Jesuits capturing American cities

[Hanseng]

RH19010924-V78-39.pdf

Page 618

These articles are part of SDA history, whether or not one agrees with them.

[Hanseng]

Jesuit Education in the United States

RH18810215-V57-07.pdf

[Hanseng]

A Jesuit University

RH18861005-V63-39.pdf

Burglars of the Universe

RH18861026-V63-42.pdf

If you happen to be interested in early SDA views  on the papacy and the Jesuits in particular, attested by R+H articles such as linked here, you can visit the SDA archives. Search online archives, periodicals, Review and Herald, Jesuits. Mentions of the Jesuits and articles beginning in 1856.

 

[Gregory Matthews]

Those articles ae interesting.  They clearly indicate the unfounded anti-Catholic bias that existed at that time.  Today, they would likely be accurately evaluated as pure garbage, devoid of fact.  [NOTE:  I have not read every word, but got the general idea.]  It is a shame that the Review published them.

 

[Hanseng]

9 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Those articles ae interesting.

Some include factual historical accounts. Others include "occult" history, i.e., narratives that are difficult or impossible to verify. What I found interesting is that some of the stories were lifted from other Christian publications and duly credited.

In those days, being Protestant meant something. Anti-Catholicism was not unique to Adventism.

[Gregory Matthews]

In understanding our history, it is very important to understand the level of anti-Catholic bias that existed in the Protestant world at that time.

[Hanseng]

On 4/20/2026 at 8:35 PM, Gregory Matthews said:

In understanding our history, it is very important to understand the level of anti-Catholic bias that existed in the Protestant world at that time.

Anti-Catholic bias has different faces. Some of it was likely more of a nationalistic issue, e.g., prejudice against the Irish, Italians, Chinese, and others. Obviously, the Chinese were not Roman Catholics; nevertheless, they endured a great deal of persecution, not only in California. Protestantism was the prevailing religion in those days. People who were not Protestant, were probably loathed just as a democrat might be hated in republican circles today.

Roman Catholicism includes many beliefs that are detested by Protestants today. Purgatory, for example, essentially teaches that the sacrifice of Christ was inadequate to fully atone for the sins of men. Jesus didn't suffer enough; therefore, the dead must continue suffering in the afterlife. Whatever other beliefs they hold, this direct attack on the atonement is by far the worst. Sunday keeping, the immortality of the soul, etc. are minor issues  when one considers that the doctrine undergirding purgatory strikes directly at the sacrifice of Christ. Read the article in the  RC New Advent Encyclopedia on purgatory. Utter blasphemy, when explaining that purgatory is necessary [because the sacrifice of Christ was inadequate]. 

"The whole penitential system of the Church testifies that the voluntary assumption of penitential works has always been part of true repentance and the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, can. xi) reminds the faithful that God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction, and will punish sin, and this doctrine involves as its necessary consequence a belief that the sinner failing to do penance in this life may be punished in another world, and so not be cast off eternally from God."

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Purgatory

[Hanseng]

The early SDA aversion to papal doctrine had to do, in part, with what they understood to be a direct attack on the death and resurrection of Christ, i.e., the gospel. Substituting sprinkling for immersion was understood to undermine the symbolism of Christ's death and resurrection inherent in immersion. They perceived the exaltation of resurrection Sunday as a means of compensating for the violence done to the gospel symbolism obscured by substituting sprinkling for immersion. Immersive baptism memorialized the death and resurrection of Christ, in a way sprinkling could not.

Adventist abhorrence of the papacy was theological, not about the Irish or Italians taking jobs and eating too many carbohydrates. 

[Joe Knapp]

Quote

 The Catholic Church numbers one third the American population, and, if its membership shall
increase for the next thirty years as it has for the thirty past, in 1900 Rome will have a majority,
and be bound to this country and keep it. 

Did not work out the way they wanted it to. I believe God had a hand in that. 

[Joe Knapp]

Quote

 One relates to their schools and colleges for higher education, which have long had an existence ; the other relates to their more recent demand to have an enlarged and exclusive control over the primary education of the children of
Roman Catholic parents. 

Well they have been pretty successful there.