199 articles from the existing collection.
There is a good God, and He does wish that. But He does not wish our attention to be wholly given to creatures, and the Creator to be ignored. We must acknowledge and love Him. He can no more dispense us from this than He could dispense children from their privilege and duty of honoring and respecting their parents.
One who is firstly just to all others, including God. His first duty is to render to God what is due to Him. Secondly, and for the love of God, he renders all that is due to his fellow men. In addition he must manage himself in his own personal life, overcoming with fortitude the difficulties in the way of right conduct, and pra…
Yes. As a matter of fact, a close study of other forms will suggest only reasons for abandoning them, whilst an equally close study of Catholicism intensifies the conviction that in the Catholic Church, and in her alone, can the full truth be found.
I might just as well ask you whether we can get milk out of a locomotive. However religion does inspire the supplying of bread and butter to innumerable people through thousands of charitable societies.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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 …
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 …
You are asking an impossible question. You might as well ask me, “Why has Australia declared war on Afghanistan?” No man could answer that question, because there is no answer to it. He could only reply, “Tell me first, are you under the impression that Australia has declared war on Afghanistan?” And if you replied in the affirm…
No one. The Catholic Church says that it is a mortal sin for a Catholic to eat meat on Friday knowingly and wilfully, without a sufficiently grave and excusing reason. Then that Church says that if a man dies in unrepented mortal sin, he will go to hell.
That would indeed be a wonderful way. It is surprising that the big business people have not thought of it. They have but to insert an advertisement in die newspapers, “It is sinful not to purchase at our establishment,” and the first firm that does so will have all rival firms closed in no time. It is a wonder that the modern w…
Because if God ever had a beginning, then before He began there was nothing. Now nothing, with nothing to work upon, and no faculties with which to work, could never turn its non-existent self into something. But there is obviously something, and there can never have been a time when there was nothing. God at least must always h…
No sophistry is likely to deceive all the people all the time. But Catholic Priests do not rely upon sophistry, and your supposition that they are opponents of true science is absurd in view of the fact that they have done as much, if not more than any other body of men in the world to spread science and genuine education. If th…
One has to exist before one can be consulted, and then it is rather late to consult us concerning that which has already occurred. We therefore had no choice in this particular matter. Nor could we reasonably wish to have a choice. If a thing will necessarily be to my harm, I would reasonably wish to have an opportunity of decli…
Priests also dress with simplicity. They are not always in vestments. As for Christ, he too went to the Temple, and took part in its worship, never condemning its ritual. With the establishment of His own Church in fulfillment of the Old Law, He ordained His own Priests after the Order of Melchisedech in place of the Levitical P…
No. If the individual conscience is to be the guide, there will be as many religions as consciences. There are right consciences and wrong consciences. Conscience is right if it squares with the laws of God. It is warped if it be at variance with the will of God. However, if conscience alone matters, why did not Christ leave us …
The natural law of morality does not forbid it, nor has God directly given a positive law in the matter. It is a disciplinary law of the Catholic Church, and a very grave one. The Church could suspend the law, and permit Cremation in certain circumstances, as in the case of an epidemic or in war time. But normally she insists up…
Yes. In Gen. III., 15, God said to Satan, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman … thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” The radical enmity between Satan and that second Eve, the Mother of Christ, forbids her having been under the dominion of Satan, as she would have been had she ever contracted original sin in actual f…
If people do not know the dogmas of the Church to be true, it is not because of any fault in the dogmas, but because of a fault in themselves. They are either inadequately informed, or wrongly informed. Certainly they would never know the dogmas of the Church to be true if she did alter them. Any alteration of them would be at t…
Even the Protestant Bible does not give the second commandment as referring to images, though Protestants are usually taught that those words in the first commandment which refer to images constitute a second commandment.
There is no sin too great to be forgiven provided one sincerely repents of it. Christ really referred to evil dispositions of soul which are so hardened that one will lack the will to repent. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not blasphemy as commonly understood, but a determined resistance to the very grace of the Holy Spiri…
The eternal Son of God, in becoming man, took a human nature from the Virgin Mary. Thus was born a being who was both God and man. As God, this Second Person of the Holy Trinity always existed, and from Him in eternity the Holy Ghost always proceeds, as from the Father also. In this sense the Holy Ghost does not give being to th…
Your optional contribution helps keep these resources free to read.
