The Roman Catholic Church Has
Been A Miserable Failure.
"Nearly 7,000,000 of people in South
America still adhere, more or less openly, to the fetishisms of their
ancestors, while perhaps double that number live altogether beyond
the reach of Christian influence, even if we take the word Christian
in its widest meaning." [Footnote:
Report of Senor F. de Castello]
The Rev. W. B. Grubb, a missionary in Paraguay, says: "The greatest
unexplored region at present known on earth is there. It contains, as
far as we know, 300 distinct Indian nations, speaking 300 distinct
languages, and numbering some millions, all in the darkest
heathenism." H. W. Brown, in "Latin America," says, "There is a pagan
population of four to five millions." Then, with respect to the Roman
Catholic population, Rev. T. B. Wood, LL.D., in "Protestant Missions
in South America," says, "South America is a pagan field, properly
speaking. Its image-worship is idolatry. Abominations are grosser and
more universal than among Roman Catholics in Europe and the United
States, where Protestantism has greatly modified Catholicism. But it
is worse off than any other great pagan field in that it is
dominated by a single mighty hierarchy - the mightiest known in
history. For centuries priestcraft has had everything its own way all
over the continent, and is now at last yielding to outside pressure,
but with desperate resistance."
"South America has been for nearly four hundred years part of the
parish of the Pope. In contrast with it the north of the New World -
Puritan, prosperous, powerful, progressive - presents probably the
most remarkable evidence earth affords of the blessings of
Protestantism, while the results of Roman Catholicism left to
itself are writ large in letters of gloom across the priest-ridden,
lax and superstitious South. Her cities, among the gayest and
grossest in the world, her ecclesiastics enormously wealthy and
strenuously opposed to progress and liberty, South America groans
under the tyranny of a priesthood which, in its highest forms, is
unillumined by, and incompetent to preach, the gospel of God's free
gift; and in its lowest is proverbially and habitually drunken,
extortionate and ignorant. The fires of her unspeakable Inquisition
still burn in the hearts of her ruling clerics, and although the
spirit of the age has in our nineteenth century transformed all her
monarchies into free Republics, religious intolerance all but
universally prevails." [Footnote: Guiness's "Romanism and
Reformation."]
Prelates and priests, monks and nuns exert an influence that is all-
pervading. William E. Curtis, United States Commissioner to South
America, wrote: "One-fourth of all the property belongs to the
bishop. There is a Catholic church for every 150 inhabitants. Ten per
cent. of the population are priests, monks or nuns, and 272 out of
the 365 days of the year are observed as fast or feast days. The
priests control the government and rule the country as absolutely as
if the Pope were its king. As a result, 75 per cent. of the children
born are illegitimate, and the social and political condition
presents a picture of the dark ages." It is said that, in one town,
every fourth person you meet is a priest or a nun, or an ecclesiastic
of some sort.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 5 of 161
Words from 2091 to 2630
of 83353
