“FATHER” WALTER ELLIOTT, a Catholic priest of the order of the Paulist Fathers, in writing from Michigan, some months since, said of Seventh-day Adventists: “The sect is the most … of Catholicity in these parts.” Mr. Ellison is still proscribed by the Adventists, who attend his meetings in Ohio, as they did in Michigan, and fill his question box with queries that seem to almost upset the equanimity of the doughty priest.
In the Catholic World for December, Priest Elliott says:—
In the question box our only abundant matter was furnished by the Seventh-day Adventists, for their propaganda had won over a little band of fanatics. They seemed to be surprised that I took the Protestant side of the controversy on the question of Sunday observance, and then they deluged us with angry interrogatories. I maintained that, first, a “Bible Christian,” one who holds to the private interpretation of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, can and must believe that the entire ceremonial law of the Jews is totally abolished by Christ, including all liturgical observances whatever, no less the Jewish Sabbath than the Jewish sacrifice. Second, I maintained with the catechism of the Council of Trent that there is [396] evidence is the New Testament of the selection by the apostles of the Sunday as a substitute for the Mosaic Sabbath, and if the texts are not conclusive of an obligation, they are still plainly indicative of the apostolic origin of the new custom. That gave me ample opportunity to demonstrate the need of church authority in such matters, but the two points above stated compel us, I am sure, to take sides against the Adventists. I dread their fanaticism. If they ever grow strong, the Sunday is gone from public courts and legislatures, from the industrial and domestic life of the people—an incalculable loss to religion. These new sectarians are making converts in many places, full of deadly hatred of the Catholic Church, some of whose opponents have, unhappily, supplied them with their most effective weapons to unsettle Protestant belief and practice on the question of Sunday observance.
It will be noted that “Father” Elliott acknowledges that he took “the Protestant side of the controversy on the question of Sunday observance.” It is clear therefore that he did not take the Roman Catholic position. In other words, pressed by the questions of Seventh-day Adventists he abandoned the position of his church, and took a position that the Catholic Mirror, the organ of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Baltimore, branded only a few months since as “groundless, self-contradictory and suicidal.”
But it is not strange that a Romish priest takes a “Protestant position” when occasion demands; for, “The end justifies the means” is a time honored motto with the papacy. But it is too late in the history of the world for the priests of Rome to deny the position of their church upon the change of the Sabbath. “Father” Elliott only stultifies himself and his cause when he abandons the claim that the Roman Catholic Church changed the Sabbath, and tries to make it appear that it was done by the apostles. The catechisms and publications of the Catholic Church are against him. Every Seventh-day Adventist in the United States ought to have several copies of the Catholic Mirror pamphlet, [246] “The Christian Sabbath,” to use against this virulent priest wherever he goes. Loan them to your neighbors, and ask them to read them; and when Mr. Elliott denies the claim of his own church as put forth by the official organ of the American Cardinal-Archbishop, the people will readily see in his devious course the trail of the Romish serpent, and will judge him by the rule, Falsus in uno, Falsus in omnibus. [396]