The Prime Minister Visits the Pope
The Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, recently visited the Pope. The deference paid by the Queen and now the Prime Minister of a Protestant country must be exceedingly gratifying to the Pontiff and confirmatory of his claim to be ruler over kings and princes. What were the Queen and Prime Minister doing conferring with the Pope? One thing is certain — whatever they were doing it was not for the good of the Protestant Cause in Britain. Poor Britain has fallen on sad days when her leaders in Church and State are consorting with her avowed enemy, the Pope of Rome. We have not the least doubt what the Pope sees in these visits, that is, the submission of Protestant Britain to the papal yoke. May the Lord in His mercy arise and deliver our nation from the machinations of the Antichrist.
The Pope and Unity
The Pope is reported to have made a dramatic gesture to promote Christian unity on his recent visit to West Germany when he acknowledged that the Roman Catholic Church was not without guilt in the division of Christianity 450 years ago. He made this admission at a meeting with leaders of Martin Luther’s Evangelical Church. At the same time he affirmed that Christians of both faiths could assemble round one altar only after their Churches were fully united. It was agreed to form a Commission to study ways of reconciling differences between their Churches.
This admission by the Pope that the Roman Catholic Church was not without guilt over the Reformation is of little worth until he will acknowledge that the doctrines of evangelical Protestantism are the doctrines of the Bible. To the Pope the Reformation was a tragedy; to the Protestant Church it was a glorious event which liberated the minds of the people from the idolatry and superstition of the Roman Church. Hence there is no way of reconciling differences between the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths but by the Roman Catholic Church abandoning its apostacy from the true faith of the Gospel.
Mixed Marriages
The Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic Church joint Commission on Mixed Marriages has just issued a pamphlet on this subject. Although talks have gone on for nine years yet on several issues no agreement was reached and the joint Commission has now been discontinued. The insistence of the Roman Catholic Church that the Roman Catholic partner must promise to do all in his or her power to raise the children of the marriage within the Roman Catholic Church has proved a fertile source of trouble in such marriages. The Church of Scotland failed in its attempt to get the Roman Catholic Church to change its attitude.
Children and Drink
An Alcohol and Young People seminar at Strathclyde University was told that youngsters have to be educated in safe drinking. It was suggested that teenagers should be introduced to drink at home with parental supervision. These radical proposals are perfectly in line with the idea now current that drinking is an accepted fact of life with young people and therefore we must live with it. Would it not be a much more responsible attitude to adopt that children should be warned of the dangers of drink and every effort made to discourage them from engaging in social drinking which in many cases leads on to drunkenness and alcoholism?
Corporal Punishment in Schools
A Commission of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg accuse Britain of failing to respect the right of parents to ensure that their children’s education and teaching is in conformity with their own philosophical convictions. The Government are to contest the Commission’s findings. The case was brought before the Commission by two mothers from Scotland who object to the use of corporal punishment in schools. It is regrettable that parents who ought to be upholding the authority of teachers and head-masters in schools would be actively engaged in seeking to subvert that authority by endeavouring to prevent them from using condign punishment when the situation requires it.