Radio Replies Vol 1 - Catholic Apologetics Online

They can, although they may not, once it has been sufficiently brought to their notice. You see, Christ taught certain doctrines, but did not offer any intrinsic demonstration of their truth. He demands that we accept them as a tribute to His knowledge and veracity. As, therefore, He did not do more than merely tell us these truths we are physically free to accept them because of our faith in Him, or to refuse them. To believe is to pay a tribute of confidence, and thus to merit His friendship and the rewards He promised. To refuse to believe deserves punishment because it insults so good and wise a being as Christ.

With the help of God's grace, which will not be refused if you desire it, you are able to believe that it is true. A classification of possible states of mind will clarify things for you. (1) After due study of a certain proposition, a man might see that its truth is intrinsically evident, as one knows for example that two and two make four. By intrinsic analysis the opposite is evidently false. In this case a man has not an opinion, nor a belief. He has knowledge by intrinsic evidence, and is not free to think differently. He does not merely incline to think so. (2) Another state of mind, however, is that of the willfully ignorant. One who adverts to the fact that there is a certain problem can refuse to study it, and freely choose to have no opinion on the subject. (3) Another stage is that of the willful doubter. He studies the question to a certain extent. After thinking it over somewhat inadequately he says, "I do not know. There seems to me to be six for, and half a dozen against. I am not inclined to accept one position rather than another. I am in doubt about the whole matter." Such a man can choose to let it go at that, or to continue his investigations until he solves his doubts one way or the other. (4) After due reflection, a man can come to the conclusion that there is intrinsic evidence neither for nor against a given doctrine. As far as he knows, it could be true, or it could be false. But he knows that some authoritative person has said it is true. There is nothing in the proposition itself to prevent his acceptance of it. All is a question of the credentials of his informant. He diverts his attention to the qualities of this authority. If he is satisfied that his authority must know and is truthful, he is free to accept the doctrine because of faith in his teacher, or he is free to disbelieve it on the score that it has not been intrinsically demonstrated to his personal satisfaction. Now you have studied Christian doctrine, seeking always intrinsic evidence of its truth. You have chosen to adopt the position that it will be false unless you find such intrinsic evidence. You are quite unable to prove it intrinsically false. In the circumstances you are perfectly free to divert your attention from the aspect you prescribe, study the credentials of Christ as a divine teacher, and, once convinced of their value, accept the doctrine upon His authority. If you do not do so, it will be because you do not choose to do so.

That is true, if God failed to do so. But He did not. Your reason tells you that Christianity teaches certain mysterious things. You ask on what authority it so teaches. You are told that Almighty God has revealed those doctrines. At once the fact that the doctrines are extraordinary becomes of no account. God must know, and is certainly supremely truthful. The only point is, did He reveal such doctrines. You are shown that they are contained in the Bible, and that the Catholic Church teaches them. Your duty is to make sure that the Bible is a reliable source of such information, and that the Catholic Church is an institution guaranteed by God as a safe and authentic teacher of men in religious matters. If these things have been reasonably verified, as they certainly can be, you reasonably and freely accept the doctrines thus guaranteed as being of God. Now God has not failed to endow you with sufficient reason to do this. If you refuse to use your reason, or if you misuse it, or if you refuse to believe all that you do not fully comprehend for yourself, despite your knowledge that God has revealed such doctrines, you are to blame. Remember that to refuse to believe because reason does not entirely comprehend a doctrine, is to say that human reason is the ultimate test of all truth. That is not true which human reason cannot demonstrate to its own satisfaction! In the light of the obvious limitation of human reason, and the history of human aberrations in thought, this is clearly an irrational position. The conclusion remains that Christ justified His claims to be the divinely sent Teacher of men; that He sent His Apostles and their legitimate successors to teach all nations; that He thereby laid upon all nations the obligation of being taught; and that, once His teaching has been sufficiently put before them, men are guilty if they presume to reject it. In the case of such men, acceptance of the Christian religion is necessary if they are to be saved.

If they disagree, that shows at most that you cannot take their word on behalf of their own churches. But it does not follow that there is not a right church amongst them all. Your duty is to inquire, and find the church Christ actually established.

There is no confusion amongst the clergy of the Catholic Church, which alone was established by Christ. And the Catholic Church alone can lawfully claim your allegiance. If you insist upon including all the man-made variations, then you are right about the conflicting views of the clergy. But that would not give you a true view of Christianity. As an Agnostic friend of mine wisely remarked to me, "If there be any true Christian church, it can only be the Catholic Church." He was right in his assertion, if not in his personal choice of unbelief. The logical choice does lie between Catholicism and Agnosticism.

