Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
One can certainly explain what an act of faith it, its proper motive, and its object. One can analyze all that contributes towards its production, such as the part played by a man's intelligence, or by his will, or by divine grace in the making of an act of faith.
Faith in the Christian sense of the word is a supernatural gift of God with the help of which a man intelligently and willingly believes all that he knows God to have revealed because God must know the truth and could not reveal as true that which is false.
Quite, if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the man who tells you is rightly informed and truthful. It is quite reasonable for university students to accept the word of their professor when he tells them that twenty-four centuries ago Aristotle studied philosophy under Plato and in turn became the teacher of Alexander the Great. Later on they can verify the professor's statement if they like by the study of documentary sources for themselves. But they behave quite reasonably in taking his word for it in the meantime.
The Bible is quite a reliable historical source.
That is beside the point. The point is whether or not the Bible has been correctly transcribed and translated. A critical, thoroughly scientific and comparative study of all ancient manuscripts proves that substantial accuracy has been preserved. You could have no more reason for rejecting the word 6f experts in this matter than you could for rejecting the word of experts in physical science for the existence of cosmic rays.
Whether what is written in the Bible is true is a totally different problem from that concerning the accuracy of our copies of the original writings. But take the question as to whether what the Bible contains is infallibly true because* the writers were inspired by God Himself in what they wrote. Is it true that we have only general or private opinion for that? It is certainly not so in the case of a Catholic. For the Catholic has the authoritative and infallible teaching of the Catholic Church as his guarantee to that effect. To refute that teaching one would have to refute the credentials of the Catholic Church as a divine institution for the guidance of mankind in such matters connected with religion.
It is a delusion for anyone, however good he may be, to imagine that he cannot possibly lose his soul. Holy Scripture tells us: "He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved." Matt., X, 22. No one can be absolutely sure that he will persevere in good dispositions; and faith does not mean such an assurance. Christian faith means belief in the Christian religion and in all that it implies. Faith is not merely a personal mood of confidence in one's future salvation. It is essential to have right ideas as to the nature of faith.
No. No one is asked to have faith in the Catholic religion as a divinely revealed religion without reasonable grounds for such a conviction. And those reasonable grounds consist in external objective facts which can be apprehended by a person quite devoid of sentiment.
No converts have ever been made either through sentiment or through reason. All owe their conversion to the grace of God, which enlightens the mind and inspires the will of man. The gift of faith, however, presupposes certain dispositions in the one who receives it; and in their approach to the faith motives will vary according to the different psychological temperaments of the people concerned. In all people both sentiment and reason play a part here; in some, sentiment predominating without excluding reason; in others, reason predominating without excluding sentiment. But the act of faith itself will be the willing intellectual acceptance of the teachings of the Catholic Church, under the influence of the grace of God.
Mr. Mencken's description is so little in accordance with the facts that if a man went to any Catholic priest and asked to be received into the Catholic Church, declaring that he thought he had the faith because he had attained to "an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable," that priest would positively reject his application. Far from being illogical, faith demands a sound and reasonable foundation. Far from being wishful thinking, it involves the acceptance of much we would have hosts of natural reasons for wishing to reject. And men who could not in the slightest degree be termed neurotics have accepted and professed the Catholic Faith. A definition which does not fit the facts is worthless.
He begins by describing faith, not as it is in reality, but inaccurately to suit the conclusions he wants to draw from it. Then he merrily goes ahead. But anyone can do that kind of thing. Let Mr. Mencken justify his definition before proceeding to base conclusions upon it.
Faith goes beyond no normal human processes. If I phone the Railway I Information Office to ask when a certain train departs, it is a normal intellectual process for me to argue that the official who supplies the information would not have the position unless he was able to supply the required knowledge and was accustomed to telling the truth. I therefore quite reasonably take his word for it that the train will depart at the time he says. I The same intellectual process is employed when we have faith in what | God has revealed. In reality Mr. Mencken is concerned, not with the intellectual process, but with the object of religious faith�the doctrines that we believe. Because they are mysterious and supernatural, not wholly understood and beyond the range of normal sense-experience, Mr. Mencken speaks of them as belonging to the "murky domain of transcendental metaphysics." But you don't refute what other people believe merely by a I contemptuous description of it.
