Statements by Catholic Authors
In pursuing this subject further, we quote the language of John Gilmary Shea, LLD, a representative man among Catholics, and an accomplished writer:ChSa 159.5
“The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God, to be sanctified by suspension of all servile labor, trade, and worldly avocations, and by exercises of devotion, is purely a creation of the Catholic Church.” “Nothing in the New Testament forbids work, travel, trade, amusement, on the first day of the week. There is nothing which implies such a prohibition. The day, as one especially set apart, had no authority but that of the Catholic Church; the laws requiring its observance were passed to enforce decrees of councils of the Catholic Church.” “For ages all Christian nations looked to the Catholic Church, and, as we have seen, the various states enforce by law her ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sunday. Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the church, had no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought, logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath, with the Jews and Seventh Day Baptists. For their present practice, Protestants in general have no authority but that of a church which they disown.”-The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan., 1883.ChSa 160.1
James Blake, M. D., another Roman Catholic, in a debate with a Protestant, thus drove the latter to the wall:ChSa 160.2
“Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone, and the only commandment he emphasized was that to keep the seventh day. ‘Remember to keep holy the seventh day;’ and there is no command so often repeated throughout the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be the gentleman’s rule of faith, he is bound by this commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Why, then, does he not observe it? Because the church thought fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the church to be superior to the handwriting of God the Father; and yet he will look you in the face, and declare that the Bible, without church authority, is his rule of faith.”-The Review and Herald, February 27, 1884.ChSa 160.3
The following statements were made by a Catholic priest in the opera-house in Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884, as reported in the Hartford Weekly Call of February 22:ChSa 160.4
“Christ gave to the church the power to make laws binding upon the conscience. Show me one sect that claims or possesses the power to do so save the Catholic Church. There is none, and yet all Christendom acknowledges the power of the church to do so, as I will prove to you. For example, the observance of Sunday. How can other denominations keep this day? The Bible commands you to keep the Sabbath day. Sunday is not the Sabbath day; no man dare assert that it is; for the Bible says as plainly as words can make it, that the seventh day is the Sabbath, i. e. Saturday; for we know Sunday to be the first day of the week. Besides, the Jews have been keeping the Sabbath day unto the present time. I am not a rich man, but I will give $1,000 to any man who will prove by the Bible alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep. No, it cannot be done; it is impossible. The observance of Sunday is solely a law of the Catholic Church, and therefore is not binding upon others. The church changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and all the world bows down and worships upon that day in silent obedience to the mandates of the Catholic Church. Is this not a living miracle that those who hate us so bitterly, obey and acknowledge our power every week, and DO NOT KNOW IT?”ChSa 160.5
The number of extracts from Catholic authorities might be much enlarged, but these ought to be sufficient to show any candid person the position taken by that church upon this point. It will be noticed that many of these come from catechisms and other doctrinal works which are officially issued by the Catholic Church itself. There can be no higher evidence of the position of a denomination than its doctrinal books put forth to teach its own people. Thus the papal church acknowledges point-blank that it has dared to change the law of God by “substituting Sunday for Saturday.” It puts forth this claim to all the Protestant world as the highest evidence of its authority.ChSa 161.1