130 articles from the existing collection.
No. The Catholic Church is very prudent in this matter, and her law declares that those relics alone may be publicly venerated which have authentic documents accompanying them, and proving them to be genuine. These documents can be given only by one authorized by the Holy See to grant them. If the documents be lost, no relic may…
A Papal Bull is simply a Papal document with a leaden seal or bulla attached to it. It need have nothing whatever to do with indulgences. Indulgences have never been for sale as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, and are not sold in Spain or anywhere else. If a man commits mortal sin, not all the indulgences in the world c…
The numbering of the verses affords no argument. There was no numerical distinction of verses in the original Scriptures. Nor did God reveal such distinctions. All who are acquainted with the subject know that Scripture was divided into verses by men some centuries after Christ for greater convenience. The method of dividing the…
Polytheism teaches several gods. Christianity teaches but one God. The three Divine Persons share the one Divine Nature, and are but one God. The other beings you cite are declared by the Church to be creatures, and cannot be used as an argument for the plurality of gods. If we taught that they are gods, you could rightly accuse…
It is presumption to trust in Christ, yet to despise means established by Him and declared by Him to be necessary. The Christ in whom you trust certainly believed in such ceremonies. He anointed the blind man’s eyes with saliva and earth, and He instituted the various Sacraments of the Church. If you study Scripture closely you …
No. But he could quite well tempt an apparently human being whom his finite intelligence did not know for certain to be God, and in order to test his conjecture that he might be.
An indulgence of forty days means that the Church liberates us from that amount of expiation of our sins which would be equal to a forty days’ public penance in the early Church. It does not mean forty days less purgatory. Such an indulgence is called a partial indulgence.
Because God wills that we should do so, and because such prayers to her are of the utmost value. God often wills to give certain favors only on condition that we go to some secondary agent. Sodom was to be spared through the intercession of Abraham; Naaman, the leper, was to be cured only through the waters of the Jordan. Now Ma…
Genesis VI., 2, says that the sons of God took wives from the daughters of men. These sons of God were not Angels, but the descendants of Seth, whilst carnal and fleshly men were the descendants of Cain. God was rightly angry with these mixed marriages between those who knew the true religion and those who had forgotten and aban…
In the language Christ spoke, that word was a term of great respect however harshly it may sound in our modern English language. Our Lord would have been the last to slight His mother, a thing we despise in every man; and above all in His last and most tender words to her. Nor are we likely to please Him by seeking to dishonor h…
The Catholic Church guarantees that, and she is here to tell us the truth about such things in the name of Christ and with His authority. Reason also assures us that, as she could know our prayers in this life and pray for us in turn, so she can do so in the more perfect state in heaven. Finally experience proves it, for she has…
By the restriction of its activities according to the limitations of the created agent of torture, and by the intellectual apprehension of the suffering fire normally causes. But difficulties concerning its method of action make no difference to the fact that it exists.
A plenary indulgence remits all the punishment due to our sins. If one gained a plenary indulgence perfectly at the hour of death, he would be exempt from any purification in purgatory. Such an indulgence would not increase one’s merit, but would merely free from the penalties due to past sins. The conditions for the gaining of …
Some Protestants have those things, at least theoretically. Others have some of them. Others have none of them. But in any case they would not prove Protestants to be true Christians. At most they prove that some Protestants are attempting to do some Christian things. But a true Christian accepts the complete teaching of Christ,…
If I kiss the photograph of my mother, am I honoring a piece of cardboard? Or is it a tribute of love and respect offered to my mother? A Catholic reverences images and statues only in so far as they remind him of God, of Christ, or of Our Lady and the Saints. Where a pagan adores and worships a thing of wood in itself, I kiss t…
Short fervent interior prayers are better than long distracted vocal prayers. But, given equally fervent prayers said with due attention, long ones are better than short ones. It is certainly better to give more time to prayer than less! And if distractions do present themselves, it is better to give up the distractions than to …
Absolutely speaking there could have been a Christianity without a crucifixion. God could have condoned the sin of mankind, and, without demanding just expiation, He could have sent His Son in human form to teach another type of Christian doctrine. But that is all in the realm of possibilities. We are concerned with facts, and a…
God did not make any devils. He made angels in quite a sinless condition, but also free, even as man. By misuse of their freedom of choice, some angels turned themselves into evil spirits. In his evil will Satan then tempted man. God permitted this, for man had to prove the reality of his devotedness to God. Anybody can serve Go…
In that case, of course, you are purely a materialist. Nor only that You are an atheist, for such an assertion denies the very existence of God. God is a pure spirit, and can certainly create beings of a purely spiritual nature.
It is true we don’t usually carry the statue of Jesus. Rather we carry Jesus Himself (and not just his statue) every year when we have Corpus Christi processions. And everyday Jesus is carried when the priest raises him during Mass. At every Benediction or Adoration Jesus is also carried when the priest blesses us with the Montr…
It follows from the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. Remember that, by Baptism, every Christian is incorporated with Christ. St. Paul says, “Christ is the head; ye are the members.” So close is this union that Christ says, “Whoever gives you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to me; amen, I say to you, he…
The use of beads dates from the earliest centuries. The prayers embodied in the Rosary were composed by Christ Himself in the case of the Our Father, and by the Angel Gabriel, St. Elizabeth, and the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, in the case of the Hail Mary. We are in very good company with those prayers. As a devotion,…
Isaiah the prophet (VII., 14) certainly predicted a supernatural and extraordinary birth of the Messiah when he wrote, “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” St. Luke says, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God … to a virgin . . . and the vir…
The Clergy of that Church wish to adopt the titles and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, but not the obligations of Catholics. No Requiem Mass was really celebrated. A service was held, and called a Requiem Mass. At the Synod held shortly after this event Bishop D’Arcy Irvine protested most strongly against the whole affair. He…
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