Catholicism

“ The difference between the Catholic and the Protestant world-principles is strongly marked in this connection. Catholicism with its striving for absolute uniformity, acknowledging no individual differences, but eager to shape all life and all doctrines in harmony with one definite ideal, very consistently pronounced one single, historical woman to be divine, and made her the object of universal worship. ”

“ Indeed it is deeply interesting to note how largely the fundamental characteristics of Catholicism really meet, or rather how they strictly require, some such vivid conception and vigorous use of the Determinist Thing and of its level for the full constitution of our true depth, our Spiritual Personality itself. ”

“ The position of Catholicism—that the essence of the true Church, so far as realized at all, exists only within the Catholic Church, where alone, therefore, a further development of this essence can be accomplished or the ideal of the Church attained—is by no means equivalent to the pretension, attributed to Catholicism by Hase, that Catholicism has already attained the ideal, or that it is at all times the most perfect representation of Christianity. ”

“ There is no likelihood of the English people ever again accepting 'Catholicism,' if Catholicism is the thing which history calls by that name. The movement which the Bishop hopes to lead to victory will remain, as it has been hitherto, a theory of the ministry rather than of the Church, and its strength will be confined, as it is now, mainly to clerical circles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this purpose we must endeavor to penetrate somewhat deeper into the inner being or soul of the Church. We shall there find a tendency which makes the Catholic form of manifestation of the Church a postulate of her being. This tendency lies in the character of the supernatural. In the conception of the supernatural we shall endeavor to point out the radical conception of Catholicism. The papacy, and the Catholic visible form of the Church mediated by it, is, in our opinion, the necessary consequence of the supernaturality of her being. ”

“ Catholicism, which built a theory wherever social spontaneity had expressed an idea or deposited a hope, converted into a sacrament the at once symbolic and effective ceremony by which the sinner expressed his repentance, asked pardon of God and men for his fault, and prepared himself for a better life. ”

“ 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." ”

“ As to Catholicism, the records of Councils, the invectives of the Church, show us that, from the beginning, the secondary religion in point of time, the religion of the Church, laboured vainly to suppress, and had in part to tolerate, the primary religion of childish superstitions. ”

“ Everything that is not in the Bible is taken by the Catholic Church from the heathens and the Jews, and you will find the doctrines and the practices of Catholicism founded upon heathenish practices and not upon the broad plane of morals taught by Jesus Christ. ”

“ The ideal type of Catholicism being, on account of the supreme value placed upon virginity, of the latter kind, the qualities I have mentioned have always ranked very low in the Catholic conceptions of excellence, and the steady tendency of Protestant and industrial civilisation has been to elevate them. ”

“ Through this conciliatory method, an understanding of the Catholic truth can be much more easily and effectually imparted to the unprejudiced Protestant mind than by a rough polemical method. This end is most essentially served by the distinction between the essence and the manifestation of Catholicism.
Protestant piety makes a great boast of its deep spirituality. The modern ideal theory of the Church owes a great share of its popularity to its aptitude of application in this direction. ”

“ Such books, while they are delightful reading to us who are happily Catholics, have another important merit—they set forth the claims of Catholicism, and must do a vast deal of good among Protestants who casually meet with and peruse them. ”

“ Catholicism is the antithesis of esotericism. All—men and women, slave or free, Greek or Scythian—are capable of full initiation into Christianity. All—not apostles and presbyter-bishops and deacons only—but all Christians make up the high priestly body and have on their foreheads the anointing oil: see above, pp. ”

“ A certain class of writers, probably among the most sincere and earnest of the defenders of the Catholic faith, have been driven by the social aspect presented by all those countries in which Catholicism has power, to admit, accept, and justify the absence of material, and even intellectual prosperity, as a necessary consequence of catholic views of life here and hereafter. ”

“ Protestantism has the method of Jesus with his secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has his secret with his method too much left out of mind. Neither has his unerring balance, his intuition, his sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power. ”

“ but it is only till they have brought people into the pale of their own church. This is downright sectarianism, not catholicism. How can I act consistently, unless I receive and love all the children of God, whom I esteem to be such, of whatever denomination they may be? ”

“ Comte's philosophy, in practice, might be compendiously described as Catholicism minus Christianity. ”

“ But you went further: you believed that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity; ”

“ Now, brethren, all of us ought to be messengers of God to our neighbor and to the world. {28} We are all Catholics, have all been called to know the true faith, and we have all been taught how to observe God's moral law. First, then, we Catholics ought to be the angels of God on earth to those who are not Catholics. We ought to do our best in our own little circle to spread the knowledge of our holy religion. By our lives we ought to show the world that the Catholic religion makes us better citizens, better and more honest men of business, and truer lovers of our neighbors and mankind. ”

“ 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! ”

“ For as by the divine determination it has been a matter of our care to bring these peoples to the unity of the Church of Christ, so it is a matter of your teaching to instruct them in the Catholic dogmas, by which they may be instructed in the full knowledge of the truth, that they may know how to reject totally the errors of pernicious heresy, to remain in charity in the ways of the true faith, and to embrace with fervent desire the communion of the Catholic Church.... As it is of benefit to us to profess with the mouth what we believe in the heart ... ”

“ Yet, this is the first lesson that the Catholic child learns at his mother's knee, As he goes on, he learns more and more of God's works of mercy toward man, of his institutions for our salvation and our sanctification, and all he learns he sees reproduced in a glance in the ceremonial of the church, which speaks to him in accents more and more eloquent, as his knowledge expands and his heart is brought more fully into conformity with God's holy teachings. In the liturgy and the various other rites of the church, she has enshrined all the great dogmas of religion. ”

“ The faith of the Catholic, therefore, is divine, because it is based on divine authority: He knows and believes that Jesus Christ speaks to him through his Church, and therefore he believes all the truths she teaches him, with the utmost firmness and simplicity, with an unwavering conviction of their reality. The fact that Jesus Christ has said it, has done it, has taught it to his infallible Church, and commanded her to teach it to all nations, is for him the weightiest of all reasons to believe it. ”

“ The Catholic Church alone possesses, as her undivided property, the glorious character of Catholic. In her communion alone, numbers of holy apostolic men have abounded in all ages, who, leaving all they possessed or could expect in this world, and burning with zeal for the conversion of souls to God, have dedicated themselves entirely to carry the light of the Gospel to those who " sat in darkness and in the shadow of death," and to bring heathen nations to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ How many of our Catholics, though holding Protestantism to be an error against faith and antagonistic to the Church, hold that the mass of Protestants are out of the way of salvation, and can never see God in the beatific vision, unless before they die they become Catholics, united to Christ in the Church which is his Body? If we assert the contrary, are we not met with theological distinctions, logical refinements, subtle explanations and qualifications, which place us all in the wrong? ”

“ I believe in the holy Catholic Church, in the Apostles' Creed, is thus interpreted: "I believe that every Catholic individual and nation forms a part of the Catholic society, and that only by virtue of its being a part does it partake of the benefit of the whole, through being subordinated to the laws of the whole." ”

“ Now the first point of attack made on the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church was upon the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope. We Catholics hold and believe that our Lord came down on earth and became man to redeem us, not as a mere historical fact, which was once done and completed by His death upon the Cross, but that the work of this redemption was to be applied to the individual soul, through the work of the Church He established on earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 Christian religion must be held by us, and the communion of that church which is Catholic, and is called Catholic, not only by its own members, but also by all its enemies. For, whether they will or no, the very heretics themselves and the offspring of schisms, when they talk not with their own friends, but with people outside, call the Catholic Church nothing else but Catholic. ”