The Pope’s Dream of Power

This is from a PDF file of the Converted Catholic Magazine of February 1945. I found it on archive.org.

In 1932 (under the Spanish republic) there were 160 Protestant places of worship in Spain; in 1942 (under Franco) there were two,” says Rev. Dr. John A. Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary in an article in the magazine Commission for December, 1944. He says further:

“In 1941, after world democracy had let down Republican Spain and refused to grant to a constitutional government the rights which it had under international law, it became possible for Hitler and Mussolini to stab Spain. The Pope and the Franco Government entered into one of the most iniquitous concordats of all time. Nobody can enter government service unless he has had a Roman Catholic education.”

Of the Vatican’s tie-up with Mussolini, Dr. Mackay states:

“In 1929 the Pope entered into a concordat with the Fascist government of Italy. New dreams of power were born within the Roman Catholic Church.

“Protestant missionary societies began to feel the pressure in Portuguese and Belgian countries. The Roman dream was that as North Africa was Moslem and South Africa Protestant, all Central Africa should be Roman Catholic. Then came the unhappy incident in Ethiopia.”

(End of article.)

I think the “unhappy incident in Ethiopia” is referring to the victory of the Allies against the Italian forces during World War II in East Africa. See the East African campaign on Wikipedia.