Christ died for all. He did not say that we must all be Catholics.
Since Christ died for all, it follows that He wants all to belong to the one Church He established and endowed with His authority.
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Every original article remains available. Choose a question and take your time.
Would it not be better to say that religion is a matter of conscience?
No. If the individual conscience is to be the guide, there will be as many religions as consciences. There are right consciences and wrong consciences. Conscience is right if it squares with the laws of God. It is warped if it be at variance with the will of God. However, if conscience alone matters, why did not Christ leave us …
Is it a sin against the law of God to support Cremation?
The natural law of morality does not forbid it, nor has God directly given a positive law in the matter. It is a disciplinary law of the Catholic Church, and a very grave one. The Church could suspend the law, and permit Cremation in certain circumstances, as in the case of an epidemic or in war time. But normally she insists up…
Does not the Church absolutely forbid Catholics to become Freemasons?
Yes.
How can marriage be a Sacrament?
A Sacrament is a visible rite instituted by Christ for the signifying and giving of grace. Marriage is a visible rite, witnessed by men. It has been elevated by Christ to sacramental dignity. It signifies something very sacred, the union of Christ with His Church, as St. Paul tells us. Eph. V., 22-33. There is but one Christ and…
But at least the plan of salvation can be understood by the simplest person. We Protestants even tell our children to read their Bibles in order to discern it.
According to the findings of your simple readers there must be hundreds of conflicting plans of salvation, all revealed by the one Christ! As for the capacity of your children, you might as well give them the article in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica on Spectroscopic Analysis as the subject matter of their studies. But the Bible i…
How can a man be born again?
Just as the soul is the life of the body, so grace is the life of the soul in the supernatural order. Now life is attained by birth. We are born into this earthly existence from our earthly parents. But we are born without the principle of God’s grace which carries with it a right to a life of eternal happiness with God. Thus a …
Cannot the Congregationalist make out an equally strong case for a universal spiritual brotherhood, but toith local independence of churches?
There is no evidence of independent local churches in Scripture, nor in primitive documents. There is evidence that there were distinct groups of Christians in various places, just as there are Catholics in London under one Bishop, and Catholics in New York under another. All true Christians certainly formed a universal spiritua…
“He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life.” Jn. VI, 47.
Faith in Christ is one condition of eternal life. If a man’sees the facts and will not believe, he cannot be saved. If he does believe he can be saved, but it does not follow that he must be saved. By mere belief in Christ no man has certainty of salvation. St. Paul believed in Christ yet had to write, “I chastise my body and br…
Can indulgences be applied to the souls in purgatory?
Yes, but by God alone. We can but ask Him to accept indulgences on their behalf. But we can certainly offer them with a definite conviction of their normal acceptance by God for those we love, even as we can share our goods in this life with more needy friends. This too is implied by the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.
A man has every chance to repent in this life.
He has. And if he does not, he will not even go to purgatory if his sins be grave. Purgatory is not a place for repentance, but for purification. If two men repent on their death-beds, one of whom broke one commandment and the other, all the commandments often, both are saved by their repentance. But they are not both equal befo…
The Last Supper had no elaborate ceremonial rites9 yet look at the Mass to day.
The essential rites of the Mass are exactly the same as those of the Last Supper. Remember that before the simple Last Supper Christ had fulfilled the full ceremonial of the Jewish Feast.He ceremoniously washed the disciples’ feet.And the growth of the surrounding rites in the Mass has been in accordance with principles dictated…
Why oblige young immature women to take vows at all?
No Nun is ever obliged to take vows as a young immature woman, or at any other stage of life. If you can find one Nun who was compelled in any way at all to take her vows, then the Catholic Church says that her vows are quite invalid and not binding. If a Nun freely takes her vows for life, of course she understands mat it is as…
Is there any evidence in Scripture that Mary was indeed never actually subject to original sin?
Yes. In Gen. III., 15, God said to Satan, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman … thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” The radical enmity between Satan and that second Eve, the Mother of Christ, forbids her having been under the dominion of Satan, as she would have been had she ever contracted original sin in actual f…
People will never know the dogmas of the Church to be true unless she changes them.
If people do not know the dogmas of the Church to be true, it is not because of any fault in the dogmas, but because of a fault in themselves. They are either inadequately informed, or wrongly informed. Certainly they would never know the dogmas of the Church to be true if she did alter them. Any alteration of them would be at t…
The Protestant Bible gives the second commandment as referring to images. But the Catholic Catechism gives it as referring to taking the name of God in vain, omitting the references to images.
Even the Protestant Bible does not give the second commandment as referring to images, though Protestants are usually taught that those words in the first commandment which refer to images constitute a second commandment.
Prove that a soul does exist in man.
A living human body is not the same thing as a corpse. Now the soul is the difference between a corpse and a living being. A dead body cannot move, eat, think, express itself, enjoy, or be miserable. It can but fall to pieces and go back to dust. There is something that stops your body from doing that now. It is your soul. For e…
But the very word reformation supposes a continuously existing body.
Historians use the word reformation to designate the religious changes of the 16th century, but the radical change cannot be called reform. The Church of England began with a new constitution altogether, with Caesar as supreme in the things which should belong to God. Before the Reformation the Mass was the very centre and essen…
Ecclesiastes III., 19, tells us that the death of man and beasts is equal, and that man hath no pre-eminence over the beast.
Human experience does show us that man can no more escape death than the beasts. But man’s condition is not the same, for his soul lives on, still capable of knowledge and love, happiness or misery. Thus the same Book, in XII., 7, tells us that “the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God w…
Many Catholics practice birth-control, as is evident from their small families.
That is not evidence. Only on a man’s own admission could we know that he is not limiting his children by practicing continence, he and his wife agreeing to abstain from marriage rights by mutual consent. But even if it be true that many Catholics sin in this manner, the fact that they sin could not justify the same sin in other…
Can a Priest forgive blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which Christ says shall not be forgiven in this world or the next?
There is no sin too great to be forgiven provided one sincerely repents of it. Christ really referred to evil dispositions of soul which are so hardened that one will lack the will to repent. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not blasphemy as commonly understood, but a determined resistance to the very grace of the Holy Spiri…
Is it not because non-Catholic scientists have superior intellects and better data?
No. It is because, being perhaps experts in their own line, they consider themselves expert in every line, and condemn the Church on insufficient data. Other scientists, equally expert in their scientific lines, realize that they are not therefore qualified in matters of religion any more than they would be fitted by a knowledge…
You speak as if Jesus looks on His mother just as you look on yo mother.
As surely as my mother is my mother, He knows that His mother is His mother; and He treats her as such.
Christ offered the Last Supper in the evening. Why do you not have Mass in the evening instead of the morning?
It is not essential that Mass should be offered in the evening, but simply that the Mass should be offered. Mass in the evening of course would be quite valid. But the Church, making use of her God-given power to regulate all that pertains to disciplinary matters, has decreed that it should be celebrated in the morning. This law…