Facts of Faith

Romanizing Textbooks

In the first place, all general histories used in our public schools and high schools had to be revised to eliminate every trace of the objectionable features from their pages. Plain historical facts of the Middle Ages, - such as the popes’ interference with public government (as in the case of Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, A. D. 1077, and King John of England, A. D. 1213); the persecution of Waldenses, Albigenses, and Huguenots; the Inquisition; the sale of indulgences; and the Reformation, - all had to be eliminated or rewritten so as to exonerate the Papacy, and brand its opponents simply as political offenders and revolutionists, who suffered at the hand of the civil government, instead of being persecuted by the Church for their religion. FAFA 243.4

Such radical changes could never have been accomplished so quietly if Protestantism had not been asleep. At times it became necessary to create public sentiment against a certain textbook through newspaper articles written by some learned Catholic professor, and then pressure was brought to bear on school boards to eliminate it, substituting for it a Romanized book. Thus Swinton’s “Outlines of History” was thrown out of the schools, and “Anderson’s History” was black listed, but later revised according to Catholic wishes, and brought back to take the place of Swinton’s. Myers’s “Medieval and Modem History” was also censored. At first the author refused to change it, claiming “history is history,” but later it was revised and came into quite general use for a time. Not all of this was done in the dark. As one example of protest we refer the reader to Senate Document on Public Hearing before the United States Committee on Education and Labor, Friday, February 15, 1889, and Friday, February 22, 1889, on “Senate Resolution No. 86. ²³ Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Respecting Establishment of Religion and Free Public Schools,” which unmasks some of this work. We shall now point out two of the vital changes made in our textbooks: FAFA 244.1

(1) The Catholic Church will never acknowledge the Reformation of the sixteenth century as a reform, but brands it as a “revolt” against the authority of the pope, and as a “revolution.” A sure earmark, therefore, of all Romanized textbooks is the fact that they never speak of the Reformation as a work of reform but as “the Protestant Revolt,” “the Protestant Revolution,” “the so-called Reformation,” or “what is called the Reformation.” Let any one look it up in the schoolbooks used by his children, and see for himself. FAFA 244.2

To give the readers who may not have seen the textbooks used in our schools today an idea of what the Protestant children are taught, we shall take the “History of Western Europe,” by Professor J. H. Robinson, as an example. It has the following chapters on the Reformation of the sixteenth century: chapter 24, “Germany Before the Protestant Revolt”; chapter 25, “Martin Luther and His Revolt Against the Church”; chapter 26, “Course of the Protestant Revolt in Germany”; chapter 27, “The Protestant Revolt in Switzerland and England.” Chapter 25 says: “As Luther became a confessed revolutionist, he began to find friends among other revolutionists and reformers.” p. 393. Chapter 28 takes up the effort of the Catholics to destroy the Reformation by a counter-reform, by the work of the Jesuits, and the bloody persecution of Protestants in Spain, in the Netherlands, and France. This chapter is entitled. “The Catholic Reformation,” and yet it comes the farthest from deserving the title of reformation of all the above-mentioned chapters. In these Romanized textbooks the historical facts of the Middle Ages are entirely reversed. The way the last-mentioned chapter extols the Jesuits shows who has put their stamp on the book. Senator Thomas E. Watson truthfully says: FAFA 245.1

“In the public schools the Catholics have stealthily introduced textbooks written by Jesuits, and your children are being taught that the Roman church was misunderstood in the past; that its doctrines are not fatal to humanity and gospel religion; that its record is not saturated with the blood of innocent millions, murdered by papal persecutors, and that there never was such a monstrosity as the alleged sale of papal pardons of sins. FAFA 245.2

“Educate youth in this Catholic way, and the consequences are logical.” — “Roman Catholics in America Falsifying History and Poisoning the Minds of Protestant School Children,” p. 5. Thompson, Ga.: 1928. FAFA 245.3