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It is necessary to beware of superficial comparisons. Gamaliel's tolerance was not tolerance for its own sake. The Sadducees had engineered the arrest of St. Peter and the Apostles with him, and Gamaliel was a Pharisee. The case at once became a political party question, and Gamaliel was determined not to allow a victory by the Sadducees over the Apostles who were as opposed to the Sadducean heresy as he was. Again, Gamaliel was uncertain of the truth of his own religious position, and had been deeply impressed by the teaching of the Apostles. Hence his warning to the Council "lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God." His policy, therefore, was one of wait and see, piously expressed. There is no resemblance between his position and that of the Catholic Church in Spain. The Catholic Church is not in the least doubtful of its own religious position, nor in the least impressed by the possibility of the truth of the different and conflicting forms of Protestantism preached by Baptist, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Witness of Jehovah, or other would-be missionaries in Spain. Nor, in trying to prevent these people from corrupting the Catholic Faith of the Spanish people, as she is bound to do, has the Catholic Church anything in common with Caiaphas. Caiaphas was not really interested in religion at all. His interest was political, lest the measure of independence granted to the Jews by the Romans should be lost. The Catholic; Church is not worried lest Spain should lose its national independence through the preaching of Protestantism. She is concerned solely with the religious faith of the people and their spiritual unity which these Protestant emissaries are bent on destroying in favor of their various forms of heresy. It is not reasonable to expect the Catholic Church, conscious of her divine truth, to sit back passively and allow such subversive efforts to continue without protest. She does not want to incur the reproach addressed by Our Lord to the Church at Pergamus: "Thou holdest fast my Name and hast not denied my faith . . . but I have against thee a few things, because thou hast them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaites." Apoc., II, 13-15. Or the reproach to the Church at Thyatira: "Because thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants." Apoc., II, 20.
You have been misinformed. The "World Christian Handbook," a Protestant publication issued in 1949, states that the Protestant Churches in Italy have freedom of worship, free speech and a free press. And it lists the Waldensians, Methodists, Baptists, Brethren, Adventists and the Spezians as functioning without hindrance, having between them about 100,000 adherents.
The troubles these people brought upon themselves do not prove that Protestants are persecuted in Italy. The "Church of Christ" missionaries went to Italy from Texas. They did not go to minister to ally of their own denomination already there, but to try to convert Catholics to Protestantism. In all their efforts, they had won the allegiance of not more than 500 people, and 500 people do not need 22 churches. But they induced the highly-imaginative, ill-informed and enthusiastic Texan Protestants to pour their money down the drain for the building of 22 churches, in the hope that there will be converted Catholics for them in the future. At the time of the troubles, the American magazine "Time" said: "Some of their followers, after accepting gifts of food and clothing, have gone back to Catholicism." To gain a few poverty-stricken people by bribery, with funds from Texas, U.S.A., does not mean winning them to any interior change of religion. The funds from Amercia could have been employed better elsewhere than in Italy, even from the viewpoint of the "Churches of Christ."
The American "Church of Christ" missionaries went to Italy with only temporary visitors' Visas, and had not obtained permission for their projects according to the requirements of Italian law. They ignored Government regulations, set up their churches without a permit from the Minister of the Interior, and were ordered to close down until they had complied with the necessary formalities. Other Protestant Churches which had complied with the law were not affected. Not all the financial help they had sent to them from America gave them the right to independence of the law of the country they had invaded. In any case, there was no need for the Texan "Churches of Christ" to go all the way to Italy to find the Catholics they wanted to convert. There are over 30,000,000 Catholics in the United States. Surely the conversion of the 30,000,000 of their Catholic fellow Americans was a large enough field for their energies right at their very door!
They constitute a militantly Protestant American sect, dating from about the year 1900. They owe their origin to a Rev. Alexander Campbell. Mr. Campbell was born in Ulster, Ireland, in 1788, and was taken to America by his parents in 1809. He was brought up as a Presbyterian, but in America became a Baptist. Quarrelling with the Baptists, he left them to form his own Church, the members of which called themselves the "Disciples of Christ." Campbell died in 1866. But, after his death, a dispute broke out among his followers as to whether it was lawful or not to play the organ during religious services. They split into "pro-organ" and "anti-organ" factions. In 1900 the "anti-organ" faction broke away from the "Disciples of Christ" and set up independently under the title of "Churches of Christ." These latter have their chief stronghold today in Texas, U.S.A.; and it was from there that missionaries were despatched to convert Catholics to their sect.
To people already Christians! The truth is that tHey went there to preach their own peculiar form of Protestantism. According to "Time" magazine, of Sept., 1952, one of their ministers, the Rev. Cline Paden, urged the police guards around his church to come in to hear him preach. When they said, "We are all Catholics," Pastor Paden retorted: "All the more reason for us to save your souls I" Evidently he thought that just fey being Catholics people ate more in danger of being damned forever than anybody else, even the very pagans. Recently we have been reading of the condemnation and dismissal from the priesthood of Father Leonard Feeney for daring to preach that all Protestants are lost. The Catholic Church refused to allow such teaching in her name. Yet Pastor Paden goes to Rome to preach a religious intolerance towards Catholics which Rome itself will not allow Catholics to teach in regard to Protestants!
Commenting in 1950 on the whole affair, a Baptist named Carl Victor Little wrote in his column in the Houston "Press," a secular paper of Texas, said that the missionaries should never have gone to Italy at all. "There's enough work in the salvation line," he said, "to keep them all busy here, instead of their going to Italy. But no. Supported by money raised in Texas, they have to go to Italian communities that have been Catho'ic since the dawn of Christianity, and denounce the Vatican and all its works. Then they cry and protest to the State Department because the peasants greeted them with a shower of stones!" Instead of preaching Christianity, the missionaries had set out to discredit the Catholic Church, to ridicule Catholic teachers, and to vilify the Pope, the Bishops and the clergy generally. No wonder that the Houston "Press" declared that the State Department should have the whole group of American "Church of Christ" missionaries returned to Texas!
I do. And Protestants in Italy themselves have denied it. At the time of the "Church of Christ" protests, Dr. Guido Comba, secretary of the Waldensian Church in Italy, issued a statement saying that the Waldensians are the largest Protestant body in Italy, that they have 17 big institutions there, that legally they have the same rights and are on the same footing as-Catholics, and that they have never been molested or hindered in any way. The Rev. Emanuel Sbaffi, Methodist President of Italy's Council of Protestant Churches, added his testimony, saying: "We enjoy complete freedom of worship . . . and we feel that our friends of the 'Churches of Christ' are not entirely in the right."
As I remarked earlier, the conflict between the Texan "Church of Christ" missionaries and the civil authorities arose over their refusal to comply with the law. As for your question, your own Protestant Pastor Cline Paden said defiantly and belligerently: "You can close the doors of the church buildings; but the church is God, and you cannot close Him down." Do you believe with Pastor Paden that the Texan "Churches of Christ" are God, and that they alone have a monopoly of the truth?
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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