“Papal Strategy” American Sentinel 10, 30, pp. 233, 234.

July 25, 1895

THE Western Catholic News (Chicago), in a recent issue, condemned the persecution of Seventh-day Adventists in Tennessee; but with a view to convincing seventh-day observers that they were in error in observing the seventh day instead of the first day, the News attempted to quote Scripture in support of Sunday observance.

Under date of June 20, the SENTINEL called the attention of the News to a number of standard Catholic authorities which positively declared that there was no scriptural authority for Sunday observance. The News acknowledges the authorities quoted, but makes this astonishing explanation of the difficulty in its issue of June 29:—

Yes, we cheerfully publish all the proofs adduced by the SENTINEL, and we recognize them as good for the purpose used in every instance. Military strategy in war times suggested the policy of the Federal army temporarily occupying stockades and fortifications erected by the enemy—as long as they were useful as a means of destroying said enemy, but to be demolished later. So it is with the authors from which the SENTINEL quotes.

What an admission! The News here deliberately acknowledges that it is the policy of Roman Catholic authors to solemnly advocate a position which they believe to be false and which they expect later to oppose. The News admits that the papacy is treacherous, that it will deliberately deceive, and that the positions taken in its official publications in some cases are directly opposed to the real position of that church, and that these positions are taken for the purpose of deceiving and destroying the enemy (non-Catholics). No Protestant, no Orangeman, no A. P. A. has ever brought against the Roman Catholic Church a more damaging charge.

But we want our readers to sense the gravity of the situation. That they may the better do this we republish some of the authorities brought to the attention of the News, and which it declares are pious papal lies, means which justify an end. Here is one from the Catholic Mirror, of Sept. 9, 1893. The quotation occurs in a series of four editorials, which appeared in that paper, Sept. 2, 9, 16 and 23, 1893, and afterwards published in pamphlet form by the Mirror Publishing Company. This pamphlet has passed through five editions and is still advertised by the Mirror. Here is the quotation:—

Thus, it is impossible to find in the New Testament the slightest interference by the Saviour, or his apostles, with the original Sabbath, but, on the contrary, an entire acquiescence in the original arrangement; nay, a plenary indorsement by him, whilst living; and an unvaried, active participation in the keeping of that day and no other by the apostles, for thirty years after his death, as the Acts of the Apostles has abundantly testified to us.

Hence the conclusion is inevitable; viz., that of those who follow the Bible as their guide, the Israelites and Seventh-day Adventists have the exclusive weight of evidence on their side, whilst the biblical Protestant has not a word in self-defense for his substitution of Sunday for Saturday.

Now let it be known that the Western Catholic News charges the Catholic Mirror with soberly, deliberately and persistently publishing this scriptural deduction while secretly believing it to be false. Bear in mind that the SENTINEL does not charge the cardinal’s organ with thus wickedly lying regarding a sacred subject; let it be kept constantly in mind that the terrible charge is made by the Western Catholic News.

Here is another quotation to which we called the attention of the News:

Q. Is the observance of Sunday, as the day of rest, a matter clearly laid down in Scripture?

A. It certainly is not; and yet all Protestants consider the observance of this particular day as essentially necessary to salvation. To say, we observe the Sunday because Christ rose from the dead on that day, is to say we act without warrant of Scripture; and we might as well say that we should rest on Thursday because Christ ascended to heaven on that day, and rested in reality from the work of redemption.—“A Doctrinal Catechism,” by Rev. Stephen Keenan, p. 352.

Again, we call the reader’s attention to the fact that the News says the writer of this, Rev. Stephen Keenan, was lying when he wrote it, and that Cardinal McCloskey, the imprimatur, knew when he licensed the publication of this book, that he was licensing the publication of what he believed to be a lie written for the purpose of deceiving non-Catholics; and further, when P. J. Kennedy’s Excelsior Catholic Publishing House, New York, published the work, the managers knew they were publishing an exegesis of Scripture that was absolutely false. This be it remembered, is the charge made by the News, not by the SENTINEL.

The following quotation from page 111 of Cardinal Gibbons’ work, “Faith of Our Fathers,” was one of the quotations before the editor of the News, when he made that startling charge of Jesuitical deception, quoted at the beginning of this article:—

But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.

The Western Catholic News says that the Bible does authorize the sanctification of Sunday and the secularization of the Sabbath, and that Cardinal Gibbons believes the same; and that he has only published this falsehood for the purpose of deceiving, and that at the strategic moment he will destroy this theological ambuscade and build up again the position which he is now, by means of this Jesuitical deception, laboring to destroy. Once more we repeat that we do not ourselves bring this grave charge against the cardinal; we have believed that he and the other authorities referred to were sincere in these statements. We quoted them, however, not as proofs of fact, but as confessions offered after the facts had been otherwise indisputably proven.

The prophet Daniel predicted the rise of a power that would “crush the saints of the Most High” (Douay Version), and “think to change times and the law.” (R.V.) Daniel 7:25.

History, both ecclesiastical and secular, witness to the fact that an attempted change in the Sabbath command of “the law,” was made in the third century by that church which later became known as the Roman Catholic Church. If every Catholic authority in the world denied that the papacy had attempted to change the Sabbath contrary to Scripture, instead of acknowledging it, this would not change the fact. The SENTINEL simply quotes these Roman Catholic utterances as the confession of one already proven guilty.

But to return to the main question: When a Roman Catholic editor deliberately and [234] unblushingly declares that it is the settled policy of the Roman Catholic Church, in waging war on non-Catholics, to teach one thing publicly while privately holding the opposite view, how can he or his church expect the American people to believe the church when it asserts that it is in favor of religious freedom, and if it should ever get control in the United States it would not use its position to oppress non-Catholics? The Catholic Church in the United States is just now loudly proclaiming its loyalty to the American principle of religious freedom. It is declaring that prejudice against it is wholly unjustifiable, in view of its repeated assertion that it is in accord with the American idea of separation of Church and State. But many of us who have studied the history of the papacy were convinced that it was a part of the papal policy to deceive its opponent with pleasant face and fair promises until the opportune moment came to strike the fatal blow.

The editor of the Western Catholic News, who ought to know, voluntarily declares that this is the policy of the papacy. And, besides, the Western Watchman, of St. Louis, another Roman Catholic paper, in its issue of July 11, has decided that the moment has arrived to “uncover” 303 on the question of religious freedom and to announce that if the Roman Catholic Church ever obtains power in the United States that it will compel all Protestants and non-Catholics to remove their hats when a Roman Catholic procession passes on the streets. However, we are persuaded that these two Catholic journals “uncovered” a little too soon. But be that as it may, from this on, if the Western Catholic News is not promptly repudiated by the Roman Catholic Church, no Roman Catholic will have the right to charge non-Catholics with misrepresenting the Catholic Church by charging it with duplicity—with deliberately lying for the purpose of deceiving and destroying an enemy.

Now let the reader turn and read the editorial, previously referred to, from the Western Watchman, page 235, and learn from that Catholic organ the kind of religious liberty Protestants will enjoy when the papacy gets control in this country.

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