The Nuns are kept behind menacing iron grilles even when talking to visitors.
You have got things wrongly again. The grille is not to keep the Nuns in, but to keep people out
The collection, page by page.
Every original article remains available. Choose a question and take your time.
Don’t Priests visit the bereaved and tell them that so many dollars are required per week for Masses?
No. Catholics are taught the truth from the pulpit in general. They are told that it is good to have Masses offered for the dead if possible; as indeed it is. Apart from that, the matter is left to the spontaneous desire of individuals. And they are never required to have such Masses offered.
But does not your allegiance to the Pope conflict with your duty as a British subject? Remember that your Church is controlled by a foreign temporal king.
To British Catholics the Church is not controlled by a foreigner. She is controlled by the Vicar of Christ. It would be just the same if St. Peter were still there to-day, and he was a Palestinian Jew. If a Frenchman or an Englishman were elected, no Italian Catholic would regard the Pope as Pope in the light of any foreign nati…
How did the idea that Christ was the Messiah get abroad? Who first knew it and taught it?
God first knew it, and from all eternity. He promulgated the doctrine from the very beginning of the human race, and continuously by the prophets of the Old Testament; Christ taught it clearly as the Gospels prove, and confirmed His claim by miracles; the Apostles and the Catholic Church have promulgated the doctrine throughout …
Does the Catholic Church make light of drunkenness. Isn’t it sin ful to cause blind misery and poverty in the home?
The Catholic Church does not make light of so grave a sin. It is an evil which leaves every one of us very miserable indeed. Man has obligations to God, to himself, and to his neighbor. Such drunkenness violates all three obligations. Few things so destroy God’s image and likeness in man as excessive drink. Other vices leave him…
Where are the original records?
The original documents have long since perished. The earliest copy is about fourth century, but 1600 years have had their effect even upon that copy. Even parchment perishes with time.
The constitution was changed by that very Augustine. The Church in England before him was not in communion with Rome.
Your statement is erroneous, and in any case you cannot claim that the present Church of England has any connection with the Church which was in England prior to the coming of St. Augustine. Let us put it this way. There are two sets of Bishops in England to-day. There are the Bishops of the Church of England, and the Bishops of…
Are not your priests a great army of drones who neither toil, nor spin?
That idea may arise in the minds of those who do not personally ask their services. But you cannot argue that, because they do nothing according to your specifications, they do nothing at all. Earth worms might similarly argue that men do nothing because they don’t burrow in the mud as they. Priests are regularly occupied in the…
In any case you have to admit that Protestants have more love for Scripture than Catholics. We owe the re-discovery of the Bible chiefly to the early Protestants.
I deny absolutely that Protestants love Scripture more than Catholics. Nor was the Bible ever re-discovered. Through all the centuries it had been carefully transcribed and preserved in Catholic monasteries, and was there already for Luther and others to broadcast.
What do you mean by original sin?
Actual sin is a deliberate personal transgression of God’s law. But original sin, which is inherited, does not mean that I have personally and maliciously transgressed. We must notice the difference between nature and grace. Nature is our being and all that our condition demands as rational animals. Grace means a gift or quality…
Are Priests different from other men?
As human beings—no; as called, not to the state of marriage, but to the Priesthood—yes. For this reason, whilst like all others who for one reason or another do not marry, they are obliged to avoid all sins against chastity; they also take upon themselves an additional obligation to do so under pain of sacrilege by vows of chast…
Does not the Church oppose Cremation because she knows that it renders any idea of a resurrection impossible?
No. Cremation does not affect the question of the resurrection. Cremation means but a more rapid separation of the elements of the body, and even if the ashes be scattered to the winds, God can quite easily reassemble those elements. What is impossible to us is not impossible to God. Remember that there is no such thing as the a…
How could the devil carry off God and set Him on a hill in Galilee from which he could see all the kingdoms of the earth?
God cannot be carried anywhere. He is a Spirit, and not subject to local transportation. Nor is it honest to attribute to God, making no mention of his incarnate human nature, that which happened to that human nature. The Son of God in His assumed human nature was subjected to this temptation. There is nothing repugnant in the d…
Aquinas compares Adam’s wisdom with that of Solomon, whilst anthropology shows that the first type of man was dimwitted and of small brain development.
Anthropology does not show that. That is part of the evolutionary guess. There is no scientific evidence whatever as to what degree of culture the first man possessed. Meantime it is certain that Adam had all the knowledge necessary and fitting for his circumstances. Genesis shows us that he knew the nature and diversity of anim…
Does drink enter Catholic presbyteries?
All of them have to keep special supplies of altar wine. Over and above this altar wine, reserved for sacramental use, drink enters some presbyteries, but not others. It depends upon the needs of the individual Priest. If a Priest took drink to excess, he would be guilty of sin, and a worse sin than a layman would commit owing t…
Does the Catholic Church recognise the Greek Orthodox Church as part of itself?
No. As a matter of fact there is no one Greek Orthodox Church. There are many independent Greek Churches. They originated by rebellion against the Catholic Church in the ninth century, and have split up into many different allegiances. As long as they refuse to submit to the authority of the Catholic Church they are as much outs…
Nevertheless, religion degrades man, giving a God-complex or an inferiority complex, with a subconscious reference to a supernatural authority in all actions.
Not subconscious, but conscious reverence for the authority of God certainly guides the conduct of a religious man. Your terminology is based upon a false idea that the notion of God is a kind of psychological abnormality due to natural causes. It is true that one with a right idea of God is fully aware that he personally is inf…
It tempts one to give up the Church.
That is foolish, and will not better things. Will you neglect other obligations because you have failed in this, and give up religion on the principle that he who commits one sin might just as well commit a dozen sins? The only thing to do after failure is to repent as men do of other sins, and try again to be faithful.
Why do Priests vest so elaborately when going to say Mass?
In Exodus, XXVIII., 2-3, we read of God’s prescriptions of the vestments befitting the dignity of His religion. “Thou shalt make a holy vesture for Aaron thy brother; for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom: that they may make Aaron’s vestments, in whi…
The genealogies of Christ as given by the Gospel afford one much difficulty. If Jesus was not the son of Joseph, why is His genealogy traced through Joseph?
Jesus was not the natural son of Joseph. But Mary, who was the Mother of Jesus, was related to Joseph, whose genealogy was also her own. It was a Jewish custom to record descent only through the male line.
Captalists eat bread in the sweat of the workers’ brows. What has your Church to say for the workers?
Most of those whom you would call capitalists have their own anxieties and labors. Do not make the mistake of measuring all labor in terms of muscular power. A man’s intelligence is capable of true work, and financial administration is not free from the sweat of anxiety. Meantime the Church declares that the worker must be adequ…
Tradition – The Catholic Church has the Answer
Why does the Catholic Church base some of her doctrines on tradition instead of basing them all on the Bible? Did Christ not tell the Pharisees that in holding to tradition they were transgressing the commandment of God? (Matt. 15:3, Mark 7:9).
The Church means an assembly of men united in prayer, not a building.
The word Church has a twofold sense. Its proper meaning is a union or assembly of men united not only in prayer, but also in a definite creed, worship, and obedience. In that sense I speak of the Catholic Church. Or again, it can refer to a building erected for purposes of worship by members of the Catholic Church, and in that s…
We Protestants say, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” when we recite the Creed.
The recitation of a formula does not make one a member of the true Church. A profession of belief in America would not make a man an American citizen. Citizenship in the Catholic Church involves actual reception into that Church and submission to her authority.