Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 1
September 22, 1949
NUMBER 20, PAGE 2

Spain, Catholicism's "Exhibit A"

Editorial

It was in 732 A. D. that Charles Martel turned back the Saracen hordes in the bloody battle of Tours, thus saving Europe from total submersion under the banner of Mohammedanism. Abderrahman, the leader of the Islamic armies was slain, and contemporary records of the day declare that 375,000 of his soldiers perished—a figure that in the light of modern knowledge seems fantastically high. At any rate, so complete was the victory that from that day to the present Western Europe has never again felt the weight of any Asiatic invader's foot.

The Moors were driven out of northern Spain by Charlemagne, who cleared the peninsula as far south as the river Elbe. Little by little the remaining strongholds were reduced. By the middle of the tenth century, Spain was dominantly Catholic. Indeed, dating even from the Battle of Tours, Spain has been the most Catholic nation in all Europe. Italy, seat of the papal throne, has had revolt and rebellion against Catholicism. (Witness the seventy years of the "Babylonian exile" when the popes had to maintain their court—or, rather, courts for there were two or three of them—in Avignon, France). But no such rebellion ever manifested itself in the Spanish peninsula. The bloody Spanish Inquisition is a pointed commentary on how complete and how abject has been the allegiance Spain has given the popes.

Today, after more than one thousand years of unquestioned Catholic supremacy, what is the condition of Spain?

Sixty percent of Spain's arable land is uncultivated.

Some 4,500 villages in Spain have no roads or methods of communication from one to the other, not even a bridle path.

Some 2,000 Spanish villages are constantly under fever plagues.

About 30,000 towns and villages (two-thirds of those in all the nation) possess no schools or means of education. Of course there are not any public schools in Spain comparable to our public schools; the only schools of any sort are parochial schools. But in two-thirds of the towns and villages in the nation there is not even one parochial school! Out of an adult population of 22,000,000 more than 12,000,000 can neither read nor write. Spain has one of the highest illiteracy ratings of any "civilized" nation on the globe.

Why are there not parochial schools in Spanish towns as there are here in America? This question is often asked, and the answer to it is obvious. The Catholic hierarchy sees no need for such schools. The Catholic Church has no basic interest in education. Its only interest at all is in an education that will keep its people subject to the pope. But in Spain the nation is so completely Catholic that the hierarchy feels no need or obligation at all for educating the masses against the "heresies" of non-Catholic teaching. In America, where public schools are abundant, Catholicism maintains the most elaborate parochial school system in the world. She feels it necessary to do this to combat the influence of the public schools. But where there are no public schools, and where Catholicism is dominant, she shows absolutely no interest at all in the education of her peoples. She has already their blind loyalty and devotion; she wants nothing else from them, she seeks nothing else for them.

It is axiomatic that Catholicism holds her greatest sway where ignorance and illiteracy are most prevalent; Mexico, Spain, and South America are examples. In such countries she has little or no interest in educating the masses—not even in educating them to read and write, As a matter of fact, she can control them much better if they can't read or write.

Christ said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." The fruits of Catholicism in Spain are undeniable. A thousand years of uninterrupted rule in that benighted country has given her every opportunity to demonstrate to the world the civilization that would spring from Catholic philosophy. And in that thousand years she has brought forth a civilization that is unworthy of the name. Ignorance, disease, poverty, filth, corruption of both public and private morals, and unrelieved misery of her down-trodden people is the picture Spain gives to the world today.

Here is Catholicism's prime "Exhibit A" in the judgment that time and civilization ultimately pass on all institutions and philosophies. Here is the land of political bondage, religious bigotry and intolerance, physical and moral degradation we find the true and inevitable fruitage of Catholic doctrine.

What Catholicism has done to Spain, she would do to America. Her de-humanizing philosophy is a curse to the race, equally perhaps, but certainly not exceeded, by atheistic communism.

—F. Y. T.

—O—

Double Exposure

"Though the late intemperate Moses Couldn't read what this label discloses, He should have known A skull and cross-bone Didn't look like one of four roses!

—Jack G. Dunn

—O—

Growing Wiser

"A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong; which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

—Alexander Pope