For your reading pleasure:
A Catholic Utterance
In a pamphlet entitled The Strength of the Mormon Position, the late Elder Orson F. Whitney, of the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, related the following incident under the heading “A Catholic Utterance”:
Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well-acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy. One day he said to me: “You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.”
(LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, p. 3)
A conveniently anonymous "Roman Catholic scholar"; perhaps fabricated, for the sake of the anecdote? Heh, heh.
The truth of the matter is, the best Roman Catholic apologetic scholars (like Hilaire Belloc) regard John Calvin as the greatest of all "heresiarchs", and Calvinism as the most lively and effective of all "heresies". Mormonism, to the extent that Catholic apologists even consider the small Utah-centered religious sect, is generally regarded as a rather silly little theological absurdity; hardly worthy of the big guns of Roman Catholic apologetic scholarship.