Acting on the proposal of its Vatican delegate, the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is to hold a two-week conference in Warsaw in October on the subject of religious freedom. The Vatican representative said that “what has been at issue is how laws and regulations are observed and how far religious freedom is permitted as a practical, collective expression.” At the conference, European governments will discuss “constitutional, legal and administrative aspects of freedom of religion with the aim of harmonising them…”
We believe this means harmonising them with the Vatican’s view of religious freedom. Rome is implementing her old policy of dealing with other religions, in certain circumstances, under the guise of toleration so that she may marginalise them and then prevent them, by promoting punitive legislation, from having any significant existence. Last year, Archbishop Paul Tabet, the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations, said to the UN Human Rights Commission that religious freedom is a basic human right, but also that the abuse of religious freedom in ways that infringe upon the rights of others (and we believe this is how he would view Protestant missionary work for the converting of Roman Catholics) must be punished.
Rome has not ceased to follow the policy which was expressed in this manner to some Protestants by the Roman Catholic writer, Louis Veuillot: “When you are in the majority we ask for religious liberty in the name of your principles. When we are in a majority we refuse it to you in the name of ours.” As Boettner says in his Roman Catholicism, “It is, after all, standard Roman procedure to speak up for religious toleration when they are in the minority, and to deny it when they are in the majority.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Pope recently called on faithful Roman Catholics to work against the expansion of “religious sects”, (meaning Protestants mainly). Also, we need not wonder that the Pope, when in Guatemala last year, denounced the challenge to Rome’s dominance in
Central America by the growth of other religions. (About 30 per cent of Guatemala’s 10.7 million people now identify themselves as Protestants). Nor was it out of character for the Pope to accuse Protestant missionaries of sowing “confusion and uncertainty” among Roman Catholics, and to say that “Protestant sects” are “spreading like an oil stain” and threaten to pull down “the structures of faith” in numerous countries. Also, it was no surprise that Archbishop Penados del Barrio of Guatemala City denounced “evangelical teachings” as “the opium of the masses”, and accused Protestants of being in the service of foreign powers.
It is at our peril that we lose sight of the fact that it is in the very nature of the Papacy to speak and act in this manner against what it defines as “error” and “heresy”. Heresy, for Protestants, means “something contrary to what the Bible teaches, while for Roman Catholics it means lack of conformity to the practice of the Roman Church – which may be something quite different,” (Boettner). The Roman Catholic Church, regarding herself as the only true church, sees Protestantism as heretical and therefore to be suppressed and eradicated. Indeed, as the Catholic Encyclopaedia states, “Heretics may be not only excommunicated, but also justly put to death.” So religious freedom is something which Rome claims only for herself.
One of the most authoritative Roman Catholic sources, the official Jesuit organ, Civilita Cattolica, has stated in the past, “The Roman Catholic Church, convinced through her divine prerogatives of being the only true church, must demand the right of freedom for herself alone, because such a right can only be possessed by truth, never by error… In a state where the majority of people are Catholic, the Church will require that legal existence be denied to error, and that if religious minorities actually exist, they shall have only a de facto existence without opportunity to spread their beliefs… The Church cannot blush for her want of tolerance as she asserts it in principle and applies it in practice…”
Let us not be taken in by the Vatican’s apparent promoting of religious freedom, for it is speaking from both sides of its mouth. Rome’s image of charming ecumenicity deceives many, but it also underlines that the Papacy is “that man of sin”, (2 Thes 2:3), who works “with all deceivableness of unrighteousness”. Our duty is not only to watch and to contend for the faith, but also and especially to pray. Pray that this soul deluding system may be destroyed by the coming of the Lord in the power of His Spirit, and that the millions, people and priests, held in spiritual bondage by it, will experience that true spiritual freedom of which Christ says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
The Editor
SermonA Crown of Pure Gold
by Rev. Alexander McPherson, Perth
Continued on page 82