Since the Reformation, Protestant countries have advanced in every way.

Many of them have not advanced from a worldly point of view, and none of them has advanced in Christian holiness and virtue. Those Protestant countries which have shown material progress do not owe it to their adoption of Protestantism. I admit, of course, that Protestantism has allowed men to divert their attention from spiritual to material interests. Undivided attention to worldly pursuits would make for additional progress in such affairs. But, in the main, scientific and temporal progress would have come in any case. The Reformation arrived almost simultaneously with an era of discoveries, which were the cumulative result of preceding Catholic genius. In the new industrial era, too, the northern European countries, which happened to be Protestant, had the necessary coal and iron. But the coal and iron would have been there just the same had they remained Catholic.

Radio Replies Volume 1 by Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble MSC and Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty