IS IT HONEST To say that the Catholic Church prohibits the use of the Bible—­ When anybody who chooses can buy as many as he likes at any Catholic bookstore, and can see on the first page of any one of them the approbation of the Bishops of the Catholic Church, with the Pope at their head, encouraging Catholics to read the Bible, in these words:  “The faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures,” and that not only for the Catholics of the United States, but also for those of the whole world besides?

IS IT HONEST To say that Catholics believe that man by his own power can forgive sin—­When the priest is regarded by the Catholic Church only as the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ, acting by the power delegated to him, according to these words, “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained?” (St. John 20:23).

IS IT HONEST To repeat over and over again that Catholics pay the priest to pardon their sins—­When such a thing is unheard of anywhere in the Catholic Church—­When any transaction of the kind is stigmatized as a grievous sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery, blasphemy, etc., in every catechism and work on Catholic theology?

IS IT HONEST To persist in saying that Catholics believe their sins are forgiven merely by the confession of them to the priest, without a true sorrow for them, or a true purpose to quit them—­When every child finds the contrary distinctly and clearly stated in the catechism, which he is obliged to learn before he can be admitted to the sacraments?  Any honest man can verify this statement by examining any Catholic catechism.

IS IT HONEST To assert that the Catholic Church grants any indulgence or permission to commit sin—­When an “indulgence,” according to her universally received doctrine, was never dreamed of by Catholics to imply, in any case whatever, any permission to commit the least sin; and when an indulgence has no application whatever to sin until after sin has been repented of and pardoned?

IS IT HONEST To accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed Virgin or the Saints in the place of God or the Lord Jesus Christ—­When the Council of Trent declares that it is simply useful to ask their intercession in order to obtain favor from God, through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our Saviour and Redeemer—­

When “asking their prayers and influence with God” is exactly of the same nature as when Christians ask the pious prayers of one another?

IS IT HONEST To accuse Catholics of paying divine worship to images or pictures, as the heathen do—­When every Catholic indignantly repudiates any idea of the kind, and when the Council of Trent distinctly declares the doctrine of the Catholic Church in regard to them to be, “that there is no divinity or virtue in them which should appear to claim the tribute of one’s veneration”; but that “all the honor which is paid to them shall be referred to the originals whom they are designed to represent?” (Sess. 25).