Book Review: Crux Ansata— An Indictment Of The Roman Catholic Church, By H. G. Wells

This article is from a PDF file on LutheranLibrary.org. It was published by The Converted Catholic Magazine.

H. G. WELLS, world-known author and historian, gives us in this latest book his frank convictions about the meddling, reactionary policies of the Roman Catholic Church — from its first tie-up with the Emperor Constantine to its present unholy alliance with the Nazi-Fascist-Shinto Axis. He sums up his conclusions as follows:

“As this present world war goes on, and even if there is some sort of temporary half peace before it deepens into a tangle of minor wars, it will become plainer and plainer that it is no longer a geographically determined warfare of governments, nations and peoples, but the world-wide struggle of our species to release itself from the strangling octopus of the Catholic Church. Everywhere the Church extends its tentacles and fights to prolong the Martyrdom of Man.”

In his pointed style, Mr. Wells bluntly warns his countrymen in England in the following passage, which is even more applicable to the people of America:

“The over-confident liberalism of the early nineteenth century enfranchised this body of outlanders, believing it would in some mysterious manner play the game of mutual toleration which seemed so natural to the essentially skeptical and secular liberal mentality. Nothing of the sort ensued. Steadily, persistently, the Catholic Church has worked for the destruction of that very liberalism which restored it to political influence. Persecuting relentlessly where it was in the ascendant, and canting about individual liberty of conscience wherever it was faced by a modern organization of society, this mental cancer has spread itself back to destroy the health and hope of our modern world.”

Written in his usual striking and scholarly style, this latest work of the famous British author is like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room, and should be welcome ventilation of a subject that is generally taboo to the people of America.

Download and read H.G. Wells’ Crux Ansata from a PDF file.