The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1914-02-26

fde marriage unless it is according
to the law of the Roman Catholic
church, ceremony and priest. The
Roman Catholic church, therefore,
is in a clash with the United States
Government on this question. 1t de-
mands of the United States a recog-
milton of the legality of it's marriage
ceremony, but refuses to recognize
the bonafide legality of the United
States and State laws on the subject.
1t seems to me that the Roman
Catholic church should recognize as
fully legal the laws of the States in
this country on this question in
stead of those of the Vatican. And
if not, sooner or later, this Govern
ment will have to yield this question
wholly to the Roman Catholic
church, or demand of the Vatican
full recognition of the legality of
American law on this question.
Then there will be one of the
crashes by virtue of the Roman
Catholic church trying to run on the
tracks of both Church and State.
See again, the evil of this thing
in the home. Since I have been in
Savannah, enlightened Savannah, in
the Twentieth Century, man lay
dying. He had been christened a
Roman Catholic when a child, but
had not been in touch with his
church for years. He married a
Protestant and reared a family.
When the priest came to visit him
in his last illness the priest told him
that the only way he could hope to
die in peace was to call in his wife
and let him be married by him.
the priest,-so that he could die in
holy wedlock, and leave his children
as born in wedlock. Think of it.
The mans wife utterly refused to
hear to such an implication of dis
grace on her life and children. But
that was all in keeping with the
infaIlibility Of the Vatican "POntifeX
Maximus." So, the Vatican infaIli-
biIity touches home to our hearts
and hearthstOnes. Is not such a
decree in the nature Of the inquisi-
ton in mental form? If the Vatican
had the temporal power it once had,
and which it seeks again, would it
not enforce the laws of the church,
or anathematize the individuals, and
confscate their property as Of old?
But, you say, those things were done
in the middle ages. Yes, but Rome's
great sentence is: "Semper idem''-
always the same. And, what is
more, the Roman Catholic church,
in these great days of progress, has
never rescinded or abrOgated one of
it's ancient inquisitorial laws. What
is more, it cannot do so without
standing self-impeached and con-
demned before the world. For, if
the Pope is infallible, and if he
should annul any Of the laws and
DEGREES of the previous infaIlible
Popes, infallibility could not but go
to pieces in the clash. Papacy itself
would be destroyed in its own
house
Furthermore, try to conceive of
the heart-aches and heart burns in
divided homes where one of the par
ents is really devout Catholic and
the other a Protestant.
Take again, the confessional The
Bible says that man and his wife
shall be one. Their interests are
one, their destines on earth are one,
yet, if one is a Protestant and the
other Roman Catholic there is q
power at the confessional that is
greater over the Roman Catholic
husband or wife than the Protestant
wife or husband has over the COM
panion of the heart and home. Does
such a system as this strike you as
being the outgrowth of the Bible
which says: For this cause shall a
I. to Co. Il