Catholic theology

“ This dialectic relation of the two terms asserted by Catholic theology is denied by Protestant theology either to the exclusion of nature and reason, or to the exclusion of both the supernatural and the superintelligible, and hence the dualism which rends in twain the whole non-Catholic world, and presents revelation and science, reason and faith, authority and liberty, natural and supernatural, church and state, heaven and earth, time and eternity, God and man, as mutually hostile terms, forever irreconcilable. ”

“ A certain Protestant minister, an Anglican, we presume, had said in a sermon, that "the church's greatest enemies are now Catholicism and rationalism." The writer, in commenting on this proposition, says: "Catholicism is the theology of authority; rationalism, the theology of reason;" and "Protestantism is Catholicism with a dash of rationalism, or rationalism with a dash of Catholicism." ”

“ An act of divine faith, then, is an act by which we believe whatever God has revealed on the authority of God himself. God has taken care that we should know for certain what he has revealed in times past for man's benefit and guidance by founding the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the pillar and the ground of truth, whose chief function it is to bear witness to God's revelation, and to teach it to all men even to the consummation of the world. God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, ever abides with the Church, to enable her faithfully and infallibly to perform her task. ”

“ Is it not undeniable, that the very life of personal religion among Catholics lies in a knowledge of the Gospels? It is the character and conduct of our Lord, his words, his deeds, his sufferings, his work, which are the very food of our devotion and rule of our life. "Behold the Man," which this author feels to be an object novel enough to write a book about, has been the contemplation of Catholics from that first age when St. Paul said, "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me." ”

“ Light and wisdom from above soon illuminated the soul that surrendered itself a willing victim before the altar of eternal truth. She was led by a divine hand, through paths she knew not, to a temple of which she had scarcely heard, and, while still living among those to whom the Catholic religion was entirely unknown, entered its portals to find herself—scarcely less to her own astonishment than to the amazement and horror of her devoted parents—a Catholic, as firmly established and steadfastly resolved as if she had been born and educated in the faith! ”

“ There are lights of the natural order, divine witnesses of himself inscribed by the Creator on his works, characters engraven upon the conscience, and testimonies of mankind in all the ages of the world, which prove the existence and perfections of God, the moral nature and responsibility of man anterior to Catholicism, and independently of revelation. If a man, through any intellectual or moral aberration, should reject Christianity, that is Catholicism, the belief of God and of his perfections stands immutably upon the foundations of nature. ”

“ By the same induction it is affirmed that if the true Church is realized only in the form of Catholicism, the reason is to be found in the inmost nature of the Church, in the catholicity of her spirit. ”

“ Happily, Catholics have faith in a God above it all. If it has done no other good, it has brought out to the eyes of the world, in a wonderful manner, at once the vastness and the unity of the Catholic Church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I ask, then, what do all Protestants, save those called Unitarians, believe about Jesus Christ? They believe precisely what the Catholic Church teaches, namely, that He is true God and true man, the Person of the Word of God incarnate, conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary; that He is the Messiah, the Redeemer; that by His infinite merits alone is the salvation of mankind possible or obtainable. ”

“ The Catholic Church is not only a living religion, but the only living religion, the only religion that does, or can, command the homage of science, reason, free thought, and the uncorrupted affections of the heart. The Catholic religion is at once light, freedom, and love—the religion of authority, of the intellect, and of the heart, embracing in its indissoluble unity Peter, Paul, and John. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This spiritual insight springing from the light of faith is the secret source of Catholic life, the inward principle which prompts the obedience of Catholics to the divine authority of the holy church, and from which is born the consciousness of the soul’s filiation with God, whence flow that perfect love and liberty which always accompany this divine Sonship. ”

“ There is a large floating body of Catholic truth in the world. It comes down by tradition from age to age; it is carried forward by preaching and profession from one generation to another, and is poured about into all quarters of the world. It is found in fulness and purity in the Church alone; but portions of it, larger or smaller, escape far and wide, and penetrate into places which have never been under the teaching of divine grace. Now, men may take up and profess these scattered truths, merely because they fall in with them. ”

“ No one, therefore, can be said to be in the way of salvation who stays outside of the one true fold of the Catholic Church. We cannot, of course, know what extraordinary means of grace God may use for those who are ignorant of the church, yet we do know with perfect certainty that the Catholic Church, with its doctrine, sacraments, and other means of grace, is the only divinely-established means of salvation for all men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And here, with this glance at her past history to call to mind what she was, what she has achieved, the truly great elements that were always in her, we turn to look at her as she is; to consider her present bearing on the church, for we Catholics must always look at all things with a Catholic eye, knowing, as we do, that our religion is the one religion upon which the salvation of this world hangs; that, if the world is to be saved by us, we can never put our faith upon the shelf and enter the world as worldlings. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Catholics hold that Protestants who have these dispositions, and who have no suspicion of their religion being false, and no means to discover, or fail in their honest endeavors to discover, the true religion, and who are so disposed in their heart that they would at any cost embrace the Roman Catholic Religion if they knew it to be the true one, are Catholics in spirit and in some sense within the Catholic Church, without themselves knowing it. ”

