, yet it is evident that religion is at the bottom of their designs, and a kind of religion which will destroy the civil and religious liberty of our country.