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A plenary indulgence remits all the punishment due to our sins. If one gained a plenary indulgence perfectly at the hour of death, he would be exempt from any purification in purgatory. Such an indulgence would not increase one’s merit, but would merely free from the penalties due to past sins. The conditions for the gaining of …
We acknowledge that in the case of each and every law which does not conflict with the law of Christ. In the matter of marriage there are laws which conflict with the law of Christ, and these state laws are not valid before God. As I have said, if every state law is necessarily the law of God, then you claim infallibility for th…
God has not deigned to satisfy our curiosity on that point, and the knowledge is not of practical importance to us. The fact that there is a purgatory has been revealed by God. And when He reveals a fact, we cannot say to Him, “Well, I for one refuse to believe it until You tell me more about it.” God proves a thing by saying it…
You have ignored the element of grace, and have not implored the help of God. Merely human reasoning is not enough. Brains cannot be the condition of salvation. If so, the intellectual would have a better chance of salvation than the less intelligent. You must look round for another method of approach to the religious problem. W…
Catholics believe that Jesus was God the Son, incarnate in human flesh, firstly because God’s physical manifestation on earth, plus all the circumstances of that manifestation, were prophesied time and again in Divine Revelation, and Jesus fulfilled that prophecy right to the letter; secondly, because He claimed that He was God …
Heaven is the destiny in which a human soul will, if saved, be happy in the clear and immediate sight of God for all eternity. Before the resurrection of the body the soul alone enjoys this vision of God; after the resurrection, the body will be re-united with the soul and will share in its glory and joy.
Apart from the fact that Priests give, not their own human ideas, but the teachings of the Catholic Church, it is certain that the layman cannot know theological matters as do Priests, even as you are not as well acquainted with jurisprudence and urgery as lawyers and doctors. A specialist in a subject by years of study is bound…
No. The mere fact that they are in schism involves secession from the Church of the Apostles, and a direct violation of the constitution of the Church. Prior to their secession the Greeks admitted the absolute necessity of union in die bond of Apostolic authority. The early Greek ecclesiastical writers afford sufficient evidence…
Some Protestants have those things, at least theoretically. Others have some of them. Others have none of them. But in any case they would not prove Protestants to be true Christians. At most they prove that some Protestants are attempting to do some Christian things. But a true Christian accepts the complete teaching of Christ,…
With the data at present at my disposal I cannot say. But I can conceive of any possibility except that the general resurrection will not occur. Remember that we are warned that the heavens and the earth as we know them will be changed, a new order of things coming into existence. Remember, too, that we are dealing with an omnip…
By going to Mass Catholics have remembered to keep holy the sabbath day, which is required. For the rest, Catholics are not allowed to do as they please afterwards. They are forbidden all unnecessary servile works, and are of course forbidden, as always, any sinful conduct. But they are not forbidden lawful relaxation from ordin…
The poor who belong to the Catholic Church far exceed in numbers the rich. As for convenience, the Catholic Church is the most inconvenient of all to live up to, although I admit that it is convenient to die in, since it fits one so well for one’s meeting with God.
Now I must ask you to take this reasonably. That there will be millions of human beings proves the existence of God. How can their number disprove it? Each being is a reason for God’s existence, and if anything, the multiplication of beings is the multiplication of reasons for His existence. Meantime I am not aware how many mill…
Had he left the Catholic Church in order to become a better man himself, and in order to make his people better, you might have a case. But he did not.
God himself would scarcely recognize tne portrait as authentic. God is not merely the author of all things, He is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in whose Name we have been baptized. The mere admission of a Great Architect suggests no intimate relations with Him, no knowledge of His intimate and personal life, no recognition of…
The stream of converts from the ranks of intelligent men is sufficient answer to that suggestion.
The Priest will certainly not tell the police. He can never act upon information submitted to him for the purpose of absolution before God.
That is verified in the Pope, whose official title is Servant of the servants of God. Being first, he is the servant of all Catholics. He ministers to our spiritual needs and gives his life to the work, renouncing a self-chosen career. But the words you quote do not dispense us from honoring the Pope as Vicar of Christ.
Those who undertake the duties of married life are forbidden deliberate and artificial birth-prevention. Priests called, not to married life, but to a different state altogether, have neither the rights nor duties of the married state. There is a vast difference between preventing children by setting God’s natural laws in operat…
That commandment comes after the commandments dealing with God’s personal rights, and it is to be observed for the love of God. It never demands that I dishonor God in order to honor my parents.
Had He ignored Mary He would not have been a very good son, nor would have had much respect for God who said, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Christ was a perfect example of virtue in all things. And if He did not recognize Mary, why did He go down to Nazareth and be subject to her? Why did He perform His first miracle at her…
I am quite sure that we differ in our ideas of what religious liberty means. The Catholic Church would give everybody the liberty to be religious. But liberty to propagate any religion at all is another matter. The abuse and misuse of liberty and freedom are dangerous things. A man can be subject to erroneous religions and free …
That is an antiquated interpretation abandoned by all the best scholars, Protestants included. Christ did demand a profession of faith from Peter as a pre-required condition, after that, conferring the fundamental primacy upon him personally. But to say that the profession itself was the rock has not a single valid reason in its…
He did. And we Catholics have but one Master—Christ. And we are serving Him even by the fulfillment of our lesser civic duties in so far as we do them for the love of Him. It is the man who gives himself up to worldly affairs in such a way as to separate them from the service of God wTho is attempting to serve two masters,
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