The Bible1 min read
How can you appeal to the English form, if the English translation does not adequately express what Christ meant? Surely you want the exact teaching of Christ! The English version is not an infallible rendering, nor does anyone versed in these matters claim that the English language fully expresses the sense of the originals. Bu…
The Church1 min read
Holy water is placed at the doors of Catholic Churches to remind us of the waters of Baptism which once flowed over our foreheads, to signify that we are not worthy to enter into the Presence of Christ without purification, and to forgive us those venial sins for which we are sorry, as well as remitting the temporal punishment d…
The Church1 min read
The wonderful architecture and art in Mexico, dating from beyond 100 years ago, show a higher standard of general culture in that country when the Catholic Church did have a freer scope than she possesses now. Whatever faults may be attributed to the present generation, they cannot be ascribed to the educational influence of the…
God & Faith2 min read
It is not strange. Intellectual attainments have really little to do with it, in the ultimate analysis. Brains alone cannot bring a man to Christian truth, and brains alone will not keep him in it. Christ did not say, “Come to Me, all ye intellectual people, and I will refresh you.” If knowledge of religious truth and faith in i…
The Church1 min read
The ringing of these bells is to remind Catholics to say the Angelus, a short devotion in honor of the incarnation of Christ. Three rings are given three times separately, and then nine rings, according to an ancient custom. The devotion is called the Angelus because the first words of the prayers to be said begin as follows, “T…
The Church1 min read
The majority of the people in the countries you mention happen to be Catholics, But that does not mean that the Catholic Church as a Church has political control. Meantime the Church does not want political control her*, and would absolutely refuse on principle to accept it, were it offered,
The Church1 min read
Omitting for the time being the question of the validity of their episcopal consecration, Anglican Bishops are not even conscious of Apostolic authority, nor can they claim uninterrupted legitimate succession. To rebel against the lawful authority of the Church, abandon it, and set up for oneself is no way to succeed by lawful t…
God & Faith1 min read
No. It is an effort to suppress error, which can poison the mind every bit as much as arsenic can poison the body.
God & Faith1 min read
The fact that God is love does not forbid the imprisonment of a criminal nor the hanging of a murderer. If love for the murderer does not prompt it, at least love for law and order, and love for other citizens suggests it. I am obliged to love my enemies, but not their crimes. Christ loved His enemies and prayed for them. Yet He…
The Church1 min read
That cannot apply in matters of conscience. If so, I could say, “Well now, if I were a murderer I would like him to help me to strangle that man. And since he is a murderer, I must do to him as I would like him to do to me in similar circumstances, and help him to strangle his victim.” That is absurd. In all matters where we can…
The Church1 min read
That is simple prudence, and even God does not dispense from common sense. He Himself says that it is good for a man to have borne the yoke from his youth. The yoke of obedience and of virtue restraining children from ignorance and vice is good for them. And what utter folly it would be to begin to teach children the right thing…
The Church1 min read
No. In that document the Pope commands Catholic princes to prevent the propaganda of those who would publicly labor to destroy the faith of those who already professed belief in Catholicism. The word exterminate does not mean in its Latin significance that such men should be killed, but that they should be banished or expelled f…
The Church1 min read
The Catholic Church did not invent it. Holy water is in accordance with God’s ways in the Old Testament, and the Catholic Church has merely kept the Christian practice which has existed from the very beginning of Christianity, and which the Protestant reformers rejected as usual in the 16th century. St. Justin Martyr, who died i…
The Church1 min read
You may have heard that stated, but you have never heard any proof advanced in its favor. It is simple history that St. Peter went to Rome about the year 43 A.D., went back to Jerusalem after a few years for a short time, and then returned to Rome until his death, save for very short absences. He died about the year 67, during t…
The Church1 min read
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…
The Church1 min read
The Protestant sects constitute a breakaway from the Catholic Church. That is their condemnation, for there could never have been a valid reason for leaving the Church established and guaranteed by Christ. In any case, branches of the Church must be living branches still retaining their union with the parent tree. The Catholic C…
God & Faith1 min read
As we do not claim that he succeeds to the power of working miracles such a criterion is quite irrelevant in this matter.
The Bible1 min read
The more evil a man is, the more he resents the goodness of others. Every good man is a living condemnation of the conduct of evil men. The Jews could not point to a single sin in Christ, yet they crucified Him. And Christ said, “The servant is not above his master. As they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you.” The quick…
The Church1 min read
You have read garbled accounts. No one denies the existence of cruelty and persecution in the history of the ages. But they have been exaggerated. Nor were they due to the Catholic point of view. They were in spite of the Catholic viewpoint, and due to the imperfect notions of the times, times in which Protestants were not less …
The Church1 min read
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.
The Church2 min read
Why don’t Catholic priests marry? The Bible says that a bishop should be “blameless, the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2), which certainly indicates that Christ approves of marriage for the Christian clergy.
The Church2 min read
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…
The Church1 min read
Christ, as the Founder of the Catholic Church, was of course a Catholic. But your conclusion does not follow. Many profess to believe in Christ, but do not accept the whole of His teaching. They are mistaken. Certainly the Anglican does not believe in the correct doctrines of Christ if the Baptist does. The Catholic Church alone…
The Church3 min read
Why do Catholics believe their Holy Communion is the actual Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ? Why don’t they believe as Protestants do that Christ is only present symbolically, or spiritually, in the consecrated bread and wine?
