224 articles from the existing collection.
What do you mean by evidence? Some people think that evidence must be seen and touched, as an animal sees a patch of grass and eats it. But men are not mere animals. They have reason, and can appreciate intellectual evidence. For example, the evidence of beauty in music or in painting is perceived by man’s mind, not by his sense…
That may be the opinion of your friend. But it is no more than his opinion The Catholic Church says that a man may be anointed within from half an hour to two hours of apparent death, according to the type of death. Not that a man is certainly still living but that there is a probability that the soul has not yet departed from t…
I am afraid this is a case of mistaken identity. The Catholic Church is not involved in this description. All through the ages men have departed from the faith in departing from the Catholic Church. Thus in the 16th century the Protestants departed from the original faith, and have been departing from each other ever since, goin…
The fact that you cannot fully understand mysteries is due to the limited powers of the human intelligence. You accept many natural things as facts, though their nature is most mysterious. That is not unreasonable. If we know a mysterious fact by revelation it is just as reasonable to believe it. Moreover, if God does reveal tha…
The mere fact that the Catholic Church has stood for so long does not prove its truth. The fact considered in the light of her teachings, moral obligations, and obstacles does. Indefectibility can be claimed as a proof for the Catholic Church alone. She demands humility, mortification, rigid duty, and subjection to God— things h…
No. The children must be brought up in the Catholic faith, whether it be the faith of the husband or of the wife. A religion is not true because it is the religion of the wife. If so, then when the wife is Anglican, Anglicanism would be true; when a Christian Scientist, Christian Science would be true; when Catholic, Catholicism…
Christ said that His Church would teach all nations, and go to the uttermost parts of the earth, the tiniest of seeds growing into a great tree. His words, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find, think you, faith upon earth?” refer not so much to numbers as to quality of belief, as the context shows. And He is referring to s…
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.
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 …
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.
CHAPTER 2. — MAN.
Because he is not infallible in everything. He is infallible only when he speaks in virtue of his supreme office as head of the Church on matters of faith and morals. He notifies us when he intends to define in accordance with all the conditions required for infallibility. This restriction to set occasions is as reasonable as th…
You err both in fact and in doctrine. In fact, for the Apostles complained of errors, not of the Church, but of individual professing Christians even in their own days. In doctrine, because you practically assert that Christ failed to preserve His Church; that the Holy Spirit did not remain with her; and that the gates of hell d…
No. He merely insisted upon the doctrine which had always been held by Christians that the Mass is a sacrifice in the true sense of the Gospel teachings. If the idea was not Catholic doctrine until 1208, why did St. Irenaeus in the year 180, over 1000 years earlier, write that Christ commanded His disciples to offer sacrifice to…
I cannot believe that Christ came to redeem people if there be no hell from which to save them! But beware of your imagination. If you imagine a hell which is in any way opposed to the justice and love of God, that is not the hell you are asked to believe in at all. God is just, merciful, and truthful. He says that there is a he…
I am afraid that it requires more belief in Mrs. Eddy than in Christ It relies also far more upon auto-suggestion and self-persuasion than upon prayer. After all, favors must be asked in the Name of Christ, and therefore in conformity with the Will of God. But God expects us to use the natural means He has put at our disposal. H…
As a rule, yes. The law of the Church to receive Holy Communion once a year obliges all Catholics who have come to the use of reason, and this law begins to oblige from about the age of seven. The average child of seven certainly has enough sense to realize that the reception of the Holy Eucharist is a religious act. It can know…
Not where it is a question of the religion revealed by God. To decide what one will believe or not believe for oneself is faith in one’s own ability, but not faith in Christ. Christian faith believes what Christ taught and because Christ taught it, without reference to one’s own likes or dislikes.
A sufficient reason for that error is evident, viz., lack of data, and the fact that men followed their senses, which seemed to say that the earth was flat. That was not a judgment of the pure reason. The senses supplied no immediate manifestations that there might be a God as they indicated that the world might be flat. The cas…
The Church certainly denounces unscrupulous capitalism. But not all capitalists are unscrupulous. No one has ever spoken more strongly and soundly on the abuses of capitalism than Pope Leo XIII. He upheld the rights of labor, denounced the injustice of many amongst the wealthy classes, and laid down rules which men can refuse to…
You may know of some individual Catholics who do not. Unfortunately, so do I. But would you say that all Englishmen are dishonest because you know of some individual dishonest Englishmen? Be sure that a Catholic can be evil only by breaking the laws of his Church, and you cannot blame the Church for the conduct of members who ca…
What is science? It is knowledge proved by strictly logical demonstration from facts or from evident principles. In religion we start from the historical fact of revelation, and from principles guaranteed by God. By strictly logical demonstration we prove exactly what must be believed and what must be done if we desire to fulfil…
You will not get very far that way. Christ never said, “Blessed is the man who thinks for himself, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” If Christ has done the thinking for you on a given subject, all you have to do is to accept His teaching. How will you find it? He has left an authorized Church. Use your reason in order to di…
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