Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches
Now something singular has happened in our time, in our day, within
the past few years, and more especially within the past year. Ninety
years have passed away since this first message of God though Joseph
Smith was given to the world declaring the churches wrong; but, mark
you, we did not sit in judgment upon the world's creeds and religions
and religious teachers. We have not assumed to do that. Neither did
Joseph Smith, he confessed his own inability to judge the matter, hence
he went to God for wisdom. We think it would have been beyond the
capacity of human wisdom to determine which of the sects or churches
were acceptable to God; Or say which was his Church; but God was
competent to sit in judgment, and he sat in judgment, and announced
the conclusion, and made Joseph Smith and the Church of Christ, that
grew out of his message--God made them the heralds of this judgment
of his to the inhabitants of the earth. But, to return to what I was
about to remark,--after ninety years have elapsed, something remarkable
occurs, and that is a wonderful confirmation of this seemingly harsh
message with which our prophet began his life's work. There is at
present going on in the great Catholic church--that church which holds
within her communion more than one half of all the Christians of the
world--within her great organization is going on what is called the
"Modernist" movement. That movement, briefly told is this: a demand
is made on the part of many of her scholars and theologians for wider
intellectual liberty, and that the church shall come out of the
darkness of the creeds and symbols of the dark ages and live in harmony
with the new truths that have been developed through the inspiration
of God operating upon the minds of modern men, of our present-day
scientists and philosophers. In order to be exact in the statement of
the matter, permit me to read to you something of the program that
is suggested by this modernist movement within the Catholic church;
and let no one esteem it as a light thing, as a mere "crackling of
thorns beneath the pot." Rome does not so regard it, I can tell you.
We are assured by a writer in the _North American Review_ for June of
this year that this revolution within the Church of Rome is one of
the mightiest revolutions since that one led by Martin Luther in the
sixteenth century. The Catholic church has already noted the importance
that she attaches to it by issuing what is known as the "Encyclical
Letter on Modernism" by the present pope of the Roman church, a
document filling about one hundred printed pages, in which the errors,
or supposed errors, of the modernists are detailed and reviewed from
the standpoint of the orthodox within the Catholic church. In each
diocese a "committee of vigilance" is appointed to keep watch that
whether in pamphlet, or book, or speech, any prelate or curate of the
church should presume to be in sympathy with this movement, he might
be instantly reported and silenced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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