Avro Manhattan - Catholic Power Today

By the same author:

The Catholic Church Against The Twentieth Century
The Dollar and the Vatican
Latin America and the Vatican
Religion In Russia
Spain and the Vatican
The Vatican and the U. S. A.
The Vatican in Asia
Vatican Imperialism in the Twentieth Century

CATHOLIC POWER TODAY

Copyright 1967 by Avro Manhattan

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-15886

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from Lyle Stuart except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to Lyle Stuart
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Published by Lyle Stuart Inc.

Typography by Toper

Manufactured in the United States of America

To contemporary man and his search for dignity, truth, and a genuinely peaceful truly united world of tomorrow

One day, sometime in the eighteenth century, the attention of a certain Frenchman, Francois Marie de Arouet, was directed to a case which first shook a town, then France, and finally Europe: the murder of Jean Calais, a Protestant merchant of Toulouse.

The Catholic Church had accused Calais of hanging one of his sons to prevent his becoming a Catholic, as it was the common practice amongst Protestants. Calais was arrested, and the civil magistrates ecclesiastical orderscondemned the old man to the rack, to be broken alive upon the wheel and then to be burned to ashes. This decree was executed on March 9, 1762.

F. M. de Arouet dedicated the best part of three years to proving Calass complete innocence, which he did. Simultaneously he swore to wage relentless war against a church which was capable of such murderous intolerance. Having coined a slogan, Ecrasez linfame, he used it in all his books, articles, letters. His one-man campaign eventually contributed, perhaps more than any other, to the overthrow of Catholic encroachment upon civil authority in France, and, indeed, in most of Europe in the decades to come. Francois Marie de Arouets other name: Voltaire.

One day, also in the same century, a certain Roger Williams, while passing through Springfield Green in the North American colonies, saw a youth of fourteen being burned at the stake by the civil magistrates, under orders of the Church of England. Roger Williams swore to fight to the utmost the Protestant church which had enjoined civil authority to enforce her religious tyranny.

Voltaire in Europe and Roger Williams in America, by openly revolting against Catholic and Protestant intolerance, had personified the will of the old and new worlds to get rid of all ecclesiastical encroachment upon civil authority.

Two hundred years later, almost to the day, the Catholic Churchs Fathers, more than two thousand five hundred of themAbbots, Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, Primates, Patriarchs, and the Pope himselfcongregated at the Second Vatican Council where they advocated reunion, unity, and even religious liberty.

Shortly before, the Ecclesiastical Head of the Church of Englandpreceded by Queen Elizabeth IIhad visited the Vatican (the first time an Archbishop of Canterbury had done so since 1395) followed by Calvinist, Lutheran, and other Protestant leaders. Catholics, who up to only a few decades earlier had branded all Protestants and Orthodox apostates, schismatics and heretics, now addressed them as our dear separated brethren; while the Protestants now called the former Romanists, Papists and idolatrous image-worshippers our beloved brothers in Christ.

The most active champion of organized Christianity had radically changed, it was said. The Catholic Church at last had turned into a vigorous advocate of the basic tenets of freedom of conscience, of thought, of speech, and of the right of the individual to believe, to think, and to say whatever he liked.

It was truly a portent worthy of a cry, for were not these the same churches which, only eight generations before, had tortured and burned at the stake an innocent old gentleman in France and a tender fourteen-year-old youth in North America?

Indeed they were.

Had they, then, transformed themselves so radically as to be practically no longer the same institutions?

Indeed they had not.

The spirit which had animated them one thousand or barely two hundred years earlier was still within them, as alive, as potent, and as aggressive as ever.

The Protestant Reformation, when still a monolith, was as ruthlessly terroristic as its Alma Mater, the Catholic Church, which went on happily burning Protestants until 1781. Most of the original inhabitants of the North American colonies were religious refugees, terrorized by the Churches of Scotland and of England, which never hesitated to persecute, imprison, or hang whenever they had a chance. Witness Peter Annet, English writer (died 1769), imprisoned for attacking the authenticity of the Pentateuch; or Thomas Ait-kenhead, an Edinburgh student, who, having referred to the Old Testament as Ezias Fables, was hanged for blasphemy in 1696 at the age of eighteen years.

In Europe, torture was still enforced by all the Tribunals of the Holy Inquisition until the last century, the Pope having been forced to abolish it as recently as 1816. 1 It was only when established Protestantism fragmented itself into a thou-sand-and-one conflicting denominations that (its intolerance having weakened) its power was greatly reduced. Since then, the bulk of its members have not only accepted but advocated contemporary liberties. Witness the flourishing multifaceted Protestantism of the United States and its evangelical movements.

Because of this, most of the Protestant denominations hailing freedom may be accepted as a genuine contributory factor to the basic democratic principles of modern man.

Their acceptance of the Vaticans call to unity, however, is a different matter, since it jeopardizes, not so much their present, but their future existence. Their eagerness to unite is nothing more nor less than the most concrete demonstration of their monumental ignorance of the true aims of the Catholic Church or of a deliberate attempt on their part (following some incurable attack of ecclesiastical amnesia) at collective self-extinction.

They have acted with the same lack of prudence as those rabbits, squirrels, and mice of the field who, having suddenly heard the lion roar Brethren, lets unite! promptly persuaded themselves that the new recruit had miraculously developed a taste for grass. For the astonishing facts are that the Catholic Churchunlike disintegrating established Protestantismis expanding in size, prestige, and power. Above all, she is more than ever resolved to fulfill her magnitu-dinous ambition for the subjugation of anyone outside herself.

The pursuit of such an ambition is being carried out, not in secret, but in the open. Five hundred and fifty million beings, cemented by one single faith, organized by one single super-efficient machinery, and led by one single leader, are on the march.

The Catholic Churchs numerical strength, intercontinental administration, global diplomatic network, political dominance, and intangible pressure are all being blatantly used to that end.

Whence comes such an inflexible Catholic determination to conquer?

It comes from her unshakable belief that she has been divinely commissioned to destroy error. And, since truth can be found only within herself, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and other Christian and non-Christian religions can find salvation only within her. For reunion in her parlance signifies only one thing: the return to the fold of all those who are separated from her.