# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1916. 9

Protestant population as though the gulf between Catholics and Protestants were not so deep and wide as it is made out to be in certain circles. People like to tell Christians that the Roman Church is being shamefully slandered by the Protestant, and especially by the Lutheran, preachers; that its doctrines are being distorted, that much is being attributed to it which it never taught and does not want to teach, indeed abhors. These preachers, it is said, are bent on destroying it by their lies, because they cannot overcome the Roman Church from Scripture. Thus, to cite just one example, Cardinal Gibbons writes in his well-known, widely circulated book "The Faith of Our Fathers" as follows: "Catholic doctrine is persistently distorted by the most influential organs. It is attacked in novels, in illustrated magazines and so-called histories. In a large part of the press and especially in the pulpit, which ought to be consecrated to love and truth, it is the victim of the foulest slanders. Over its pure, heavenly brow its enemies spread a hideous mask, and then give it up to the revilings and the scorn of the crowd. It fares with it as with its Bridegroom Jesus, who, clothed in a scarlet robe, crowned with thorns, and thus disfigured, was mocked by a rude mob. They are afraid to tell the truth about it; for 'so great and glorious is the power of truth that its very sight compels us to love it.'" (From the authorized German translation. Introduction, p. 4.) People seek to let the special doctrines of the Roman Church, which are particularly offensive to non-Catholics, appear in as mild a light as possible, or they put them as far as possible into the background or say nothing of them at all to such people. They seek to prove the false doctrines from Scripture and shrink from no falsification of Scripture in doing so. In the chief doctrines, they say, we are after all one; so one also hears them say on that side. All that the Protestant Christians had to do, it is said, is only this: to return under the mild, fatherly rule of the most holy Father and infallible teacher of Christendom and into the communion of the all-saving Mother Church, which will receive her penitent children again with open arms.

If the matter stood thus between us and the papacy, then it would of course be unnecessary, indeed even sinful, to call to earnest struggle against the Pope as a bitter and exceedingly dangerous enemy of Christ; then it would be in place to begin serious attempts at union with Rome. But the matter stands quite differently. We say: The papacy is not only still today the same bitter and dangerous enemy of Christ and his Gospel that it was in the days of the Reformation, but it has only hardened and obdurated itself still more in its wickedness. This we now have to set forth briefly.