222 articles from the existing collection.
That is a complete denial of the historical value of the Gospels. You have no proof whatever that no one has ever risen from the dead. You may not have personally witnessed such an event, but not all beyond your personal experience is necessarily false or non-existent.
Justice does say that this life cannot be all. But your idea of re-incarnation is a mistaken notion based upon your notion that life is impossible unless on this earth. But there is no need for another life on this earth, which would involve further inequalities. There is a better life than this, afterwards and elsewhere. Reinca…
I charitably say that their good works are often very pleasing to God, and they themselves also, for many of them have the utmost goodwill and devotion. But charity does not oblige me to say that the true Church of Jesus Christ was founded by General Booth. However well-intentioned these good people may be, they are mistaken. Ch…
None, unless the one in whose debt we are chooses to accept it
That is an absurd statement, for there is no eternal happiness outside Heaven. But I understand what you mean. You believe the Catholic Church to be wrong, and you will not do what you believe to be evil that good may come. But God does not want you to do that. Nor do I. As long as you believe the Catholic Church to be wrong, yo…
A man is saved who is free forever from the prospect of going to the eternal misery of hell. The soul that is saved has necessarily been separated from this earthly life of probation, and has gone either to purgatory for a time, or immediately to the eternal happiness of heaven.
Such texts must be interpreted in the light of other passages where God reveals that Mary was never under the dominion of Satan. Mary is included in these words of St. Paul juridically in so far as she was born of Adam, but she was not allowed to be born in sin to be afterwards redeemed. She was redeemed by prevention.
With the assistance of the Holy Spirit, she can and does know. She knows God, and knows what holiness is. She examines the life of a holy person, and says that such a life certainly could not lead a soul to hell. The Church canonizes only those whose heroic virtue has been proved. And perfect charity before death destroys all si…
It extorts nothing. The truth revealed by God inspires Catholics to have Masses offered for their departed friends and relatives. And those Catholics, who can afford to do so, desire by personal sacrifice to render the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass their own special offering to God.
No. God creates each soul as each body is generated. It is difficult to fix the exact moment, but the more general opinion is as soon as the embryo begins to exist.
When man’s soul departs from his body, that body returns to dust, and all his thoughts and schemes for this earthly life are over.
That text has no reference to Baptism. Christ’s purpose there was to insist upon humility. He impressed the moral lesson that only such as cultivate the dispositions of a child before God will enter Heaven. But he never said that all children, even the unbaptized, will necessarily go to Heaven. He would contradict His own doctri…
The idea of merely natural happiness in Heaven is nonsense. The supreme happiness of Heaven is totally different from any happiness we know on earth. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard . . . what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.” I. Cor. II., 9. An eternity of the things we know here, and of life as we experience …
I do not desire hell for my fellow men. I desire to save them from it. A truly humanitarian sentiment makes me glad that evil conduct is not a matter of indifference. It would be a dreadful thing if all men thought that they could sin with impunity. Your talk of an effete doctrine of an infallible Church is absurd.
In so far as the sin of Adam involved the whole human race in condemnation Mary needed redeeming. But there are two ways of redeeming. God could allow one to be born in sin and then purify the soul by subsequent application of the merits of Christ, or He could, by an anticipation of the merits of Christ, exempt a soul from any a…
God ratifies the choice of those who elect him. When Matthias was elected as an Apostle by the other Apostles he was elected by men, and not directly by God, but God ratified their choice and granted to him also apostolic power.
They do, for if man were not free he could not be responsible for his conduct, and could neither merit commendation by good actions nor condemnation by evil actions.
Because Our Lord did not add those words to the prayer as He taught it There is nothing wrong with the words in themselves. In fact, they are very beautiful. But they are not Sacred Scripture. Some early Catholic copyists wrote those words in a margin; later copyists mistakenly transcribed them into the text; and the Protestant …
You mean by a storm. There is a great difference between the wrath of Heaven and the wrath of the heavens. On your principles every man who has ever suffered shipwreck or been drowned or struck by lightning is a wicked wretch and the victim of God’s anger. I am as happy as you are that the Armada failed, but I do not admit that …
The immortality of the soul was well known to the Jews. The Sadducees were a small minority who were remarkable among the Jews precisely because they denied it. The majority of the Jews, therefore, held it. They were well aware of the apparition of the soul of Samuel to Saul in I. Sam. (Kgs.), XXVIIL, 15. Our Lord quoted the Pen…
No Catholic has ever believed that Christ is really slain in the Mass. They have never gone beyond the words of Scripture, “As often as you do this you shall show the death of the Lord until He come.” Nor did any theologians attempt a mathematical calculation as to the efficacy of the Mass. They knew that mathematics could never…
If a man realizes that the Catholic Church is the true Church, he must join it if he wishes to save his soul. That is the normal law. But if he does not realize this obligation, is true to his conscience, even though it be erroneous, and dies repenting of any violations of his conscience, he will get to Heaven. In such a case, i…
Not because so many of the Cardinals are themselves Italian. All the Cardinals, before the election, take an oath that they will vote for the one whom in conscience they believe to be the best fitted for the position, independently of all national considerations. Yet, although there is no law forbidding the election of a non-Ita…
The dogmas of heaven and hell guarantee the conditions. Nor is there anything in those dogmas which conflicts with sane reason.
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