“ The idea of Catholicism, therefore, coincides with that of fulness. As the pleroma of him who filleth all in all, the Church harbors in her bosom a treasure, the richness of which is inexhaustible. Every created thing, every single period, every particular phase of the culture of the human mind, has some good attribute. ”

“ Hence it is that Catholics, in all emergencies, even in the most calamitous, nay, even in those caused by the worst iniquities of unscrupulous men, do not fail to adore the goodness and justice of Almighty God, and to acknowledge the inscrutable dispositions of his most holy will. ”

“ Now, We think that, apart from the supernatural help of God, nothing is better calculated to heal those minds and to bring them into favor with the Catholic faith than the solid doctrine of the Fathers and the Scholastics, who so clearly and forcibly demonstrate the firm foundations of the faith, its divine origin, its certain truth, the arguments that sustain it, the benefits it has conferred on the human race, and its perfect accord with reason, in a manner to satisfy completely minds open to persuasion, however unwilling and repugnant. ”

“ The preacher continues:
"'Is IT HONEST to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed Virgin or the saints in the place of God or of the Lord Jesus Christ? You have the answer. You know the place which God claims for himself the 'honor which He will not give to another.' You have heard from the very words of the Roman Catholics themselves the place to which they exalt the spirits of departed men and women." ”

“ In face of this universal, protracted, bitter, and resolute opposition to Catholicity on the part of so many great states, we find the church, as in the days of the apostles, adding daily to her number “those that should be saved.” Here, too, we find, as in all Christian history, the greatest and sharpest contrasts—those contrasts that it baffles human ingenuity to explain. The Catholic Church is to-day strongest where, according to human calculation, she ought to be weakest, and weakest where she ought to be strongest. ”

“ The method of proof we have pointed out, however sure and however faithfully followed, does not suffice to make one a Catholic, or to give one true Catholic and divine faith, or faith as a theological virtue; it only removes the obstacles in the way of the intellect in believing, and yields only what theologians call human faith—fides humana—which really advances one not a single step towards the kingdom of God, or living union with Christ. A man may be thoroughly convinced, so far as his reason goes, of the whole Catholic faith, and yet, perhaps, never become a Catholic. ”

“ They feel this; they feel that Catholicity is the assertion of Catholic truth, and therefore that the Church differs from them, not simply in degree, as more or less, but in kind, and directly contradicts their whole order of thought. ”

“ Every one who thinks logically must select between the two. As we have before said, we judge it by the criterion of revelation. What is the Christian, that is, what is the Catholic doctrine, founded on the veracity of God, clearly declared, and unalterable? We have already stated it, and it is known to all men. Those who still profess that they have in the Scriptures interpreted by their own private judgment an infallible rule of faith, are bound to demonstrate that their doctrine is clearly taught in the Scriptures, or is at least compatible with what is taught in them. ”

“ The Catholic Church is to-day more zealous, more compact, more united, more confident of herself, more energetic, and better organized, than she was at the commencement of 1871. The Roman Catholics have good reason to be thankful that their church has gained in faith, in the spirit of sacrifice and prayer, in devoutness in worship, and in all Christian virtues. ”

“ The idea of Catholicism presupposes one thing more. Such a principle dwelling in the Church as a reality must necessarily exercise its functions in a single individual image only. Both of these positions are the necessary results of the teachings of Holy Writ. ”

“ An inquiry into the fundamental principle of Catholicism must address itself to the elucidation of the cause of the necessary connection between the spirit and the outer shape of the Church just mentioned. ”

“ These waverers, these men who lack force of character, whose hearts are charged with diluted Catholicism, know and believe, and by listening to sermons and religious instructions can completely convince themselves, that the Catholic Church is divine in her origin, holy in her founder, infallible in her doctrines, apostolic in her organization, glorious and wonderful in her saints. ”

“ We stand in union with that favored portion of the human race which has always clearly and distinctly believed in the absolute truth of the being and infinite perfection of God, and in a distinct revelation from him. We are about to examine this universal belief, and these intelligent judgments of cultivated universal human reason, and to compare them with the principles and judgments of our own reason. To ascertain what Christian Catholic faith is, and how it is radicated in an intelligent indubitable certitude of reason--this is what we are about to attempt ”