God & Faith1 min read
This fact does not invalidate the reasons given already, and is also easily explained. The soul whilst in a state of union with the body operates by using the faculties of that body. If the sense instruments are incapacitated, the soul can no longer operate adequately whilst united to the body. But once released from the body, i…
The Bible2 min read
Have you proved all things? Your own fantastic interpretations show that you have not. The text you quote has a meaning very different from that you attribute to it. It refers to conduct. The full text is, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves.” In other words, “Reflect, …
Other Christians & Religions1 min read
The Catholic Church has to condemn Protestantism as a system. But she desires to insult no single Protestant. That Protestants are human beings does not prove their religion true. Otherwise the fact that Catholics are human beings also would prove their religion true. As a matter of fact, in so far as Protestants are human being…
The Church1 min read
You have never seen an idol in a Catholic Church. An image is an idol only when it is the object of divine worship. You have seen images in Catholic Churches, but every Catholic knows that divine worship cannot be offered to such images. Would you call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol? As for your not seeing si…
Sacraments & Worship2 min read
CHAPTER 10. — THE SACRAMENTS: BAPTISM.
God & Faith2 min read
We have already seen that there is a God. Inability to comprehend every detail in the universe does not prove that there is no God, but merely the limited capacity of the finite human mind. However, the human mind can propose certain principles which go a long way towards the removal of difficulties. Firstly, evil is really the …
God & Faith1 min read
But rational men can do so. If you are not a Catholic, it is not sound reasoning that keeps you outside the Church. Defective information, mere want of thought, prejudice, moral cowardice, heredity, environment, and a hundred other factors may conspire to keep men outside the Catholic Church. But sound reason never does. Sound r…
The Bible1 min read
They are not. Where other men’s reasonings are concerned, Catholics should test them for themselves, and if they prove faulty, should reject them. But the Catholic Church says that when God has revealed a truth it is no longer a question of men’s reasonings, and that we are not morally free to assert the opposite. We are obliged…
The Church1 min read
She does not hope to do so if it means watering down Christian obligations. Christ could have kept many of His Jewish followers by saying that He did not mean His words, “The bread which I shall give is My flesh.” The Jews said, “This is a hard saying. Who can accept it?” But Christ let them go rather than keep them by mitigatin…
God & Faith1 min read
That is a most extravagant assertion. It is true that we are material beings as regards our bodily frame. But we are not merely material. Our flesh and blood cannot think. But we have intelligence also, and we believe things with our mind, not with our flesh and blood. We cannot be expected to believe in things which our minds c…
The Church1 min read
If you think that, by departing from the truth, the Catholic Church forfeited the claim to be the true Church, then you believe that the infallible retention of the teachings of Christ must be a mark of the true Church. Is your own Church, therefore, infallible? Does it even claim to be so? I admit that if the Catholic Church ha…
God & Faith2 min read
In that text Christ says, “I tell you of a truth: There are some standing here that shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.” But those words have no reference to the end of the world. Christ often called His Church His Kingdom. When He said to St. Peter, “I will build my Church . . . and give to thee the keys of …
Mary, Saints & Angels1 min read
You’ve got it the wrong way round. Between each ten Hail Marys an Our Father is said. The Rosary is essentially a devotion to Mary, honoring her whom God Himself so honored. And it honors her particularly in her relation to Christ, whose life is the subject of the meditations. The Our Father abstracts from the incarnation of Chr…
Moral Life1 min read
Religion is not supposed to be an easy road to temporal prosperity in things which death takes from those who have them. It is the road, not always comfortable, to never-ending and eternal happiness. We do not expect religion to result in earthly advancement. If it did men would rush it as a good business proposition, and offer …
The Church2 min read
They are not. Certain countries, whose inhabitants happen to be mainly Catholics, are characterized by frequent political upheavals, but that is a very different matter. Temperament accounts for this in some degree. Descendants of the Latin races have not the same calm self-possession of the colder and more phlegmatic northern E…
Last Things & Salvation1 min read
It does not mention the precise word purgatory. But the intermediate state of purification described by that word is there.
Moral Life1 min read
He did not.
Mary, Saints & Angels9 min read
The Rosary begins with the Our Father, a prayer taught by Jesus Himself in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4 . This prayer, central to Christian life, addresses God as Father and seeks His will, forgiveness, and provision. In the Rosary, it serves as a foundational act of worship, uniting the faithful with Christ’s own words. Its s…
Sacraments & Worship2 min read
No. The chief thing in Christianity is the forgiveness of sin to secure salvation, not the healing of the body to put off a little longer the death, which must come sooner or later. Christ gave the Apostles the power to forgive sin and to heal. The power to forgive sin was essential and necessary, and it has passed to all succee…
Last Things & Salvation1 min read
The idea that there is no hell is neither progressive nor scientific. It is not progressive, for it is not progress to leave people ignorant of a chasm yawning beneath their feet. If to take the truth from people and leave them in error be progress, then only could you call this progress. Nor is it scientific. There is not a jot…
Moral Life1 min read
Work which in olden times used to be given to servants and slaves, and which is chiefly performed by bodily labor and for bodily needs. Liberal and mora intellectual works are not forbidden.
God & Faith1 min read
The temptation of Christ does not suggest that He doubted His Divinity. His clear calm replies show anything but doubt. At perfect peace interiorly, He allowed an external temptation in order to teach us how to behave on similar occasions.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
The Duke was a Protestant when the decision was given. Nor was it promptly given. The application was made to the Southwark diocesan court in 1925. This court, after scrutinizing all the evidence, gave judgment in February, 1926, that the first marriage was invalid from the beginning. Rome, not opposing the decision, but lest it…
The Church2 min read
Why does the Catholic Church discourage Bible reading when, according to the Apostle, “All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach…[and] to instruct in justice”? (2 Tim. 3:16).
