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They imitate many of our external practices. But even this attempt is in defiance of their own Bishops. Nor does their imitation of Catholic worship make them Catholics. If some stranger were my double in appearance, that would not make him my blood brother. The only way to be a Catholic is to be one. We went from God by disobed…
The Catholic Church certainly believes in the existence of the spiritual world, of God, of good and evil created spirits, and in the continued existence of the souls of men. But the phenomena of Spiritualism are due at best to natural causes; at times to imposture; very often to evil spirits. Certainly any effects due to the inf…
We cannot speak of the form or shape of purely spiritual beings. God has no form or shape. Shape supposes dimensional arrangement, and dimensions suppose quantity of matter. Angels can exert spiritual force, and even will the action of natural physical forces with God’s permission. If at times they have appeared to men in bodily…
That you lead a good life is to be commended. But it would be better to do it in the way God wishes, rather than in your own way. Your leading a good life cannot prove your religion true. If it did, then the fact that a Catholic lives a good life also proves the Catholic Church true. Yet if your religion is true, the Catholic Ch…
Confession is an immense help in the prevention of further sin. Remember that Christ did not institute this Sacrament precisely to prevent further sin, but to forgive sin once it has been unhappily committed. To prevent sin there are other Sacraments, and other means such as good example, religious instruction, prayer, and the g…
The principles of the Catholic Church are not man-made, nor can her constitution, given her by Christ, ever be changed. But just as many small by-laws can be made and repealed in a country without any essential constitutional change, so in the Catholic Church special disciplinary laws can be enacted at special times to meet spec…
Man has always had a religion taught by God. But this religion falls into four great divisions:— 1.—The religion of Adam, who was instructed immediately by God. This was the first stage, and is known as the religion of innocent man. 2.—After Adam’s fall, Adam handed on to his children the truth about God, and the duty of worship…
I accuse the founders of no conscious error. But I say that the system, whilst not positively teaching Satanic doctrine, is truly an agent of the devil rather than of Christ in so far as it omits religious formation as an integral part of its program. The child may be taught to be outwardly respectable, but he finds no adequate …
The Church offers hell to no one. She does all she can to prevent people from going there. Meantime hell is not in this life. Those in hell are irrevocably lost, and no one is irrevocably lost while still in this life. Until his very last breath every man has the opportunity offered him to save his soul. Nor are the ills and suf…
In the case of Christ the one does not exclude the other. St. John admits personal distinction when he says, “The Word was with God,” yet asserts identity in the divine nature when he adds, “And the Word was God.” Jn. I., 1. Christ showed the co-equality of the three Divine Persons in the one single Divine Nature when He ordered…
To admit that Christ is God, and then to doubt an exact statement of His teaching is certainly a sin, for that implies a denial either of His knowledge or of His veracity. But we do not need to doubt a thing before we can begin to study it I do not doubt the fact that the earth moves round the sun, yet I am perfectly free to wei…
Prior to Christ it existed as a matrimonial contract, but Christ elevated it to the dignity of a Sacrament of the New Law. Christ therefore instituted matrimony as a Sacrament. He blessed marriage by His presence at Cana, and declared its indissolubility when He said, “What God has joined, let not man put asunder.” Henceforth, w…
Out of the past what? Man has evolved in many things. God meant him to do so. But he did not evolve out of nothing. Evolution supposes something evolving. We are forced to admit a Creator. If you will not admit that, you will have nothing turning its non-existent self into something.
A state law opposed to the law of God is not rightly the thing of Caesar, and in so far as it is thus opposed to the law of God, it is to be ignored. Obedience must be rendered to God rather than to the State.
The “Witnesses of Jehovah” merely constitute a form of that sect known as the Russellites. They have no evidence whatever that Jehovah ever asked them to be His witnesses. The Russellites were named after Pastor Charles T. Russell, an American who started a new form of Protestantism. Their religion is based upon the conjecture t…
Christ allowed permanent separation if adultery be committed, but He does not allow divorce and re-marriage in the sense you intend. When He said, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery, etc.,” the sense He intended was this, “Whosoever shall put away his wife (I am…
The doctrines of the Bible are taught to her people by the Catholic Church more faithfully than by any other Church. The Gospel is read to them, and explained every Sunday morning at Mass, and far more people are there to hear it than you will find in the Protestant Churches. Some Catholics do not read the Bible privately very m…
That Article of the Church of England says that the Romish doctrine of purgatory is grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but is rather repugnant to the Word of God. The reply is that the Article is quite erroneous, and that many Anglicans realize the fact. Thus an Anglican clergyman unsays that Article definitely in his book …
I have never said that the Church legislates only in spiritual matters. Men are not purely spiritual beings, and in our composite nature, spiritual legislation must in some way affect our material being. The laws of the Church cover material things in so far as they affect our spiritual welfare. There is nothing spiritual about …
That is untrue. For over three centuries Protestantism could not inspire the thought of foreign missions. The Catholic Church was missionary from the very beginning and has ever retained that characteristic. In any case where are the English and American Protestant missions in Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.? Do not…
Genesis does not say that. It is impossible to calculate the age of the earth from the Book of Genesis. It could be millions of years old, without the Mosaic account being affected.
I could not support extortion, but I can honestly say that only a person absolutely ignorant of things Catholic could imagine that money is extorted from the poor for Masses
Yes. Revelation confirms the conclusions of reason which I have explained already. The account in Genesis of man’s formation proves it. God is immortal, and cannot die. He made man in His own image and likeness. But our bodies are nothing like God in appearance, and are mortal. Therefore the real image of God is in our soul, and…
All men are equal in so far as each is a human soul before God, and must meet the same judge. And God will not be more lenient with the Pope than He will be with the simple layman. But all men are not equal in other ways. Christ certainly gave the Apostles a higher office than simple Christians possess, and they and their succes…
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