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I am quite prepared to maintain that.
The humiliation of Confession is an inconvenience not found in Protestantism, and from that point of view Protestantism is easier. On the other hand Christ was too merciful to leave us without some definite assurance of forgiveness, and He gave us a very definite Sacrament to alleviate our anxiety.
The reverse is the case. Protestants make the first commandment into two, and then, to escape having eleven, turn the ninth and tenth into one! The first commandment, as given in the Bible, is as follows: “I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange G…
“And shall the Fathers rather follow our authority, and the antiquity of Saints give way to be emended by us, and times now putrifying through their sins, pluck out the grey hairs of Apostolic age? And yet, my brother, be not troubled; Christian is my name, but Catholic my surname. The former gives me a name, the latter distingu…
Those walls, too, are not to keep the Sisters in, but to keep curiosity-mongers out, and to give the Sisters undisturbed tranquility in their attention to God and to their spiritual lives.
The same as between a Britisher and an Englishman, or if you wish, as that between the Jewish and the Mosaic religions. There is no real difference. The words Roman Catholic do not mean that there are other kinds of Catholics, but oniy that all true Catholics belong to that one great Church which has its centre in Rome. There ar…
You have seen young men ruined through their own lack of prudence and lonesty. Excess and dishonesty are absolutely to be condemned. I speak as strongly is you against such things, and not for a moment does the Catholic Church sanction iuch sin. But if a man sinfully invests money in betting or in lotteries, money vhich he is ob…
An indulgence of forty days means that the Church liberates us from that amount of expiation of our sins which would be equal to a forty days’ public penance in the early Church. It does not mean forty days less purgatory. Such an indulgence is called a partial indulgence.
Why did Christ try to convert people to His special doctrines? And whv did He send His Church to teach all nations? If God gives the truth to man by sending His Son, is it not better to have that truth to guide one’s conduct? Or is it better to be in partial or total ignorance, omitting much that ought to be done, and being forg…
On that argument He could not have changed from the Old Law to the New Law, nor from the Jews to the Christians. You should give up your Christian beliefs, and join the Jewish religion! Yet did not Christ say, “You have heard it said in the Law; but now I say unto you.” And He deliberately abrogated certain Jewish legislation co…
Because God wills that we should do so, and because such prayers to her are of the utmost value. God often wills to give certain favors only on condition that we go to some secondary agent. Sodom was to be spared through the intercession of Abraham; Naaman, the leper, was to be cured only through the waters of the Jordan. Now Ma…
I have never made that concession. We have to believe the Bible absolutely, but according to the exact sense intended by the Bible. If you think that we do not believe it absolutely because we do not subscribe to what you think ought to be the sense, that is no fault of ours. Nor is such an attitude of mind rational.
I am grateful for that admission that they try to be good. Meantime, if to take definite means to live a better life is to be guilty of a selfish moral end, then I wish that more men would labor for that selfish moral end. Those who enter monasteries or convents may escape certain classes of temptations, but they always have sel…
Grace is given directly in answer to prayer, but many very necessary graces are normally to be obtained only through the Sacraments instituted by Christ.
Yes. The Founder of the Catholic Church was certainly a Catholic, and history proves that Christ founded the Catholic Church, and identified it with Himself. Thus St. Paul says, “God hath made Him head over all the church (not churches) which is His body, and the fullness of Him who is filled all in all.” Eph. I., 22-23.
The Catholic Church can and does claim to have all the truth. For you must not confuse false ideas which are opposed to the truth with merely different angles of the truth. If, for example, it be true that Confession is a Sacrament instituted by Christ, then denial of Confession is not a different angle of the truth, but its neg…
That is not a rational question. I say that the universe is obviously created, and that what is created supposes a Creator who is uncreated, or the problem goes on forever, the whole endless chain of dependent beings as unable to explain itself as each of its links. It is rational to argue to an uncreated clock-maker. It is not …
It is not, and every Catholic would resent the charge that his offerings to God and to the Church are not prompted by supernatural motives, and are not voluntary, but given under compulsion. You have not the least idea of the Catholic spirit.
The delay was adapted to mankind’s natural methods of progress from the less perfect to the more perfect. It taught the human race its need of God from sad experience. It brought out the real dignity of Christ which could thus be heralded by a long series of prophets. God is not so impatient as man. He is quite content to wait f…
Some sex-books are banned, above all those which depend for their sale not upon their technical matter, but upon their lurid and suggestive style. Sex-books which are valuable to doctors and experts are allowed to them. As far as the ordinary non-professional human being is concerned, books treating of sex are not so valuable to…
Good. And I would be as willing that the other should have my contribution should he win, as he would be willing that I should have his in the event of my finning. You overlook the element of free contract.
You must not think that Catholics can do with their conscience what you can do with your conscience. A Protestant should say, “If Catholics really believe that their religion is the only form sanctioned by Christ, then I do not blame them for living up to their convictions. I would blame them did they seek to please men rather t…
You must have been reading Stevenson’s Suicide Club, and then eaten cucumbers and gone to bed with the fond hope that you would not have a nightmare after all! There is a Carmelite Convent in your suburb at Dulwich Hill, but it is not a Death Order. It is an Order devoted wholly to the life which alone really counts—that of God’…
No. Long hypocritical prayers are condemned. Prayer may be prolonged, but it must not be hypocritical, mechanical, or insincere. Christ said, “We ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Lk. XVIIL, 1. Again, “Watch ye therefore, praying at all times.” Lk. XXL, 36. He himself “went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the w…
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