To write a sentence like that is to make oneself ridiculous. That men like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Kepler, Newton, Pasteur, Gladstone, Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Newman, and a host of philosophers, historians I and scientists who were men of deep faith were incapable of clear and i realistic thought is absurd on the face of it.
Mr. Mencken began by saying that faith is "an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." Now he argues that, when the improbable does not happen, the disappointment cannot cure the believer. Why not? Because faith is an illogical and even pathological internal condition, independent of outside influences. He is trying to prove his point from the false definition he invented for himself! I'm afraid it is Mr. Mencken who is not merely an ass, but suffering from an incurable mental illness.
The man of faith does not say that in substance or in any other way. Mr. Mencken himself thinks trust in God is foolish. He therefore thinks that Christians must be foolish to trust in God, and takes it for granted that they always find their trust misplaced. But of what avail is the opinion of one who does not trust in God against the unanimous testimony of millions through the centuries who have trusted in God and have actually I experienced God's protection and blessing in extraordinary ways? Mr. Mencken may reply that that is their "incurable persuasion." But the retort to that is evident. Such is Mr. Mencken's incurable opinion. And it is worth only the evidence he can produce for it. He produces none. He thinks it because he thinks it. And he offers it to those who have faith in Mr. Mencken-a faith which he is welcome to describe as an illogical belief in the improbable; or, psychoanalytically, as a wishful neurotic affliction.
You admit that men with keen analytical minds do so. Does not the possibility strike you that they may be aware of evidence of which you are not aware? May not your verdict that there is not a tittle of real evidence available be due, not to knowledge, but to lack of knowledge? If one has carefully studied all that has been advanced in favor of divine revelation and has definitely refuted it all, then and then only is he entitled to say that he personally has a reasoned conviction that there is not a tittle of real evidence for it.
That is not true. The Bible has a twofold aspect. Apart from the question as to whether what it contains has been divinely revealed, one can simply ask whether it is an historically genuine and authentic account of things said and done by certain persons. Its reliability from that point of view is beyond reasonable dispute. No credulity is required for that admission. But whilst one might admit that, as an historical fact, Christ really lived, and said and did the things recorded of Him in the Bible, it is another matter to admit the claim He made to be God in human form. Acceptance of that claim does require an act of faith. But faith must not be confused with credulity. Credulity is a disposition to believe without sufficient grounds for confidence, whilst faith is a well-founded conviction. The Bible we accept as historically accurate, not by credulity, but on the evidence. The message of the Bible as the revelation of God we accept, not by credulity, but by faith.
Faith is the acceptance by one's intellect of those concepts which God has revealed to be true. It supposes an intelligent grasp of the reasons justifying the fact of divine revelation, and an intelligent belief in those truths that have been revealed. Your own very statement is related to an unreasoning unbelief, not to any intellectual concept.
It is true that, where revealed doctrines are concerned, Christians rely upon their supreme and intelligent conviction of the truth of their religion. But they do not profess to believe in it in or with their stomachs. To have to fall back on such a sarcastic caricature of faith betrays the insincerity of one trying not to believe in a Christianity he cannot entirely dismiss from his thoughts, and which he uncomfortably feels may be true after all.
People of olden times did not have miracles performed regularly in order to convince them, though miracles were more common then. But it is not amazing that they should be more frequent in the initial stages of the Church. One spends more care on a seedling, watering and fertilizing it till it safely takes root, than one does on a solidly established tree. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, said that Christianity Was rapidly and solidly established either with the help of miracles or without the help of miracles. If with the help of miracles, it was obviously from God. If without the help of miracles, then that in itself would be as great a miracle as any that could be wrought on its behalf. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church herself, with her extraordinary persistence and development, whilst ever retaining her unity, through all the centuries till our own times, would be more than enough to warrant belief in the existence of God and in the divinity of her Founder, Jesus Christ.
If we ask people to believe in what God has revealed to be true, we presuppose their conviction that there is a God. To arrive at that conviction one does not need faith. One can arrive at that conviction by reason only, for God's existence is capable of logical demonstration by a process of reasoning from effects to their cause. If a prospective convert is already firmly convinced that there is a God, it is not strictly necessary to take him through the philosophical proofs of the fact. But Bishop Fulton Sheen thought it good that those attending his classes should be made to advert fully to the reasonable grounds upon which the conviction is based.
