Protestants v. Catholics

Protestant leaders cried: "No Popery!" Protestant opposition to Catholic secular power and influence was growing.

Three weeks ago Princeton Theological Seminary's John A. Mackay spoke his concern over Catholic clericalism and its "vilification" of Protestant leaders (TIME, March 25). Last week New York's Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, president of the Federal Council of Churches, chose the Catholic stronghold of Boston to set forth the Protestant grievance in spade-calling terms. Excerpts:

"Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church approaches the question of religious liberty from two points of view--one from principle, the other from expediency. As a matter of principle it holds: 'It is not lawful for the State ... to hold in equal favor different kinds of religion.' It is opposed to the separation of Church and State. It insists that where Roman Catholics are in the majority, the State should further that faith and restrict other faiths from criticism, missionary activities, deny them exemption from taxation, in a word, to restrict their liberties. ... Now on the basis of expediency, the church tolerates the separation of Church and State, and the fact of other churches. However . . . this toleration is not necessarily a permanent commitment. . . .

"We call upon the Roman Catholic Church to be a church and not to attempt to be a state and a church. We shall bring practices to light that we believe constitute a threat to religious freedom. We shall speak firmly but in brotherly spirit."

Editorially, the Pilot, official organ of the Boston archdiocese, wrung its hands: "G. Bromley Oxnam has to live with himself. Undoubtedly he says prayers before he retires at night. In these orisons, in his baring of soul before a God Who reads our innermost hearts, let the Bishop weigh his responsibility for the confusion he spread in that . . . talk, for the pain he inflicted on all whose only trust is the Crucified Hope of the world, for the delight he gave to those who try to convince themselves that belly, sensual desire, is the only god worthy of rational worship. . . . At the heart of [his] objection to the Catholic Church is his unwillingness to acknowledge the divinity of Christ."

Communist Parallel. New York's Oxnam was not the only Protestant leader to keelhaul Catholicism. In London last week, Professor A. Victor Murray, president of England's Congregational Cheshunt College, said: "Rome . . . believes itself to be the perfect society. . . . Anything that furthers its interests, political or social, as well as religious, is considered to be according to the will of God. ... It is this irresponsible influence of an internationally organized society, with its headquarters in a foreign country--in this way exactly parallel to communism--that makes the Free Church Protestant evangelical witness against Rome so vitally necessary."

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