Testimonies of Roman Catholic scholars

Dollinger was a 19th century historian within the Roman Catholic fold. As all historians worth their salt, who do their research and make every attempt to record the facts as they happened (though it is impossible not to interpret them), Dollinger could not resist but make some very significant observations about Romanism.

In his Declarations, p. 131, he said: "It is clear that the building stones with which the Vatican system has been raised were taken from a series of forgeries and fictions."

Lord Acton, a Roman Catholic scholar, wrote: "The passage from the Catholicism of the Fathers to that of the modern popes was accomplished by wilful falsehood; the whole structure of traditions....stand on a basis of fraud."

Cardinal Newman, raised within Anglicanism, later converted to Romanism, left it on record: "Unless one doctored all one's facts one should be thought a bad Catholic."

Such testimonies come from the highest levels of Romanism, from persons who know it as it is, but because of various other factors, have continued to identify themselves with Romanism. The frankness and sincerity (generally speaking) of their writings bear record to the fact that it is virtually impossible to hide history as it developed throughout the centuries. Much as one would like to erase the hideous practices of Romanism, from the rise of the papacy in the fifth century to recent times, with all its false pretentions and forgeries, it is seen to be a difficult task indeed. Someone said, "God cannot change history, but historians do."

Now these are men who have done their best, in the interest of their ecclesiastical affiliation, to re-interpret history to their best advantage, but after all was said and done, they found it unreasonable and perhaps even against their own conscience to "obliterate" the past.

Thus it is evident that the extravagances and abuses of Romanism, much as one desires to hush them down, are way too much to be consigned to silence. The rubble is too obvious to be all swept under the carpet.