Catholics

“ We have had some of these degenerate Catholics among ourselves, retaining the name of Catholic as a kind of national and family heirloom, but denying and mocking at all the mysteries of faith, resisting and thwarting the bishops and priests who founded our American churches, and generally crying out for a priest in their last moments, while their relatives are chiefly anxious for the pomp of a requiem, a solemn funeral procession, and a monument in consecrated ground. ”

“ One must go to the Catholic historians, especially the French, to know the details of the lives of those saints whom the Catholic Church has canonized. Of nothing is Protestant ecclesiastical history more barren than the heroism, sufferings, and struggles of those great characters who adorned the fourth and fifth centuries, as if the early ages of the Church have no interest except to Catholics. ”

“ A few adherents of the Old Religion, moving silently and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had been. 'The Roman Catholics'—not a sect, not even an interest, as men conceived of it—not a body, however small, representative of the Great Communion abroad, but a mere handful of individuals, who might be counted, like the pebbles and detritus of the great deluge, and who, forsooth, merely happened to retain a creed which, in its day indeed, was the profession of a Church. ”

“ The church, therefore, was not taken by surprise, when the “Syllabus” appeared, however much its publication may have struck with astonishment and alarm the party of revolution and unbelief. Catholics, at least, could not fail to be swayed by such a masterly exposition of Catholic theology on so many subjects, all intimately connected with human conduct in private life as well as in affairs of public [pg 270] import. And there were Catholics everywhere—among the rulers of the world and its leading statesmen, no less than in all classes and grades of society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do Protestants believe this divine fact?
"Reason, it is true," says the Roman Catechism, "and the senses, are compelled to ascertain the existence of the Church, that is, of a society of men devoted and consecrated to Jesus Christ; no faith is necessary to understand a truth which is acknowledged by Jews and Turks; but do Protestants believe the privileges and dignity of the Church as Catholics believe them? By no means, because they have not the light of faith, which alone enables us to say I believe the Catholic Church." ”

“ Sensible Englishmen, when these Reverends, would uncharitably excite you against your long much injured, and unjustly abused Catholic fellow creatures, just say to them, "Reverend gentlemen, you tell us that the Scripture (the book of eternal life and of truth) , teaches Charity to all Men! why, therefore, should you wish us to exclude the Catholics from a share of that universal Charity?" ”

“ It always seems to me that a Catholic Christian who really knows his holy Church, and is aware what a treasure he possesses in her, ought to find it difficult, nay impossible, to kick against the goad of his own convictions, and to speak and act contrary to his belief: and yet the number of stanch, loyal outspoken Catholics, true to their convictions, is constantly diminishing, and that of effeminate, sycophantic waverers is ever on the increase! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Catholics, indeed, believe many things which Protestants do not, but the former have received the five talents the latter the two or three. They do not condemn Catholics, but they hope to be saved in the small measure which they have themselves received. ”

“ It is a truth received by all Catholics, as Toumely, a French divine, who writes against the infallibility of the Holy See, expresses it, " That as the Roman and apostolical See is the bond of Catholic unity and of Catholic communion, no man can be held to be a Catholic, unless he be joined with that See in the unity of Faith and doctrine." ”

“ The Catholics lead as pure and irreproachable lives as their Protestant brethren—without perhaps the comforts—and are rapidly making proselytes; their religion teaching forgiveness and absolution, being more in accordance with the backsliding sins of the natives, who meet with no appeal from the more austere puritanism of the Protestants. ”

“ Upon which occasion he then began to labour to win many to the Catholic faith, which he performed, and brought many to be Catholics of the better sort, and was a continual means of helping others to often frequentation of the Sacraments, to which end he kept and maintained Priests in several places. ”

“ But to bring this subject to an immediate decision, where is the sect or party but confesses that the Gentiles have not continued in the goodness of God? I answer, there is none; no, not so much as one. All the Catholics declare that the protestants have departed from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; while all the protestants say, that the Catholics have corrupted the kingdom of heaven at the very root, so that there is no fruits of righteousness among them. ”