He did not mean that reason alone can account for an act of divine faith. Such faith has as its motive, not any merely human arguments, but the authority of God who has revealed a given doctrine to be true. At the same time, human reason has rights which cannot be ignored. It justly demands that before we make an act of such faith, we have rational certainty that there is a God; that He has given a revelation; and that the particular doctrine we are asked to believe on God's word is part of that revelation. In other words, reason provides the rational foundation for a faith by which, under the influence of divine grace, we will to believe most firmly whatever God has revealed, however mysterious it may be, precisely because God has revealed it.
It is true that if people ignore the demands of reason and go only by imagination and feelings they are likely to fall into the most extravagant forms of error. The Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, Mrs. Eddy's Christian Scientists, the Witnesses of Jehovah, "Father Divine" who actually claims to be God, and many other peculiar sects, can find disciples from amongst those who are prepared to divorce religion from reason and intelligence. The Catholic Church has always condemned such an irrational attitude. A Catholic is never asked to treat his reason within its own legitimate field of operation with anything but the utmost respect.
No. Usually innate tendencies are those instincts which are natural to man. But the New Testament clearly shows that faith in Christ is not an innate natural tendency. "No man can come to me," Christ Himself said, "unless it be given him by My Father." Jn., VI, 66. Moreover, those who have received that gift of faith can definitely lose it. They are in no way compelled to retain it, whether they will to do so or not. Faith ever remains, under the influence of divine grace, the deliberate choice of an intelligent man's will. As man's will is free he can at any time reverse his choice and deliberately choose not to believe.
Christ was there quoting words from Isaias the prophet which demand an interpretation in keeping with the Hebrew mentality. He was, in reality, stating a fact and giving a warning, not declaring His intention. Many of the Jews, hearing His parables and suspecting the deeper meaning in them, did not want to know that meaning more clearly, nor were they prepared to pay any attention to it. And our Lord practically said of them: "One would think they were blind and deaf, and had no desire to understand and be converted and have their sins forgiven." Not His parables, therefore, but their own obstinacy and hardness of heart were the obstacles to their conversion. To say that He intended to keep anyone from repentance and conversion would be quite out of harmony with His character and with His mission as Redeemer. All His parables were intended to throw light on His teaching, not to obscure it; and to lead all who heard them to faith in the truth and to their salvation.
One does not need faith before he begins to pray. It is enough to be endowed with reason. Reason tells us that there is a God. Reason tells us that we owe our existence to God, and that we are subject to both mental and physical limitations. Reason therefore tells us to ask the God who made us to preserve us from dangers that could arise from our very limitations, and to grant us all the assistance we need. There's no question of a vicious circle. It's a spiral staircase. You don't go round and round; you go round and up. You can begin with the entirely reasonable prayer: "O God, who made me, enlighten me as to what I should do, and give me the strength to do it." If a person said only that prayer with genuine humility and perseveringly, God would give him the graces necessary to attain the faith in the full sense of the word.
That is not true. You fail to allow for the difference between the motive of one's faith, and the object of it or the thing believed. It is true that if I fully understand the nature of a thing and have a clear perception of irrefutable proof of it, there is no room for faith. I do not merely believe the thing to be true; I know it by my own perception of the reasons for it. But take something I do not know in that way, but which I hold to be true on the authority of .someone else. The object of my faith, the thing I believe, may be quite beyond my powers of understanding. Yet I may be perfectly certain that it is true. Here the degrees of certainty will be dependent upon the reliability of the authority upon which I rely.
That cannot apply to faith in the Catholic religion which has the authority of God as its guarantee. If I put my faith merely in what other human beings tell me, but of which I have no direct evidence myself, then however reasonable the grounds I may have for trusting them, my acceptance of what they say, I am relying on no more than my faith in them. This act of faith, merely natural and human, is in some measure a gamble, for human beings are not infallible and there is always the possibility that they are mistaken. In believing them I can but hope they are right; and I therefore gamble on the possibility of their being right rather than wrong. But divine and supernatural faith in what I know to have been revealed by God is not a gamble in any sense of the word. For God is infallible and quite incapable of error. Acceptance of His teachings, therefore, gives such absolute certainty that in no sense can it be called a gamble. No Catholic, so long as he retains the Catholic Faith, thinks of his religion as merely possibly or merely probably right. He has absolute certainty that it is right.
