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You show complete ignorance of Catholic theological works, written by the cleverest men of the centuries. St. Thomas Aquinas had the Catholic Faith very deeply, yet wrote probably the greatest masterpiece of religious thinking the world has ever seen.
It is wideawake reasonable obedience. Instead of being blind, a man must know that God has spoken. He must prove this by examining the evidence. Once he knows that God has spoken, reason demands the obedient acceptance of God’s teaching, even though it be as mysterious as radium, instead of pitting fallible human guesswork again…
Truth is an exact knowledge of things just as they are.
What do you mean by stronger will? Do you mean a will with a stronger propensity towards the good? But freedom means freedom from inclinations imposed by any outside agency. It means indifference and personal decision. Any intrinsic strengthening of man’s will in one direction means diminishing his freedom in the opposite direct…
All things else being equal, and strictly from the viewpoint of the religions, Catholics have many advantages. They have the full truth contained in Sacred Scripture and in the teaching Church. The Protestant accepts only part of Scripture, and has no God-appointed guide. Certainly a man with full information as to the road lead…
No. That is absolutely false. Mary, saluted by an angel as full of grace, was the purest and holiest woman who ever lived on this earth. And, as a matter of fact, with sublime confidence in God, Mary refrained from explaining the event to St Joseph, leaving all to God. As St. Matthew tells us, “Behold the angel of the Lord appea…
Your father was not constituted the head of the whole human race, and is but the intermediate transmitter of an individual human nature. If we inherited original sin as something of positive personal malice, it would be unjust. But we do not. Death in a state of positive and serious personal malice merits hell. But if a child di…
He is interested in telling men the truth, and in asking them to pay Him the homage of their reason by the acceptance of that truth, thus acknowledging His infinite wisdom and veracity. Reasonable men know that the truth concerning the nature and operations of an infinite Being will baffle a finite mind to some extent. But they …
Masonry claims to go much farther back than Solomon’s Temple. “The Freemason,” an English Masonic periodical, August issue, 1926, says: “Freemasonry can stand and watch all religions as they pass in review.” W. A. Waite, in his book, “Emblematic Masonry,” 1925, p. 286, says: “Masons alone are truly ordained and have a succession…
Nor do I. But the race is not over until the soul has definitely left the body, and no one knows with absolute certainty just when it does leave the body. If the soul has gone when the Sacrament of Extreme Unction is administered, the Sacrament cannot avail. But if the soul still be there, it certainly can avail unto salvation.
You must remember that there were in Christ two natures, one human, the other divine. Christ suffered in His human nature, and experienced a natural human shrinking from all that awaited Him. To that natural apprehension He gave expression conditionally, saying, “If it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.” But with His di…
An indulgence is not a pardon for sin. It can be gained only by one who is not in a state of sin, and who has previously secured forgiveness of his sins by repentance by long public penance, sometimes for days, at other times for years. But the Church was often indulgent, and loosed or freed Christians from all or part of their …
England has progressed materially, but no argument can be deduced from that. God gives temporal benefits to good and bad alike. Spiritual blessings are the real blessings. England is rapidly drifting to irreligion altogether, and the Book you say she has opened to her people is being torn to shreds and ridiculed by Englishmen in…
Nowhere does the law of God forbid gambling, provided no fraud, deceit, or injustice enters into it. If all is conducted fairly, and an investor keeps within his means, a man is free to purchase a proportionate chance of winning a bet or a lottery without offending God’s laws in any way. But if a law of the state forbids gamblin…
Pope Pius IX. was in just possession of the Papal States, and he was just in taking all ordinary precautions to preserve what lawfully belonged to the Church.
It is ten thousand times a pity. But remember that the Catholic Church did not start the conflict. She cannot be blamed for the domestic troubles of Protestantism. All Catholics at least are in doctrinal unity.
We are bound to believe that Eve was formed from Adam. It is revealed doctrine that “God hath made of one all mankind.” Acts XVII., 26. “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.” I. Cor. XL, 8. Nor has reason anything to say to the contrary. It is as easy for God to make a woman that way as to make Adam from th…
With so many conflicting Churches in existence, it is a vital matter to find the truth. If the Catholic Church were self-satisfied, she would be content to have the truth herself and not bother about those without it. As for charity, it is better to exercise charity than talk about it, and there can be no greater charity than to…
CHAPTER 2. — MAN.
The Catholic Church agrees with St. Augustine in this matter, and declares that all who possess superfluities, that is, goods which are over and above that which is necessary for the upkeep of their state in life, are obliged under pain of sin to share their superfluities with their less fortunate fellow men. The hundreds of orp…
If you are really convinced that the Catholic religion is false and your present religion true, you could not do so. You would be violating your conscience in a very grave matter. But you have probably taken your Protestant religion for granted, and have never gone deeply into the question. For the sake of the girl you can have …
I know that 100,000 people die daily. I refuse to believe that they all go to hell, and feel quite sure that they are not all fit for immediate entry into heaven. Moreover, you would find far more difficulty in endeavoring to show that there are no souls in purgatory.
That would not be creation, but mutation of existent being. But God could not become what He was not before. Finite being cannot be made out of infinite being any more than infinite being can be made out of finite being.
Civil law and divine law are not always in harmony. Politicians at times exceed their powers and make laws, which are contrary to those of God. Thus they have legislated concerning matrimony with no reference to the will of Christ who raised the marriage contract to the dignity of a Sacrament.
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