Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-05-18
METHODISTS AFTER CRITICS
Board of Bishops Issues Statement
Covering Situation in Italy.
Ro0sEvELT's VISIT THE CAUSE
Reference Made to Catholic Attack
with Statement that Missions
Are Open to All who May
Enter.

PHILADELPHIA, May l7.-'rhe board Of
bishops OF the Methodist Episcopal church
through its secretary. Bishop L. 3. VIII
son tonight issued an official statement
which had been prepared by the board at
its meeting in Chicago, May .. relative TO
the Italian mission. The statement is the
outcome Of the recent controversy in Rome
caused by the visit Of Colonel Roosevelt
The statement follows:
Deporing and at all times seeking to
avoid interden ominatiunal controversy we
are, nevertheless, compelled TO recognize
occasions when personal preference must
yield to proper sense of official duty.
We cannot allow TO pass unnoticed the
recent unprovoked and unwarranted at
tempt to dlscredit one of our most useful
missions by widely published accusations
which, If based upon truth, would bring
that mission.
We regret that. after repeated challenges
for details of the specific acts supposed to
justify these charges, they still remain in
such general terms that their validity can
not be tested before the Judgment of the
world. We can only observes:
l. That ordinarily the use OF opprobri-
Gus ad1ectiyts is suggestive Of anger rather
than of reason.
2. That the methods of our mission in
Italy, now for the first time thus publicly
condemned, are the same that have been
pursued from the beginning, almost forty
years ago.
3. That the same methods namely,
conducting schools where they are needed,
schools which recognize the plain teachings
OF the New Testament as a supreme au
thortty in religion and ethics, have long
been followed by our missions in South
America and Mexico, as well as in Rome,
and no such indictment has been brought
against those missions, even to this day,
so far as we are informed.
4. From these facts the inference APP
pears to be irresistible that other consider
atoms than the methods of our mission in
Rome must have been the real cause Of
this sudden cutlery,
Possibly some urgency of diplomacy, To-
cal in its origin, but far-reacning in its
portent required this attack as a diversion
from the real issue involved.
The facts that support this inference are
known to all who have followed the course
of recent events in the city of Rome
Had there been any other way to avoid
created by coincident circumstances of a
public nature, the Methodist mission might
nave escaped calumny and thus lost the
valuable recognition Of its success
Under such circumstances we enter upon
no defense of our work in Italy and make
no plea for abatement of the Judgment of
the world
We decline at the present time to enter
Catholic church.
We ask only that all fair men inter-
ested in the situation study for them
selves it's methods of propagandism aud the
traditional attitude of that church toward
other Christian faiths.
We believe that there are standards of
equity and moral rectitude by which, in the
estimate of all progressive peoples, all re-
| ligions and all methods must be rated by
what they contribute to intelligence and
moral character.
We now content ourselves with affirming
| out entire confidence in the moral integ-
| rity of our missionaries and methods in
| Italy and against the denunciations of
their accusers we place the wide-open