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Heaven there means the heavens. Our Lord couples the expression with the earth, and predicts that the visible universe will undergo a great change. The heavens, or the whole universe together with the earth, will some day cease to be as we see them at present. The visible order will change, but the teachings of Christ shall not …
I am glad you admit that the Nuns have taken up a tiresome duty for the love of God, expecting no other reward save His approval. You must admire the way in which they voluntarily consecrate their lives to God, and to the training of little ones to fit them for the service of God in their earthly lives. However, they have not al…
Religion is the virtue of justice which renders to God the honor and worship due to Him. Your remark is like saying, “I do not miss much in refusing to acknowledge my debts.” However you do miss more than you think.
Christ offered Himself with the shedding of blood on Calvary. Without that shedding of blood there would be no remission of sin. Yet since the Mass is but an application of Calvary with its shedding of blood there is no real difficulty. There is a difficulty for one who denies the Sacrifice of the Mass, for without that there is…
There are thousands giving their lives to the service of God and of their fellow men, their fellow men making a return, not by giving their lives, but by giving a small percentage of their temporal goods. One’s life is more precious, and a greater gift, than a portion of that life’s earnings.
Yes. That massacre had no connection whatever with the Catholic Church. The Church did not instigate the massacre, nor did the Pope have any knowledge of it beforehand. It was a purely political and deplorable murder engineered by Catherine de Medici, a woman almost completely irreligious. After its occurrence a lying report was…
The second commandment is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Protestants, of course, call that the third commandment. But they are wrong in doing so, having taken that part of the first commandment which refers to images as the second of God’s commandments. But do those words forbid the making of images…
No. Beautifully illuminated copies of the Scriptures, wrought by the Monks, were in the charge of the Clergy and the Churches, and from these the Word of God was carefully preached to the people. Before the invention of the printing press, a wider diffusion was impossible.
You have said it. Henry was not going to be told even by the Pope to keep God’s law, so he rebelled, and his rebellion was the genesis of Anglicanism. It began in disobedience, even as all the world’s troubles began in the cry of Satan, “I will not serve.” When men refused to obey God, they found everything else refusing to obey…
Yes, unless he secures special permission for grave reasons to read it. The only books named in the Index are those which are sinful and immoral of their very nature, or which have been proved to give an entirely false and even blasphemous view of Christian doctrine.
That breath of life was either a definite something, or it was nothing. But you cannot tell me that nothing vitalized that body. It was a definite something, and that something was a created human intelligent soul. Again, if man has not got a soul, then instead of being composed of body and soul, he is a body. And if that body i…
God has permitted it, but it has come about firstly, by mistaken conduct, with all good will, on the part of man; secondly, by faults both on the side of some capitalists and of some workers; thirdly, through mere force of circumstances. It is not against God’s positive will to try to remedy these things. But, meantime, the pres…
For the administration of a huge society like the Catholic Church, consisting of over 400 million members, offices and temporalities are necessary. But these properties are not the possession of any individual Catholic, not even of the Pope. Even the Pope can will none of it away when he dies, as if it were his own private prope…
In believing the specified Jewish day to be still of obligation. You do not seem to understand that the Old Law was but figurative of the more perfect New Law, and that in the New Law Christ established the Catholic Church which clearly teaches the change of ceremonial day. If you want to keep the ceremonial day of the Jews, you…
There is all the difference in the world between the two positions. A civil divorce claims to break the bonds of a valid marriage, bonds which the Catholic Church rigidly declares to be unbreakable. A decree of nullity does not break the bonds of a valid marriage at all. It declares that the marriage was never a true marriage an…
Reason in no way discredits the account in Genesis. I am speaking of genuine and enlightened reason, not of the notions of people who think their own opinions always reasonable, whether they are so or not It is possible to interpret the Hebrew word for day as meaning a period of indefinite length. But there is no need to adopt t…
You may say that you believe it unnecessary. But pay attention to the words of Christ I have just quoted. He thought it necessary, and He has the right to map out the kind of religion we are to accept. If Christians had to accept such disciplinary authority in the time of the Apostles, they must accept it now. Christianity is Ch…
If the Catholic Church really honors the Bible as the holy Word of God – if she really wants her members to become familiar with its truth – why in times past did she confiscate and burn so many Bibles?
The text means that Christ will destroy the power of the devil over the souls of the redeemed. Satan will never be personally destroyed. And in any case he does not keep the fire of hell going. If Satan had anything to do with it that fire would have been destroyed long ago. He has never enjoyed it. However, the torments of hell…
True, the word “Pope” doesn’t appear in the Bible – but then neither do the words “Trinity,” “Incarnation,” “Ascension” and “Bible” appear in the Bible. However, they are referred to by other names. The Bible, for example, is referred to as “Scripture.” The Pope, which means head bishop of the Church, is referred to as the “rock…
The decree of canonization does not make a Saint. It simply declares infallibly that a given person has lived such a holy life with the help of God’s grace that he is a Saint. When someone like a Francis of Assisi lives such a holy life that all people are compelled to admire it, the Church is often asked to say whether such a p…
Some do. Some do not. All are free to do so, but it is not absolutely necessary that they should give themselves to the private reading of Scripture.
Does a man break his leg because he knows that a doctor can set it? Catholics regard sin as a very great evil and no Catholic thinks that he is morally free to commit any sin, with or without Confession. If he does commit sin he knows that he can get it forgiven provided he repents and determines to try to serve God for the futu…
Why do Catholics believe that Christ is sacrificed in each and every Mass, when Scripture plainly states that He was sacrificed on Calvary once and for all?
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