Moral Life2 min read
It is far from strange. Australia was colonized chiefly by Protestants. And because 75 per cent, of the population happens to be derived from Protestant forbears you prove, not that the Catholic Church is wrong, but only that the majority in this country happens to be Protestant. Again, this Protestant majority has not become Ca…
Mary, Saints & Angels1 min read
The Pope. Before he defines that a given soul is indeed a Saint, the advocates of the cause must prove that the person in question exercised all Christian virtues in a heroic degree—supreme faith, hope, and charity; perfect prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Also God’s own testimony by proven miracles wrought through …
Moral Life1 min read
Yes. When the Pharisees complained to Christ that His disciples did not fast, He replied that they did not whilst He was with them, but that they would when He had gone from them. Mk. II., 18. Now the Catholic Church, ordered by Christ to teach all nations whatsoever Christ had said to her, tells us that at certain times we must…
God & Faith2 min read
No man on earth can explain fully the Trinity. The finite mind cannot fully comprehend an infinite being. Even did God condescend to explain the doctrine fully to you, you would lack the capacity necessary in order to comprehend it. It is a revealed mystery to be accepted as true merely because God teaches it. However, we can ex…
Moral Life2 min read
In Matt. V., 26, Christ, in condemning sin, speaks of liberation only after expiation. “Thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing.” In Matt. XII., 32, He speaks of sin which “shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come.” Any remission of the effects of sin in the next world can re…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Is one broad-minded whose mind suspects evil and unspeakable proceedings in every building to which she does not happen to have access? And what of your own Anglican Sisterhoods? They model themselves on the lives of our Catholic Nuns. Those modest ladies, living prayerful and retired lives, do not throw their private rooms open…
Other Christians & Religions1 min read
Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the two Books of Machabees, and the various sections of other Books.
The Church1 min read
You are asking an impossible question. You might as well ask me, “Why has Australia declared war on Afghanistan?” No man could answer that question, because there is no answer to it. He could only reply, “Tell me first, are you under the impression that Australia has declared war on Afghanistan?” And if you replied in the affirm…
The Church1 min read
Catholics are human beings with souls devoted to the service of God according to their Catholic Faith, yet with bodies which link them with this world, and render them subject to social relations and duties. These duties are regulated to a great extent by civil law, and Catholics do their share as citizens in the making of those…
Other Christians & Religions1 min read
You would find it very difficult to name them. However, granting that you have read of some such claims, a little further study would show you that a critical and comparative examination such as Christian doctrine has had to undergo leaves these mythological claims devoid of reality, whilst the Christian fact emerges unscathed.
The Bible1 min read
It has never been revealed that any particular soul is in hell. Christ said of Judas, “Better for him had he never been born.” That does not look too hopeful in his case, for no matter what a man has to endure, if he attains eternal happiness in the end, much better to have been born. However, even of Judas, no man has absolute …
Last Things & Salvation1 min read
No one. The Catholic Church says that it is a mortal sin for a Catholic to eat meat on Friday knowingly and wilfully, without a sufficiently grave and excusing reason. Then that Church says that if a man dies in unrepented mortal sin, he will go to hell.
The Church2 min read
Why do Catholics pray to Mary and the saints when Sacred Scripture states that there is one Mediator between God and man – Christ Jesus? (1 Tim. 2:5).
The Church2 min read
It must seem like that to you, but in reality it is not. Parents co-operate with God in giving existence to children. But why is any man at all created? That he may save his soul and attain heaven. Marriage therefore has as its chief purpose the creating and training of children for their eternal destiny. And religion is therefo…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
It would not. The only fear of a novice when she enters is that she will be found unsuitable and not be accepted. Open the doors, and the Nuns will close them again, as they did in the first place, imploring the Church to let them do so with her blessing. They are happy in their self-chosen state. If you threw open the doors of …
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Any baptized child could receive Holy Communion with profit. The early Christians frequently gave Communion even to infants. However, the Church for wise reasons requires in her present discipline that children should have attained sufficient reason to be able, after due instruction, to know that the Blessed Sacrament differs fr…
Moral Life1 min read
That would indeed be a wonderful way. It is surprising that the big business people have not thought of it. They have but to insert an advertisement in die newspapers, “It is sinful not to purchase at our establishment,” and the first firm that does so will have all rival firms closed in no time. It is a wonder that the modern w…
Other Christians & Religions1 min read
If so, how can you deny that Masonry is a non-Catholic form of religion? And even granting that your ritual is a worship of God, it is a worship opposed to the way in which He Himself wants you to worship Him. And what of the Masonic claim that the very rites are derived from ancient pagan mysteries?
Moral Life1 min read
Because if God ever had a beginning, then before He began there was nothing. Now nothing, with nothing to work upon, and no faculties with which to work, could never turn its non-existent self into something. But there is obviously something, and there can never have been a time when there was nothing. God at least must always h…
Moral Life1 min read
No sophistry is likely to deceive all the people all the time. But Catholic Priests do not rely upon sophistry, and your supposition that they are opponents of true science is absurd in view of the fact that they have done as much, if not more than any other body of men in the world to spread science and genuine education. If th…
The Church1 min read
Scripture tells us that he was head of the Church, which implicitly demands that ie was universal Bishop, and it also tells us, as I have said, that he was in Rome.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
If they were not, that would not justify birth-control. The end does not justify the means. However I do not deny that individual cases of extreme poverty occur where there happens to be large families. But they occur also where there are not large families. I deny however that parents cannot normally support the children which …
God & Faith1 min read
One has to exist before one can be consulted, and then it is rather late to consult us concerning that which has already occurred. We therefore had no choice in this particular matter. Nor could we reasonably wish to have a choice. If a thing will necessarily be to my harm, I would reasonably wish to have an opportunity of decli…
Mary, Saints & Angels1 min read
Priests also dress with simplicity. They are not always in vestments. As for Christ, he too went to the Temple, and took part in its worship, never condemning its ritual. With the establishment of His own Church in fulfillment of the Old Law, He ordained His own Priests after the Order of Melchisedech in place of the Levitical P…