“ But before closing these remarks upon the position of Catholics in the English-speaking Protestant countries, one point must be observed in modification: the Catholic, even under such favorable surroundings, has the advantage over his opponents both in definition and in knowledge. He knows much more about the others than the others know about him. ”

“ I must mention and condemn again that most pernicious error in which certain Catholics are living, who are of opinion that those people who live in error and have not the true faith, and are separated from Catholic unity, may obtain life everlasting. ”

“ And so lastly does the name itself of Catholic, which not without reason, amid so many heresies, that Church alone has so retained that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets no heretic will venture to point to his own basilica or house. Since then so many and so great are the very precious ties belonging to the Christian name which rightly keep a man who is a believer in the Catholic Church ... no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It happened that in those days, as now, the government and people of France were of the Catholic religion. England, on the other hand, was Protestant. There is a great difference between the Catholic and the Protestant systems. The Catholic Church, though it extends nearly all over the world, is banded together, as the reader is aware, under one man—the pope—who is the great head of the Church, and who lives in state at Rome. The Catholics have, in all countries, many large and splendid churches, which are ornamented with paintings and images of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. ”

“ And as there are so many liberal Catholics in this country, persecution must come to separate them from the Church. Those compromising Catholics, said a well-known convert in Detroit, Mich., have kept me out of the Church for twenty years, until at last I met a good, conscientious, and learned priest, who taught me plainly that, if I wished to save my soul, I must become a member of Christ's Body—the Catholic Church—in order to become united to her head—Jesus Christ—from whom sanctifying grace will then flow upon your soul and prepare it for life everlasting. ”

“ With our young men linked together thus, working together throughout the whole country, showing by deeds, and words, and open profession that they are Catholics, those who to-day, in 1873, wonder at the marvellous growth of the church within the last [Pg 279] half-century, if God spares them another half-century, may find their country, if not Catholic, covered, at least, and blest from end to end, with Catholic homes of learning, piety, and charity ”

“ To complete the harmony of this most desired unity, it remains for Us to address all those throughout the world whose salvation has long been the object of Our thoughts and watchful cares; We mean Catholics, whom the profession of the Roman faith, while it renders them obedient to the Apostolic See, preserves in union with Jesus Christ There is no need to exhort them to true and holy unity, since through the divine goodness they already possess it ”

“ Of this kind, in fact, was the answer of Christ in the Gospel, when He said that concerning the Day of Judgment no one had any knowledge, neither the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son: that is, according to the interpretation of the Fathers, such knowledge that He could communicate to others. Now this is the condition of Catholics in England: they are in peril of their liberty, their fortunes, and their lives, if they should have a Priest in their houses. How can it be forbidden them to escape these evils by an equivocal answer, and to confirm this answer, if necessary, by an oath? ”

“ Those Anglicans who know the true Church, but do not become Roman Catholics, thinking that they approach very near the Catholic Church, because their prayers and ceremonies are like many prayers and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and because their creed is the Apostles' Creed. ”

“ We have much more confidence in the Catholic bishops and clergy than in Protestant and infidel 'head centers.' We have no confidence in those Catholics even who sink the religious in the national question, for no nation can be really free and independent that is not Catholic. ”

“ We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two-thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholics ”

“ The first is that of those who either live among Catholics or have Catholics living in the same country with them; who know there are such persons, and often hear of them. The second regards those who have no such knowledge, and who seldom or never hear Catholics spoken of, except in a false and odious light. ”

“ May it not, however, still be hoped, that English Catholics, so liberal in their charities at home, will yet be induced to give them a wider scope, and feel a holy emulation to concur by their prayers and alms in extending the inheritance of the Lord, in unfurling the standard of the cross to the idolatrous nations of the eastern and western hemispheres, and subjecting millions of their fellow-creatures, who are still sitting in darkness and the shades of death, to the salutary influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ? ”

“ The apostolic courage with which the Catholic bishops, not fearing temporal loss, not even imprisonment and exile, defend the rights of God and of his holy church, as also the inalienable rights of Catholic conscience, and the priestly fidelity and firmness with which the Catholic clergy, not led astray by illusions and threats, remain true to the episcopate and the church, deserve the admiration and respect of all Catholics and of every right thinking man. ”