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No. He desired to show us that he knew the future by revelation, but that he was not free to manifest all that he knew to us. He explicitly says, “Let him that hath understanding count the number.” The understanding required is not merely human wisdom, but an understanding on the same high plane as was the very revelation given …
Firstly, there is no more difficulty why Christ should be descended from these more proximate sinners than that He should be descended from a sinful first parent. Secondly, the immediate source of Christ’s human nature was purified from all inherited sin, Christ receiving a true human nature from Mary without the co-operation of…
No one can honestly accuse the Catholic Church of not endeavoring to do her part in this matter.
Confirmation is a Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ as a complement to Baptism. As there is a sacrament of spiritual birth, so there is a sacrament of spiritual virility, conferring the grace required for growth in good will, fidelity, and Christian courage.
Although Christ was crucified between two thieves, He had friends amongst the rich, and often dined in the houses of the wealthy. If the rich to-day are unjust, and violate God’s laws, Christ would condemn them according to the measure of their iniquity. He would not condemn them otherwise. He never condemned riches as such. Whe…
Yes.
That is an absurd statement, for there is no eternal happiness outside Heaven. But I understand what you mean. You believe the Catholic Church to be wrong, and you will not do what you believe to be evil that good may come. But God does not want you to do that. Nor do I. As long as you believe the Catholic Church to be wrong, yo…
Jacob did not rob Esau. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, and Jacob obtained blessings which belonged, not to Esau, but to himself. When Isaac asked, “Are you my son Esau?” he really wished to know whether he was speaking to the son to whom he should give his blessing. Jacob, knowing that he was the son who should receive it, r…
The Anglican Church did not exist then. But when later established it gradually adopted Protestant principles, and is a Protestant Church.
He does not sin again because of his Confession; nor does his fall say that he was not truly repentant when he confessed. Christ said something about forgiving seventy times seven. How often would you forgive? And isn’t it better to try, fail through weakness, and repent, than to abandon all efforts to return to God’s grace?
We do not condemn any good they are able to accomplish. Meantime the Catholic Church has charitable works on a much vaster scale. And she condemns the Masonic system, without casting reflection upon the sincerity of individual Masons or the good works of the Craft
Since Mary always possessed that honor the Church did not withhold it from her. The definition that Mary did possess such an honor was given by the Church when necessity demanded it. There was no real dispute about this matter in the early Church. In the middle ages theologians attempted a deeper analysis of the privileges of Ma…
Things were permitted in the Old Law not in keeping with the more perfect New Law. But the change is in the Law. There is nothing in the Old Testament which violates any attribute of God, save, of course, the sins of men described in the Old Testament. These latter are recorded, not with approval, but as evil to be reprehended, …
Worm-eaten as the foundations of the Catholic Church may seem to you, the fact remains that she keeps adding story after story to her skyscraper heights. The Arians told her that her foundations were worm-eaten in the 4th century; the Greeks in the 9th; the Protestant Reformers in the 16th; the Rationalists in the 18th, and a fe…
That is true, if God failed to do so. But He did not. Your reason tells you that Christianity teaches certain mysterious things. You ask on what authority it so teaches. You are told that Almighty God has revealed those doctrines. At once the fact that the doctrines are extraordinary becomes of no account. God must know, and is …
A man is saved who is free forever from the prospect of going to the eternal misery of hell. The soul that is saved has necessarily been separated from this earthly life of probation, and has gone either to purgatory for a time, or immediately to the eternal happiness of heaven.
You wrongly suppose that the Church insists upon attendance at Mass and money-giving, and that she is indifferent to truth and good living. You should ask Catholics who do attend Mass what they are taught, instead of making prejudiced guesses.
It can function in any state, whatever its form of civil government, provided of :ourse that the government in question at least leaves the Church to itself, and does not persecute or expel it.
That is not true. No Catholic is physically compelled to abstain from meat on Fridays. It is a moral obligation, adding the virtue of obedience to that of Chris-ian mortification. On your method of reasoning you should say that a man should voluntarily abstain from stealing, and that it is wrong to do so because God has said, ‘T…
Few Protestant ministers would thank you for that remark. There is, however, no need to pretend to be better. There is need to be better. Christ said to His Apostles, “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt lose its savor! . . . You are the light of the world. So let your light shine before men that they may see your goo…
Such texts must be interpreted in the light of other passages where God reveals that Mary was never under the dominion of Satan. Mary is included in these words of St. Paul juridically in so far as she was born of Adam, but she was not allowed to be born in sin to be afterwards redeemed. She was redeemed by prevention.
Yes. He was chosen as a type, and really did serve God in the midst of great trials. But the incident has been described in poetical form, allowing for the use of literary description and amplification. I could tell the same facts in dry technical language, or in glowing prose, or in highly polished verse, and the literary form …
No. Whatever abuses arose in later times, the early saintly Popes, nearly all of them martyrs for Christ, were not the men to seek after office, and dignities which they knew to be spurious.
Why are Catholic lay people usually given Holy Communion only under the one form of bread? By not giving the consecrated bread and wine, isn’t the Catholic Church depriving its people of the full benefit of Holy Communion?
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