Catholic doctrine

“ What has been believed by all the faithful at all times and everywhere, is truly Catholic doctrine. Any doctrines that are either wholly or at least very much opposed to the faith of the holy Fathers of the Church, are novel teach­ings, which are to be avoided. The article of faith reads not, “Out of the soul of the Church there is no salvation;” it reads, “Out of the Church (consisting of Body and Soul) there is positively no salvation for any one. ”

“ Thus, from the very first ages of the Church, the Catholic doctrine has encountered a multitude of most bitter adversaries, who, deriding the Christian dogmas and institutions, maintained that there were many gods, that the material world never had a beginning or cause, and that the course of events was one of blind and fatal necessity, not regulated by the will of Divine Providence. ”

“ Those who reject the authority of the Catholic Church, however, do not admit that the Catholic law is the law of God; and we must therefore either make our sole issue with them on this precise point of the truth of the Catholic doctrine, which is the same thing as a declaration of perpetual war, or we must find some middle term common to both, upon which the peace of social relations can be settled and the mutual rights and liberties of conscience be secured. ”

“ At present it suffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear that belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic Church. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the definitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and pronounce a credo over every one of them, is he necessarily a Catholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation without which there never has been and never can be a true conversion. ”

“ The Catholic doctrine represented all good-doing on man’s part—by which he rendered himself pleasing to God, attained to the state of justification and the right to an eternal reward—as an act organically one, effected equally by God’s Grace and by man’s free co-operation. ”

“ Our faith is taught and defined by authority, and to know what we as Catholics believe or do, you must be certain what the church authoritatively teaches or prescribes. We cannot go contrary to that and be Catholics. No doubt Catholics may depart from the faith of the church, and disobey her precepts; but when they obstinately persist in doing so, they cease to be Catholics in faith and practice, and their belief or their practice is of no account in judging what is or is not Catholic doctrine or practice. ”

“ This merit of congruity is all that is ascribed to the Blessed Virgin or the saints, as a groundwork of their intervening power, by any Catholic theologian. It is the same in kind with that which the just on earth possess, by virtue of which they obtain, through their prayers, blessings and graces for other persons. It is easy to see, therefore, how completely the Catholic doctrine is misunderstood by those who imagine that it either places man in the room of Christ, as his own Saviour, or substitutes the mediation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints for the mediation of Christ. ”

“ On the contrary part, a good tree may have some miscarry, but then it is not long of the tree, but of other mischances. And so the Catholic doctrine being holy, and in this very point of obedience holy, as teaching that all subjects are bound to obey, not as Luther teacheth, for policy only, making all men equal and to have no superior but Christ ”

“ The prevalence of such a literature, so erroneous in doctrine, so false in principle, and so debasing in tendency, must be deplored by Catholics, not only as injurious to morals, and too often fatal to the life of the soul, but as ruinous to modern civilization, which is founded on the great principles of the Catholic religion, and has been in great part created by the Catholic Church, chiefly by her supreme pontiffs, and her bishops and clergy, regular and secular. ”

“ How, then, could God the Father admit one into his Kingdom, who has always refused to do his will, - who, instead of learning to do the will of God, the full doctrine of Christ, through the Catholic Church, was himself his own teacher, his own lawgiver, his own judge, in all religious matters! ”

“ We know that we cannot and must not yield up the smallest fragment of Catholic truth for any plausible end whatever. Although, therefore, the veneration of saints and holy images is not among the most necessary and fundamental parts of the Catholic religion, yet, as the principle from which it proceeds is an integral portion of Catholic doctrine, we shall always maintain it with the same fidelity as we do the primary truths of the Creed, the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead, the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. ”

“ How contrary is this doctrine to the Catholic dogma of the full power divinely given to the sovereign Pontiff by our Lord Jesus Christ, to guide, to supervise, and govern the universal church, no one can fail to see and understand clearly and evidently. Amid so great a diversity of depraved opinions, we, remembering our apostolic duty, and solicitous before all things for our most holy religion, for sound doctrine, for the salvation of the souls confided to us, and for the welfare of human society itself, have considered the moment opportune to raise anew our apostolic voice. ”

“ It is also shown that modern Catholic theology, although far more precise and definite in many points than the ancient theology could be, is the only true and legitimate offspring and development of its principles. The drift of the whole book in both its parts is to present a clear conception of what the Catholic doctrine is, and to show that this conception is in harmony with the rational principles on which a spiritual and theistic philosophy must base itself. ”

“ This, however, according to Catholic doctrine, presupposes an inward disposition on the part of the recipient, the presence of which cannot be manifested to outward apprehension. A Church, whose essence consisted merely in the bond established through the sacraments, could either not be verified with certitude, or would have an exclusively exterior character. Accordingly, we have not yet found, in the Catholic sacramental conception, the middle term we are seeking, by which the essence of catholicity can be brought into visible manifestation. ”

“ We do not reason on the intrinsic credibility of the doctrine proposed to our belief, but upon the extrinsic evidence that God, the only revealer, really proposes the doctrine. And we are quite ready to show to any honest mind the proofs that the Catholic Church is the one and only church of God. Nay, this has been done by our fathers and doctors from the beginning. Every Catholic is infallible so far as his faith goes, because he relies upon the church which is infallible; but this does not prevent him from defending by reason the creed which he holds. ”

