Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

ship,"me."you."Church ind State ConventionAn Address given in Constitution Hall, Washington, D. C.January 21, 1954 (Installment III)by Emmett McLoughlin(Continued from last week)Closer Fellowship With God and ManRoman Catholics accused me, as they do everyex-priest of having deserted God. Actually reachingthat decision and carrying it out brought me closerto God than I had ever been before. In rejectingRoman Catholicism I had not rejected God or religion. I had merely shed the idolatrous and moneymakingtrappings that the heirarchy had builtaround the concept of God and of religion.I read the Bible more than I ever had before.Roman Catholicism pushes God so far into heaventhat because of His infiniteness, His omnipresence,His omniscience, Catholics can't reach Him. Theyare content with the saints and Mary and the sacredheart of Jesus.But Jesus himself was not distant and God wasnot distant. "The Kingdom of God is withinGod could be reached only through man. "For all thelaw is fulfilled in one word. Even in this. 'Thou shaltlove thy neighbor as thyself.' " "And what you havedone to one of these my least brethren, ye have doneit toAnd with this closer contact with God came asudden appreciation of Protestantism. I had beentaught that non-Catholics were not only largely to beconsigned to hell in the next world, but that on earththey were constantly disagreeing, dividing, disintegrating and were united only on one point opposition to Roman Catholicism.I came to the realization that the differences ofnon-Catholics though doctrinal, are superficial andnon-essential. Their unity is greater than their divergency.Whether Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians,Congregationalists, or Unitarians, they agree on twocommon principles.The first is the personal, private, independentinterpretation of the Bible.The second flows from their intimacy with Jesuswhich the Bible provides that thing called "fellowan intelligent, helpful love of all men a loveof neighbor which is not maudlin, but a concern forhim and understanding, a respect and a desire andeffort for his physical, moral religious and intellectual development. That "fellowship among Protestants is something that Roman Catholics simplydo not understand.American DemocracyTo me American democracya Heritage from Protestantismwith its material,intellectual and cultural accomplishments and itshuman and humanitarian pre-eminence are the ultimate blossoming of these two principles.It is impossible for me to portray in a few wordsthe America that I discovered when I broke out ofthe physical and mental prison of Roman Catholicism.It is difficult for me to express my personal182appraisal of American democracy without perhapsappearing to the critical intellectual mind to bemaudlin and sentimental. I am sentimental about it.Before leaving Romanism I scorned the displacedPole or German or Yougoslav who, when grantedAmerican citizenship, passionately clutched theAmerican flag, kissed it, and openly wept. But Ido not scorn him now. I feel just as passionate. NowI know what he left and what he has received. Forthe tyranny of totalitarianism is not confined to political states, and the emotional appreciation ofAmerica is not reserved only to those who reject anationality to become its citizens.Now I was an adult, examining for the firsttime, the nation that was my own and marveling notonly at its physical make up and resources, but atits moral, intellectual, and spiritual resources. I wasconsumed with an insatiable curiosity that wantedto know everything about everything. I read almanacs. I analyzed articles and books on every aspectof America. I studied road maps. And on vacationsand weekends I drove to small towns and asked questions about cotton camps, country churches, andcross road bars. America its greatness, its resources, its love became my heritage also.The Foe Within AmericaBut my friends that heritage will surely bedestroyed and that great love will die unless theprinciples of freedom of the Bible, freedom ofthought, freedom of worship, freedom of speech,are preserved.These freedoms are in real danger of being destroyed and that danger comes from within thiscountry, not from without.Let me tell you just a few of the attacks in thecold war that the Catholic church has waged againstme in the five years since I exercised my Americanprivilege of freedom of thought and freedom of worship and dared to leave the priesthood.I received more than ten thousand letters andI still receive them. A few were friendly and congratulatory but the bulk of them, even from bishopsand priests, condemned me so severely and in manyinstances in such vile language that if they wereopened by the postal authorities their writers couldhave been arrested for sending obscene matterthrough the mails. Some invoked the wrath of God,some wished me dead and some prayed that I wouldbe stricken with an incurable disease.Malicious rumors were deliberately spread by theCatholic clergy. I was said to be spending all mytime in taverns ; I was being "kept" by four womenof the Phoenix Country Club. God, they said, hadpunished me with heart trouble and paralysis. Outside of Arizona rumors were circulated that I haddeserted my wife, lost my job, was doing penanceCOVENANTER WITNESS