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Show Not the True Church. From time to time the Protestant Euiscopal church in America claims to be the Catholie church, or a branch of the Catholic church of England, which also occasionally claims to be a branch of the Catholic church. That the P. E. church is neither the Catholic church nor a branch of it was unintentionally proved in open court in Chicago during the week. The Rev. Dr. Kemp. Protestant Episcopal Epis-copal minister, on trial charged with a heinous crime and shameless sin, suddenly sud-denly rose, and to the amazement of the court, the astonishment of a number num-ber of other ministers of his faith and the confusion of all right thinking men. deliberately revealed a confession made to him by a penitent youth. Under no circumstances would any Catholie priest have been guilty of such infamy. Rather than do so, any priest would suffer his tongue to be4torn out, his hands to be cut off and his body burned at the stake. Priests cheerfully cheerful-ly have gone to martyrdom before now rather than reveal the .secrets of the confessional. In the state of Kentucky some years ago Father Lambert Voting spent months in jail rather than violate vio-late the sacred' tribunal. No wonder the Chicago prosecuting attorney was p'-iocked and astounded. He declared the first instance of the kind that hail ever occurred in a Chicago court. Probably it is the first time the like has ever occurred in an Ai-rican court. To put it mildly, it is mortifying to reflect that the lips of a minister professing Christianity should have done such a shameless thing. Hitherto the New World has had nothing to say of the Kemp ease, or of its predecessor, which involved similar charges against another Protestant Episcopal minister. St. Paul says there are some things which should not even be mentioned among Christians. However, How-ever, the sacrilege of revealing the secrets se-crets of the confessional is entirely too shocking to be passed over. Whatever the court may determine with regard to Rev. Dr. Kemp is not our concern. That man already has written himself down unworthy to wear a clerical garb. He ought to be ashamed of himself since he most certainly has shamed humanity. hu-manity. If he were a real priest he would not be guilty of such thing. Chicago New World. |