“ They are intended to show how those doctrines of the church and sacraments which are distinctively Catholic flow necessarily from the doctrines of original justice, the fall, the incarnation and redemption. They address, therefore, directly, and in the most conclusive manner, those Protestants who are called orthodox or evangelical, in common parlance. They cannot be too strongly recommended to those persons who believe in the true divinity of Jesus Christ and seek to know his doctrine and law. Pious Catholics, also, will derive great instruction and edification from this volume. ”

“ The exposition of Catholic doctrine in our smaller as well as in our larger works is too Catholic for the consciences of certain men, who, on this account, will not fail to heap upon us their rancorous and vindictive criticisms in pharisaical language. ”

“ The learned and illustrious author was always animated by an orthodox and pious spirit, which he has manifested by a truly apostolic exercise of his episcopal authority in sustaining and enforcing the decisions of the Council of the Vatican. Notwithstanding the accidental defects of his great work, it [719] is a monument not merely of ecclesiastical learning, but of sound Catholic doctrine, in which the supremacy of the Holy See, and the justice of its cause as against all heretics, schismatics, and rebels, are maintained with victorious logic and overwhelming evidence. ”

“ If the Catholic Church is to lead all men to eternal salvation, and has, for that purpose, received from Christ her doctrine, her means of grace, and her powers, [2] what, for his part, is every one obliged to do? ”

“ The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be knowTi, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. Now faith, as a virtue, is a great boon of divine grace and goodness ”

“ But Catholic doctrine, which is the sum of humanity's knowledge of God and than which nothing more can be known of God until we see Him face to face, insists upon good works, demanding as it were a practical demonstration to the rest of the world of the grace of God within you. ”

“ It is therefore a contradiction in terms for a person who denies or doubts this doctrine to call himself a Catholic. We cannot too constantly or earnestly impress this truth on the minds of the Catholic people, that the rule of faith is the present, concrete, living, and perpetual teaching of that supreme authority which Christ has established in the church. We believe, on the veracity of God, by a supernatural faith which is given by the Holy Ghost in baptism, those truths which the holy church proposes to our belief. ”

“ But his doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophy and history. The State must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders - nay, even in spite of its reprimands. ”

“ But we go further, and assert that the practice of confession is the assumption of a sacerdotal power which was the very first point attacked by the reformation, and which is really the central point of the Catholic system. Once admit the great power of absolution, and you receive at the same time logically the doctrine of priesthood as it is held by the Church. This doctrine does not and cannot stand alone; it brings with it the church in her unity, and the necessary safeguards which divine wisdom has thrown around the exercise of so great a gift. Who has the power to forgive sins? ”

“ A growing respect is to be found for the soundness, the wisdom and the justice of Catholic social principles, even in circles where our beliefs have not yet found acceptance. True statesmen have always recognized the influence of the Catholic Church's doctrine in social matters, although they may not believe in the truth of her teachings. ”

“ In pursuance of this accommodating doctrine, they dissected the Catholic faith till they reduced it to a mere skeleton; they lopped off the reality of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the divine Christian sacrifice offered in the Mass, confession of sins, most of the sacraments, penitential exercises, several of the canonical books of Scripture, the invocation of saints, celibacy, most of the General Councils of the Church, and all present Church authority; they perverted the nature of justification, asserting that faith alone suffices to justify man ”

“ But there still remains the cumulative force of such a vast number of probable evidences, all of which coalesce and integrate themselves in the doctrine of the supremacy. The true way is to interpret and complete the earlier tradition, by that which is later. This is done by our adversaries in regard to the canon, to sacraments, to episcopacy, to the authority of councils. It ought to be the same in regard to the papacy. The grand fact of one Catholic Church, centred in Rome as the See of Peter, stares us in the face. ”

“ It will not do for one to give out a system of doctrine which he has constructed by his own private judgment upon the Scripture, or learned by a private illumination, or taken from the writings of a particular set of religious teachers, and call it Catholic because he thinks it is proved to be true, and ought to be universally received. The term Catholic includes in its signification completeness and integrity of truth; but its specific sense is concrete, visible universality of outward profession, the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, of Vincent of Lerins. ”

“ The Catholics believe that their Church is in possession of the doctrine taught by Christ, and listen to it as they would to Him. Judge from this how strong and lively must be the faith of a Catholic, how firm and immovable, since the voice of their Church is the voice of their Saviour, and the interval of eighteen hundred years disappears as they every day hear the voice of Jesus. There cannot be any division in this Church. ”

“ Who come to the conclusion that there is one God of the patriarchs, another God of the Jews, and a third of the Christian? Not the Catholic Church or her doctors, but the Protestant sects with their Colensos, their Essayists and Reviewers, and flippant commentators. The Catholic Church finds no difficulties or contradictions in the text of Scripture in any portion that relates to doctrine or morals. Her interpretation is uniform and harmonious from the first page of Genesis to the last words of the Apocalypse. ”