64 articles from the existing collection.
The Catholic Church’s understanding of priestly authority to forgive sins is deeply rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament. In John 20:23 , Jesus tells His disciples, “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” This passage is centr…
The Catholic Church’s claim to infallible authority rests on its understanding of Christ’s commission to His apostles. Catholics believe that Jesus established the Church as the guardian of divine truth, as seen in Matthew 16:18-19 , where Peter is given the keys to the kingdom. This passage is interpreted as Christ granting the…
The Catholic Church has long held that state authority is a natural and necessary component of human society, rooted in the need to promote the common good. This perspective is grounded in the belief that humans are social beings who require organized structures to live in harmony and justice. The Church does not view the state …
Catholics are quite free to possess and read approved versions of the Bible. As you cannot have searched every Catholic home in the country I can but wonder at your credulity in thinking that Catholics do not have Bibles in their homes.
Catholics are quite free to possess and read approved versions of the Bible. As you cannot have searched every Catholic home in the country I can but wonder at your credulity in thinking that Catholics do not have Bibles in their homes.
No. The Catholic Church was built by Christ and upon Christ before a line of the New Testament was written. She received her doctrine immediately from the lips of Christ, and is safeguarded from error in her teaching by the Holy Spirit. Between 40 and 80 years after her foundation, some of her members wrote the Books of the New …
The decree of canonization does not make a Saint. It simply declares infallibly that a given person has lived such a holy life with the help of God’s grace that he is a Saint. When someone like a Francis of Assisi lives such a holy life that all people are compelled to admire it, the Church is often asked to say whether such a p…
The Apostles, as having been sent by Christ to all nations, had universal jurisdiction. But this universality of jurisdiction was extraordinary, and did not pass to those successors whom they consecrated for particular localities. Also, whilst the Apostles each rejoiced in jurisdiction over all regions, St. Peter had all authori…
Nowhere did Christ ever commission women to teach in His name and with His authority. St. Paul explicity forbids women to attempt to exercise such functions. I. Tim. II., 11-12; I. Cor. XIV., 34. People who would ordain women in the Church seem to believe that they know more about Christianity than St Paul.
Occasionally Priests have left the Church. Some have unfortunately lost the gift of faith altogether, but such men often speak with great respect for the Catholic Church. The majority, however, have gone rather because they have been unwilling to live up to the lofty standards of morality demanded of them. They have obviously ad…
She makes that claim under certain conditions.
Not like any other. The Catholic Church is composed of human beings knit together by the authority of Christ, and rejoicing in His perpetual protection and assistance.
The Popes have never given such a decision. Paul V. in 1617 forbade anyone to teach publicly that Mary was not immaculate. Gregory V. in 1622 ordered the discussion to stop until the Church should have given an official decision. Alexander VII. said that the Immaculate Conception of Mary was the common doctrine of the Church and…
The doctrine of Papal Infallibility does not mean the Pope is always right in all his personal teachings. Catholics are quite aware that, despite his great learning, the Pope is very much a human being and therefore liable to commit human error. On some subjects, like sports and manufacturing, his judgment is liable to be very f…
Your belief is right, though many Protestants are rapidly giving up that belief. For the grounds you allege for your belief scarcely provide a sufficiently rational foundation. You may feel that it is inspired, but nothing can be proved from feelings, and in any case there are others who do not feel that it is inspired. Again, w…
The dogmas of the Catholic Church clearly express the exact teaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If they seem old-fashioned to some men, these men have simply out-grown the truth to their own detriment.
Not subconscious, but conscious reverence for the authority of God certainly guides the conduct of a religious man. Your terminology is based upon a false idea that the notion of God is a kind of psychological abnormality due to natural causes. It is true that one with a right idea of God is fully aware that he personally is inf…
It is the Catholic doctrine that he is infallible when he speaks for the whole church in defining a question of faith or morals.
That is a question of science, not of faith or morals. The Pope is not infallible on every possible question, nor has the Church ever maintained him to be so. If you have difficulties because the Pope is not infallible when he is not supposed to be infallible you have only yourself to blame.
It bears a tremendous relation to truth. The whole system of educating to truth supposes authority in a body of teachers. God is truth itself and the source of all truth. When God speaks, what He says has authority, and the authority of His words is an absolute guarantee of the truth of what He says.
Both doctrines were believed in so far as Catholics believed in the revelation given by Christ, which contained thesendoctrines implicitly. When the Church denned them she merely made explicit and of faith what had been hitherto implicit She gave, not a new truth, but simply made these matters clear by defining these doctrines t…
It is not necessary that all the laws of earlier Popes must be those of later Popes. Infallibility concerns doctrine, and morals, not necessarily discipline. Disciplinary laws adapted to particular times change with the times.
It does not. It records that, at the request of the Pope, the Emperor made it illegal for any other Bishop to usurp the title which had always belonged to the Bishop of Rome. To forbid others to take a title which has ever been the rightful possession of one is not to confer the title upon that one. And if the Pope did not posse…
Have you proved all things? Your own fantastic interpretations show that you have not. The text you quote has a meaning very different from that you attribute to it. It refers to conduct. The full text is, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves.” In other words, “Reflect, …
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