That is true.
They either believe them or have ceased to be Catholics; but I do not say that they know them all. In fact I am quite sure that most of them do not. I have spent much of my time explaining to various Catholics, to their great surprise, that certain doctrines are defined dogmas of their religion. But in order that all Catholics should have the same faith everywhere it is not necessary that they should know all the defined doctrines of the Catholic Church. Again and again, throughout her twenty centuries of history, the Catholic Church has had to condemn particular errors of various individuals, defining the right doctrines opposed to them. Multitudes of Catholics have never heard either of the errors or of the contrary definitions. To know of them all, every Catholic would have to know the whole history of theology, which would demand almost a lifetime of study!
He has implicit faith in them. We must not confuse the knowledge of every detail of the faith with the act of faith itself. Everyone who has the Catholic Faith believes that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded and guaranteed by Christ. He therefore says: "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church and in all that she holds and teaches." Such a general act of faith includes faith in all defined doctrines whether one has heard of them or not.
Not all are necessary for his practical guidance here and now. If, in a bygone age, the Church defined the right doctrine against some error that has never been heard of since, the definition served its practical purpose then and can be left in abeyance until the old error reasserts itself, if ever it does. Meantime, the fundamental or basic things which every Catholic must not only believe but know explicitly for his practical guidance are contained in the Catholic catechism and are taught to all Catholics, whether born of Catholic parents or converted in later life to the Church. Defined doctrines over and above those contained in the catechism the Catholic is prepared to believe once he finds out that the Church teaches those also as part of God's revelation.
His faith is unaffected. By his general act of faith in the Church he is prepared to believe all that she holds and teaches. If unwittingly he did hold a wrong opinion, the moment he discovered that it was opposed to the express teaching of the Church he would renounce at once as certainly erroneous the opinion he had mistakenly thought to be permissible. All along his faith was in the Catholic Church and in all that she teaches as part of divine revelation�a faith in which all Catholics throughout the world are united. For if one ceases to have this faith he ceases to be a Catholic.
God is not responsible for every error that has been proclaimed by men in the name of reason! You are confusing reason as a power of intelligence with reasoning as the use of that power. Such confusion can lead to the most absurd conclusions. Reason is the highest natural power man possesses. Rightly used it leads to a knowledge of the truth in its own natural order. If it did not, then God would be responsible for having given us a power calculated of its very nature to lead us astray. But we have no guarantee against its misuse even in the merely natural order. Reason is not being rightly used when people ignore the rules for its right use� the ordinary rules of logic. And lapses in logic are quite a common occurrence. But there is something else to be remembered. Although reason is the highest natural faculty we possess, its supremacy as a guide to the knowledge of all truth is not absolute. There is an order of supernatural truth known to God and not discoverable by unaided human reason at all. If God reveals some of this truth which is beyond anything this created universe contains for us, then we have to take His word for it by an act of faith in Him. And since truths of this kind are beyond anything that reason can tell us, the supremacy of reason no longer holds where they are concerned. Reason realizes that God could not reveal anything untrue; but it finds the truth He does reveal beyond its capacity. In humble submission to God man's intelligence and will must then accept an order of truth beyond the sphere of natural reason. So St. Paul speaks of the Christian religion as "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ." II Cor., X, 5. A reason which is brought into captivity and has to accept on the authority of Christ teachings it is incapable of discovering for itself, and even the significance of which it can no more than partially comprehend, can no longer proclaim its absolute supremacy.
No man who knows anything of human psychology would agree with you. Every day people will to believe good of others whom they like, and to believe evil of others whom they dislike, without bothering about proof. Belief, therefore, can be a wilful act. Ever so many of even our merely natural convictions are due to the will to believe them. And a religious belief, merely because it is religious, cannot claim to be exempt from the influence of the will.
Neither threats nor violence can make a man change his religious beliefs against his own will. But threats and violence can induce a change of will in a believer and persuade him to renounce former beliefs in favor of other doctrines. Throughout history many have died as martyrs for the Christian religion because they had the determined will to remain loyal to it. On the other hand many have abandoned belief in the Christian religion because they no longer had the will to believe in it.
