Word: churched
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...words he chose to leave unsaid at the monastery, the archbishop had put into a pastoral letter, to be read from Catholic pulpits throughout the country. In it, he summarized the successive steps the Czech Communist government has taken to gain control of the church and its schools, rejected the charges leveled at the church hierarchy, pointed out that "the issue does not concern a settlement between church and state ... It is an issue of ... replacing Christianity by Marxism, which assumes for the state the rights in matters of conscience, faith and morals -something no Christian can accept...
...Church inaccurately calls herself Catholic, that is, universal. The Roman Church claims to be the Church. This means that in her eyes there exist no other churches, but only sects ... If we do not profess allegiance to Rome we are out of the fold, no matter how much genuine religion enters into the texture of our life. We belong in the slums of Christianity...
Barrois maintains that the "monopoly claimed by the Roman Catholic Church . . . stands in contradiction with formal statements of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus promised to be in the midst of two or three gathered together in His name; are we to declare that the church is not there? . . . We know full well that Scripture needs a qualified interpreter, but we cannot agree with our Catholic neighbors on who this interpreter shall be . . ." The Protestant version: "This infallible interpreter is none else than the Holy Spirit." But Roman Catholics "want human guides and little candles to light the way ahead...
...Roman Catholics, dead set against materialism and violence, but, before joining Rome's 'crusade,' we want to make sure that we are not going to be dragged into unholy alliances. We do not measure a country by its attitude toward the establishment or disestablishment of the Church, as does Rome in the case of Spain, and we refuse to tie up the cause of Christ to the cause of the prevailing social class or political ideology. We finally hope that Rome will refrain from excessive indulgence toward forces of reaction and totalitarian rulers...
...centralized power of the Roman Catholic Church, its strong international organization, its methods of authority, explain partly its effectiveness," Barrois concludes. "Looking back on our divided Protestantism, we feel, by contrast, weary and powerless. Seeking for a remedy, we may be tempted to copy the methods of the Roman Church, and to play our own game of power politics. I say 'tempted,' for this is nothing else than a temptation, the temptation of the easy way. We know as Christians that there is really no easy way through the difficulties of an unchristian world...