# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S36
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

36 Proceedings of the twenty-sixth convention

a sister church, which to be sure has many spots and defects, but which one must nevertheless welcome as a valuable ally against unbelief. It is also not at all surprising that these people do not recognize the papacy in its real abominations. At bottom they agree with it. They too want to save themselves by their works, by their virtues, by their self-denial, or whatever they may call it. The Gospel of the free, unmerited grace of God in Christ is to them also, just as to the Pope, a foolishness, a stumbling block and offense, an abomination, even if they do not express it as emphatically as the Roman Pope. — The Roman Church knows how to give itself a great appearance of special holiness. How the world admires the holiness and spirituality of the Roman priests, who renounce marriage, family life, only in order to serve God and the Church, the cause of religion and of mankind the better! How it marvels at the holiness and self-denial of the monks and nuns, especially of the latter, who take leave of the joys of the world and devote themselves wholly to God and their fellow men, who, as they pretend, lead a "God-consecrated" life! That all this is frequently only appearance, at best nothing but self-righteousness, with which one wants to earn heaven, and in so doing exalts oneself above one's fellow men and denies and reviles Christ and his merit, of this the world knows and recognizes nothing. — The Roman Church boasts of its great works of charity toward the sick, the poor and the needy; it points to its many large hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged and other institutions that serve to relieve bodily distress. The world admires this as truly Christian works, as true Christian love, and does not recognize or suspect that all this only serves and is meant to serve for the greater honor of the Pope and his system, that all this again flows from self-righteousness, to the disgrace of Christ. — The Roman Church also likes to boast of being the real preserver of the order of state and society; it represents itself as the firm, sure dam against the floods of socialism, of anarchism, of all law-subverting forces which are now spreading. It gladly offers its valuable services in this respect to the government. The world admires this; it marvels at its closed-ranked power and organization. People speak of the Pope as the venerable old man in the Vatican at Rome, who always throws his power, the whole closed organization of his hierarchy and Church, into the scale of civil order, of civil liberty, of respect for law and secular authority, who always uses his great influence, his power, to increase peace and welfare among the nations or, when they are disturbed, to restore them. — In addition come then some externals: their mighty, imposing churches and cathedrals, the solemnity and