That also is inaccurate. The late Judge Rutherford poured out a flood of booklets containing a hotch-potch of nonsense which was anything but the truth. Yet by employing every device to enkindle the will of ignorant people to accept quite uncritically the religious system he taught, he succeeded in changing the religious beliefs of thousands of Protestants, turning them into Witnesses of Jehovah.
Though Catholic dogmas certainly express the truth revealed by God, they are still not proved beyond doubt in the sense you have in mind. God has revealed many a mysterious truth without deigning to prove it to our satisfaction, demanding that we simply accept it on His authority. For example, God has told us that on the last day all men will rise from the dead. No human being can prove that that resurrection will take place in actual fact. Without any proof as the scientist understands proof, we believe it because God has said it. And in the absence of scientific proof a man can doubt it if he chooses to do so. If he accepts it, it is because he has the will to submit with docility to whatever God has revealed, however mysterious it may be.
When I say that Catholic Faith requires the will to accept it, I do not mean that the will alone is enough.
By his natural reason only an intelligent adult can study the historical evidences in favor of the claim of the Catholic religion to have been revealed by God and arrive at the conclusion that there is no doubt as to the truth of that claim. It does not follow that he at once accepts the claim. He could also acquire a sound knowledge of all the basic teachings and practices of the Catholic religion. But whilst reason alone can accomplish that much it cannot do more. Whilst it affords rational justification for an act of faith, it cannot produce that act of faith. The grace of God has to take over from there, enkindling in a man the desire to believe, inspiring a sense of obligation to do so, and giving an insight into the spiritual significance of what is to be believed. For that grace a man must pray. Finally, with that grace he must have the will to correspond. To the very last a man could be reluctant to accept the Catholic Faith through personal pride, or dread of moral obligations, or from fear of awkward social consequences and various other sacrifices which becoming a Catholic might involve. If, however, such a man yields to the grace of God, then that grace enables him to make an act of faith in the Catholic religion, not because of his previous study of the reasonable grounds for it, but because he obtains a vivid supernatural apprehension of its truth in itself, an awareness produced not by the light of reason but by the interior and spiritual light of grace; and he finds enkindled in his will a determination to cling to it as the greatest good he has ever possessed.
I can only make the further suggestion, as Sheila Kaye-Smith, herself a convert from Anglo-Catholicism, put it, that you should drop the "Anglo" and the hyphen, and actually become a Catholic.
You are confusing personal dispositions of faith with the objective teachings of the Christian Faith. The non-Catholic Christian may have personal dispositions of faith in as much of the Christian religion as he or she knows. But part of the Christian religion is not the^ Christian religion. It is only part of it. By "The Faith," considered objectively, I mean the whole of the Christian religion in its full integrity. And that is to be found only in the Catholic Church.
They are some of the things necessary to the Faith; but they are not all that the Faith implies. Faith in the Church rf Christ is necessary� but in which of the Churches claiming to be Christian must one have that faith? Certainly not in the Anglican Church. And how many Sacraments have you in mind�two, as your Church holds, or seven, as the Catholic Faith teaches? And what of the Sacrifice of the Mass? If may be that the baptism you received was quite valid. If so, the gift or power of faith was then infused into your soul. Yet it is possible to have this power of faith whilst remaining ignorant of much that you are meant as a Christian to believe. From the viewpoint of the contents of the Christian religion every act of faith you make is inadequate so long as you exclude from it belief in the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.
They are accused, not of being "without faith" but of being without "The Faith," meaning without the Christian Faith in its fulness and integrity. Take your own position. Anglo-Catholics believe it necessary to have an Apostolic Succession of Bishops. Congregationalists, who equally claim to be Christians, say that an Apostolic Succession of Bishops is not necessary at all. Anglo-Catholics say that Congregationalists, however good they may be personally, lack the true "Christian Faith." We Catholics merely say the same of Anglo-Catholics. Anglo-Catholics lack the "Faith" in its full sense because they reject the true doctrine of the Unity of the Church, and the doctrines of the spiritual Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope as successor of St. Peter.
Some beliefs of Anglo-Catholics are similar to Catholic beliefs. Others are not. For the rest, an Anglo-Catholic who actually becomes a Catholic, finds himself set free from a Church in which most of the members reject his Anglo-Catholic beliefs, and has the benefit of the valid Orders and valid Sacraments of the Catholic Church, together with the consolation of being at home in that unity and obedience Christ willed His followers to maintain. There are many other advantages, but there is no need to go through them all. The important thing is to pray to know the Holy Will of God and for the courage to fulfill it.
