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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
By Manuel Garrido Aldama
Here is the amazing account of God's ways in trans forming a Catholic priest into a preacher of the Gospel to the largest Spanish speaking congregation in the world. Characteristically, Dr. Aldama, of Radio Station HCJB, " The Voice of the Andes," makes no mention of stonings, imprisonments, and other persecutions which he has endured for Christ's sake. During those years, especially the last four, which were devoted nearly exclusively to the study of Dogmatic and Moral Theology, my faith in Romanism, and in God for that matter (for to me then the only possible religious faith was the Roman faith) was decreasing in inverse ratio to my increased knowledge of the peculiar Roman Catholic dogmas. The ones that disturbed more strongly in me the blind and absolute assent demanded by the Church, were the two that were declared dogmas at or in connection with the Vatican Council at the end of the last century, namely, the Infallibility of the Pope and the Im maculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. So strongly did I object to them that the Professor of Dogmatic Theology said to me one day in an irate manner: “If you do not refrain from your dangerous ways of thinking, some day you will be a heretic.” In subsequent years, when he learned that I had given up the church, no doubt he ex claimed: “My prophecy has been fulfilled.” Ordination and Break When the time came for me to be ordained, I ex plained frankly to the ordaining Bishop how my faith had been shaken in the years of training, and that I would much prefer to be sent to teach subjects that had no bearing on religion rather than to be placed in charge of a church in which I would be responsible for the wel fare of souls. To this he agreed, and I was sent to teach secular subjects in a college in Santander, in the North of Spain. From that time on, things went from bad to worse as far as my religious faith was concerned, until I arrived at a spiritual state in which I denied the goodness of all religion, and even the existence of a good God seemed to me to be an impossibility. I saw that I could not carry on any longer in the priesthood and determined to give it up. As it was danger ous for me to do this in Spain, I went to the United States and from there to England. After some time in London, feeling that I could make a living independently of the church, I wrote a letter to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, telling him that I was not going to say Mass any more and therefore it was up to him to appoint some one else to take my place. In this apparently easy way, I realized a desire that had been in my mind for several years: I thought I had escaped all religion and that in such a large city as London no one would bother me any more with religious matters. However, this was far from the facts! the studies and following the strict training that were required to be a fully qualified priest.
T O THOSE who love the Lord Jesus Christ, it has be come a Biblical axiom that our thoughts are not God's thoughts, and our ways are not His ways; that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, and that they are “past finding out.” Whilst we, finite and fallible creatures, make plans and try to find ways for the attain ment of our human aims and desires, He very often uses the same means for the realization of His higher plans. We find this to be true in the lives of many of the Bible characters. This too has been the happy experience of my life. I was born in Spain, in a typical Spanish Roman Catholic home. In those days, the highest aspiration of a good, devout Roman Catholic mother was to have her son become a priest. My dear mother, being one of them, concentrated all her prayers and persuading power in impressing upon my tender mind that being a priest was the worthiest profession a man could aspire to, and that one who was thus chosen by God had conferred upon him greater honor and dignity than were granted to the angels or even to Christ’s mother, as none of them had the power of forgiving sins or offering anew the sacrifice of Calvary. My father was not of the same opinion, and had not God taken him away' when I was tèn years of age, I would not have been allowed to enter the priesthood. But, as soon as my father died, when I Was scarcely eleven years old, my mother sent me to the Roman Catholic seminary in Madrid to start my training. At that age, I could not realize what to be a priest meant or implied, but I knew that such were my mother’s longings, and I Was not going to displease her if I could help it. So I spent the next twelve years tailing
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