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Because they love their self-chosen life. Not one of the Nuns would have entered unless she had chosen to do so. Nor is any Nun allowed to take her final vows until after at least four years of experience of the life to see whether she is satisfied even after entering. You might as well suggest that no married woman remains fait…
Yes. Award wages are the legal price of the work to be done, and when a legal award is given, it binds in conscience. The Pope has condemned absolutely and most rigorously the conduct of those employers who exploit the evil of unemployment by inducing men to accept work at less than just wages. The legal award must be accepted a…
That is a question of science, not of faith or morals. The Pope is not infallible on every possible question, nor has the Church ever maintained him to be so. If you have difficulties because the Pope is not infallible when he is not supposed to be infallible you have only yourself to blame.
That does not mean that it is the religion of the kitchen. Nor was Father Martindale alluding to the qualities of the religion. He was rebuking the dispositions of those who so regarded Catholicism. He was blaming men who are so blind to the real facts that, because many of the lower classes do happen to be Catholics, they look …
The substance of Christ’s body is not subject to processes of digestion or to any chemical reactions. The qualities of bread of course behave in their normal way, undergoing a change as they are affected by digestion. Our Lord’s substantial presence ceases as these qualities cease to retain those characteristics proper to bread.
She is not a reliable witness. Her whole record is criminal. She died in 1903, but not before becoming a celebrity on the Protestant platform. Under the name of Miss Douglas she was arrested for forgery, and served sentences on other counts under the aliases of Parkyn, Edgerton, and Margaret Shepherd in Bodmin, Cornwall, and Lon…
Such considerations cannot affect the question. They are based upon the evil principle that the end can justify the means. You think you have a good purpose-let there be less of us to enjoy more. With this good end in view, you think to justify birth-control even though by immoral means! It cannot be done. The Church can never t…
The Church does not say that strikes are forbidden. If the wrongs to be righted are serious and urgent, and ordinary means fail, then workers can have recourse to extraordinary means. A general strike is forbidden as morally wrong, because the evils it causes are nearly always greater than those to be remedied. But the workers i…
Outside the Catholic Church, yes. But in the Catholic Church the exact religion of Christ has come down to us in virtue of Christ’s promise to be with His Church all days till the end of the world. This assertion will be justified in a later section.
The Catholic Church teaches that sacred tradition and sacred scripture form a single deposit of faith, a concept rooted in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 . This verse instructs believers to hold fast to traditions taught by word or letter, suggesting that oral teachings carry divine authority alongside written scripture. Protestants, part…
If the child is brought up as a Protestant it has the same chance as any Protestant in similar circumstances from other points of view. If brought up as a Catholic, it has the additional helfs of the Catholic religion just as any other Catholic child, except that it has the bad example of a non-Catholic parent ignoring obligatio…
Not merely as a secret society, but as one involving a particular kind of secrecy. A member takes a solemn oath to keep secret any matters heard within the Lodge with no previous idea of their nature and with no certainty of the extent to which he is committing himself. Many a man who has taken that oath has refused, because of …
Priestcraft is the product of man’s imagination, superstition, and perhaps fear. But priestcraft has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. The Catholic priesthood, a very different thing, is of divine institution, as can be proved to the hilt.
Who told you that the vows were dreadful? Have you tried them? I have taken exactly the same vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as the Nuns, and they are no more difl&cult for a Nun to keep than for myself. I do not find them dreadful. And the evidence of one who has experienced a thing is worth the assertions of ten milli…
The authority of the priesthood will be the subject of our consideration in due time. Meantime the denominations were not necessary according to the mind of Christ. He prayed that all might be one, as He and His Father are one. St. Paul said that even though an Angel from heaven were to preach a gospel differing from that alread…
The man who knows what God says about the matter is likely to be right rather than the one who knows little or nothing of God’s law. Meantime the birth controller does not love truth for its own sake. Rather he loves sensuality for its own sake. Violation of Catholic teaching in this matter is also a violation of reason, and tho…
The origin of the number of bells to be tolled is uncertain. The triple ringing reminds us of the Most Holy Trinity. The final nine bells may have been arranged merely for the sake of harmony and symmetry, although some writers see in that number a reminder of the nine choirs of Angels who invite us to adore God with them.
They were never sold with the sanction of the theology of the Church. If unscrupulous individuals sold indulgences, such traffic in them would no more militate against the Church than would my own conduct did I myself adopt the practice privately.
I have read it many times. But nothing in the Bible disproves the fact of its inspiration. It may be difficult to secure the right interpretation of certain passages, or to grasp the principles involved, but our difficulty in comprehending everything, a difficulty to be expected, avails nothing against the known fact that the Bi…
The question of Cain’s wife emerges from a careful reading of Genesis 4:17 , where Cain, after slaying Abel, settles in the land of Nod and marries. The text states that Cain “knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch,” but provides no further details about her identity or origin. This brevity has puzzled readers, as Genes…
Catholics follow the laws of their Church not apathetically, but willingly. They know that her legislation rejoices in the authority of Christ. You might just as well say, “If I have to follow the ten commandments apathetically, I might as well have been born without freewill.” You are mixing up physical freedom with moral freed…
And is not one doing wrong when he refuses to bother about doctrinal belief? Why did Christ say, “He that believes shall be saved?” Why did He send the Apostles to teach doctrine? Not only are good works required, but also the true faith.
The Rosary is a special form of devotion to Mary. One takes a set of beads, divided into five sections, each section consisting of one large bead and ten small ones. Holding the large bead, one says the Our Father, and on each of the small ones, the Hail Mary. Between each section or decade the Gloria is said. Whilst saying the …
Because the ancestors of its present members rejected and left the Catholic Church, setting up Churches of their own. But must the religion of the British Empire be the true religion? Is that the infallible test? If Anglicanism is true because it is British, we may as well add, “and because it is not French, or Spanish, or Itali…
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