In themselves those teachings have such authority that they oblige people who know them to accept them, if they wish to save their souls. It is possible that a person would lack belief in them merely because he had never had them sufficiently explained to him, and he might die without ever having realized their truth. If such a man were of goodwill, so that he would be prepared to accept them if he knew of them, then he would have the goodwill to correspond with such other graces as God would undoubtedly give him at least interiorly, and would save his soul despite his apparent lack of belief in the teachings of Christ as we know them.
If his unbelief is his own fault, and he repudiates the Christian religion despite his having perceived its truth, dying in such dispositions, then he will lose his soul and go to hell. Christ Himself said: "He that believeth not shall be condemned." Mark, XVI, 16. The man who lacks faith through no fault of his own could not be sent to hell for that particular reason. But there may be other reasons which would take him to hell. There are many departments of life, quite apart from belief or unbelief, in which conscience makes its demands and which will have a bearing on one's judgment. But if there be no other reasons apart from a lack of belief for which he is not responsible, then ultimately such a man will attain to eternal and supernatural happiness in heaven. In the end but one of two possible eternal destinies awaits each man, heaven or hell. If he does not go to the one he necessarily goes to the other.
He had the opportunity to exercise faith in so much of divine revela- I tion as was accessible to him. Our first parents had a direct revelation from God concerning their duties/and their destiny. They^taught their I children and the knowledge was handed on from generation to generation. I Vestiges of this primitive revelation are found to this day amongst even I pagan peoples who have never come into contact with either the Jewish I or the Christian religions. But the principles I have given you stand. I A degree of faith in truth revealed by God is required for salvation ] according to the amount of knowledge a given person has of that truth,
That would be possible only if he were very ignorant of his Catholic religion or afflicted with some form of insanity. It is possible for a Catholic to leave the Catholic Church and become a Protestant without any real conviction of the truth of any form of Protestantism at all. That has happened at times. But granted sincerity, the only possible explanations would be either lack of knowledge or mental derangement at least where religion is concerned.
Not quite. For it is quite possible for a highly intelligent and sane Catholic, who knows his religion well, to lose his faith in the Catholic religion. But if such a man did so, he would abandon Christianity altogether, and not join any non-Catholic form of religion. He would know too much and be too level-headed to turn to any non-Catholic form of Christianity founded by individual men or women centuries after the time of Christ and of the Apostles. For him it would be Catholicism or nothing.
I would not say that he was mad. As I have said, it is quite possible for a Catholic who is quite intelligent and sane to lose his faith. But if not mad, would such a man be bad? As no one who has ever had the Catholic Faith and an intelligent grasp of it can lose it without guilt on his part somewhere, I would say that such a man was certainly insincere and guilty in his first deliberate infidelities when he began to drift from his Catholic beliefs, even though later he managed to delude himself into the conviction that his atheism was justified. Bui in the case of your professor - I know the man - the fact that he attacks Christianity and Catholicism in particular unmercifully, indulging in a campaign of bitter hatred, distorting facts and inventing falsehoods, betrays a malice which forfeits any right to be regarded as sincere.
He might not be mad. He could be very intelligent and sane, though religiously bad. It is not necessary, of course, entirely, to exclude the idea of madness. There are many professors, geniuses if you like, in the particular line in which they have secured university standing, who have a bee in their bonnets on matters not connected with that particular line. A fixed idea, or an obsession, can exist side by side with sanity in all other matters. And a man afflicted in such a way will seem quite normal and well-balanced until he gets on to the subject which is his particular nightmare, when his ravings betray his mental aberration. To sum this matter up, it is always possible for a Catholic to lose his faith and abandon the Catholic Church. That follows from my repeated explanations that the act of faith always remains an act of the human will in addition to other factors involved. If, however, a Catholic does lose his faith, it is not because the Catholic Church is not the true Church. It is because the lapsed person either so lacks instruction that he does not realize what he is doing, or else because he has become mentally deranged, or else because he has developed evil and rebellious dispositions of will due to the desire of gaining some worldly advantage he cannot get as a Catholic or to the desire to escape what he has come to regard as irksome duties which fidelity to his Catholic religion would require of him.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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