A Damaging Indictment.
The Bukwark for January has a disquietening article on Ritualism in Scotland, the first of a series. It is a straightforward piece of work. It is well sub-titled “An Exposure.” Quotations are given in reference to Dr. Cooper and his work that shew clearly how he is regarded by Roman Catholics. We trust Mr. Lumsden will continue his exposures and support Rev. D. Macfarlane, who has also spoken out strongly on this matter in his recent pamphlet on Present Aspects of Romanism.
Mixed Marriages in Ireland.
A great Protestant demonstration was held in the General Assembly Hall, Belfast, early in January, to protest against the action of the Church of Rome in regard to the decree on mixed marriages. The subject was brought prominently before the public about a month ago, when the Rev. Wm. Corkey, minister of the leading Presbyterian church, published a statement giving details of the experience of a woman named Mrs. M’Cann, a Presbyterian, who was married to a Roman Catholic. According to that statement, the marriage took place in the Presbyterian church, and the couple lived happily together until a priest visited the house and suggested to the woman that she should be married again in a Roman Catholic chapel. Mrs. M’Cann refused to do so, maintaining that she was already married. The attitude of the husband towards his wife afterwards changed, and one day, when the mother was absent from the house on an errand, the two children, the issue of the marriage, were removed from the house. The mother appealed to the husband to inform her of the whereabouts of the children, but he refused, although he said they were being well looked after. Later the husband deserted the mother. The audience at this meeting was drawn from all the Protestant denominations in the city. The case has aroused the greatest interest, and quite 10,000 applications were made for tickets. The Rev. Dr. Murphy, Moderator of the General Assembly, presided. They were met, he said, to deal with a matter of supreme moment, and to claim their rights as free citizens of a free country. They did not object to the Church of Rome legislating for its own members, but they did object to that Church attempting to legislate for Protestants. He maintained that a marriage between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant was legal, according to the British law, and no edict of the Church of Rome could make it otherwise. The Church that could rob a woman of her husband and of her helpless children, as the Church of Rome had done in the case of Mrs. M’Cann, was capable of anything.
The Roman Catholic Church in Italy.
The January number of the Hibbert Journal has a very instructive article by Professor Luzzi on the Modernist movement in Italy. He gives the following damaging quotation from Prezzolini’s Catholicismo Rosso:—”It is a painful fact: we have never found an Italian of the poorer class praying to anyone but the Madonna [Virgin Mary], or perhaps some local saint. We find but few prayers addressed to our Saviour, and scarcely a trace of any to the Eternal Father. . . . And while the most ardent prayers to the Madonna are encouraged, we have not discovered a single instance in which the supplicant has been warned that, however good it may be to invoke the blessed Mother of our Lord, he must exercise extreme care that he does not allow these invocations to take the place of prayer to God Himself. We can mention cases, and not among the most ignorant classes, in which the Madonna has been punished for not answering the prayers addressed to her, either by extinguishing the lamp in front of her image, or by turning the image with its face to the wall. And the clergy, as a rule, do not try to alter those sentiments.” It will be seen from the above quotation that the writer is a Romanist, but he throws light on the lamentable ignorance that exists in the Italian Romish Church.
Modernism in Italy.
Generally speaking, Modernism may be defined as a revolt against the Vatican policy in the Church of Rome. Professor Luzzi’s article, referred to above, is not very encouraging reading to Protestants of the evangelical persuasion. Some of the Modernists adopt the policy of reform within the Church—a hopeless task and doomed to certain failure. A second group are under the influence of the higher criticism, while a third group interest themselves wholly with sociology and leave religion out of their reckoning altogether. Another group have as their aim the leading of the people to the Christ of the Gospels, and with this object in view “The Pious Society of St. Jerome for the spreading of the Holy Gospels” was formed. The Society received encouragement from over 200 bishops, and the Pope granted an indulgence of three hundred days to those who would read the Gospels for at least a quarter of an hour each day. In 1908 almost a million copies of the Gospels had been circulated. Rome soon became apprehensive; an open Bible is a dangerous book for her, so by a number of restrictions the life of the Society is well-nigh destroyed. The Vatican has not killed it directly, but it has so managed matters that it should die slowly of itself. This Society was one of the most hopeful features of Modernism in Italy, but its aims were too Scriptural for the Church of Rome.
Home Rule.
We are glad to see, says the English Churchman, that the subject of Home Rule, and the effect which it would have upon the Protestants of Ireland, still continues to claim public attention. There are a few professing Protestants who, for reasons best known to themselves, have taken upon them to advocate self-government for the sister isle and to make light of the fears of their co-religionists. The views of these men are sometimes inserted in the English Press as representing those of an Irish political party. The truth is they represent no one but themselves. They may be used, but they are not trusted, by the Romish hierarchy, while they are regarded with suspicion by all classes of Protestants. Sir Robert Anderson’s letter in the Times of 24th December deals in an effective and trenchant manner with the specious notion that Irish loyalists may be given over without fear to the tender mercies of the Roman Catholic majority. Writing in answer to a communication from Mr. Stephen Gwynn, he says: “The egregious fallacy which underlies it can be expressed in a single sentence. It is the Church of Rome, not their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, that Irish Protestants refuse to trust”; and he adds farther on: “No man who is not the opposite of a philosopher can doubt that an Irish executive, dependent on the votes of the ignorant electorate in Roman Catholic Ireland, would be helplessly in the power of the hierarchy and priesthood of that Church.” These pregnant sentences put the whole case in a nut-shell.