You speak of charity, yet are not Catholic children taught to hate Protestants?
No. They are forbidden to do so, and are taught to pray for them.
Moral Life
605 articles from the existing collection.
Do you suggest a special state for unbaptized infants?
Yes. We call it the Limbo of unbaptized children. The word Limbo is derived from the Latin word Limbus, which means a bordering place. Limbo is an intermediate state of purely natural happiness. In that state unbaptized children will receive all the happiness proportionate to their natural capacity.
Anyway, the Catholic religion does not turn out men of great learning.
Christ did not say, “Learn of Me to be a man of great learning,” but to be “meek and humble of heart.” His religion was not intended to turn out men of great learning, but to turn out men of Christian virtue. Men have been endowed by God with brains for the acquiring of ordinary learning, and that learning is the fruit of deep s…
How can God blame anyone for doing what he must do?
He cannot and does not. But for every free choice in the direction of evil man will have to render an account. Man is free, and no man must do moral evil.
There is only one who is infallible—God. Satan tried to be equal to God9 and the Pope who makes a similar claim will meet with a similar fate.
God alone is infallible of His very nature. But God can certainly safeguard a particular man so that he will be also infallible in certain matters on certain occasions. Thus Christ guaranteed that Peter would not fail in his teachings of the Faith. And if an infallible God says that He will make a certain man infallible, then th…
If two Protestants, married in a Protestant Church, get a divorce, could one of the parties marry a Catholic in the Catholic Church provided he or she becomes a Catholic?
No. The marriage of two Protestants in a Protestant Church is valid before God, and nothing can dissolve that marriage except the death of one of the parties. Divorce does not give even such Protestants the right to marry again whilst both parties are still living. And becoming a Catholic has no effect upon the validity of such …
I heard you say that Christ is offered in the Eucharist as the Sacrifice of the New Law.
That is true. That offering of Christ in the Eucharist is known as the Mass, and the Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Law.
God’s covenant with the Jews concerned one day in seven, and He said, “My covenant I will not break.” Is God a liar, or is your Church wrong?
God is not a liar, and the Catholic Church is not wrong. God Himself predicted in Isaiah II., 2-3, that He would establish a visible Church to which all nations would come, and that out of that Church the law would proceed to teach us His ways. In due time He sent His Son, who established the Catholic Church, and she tells us Go…
What are the reasons for the selection of Sunday rather than Saturday?
After Christ’s resurrection and the establishment of the Church of the New Law, Christians kept the substance of the Old Law in this matter by still retaining one day out of seven. But the Apostles, as I have said, changed the specification of the day to Sunday. This they did for several reasons. Firstly, in order to honor the r…
Many of your religiously trained children go wrong.
They do. But it is not the fault of their religious training. It is their own fault. At least they know what is right. But to know what is right and to do it are different things. The Church can instill principles, but she cannot guarantee that a child will live up to them afterwards. Would you say that the religious training gi…
You cannot deny that you are bigoted in your exclusive claims.
Bigotry is blind zeal. It is not bigotry to say that a thing cannot be true if its opposite is proved to be correct. Truth must exclude error.
Where is the justice of God, in permitting this uneven distribution?
A satisfactory explanation could scarcely be given, were this life all. But it is not. God permits these things only because He knows that there is a future life where He will rectify and compensate all inequalities. In the meantime He draws good out of these miseries, for they teach men not to set their hopes entirely upon this…
Why bother about justice here, if all injustice is to be rectified and compensated in the next world?
You are forgetting your own principles. We must do right always because right is right. If we do not, we shall be punished by God precisely because the right was right and we should have done it. It belongs to God to adjust all seeming inequalities in the next world, but that in no way exempts man from his present duties. Men mu…
Popes think it is right to excommunicate all who do not agree with them.
That is not true. Non-Catholics, who are unaware of their errors and who are not subjects of the Church, do not incur the penalty of excommunication. I wonder what you would say of St. Paul’s words, “I have already judged . . . with the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ … to deliver him that hath so done … to Satan.” 1 Cor. V., 3-5…
God knows all. He knew the pair must fall when He made them.
God does know all. He therefore knew that they would be free, and that there was no must fall about it. There was no necessity to fall, and they could have resisted the temptation. You may say, “But they did fall, and God must have known that they would fall.” That is correct. But the fact that God knew this did not make them fa…
Your Church is pretty clever, making thousands of weak women virtual slaves.
The thousands of Nuns are not weak, but women of very strong character as a rule. If a girl of weak character enters a religious Order, she soon leaves and resumes an easier life in the world. I admit that, if the Catholic Church were merely human, she would be pretty clever. But she would be too clever. She could not possibly i…
Then in that case, any form of government, even socialistic, is law* ful as far as the Catholic Church is concerned.
That does not follow. A socialistic form of government may be quite wrong n itself, as violating the essential rights of man.
How do Catholics observe the Lord’s Day?
They should sanctify Sunday by assisting at Mass, by prayer, and by abstaining from unnecessary servile works.
The Pope commands the poor to hear their poverty “in tranquil resignation.”
That again is just untrue enough to give a perfectly false impression. The Pope says that the worker may and should do all that is lawful in order to secure the fair treatment due to him. But even after a man has done all that he can, there will always be some troubles, and the Pope rightly says to the worker as to every Christi…
If God is loving, just, and all-powerful, why does He permit moral evil, or sin?
Because God is Love, He asks the freely given love of man, and not a compelled love. Because He is just, He will not deprive man of the free will which is in accordance with his rational nature. Nor is this against the omnipotence of God, for even His power does not extend to contradictory things. Man cannot be free to love and …
Matt. II., 14 says that the Holy Family went to Egypt until the death of Herod. Lk. II., 39, says that they waited 40 days for the Purification, and went thence to Nazareth! Which is correct?
Both are equally correct. After the child was born Joseph and Mary waited 40 days for the Purification; then came the flight to Egypt, followed by the return to Nazareth, as mentioned by St. Matt. II., 23. St. Luke omits to mention the flight to Egypt, and mentions only the Purification, and the return to Nazareth. In II., 39, S…
The Lord’s Prayer shows that God Himself hears our prayers.
Correct. And He hears the prayers we address to the Saints, and their prayers also on our behalf. And those prayers, added to our own, give us additional claims to be heard by God in a favorable way.
You dare to say that no marriage outside the Church is a true marriage, that the Catholic party is living in sin, and that the children are not acceptable in decent society?
You make one mistake. The Catholic Church does not say that the children are not acceptable in decent society. Civil society is regulated by civil law, and a marriage legal in civil law obtains legal effects. Children of such a marriage are legitimate and acceptable in civil society. But whilst the marriage is regarded as legal …
Why does He permit those who do serve Him to live in poverty, whilst the godless have a smooth path through life?
This is not always the case. However, when this does occur, it is not difficult to understand. The godless do not deserve to be invited to share with Christ in a life of suffering. Also, all men do some good in life sometimes. No one is entirely evil. God’s justice rewards natural good, therefore, by natural prosperity, and that…