Magyar Egyház, 1953 (32. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1953-04-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 11 the French people of Quebec are on a very low educational level. The percentage of illiteracy is the highest in the whole of Canada. The bulk of the French population receives only a few years of elementary education in the very one-sided brother-school and convents where the chief subject is the Roman Catholic Catechism. As a result the Roman clergy easily manipulates the masses by creating prejudices and false nationalism as well as vilifying Protestants. In the press, implicit and explicit allusions are made to the resemblance between the proselyting methods of Protestants and Communists. Romanists create the general notion that Protestants are responsible for he plague of Communism. The unscrupulous "McCarthyism” of some Romanists goes so far that in the eyes of many illiterate and semi-literate French people Communism and Protestantism become interchangeable terms. The camouflage propaganda of the Romanists in this country has established and is still maintaining the misbelief that Papism stands for religious tolerance. But as one of the most prominent Roman Catholic journalists of England, Robert Dell, expressed it in a letter to the London Times (1909): Papism is "acquiescing in religious liberty and equality only where and when it is not strong enough to demand privilege, refraining from physical persecution only because it has not the power to use it, but persecuting as ruthlessly as ever by all means that are still in its power." Thus the true character of Papism dominates Quebec’s affairs of state, it does not hesitate to express its extreme intolerance even in the public press. An interesting treatment on religious liberty appeared in a Roman Catholic periodical in which a Roman priest quoting the same papal encyclicals used by Paul Blanshard, comes to the same conclusion Blanshard did, that for the Romanists "it appears evident that the liberty of religion consists in a choice of the sole religion founded by Christ (i. e., the Roman Church) to the exclusion of all other.” Public liberties under the Roman rule are a case-in-point illustrating the Roman frame of mind. In spite of repeated requests the French Protestants are not permitted to hold radio services of any kind. The French press is also so thoroughly controlled by the Roman clergy that no newspaper or periodical would ever dare to publish any news or advertisements which pertains to French Protestant Churches. In Quebec there are many instances where Roman intolerance expresses itself in open persecution of the French Protestant minorities. Of course these are usually explained as "spontaneous excesses from the side of believers.” But there are cases where the persecution takes place by the direct action of the priest-controlled civil authorities. During my stay in Quebec, in Val d’Or, a Baptist missionary was sentenced to 30 days in prison. His "crime” was that he preached on the street-corner (no other place was available) which violated the traffic regulations. If things like these can happen in a still mainly Protestant country like Canada, it takes little imagination to picture what Papism is like in countries where it has been ruling since the Middle Ages. The work of the French Missions is difficult, first of all because Protestantism is considered an English religion, while French nationality is identified with the Roman church. So in most cases new converts become out-casts amont those of their own nationality. If they are employed by Catholics, they can be sure to lose their jobs, and the Roman clergy does all in its power to make their continuing existence in the community impossible. For this reason our missions succeed only in certain places—places where English Protestants can give employment to the newly converted French Protestants. There is a still more serious problem confronting the Protestant missions. The children of the new converts cannot receive French education. Their only hope is to go to the English schools. But the long years of English education result, in most cases, in the students’ becoming assimilated into the English community. This fact is very deplorable since it adds support to the Roman accusation that to turn Protestant is equivalent with denial of French nationality. Therefore Protestantism can expect abiding success among the French people only when it establishes French national churches. The zeal of the new converts portrayed before my eyes the "first love” spirit of the early Christians. Their example confirmed in me the conviction that 2eal occurs only where there is a never-ceasing passion for the truth. One mark of a living Christian community is that each of the members is a missionary in his own environment. With the present restriction on public libraries in Quebec, it takes an heroic spirit for a Christian to seek to lead his neighbors in the path of salvation. We see in the case of Quebec now that even a nationality with such a proud cultural heritage as the French can be degraded to the low level of spiritual and intellectual servitude. And there are several hundred million people in the world under this same kind of tyranny, a tyranny which made history with blood, destitution and the perpetuation of ignorance, carried out in the name of Christianity. It seems to me that Protestant Christianity clearly sees the problem but often forgets that the solution is an action and not merely a thought. It behooves us to remember that now as always the Roman church is moving toward a definite goal with a rigid consistency. A decided Protestant strategy with respect to this threat is clearly called for in our day. {The Princeton Seminarian. Volume III, No. 1.) All communications about the English Section should be addressed to the Rev. Stephen Szőke, 133 N. 3rd Street, Duquesne, Pa.
