54 articles from the existing collection.
The Catholic Church holds that faith is a foundational element for achieving eternal happiness, which is understood as the beatific vision—union with God in heaven. Faith is a supernatural gift that enables individuals to assent to God’s revelation, particularly as transmitted through Scripture and Tradition. The Letter to the H…
The Catholic Church teaches that every human person is a composite of body and soul, forming a single nature. The soul is the spiritual component, distinct from the material body, and is created immediately by God at the moment of conception. It is not subject to corruption or decay, unlike the physical body. This belief is grou…
The Catholic Church holds that every human being possesses an immortal soul, a gift bestowed by God at the moment of creation. This soul is not a mere byproduct of biological processes but a spiritual reality that distinguishes humans from other creatures. The soul’s immortality is not contingent upon the fact of birth itself bu…
The Catholic doctrine of purgatory holds that souls who die in God’s grace but are not yet fully purified undergo a process of cleansing before entering heaven. This belief is grounded in the Church’s teaching on the necessity of holiness for eternal communion with God ( Catechism of the Catholic Church , 1030–1032). Prayers for…
That is true. But the difficulty is to make people do right because it is right, and avoid wrong because it is wrong. We have to be trained to right conduct from childhood, and that very training demands commendation or punishment. Spare the rod and spoil the child is a truism. We must take a sound psychological view of man’s na…
Men very much need humility. Few are overburdened with that virtue. But you would teach men a still more foolish pride. Christ said, “Learn of Me to be meek and humble of heart.” Meekness demands manhood. It is much easier not to be meek, but to give way to the first impulse which surges upon one, and to pour out the first rush …
He means that through Christ alone can man attain to everlasting happiness. That he intends, not immortality as such, but a happy immortality is clear from his immediate addition of the words, “dwelling in the light,” as opposed to the unending darkness of eternal misery.
Christ meant that we should fear God rather than men. Men have no influence in one’s final judgment, whatever they may do to the body. But God cannot only destroy the body; He can condemn the soul to an eternal existence, which is destruction indeed—the wreckage of all one’s hopes and desires. It is simply a living death forever…
Even where natural religion is concerned, the lack of ability and of time for study amongst the masses of men, and the differences of opinion and absurd errors even of philosophers where the natural principles of religion and of morality are in question, would argue to the need of some help by revelation. But we could not prove …
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…
That is not true. There are many ways in which we can help our deceased relatives and friends, apart from having Masses offered for them. We can offer our own assistance at Mass, and our Holy Communions; we can offer any prayers we wish, or our sufferings, and acts of Christian mortification. It is good to have Mass offered spec…
The Church does exist to save souls, even as Christ died for that purpose. But she does not lack interest in the social well-being of mankind. Moral law rules even man’s social conduct, and since moral injustice can and does occur in the behavior of men towards each other in their social relations, it is the duty of the Church t…
The verse means that no man can avoid death and free his soul from the necessity of being separated from the body.
We cannot make such a comparison. The rich man who provides for the offering of Masses for the repose of his soul has a better chance of diminishing his purgatory than the rich man who makes no such provision.
A material world cannot be a spiritual world, nor can a spiritual world be a material world. But the two can exist simultaneously, even as in one man’s head we have material brains and spiritual thoughts. We cannot say that a man’s material brains so fill a man’s head that they leave no room for thought. Even in purely physical …
Yes. The body is naturally mortal; the soul by its very nature immortal.
They are not immortal. Animals are not capable of any operations which transcend the conditions of matter, and do not rise above the sensitive to the intelligible order. Also they are devoid of the moral intuition. Animal souls are therefore dependent upon matter both for their being and their operations, and cease to exist with…
People who practice contraception certainly prevent souls from coming into existence. Did God ordain them to be born? Certainly not by His absolute will, or He would not permit people to succeed in their crime. But He does ordain them to be born conditionally, that is, provided the parents do the right thing He intended them to …
That is so. Sane philosophy admits a vegetative soul, a sensitive animal soul, and an immortal, spiritual, and intelligent human soul.
Souls do not escape from purgatory as criminals from jail. When they are sufficiently purified for the Vision of God they are admitted to heaven. And no one knows when this occurs, unless God gives a special revelation, a favor we have no right to ask.
This fact does not invalidate the reasons given already, and is also easily explained. The soul whilst in a state of union with the body operates by using the faculties of that body. If the sense instruments are incapacitated, the soul can no longer operate adequately whilst united to the body. But once released from the body, i…
A plenary indulgence, of course, would be able to liberate a soul from purgatory. But we cannot know that we have satisfactorily fulfilled all the conditions necessary for the gaining of a plenary indulgence, and we cannot know for certain that God has actually accepted it, it gained, on behalf of the particular soul we have in …
Let us take it for granted that she is aware of her child’s sorrow. Could she be aware of it and perfectly happy at one and the same time? She could not, were she subject still to conditions of earthly life as we know them. But in heaven she is subject to entirely different conditions. Jesus Himself certainly knows of the child’…
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…
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