There should never be enmity between the adherents of various churches. Nor should there be separation between the churches themselves, and the best thing the children of the Reformers could do would be to return to the Catholic Church their forefathers should never have left. Yet, granted the existence of separated churches, Catholics who belong to the true Church, whilst esteeming members of other churches, are obliged to condemn the principles which led to such a separation. Esteeming Protestants, they must try to separate the Protestants they esteem from the Protestantism they deplore.

It is not possible. If any one of them is right, then the others are all wrong. No one asks you to take our word, however, for the truth of the Catholic Church. It can be proved historically that Christ lived, that He was God, and that He founded an imperishable Church, which was to be one, holy, catholic, and aspostolic. Find that Church and you will have the true religion of Christ.

The Catholic Church can and does claim to have all the truth. For you must not confuse false ideas which are opposed to the truth with merely different angles of the truth. If, for example, it be true that Confession is a Sacrament instituted by Christ, then denial of Confession is not a different angle of the truth, but its negation.

However nice that looks on paper, it is impossible. We cannot hold that hundreds of conflicting churches, even those disowning each other, are all one united church. The good Wesleyan who says that Rome is idolatrous would have to admit that the idolatrous Catholic belongs to the same church as himself, and is equally a Christian. The notion demands not a little suppression of reason. Again, if the Catholic Church ex-communicates a man, almost any Protestant Church will promptly receive him. If the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church which receives him are one and the same, you will have the same Christ accepting and rejecting the same man at one and the same time!

The churches to which St. Paul wrote were as much united as Catholics in London today are united in one Church with the Catholics in New York, Berlin, Italy, and Australia. Non-Catholics, however, are not united, have not held fast to the traditions, believe practically as they please, and have made shipwreck of the faith as well as of disciplinary unity.

Tertullian had in mind the expansion of the one Catholic Church to many centres, each branch remaining united to the same legitimate authority.

Christ forms the complete wheel, and as He identifies the Church with Himself as his mystical body, the Catholic Church is the complete wheel, hub, spokes, and all, of Christianity in this world. And Christ prayed to His Father that the Church might be one as He and His Father are one. All non-Catholic forms of professing Christianity are broken and discarded spokes, no longer in the wheel at all as churches, whilst most of the members of these churches disown all connection with the wheel which they abandoned at the Reformation.

That is not possible. These analogies may be suitable to wrong ideas, but they do not prove those wrong ideas correct. Christ said that His Church would be one Church, not a garden of churches. As for the same fruit, the Catholic Church forbids divorce—non-Catholic churches allow it. There is more than a difference of flavor here! One fruit of the tree is unity and obedience, a fruit which the Catholic Church alone produces. That the non-Catholic churches bear some fruit I admit, but they do not produce all the fruit Christ intended. The explanation of such fruit as they seem to produce we shall see later on. Meantime your attempts to maintain the unity of all the conflicting churches are opposed both to revelation and to reason. Christ said, "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." Your system would leave him baffled. "Hear which Church?" he would cry. If you replied, "Any Church, for all churches constitute the one Church of Christ," he would complain, "But the Catholic Church forbids this, and the Anglican Church permits it!" Again, you say that the Catholic Church is as much part of the true Church as any others. But she solemnly declares that the others do not belong to the true Church. If she is truly speaking with the authority of Christ, they do not. If she is wrong, she forfeits any claims to be part of the true teaching Church. No, they cannot all be true, and the Catholic Church is the only one that is really certain that she is right.

On that score, the Seventh Day Adventists who teach that the Pope is Anti-Christ, and the Catholic Church which teaches that he is the very Vicar of Christ would both be teaching doctrines equally pleasing to God! As a matter of fact you will not hear Christ preached in any Christian church, for in all non-Catholic churches you will hear now one, now another distorted aspect of Christian doctrine. Even did you hear the uncorrupted Word of God in some non-Catholic church, that would not make you a member of Christ's true Church.

The Jews could have made a similar remark to Christ when He tried to convert them to Christianity. If we are Christians, we must deny that good intentions will suffice. And if Christianity is better than the Jewish religion—as Christ knew it was— then if the Catholic Church has the complete doctrine, and every form of Protestantism is incomplete and erroneous, it follows that Catholicism is better than Protestantism, and should be embraced.

Since God has distinctly said that He wishes us to take one particular road—the Catholic road—it does matter. Any doctrine which begins with the fundamental notion that one religion is as good as another soon ends in the conclusion that one religion is as useless as another. And the children of those who insist upon proclaiming that principle end up, as a rule, with no religion at all.

You are not wrong in worshipping the same God. You are wrong in so far as you do not do so in the right way. If I were your employer, and ordered you to go to London via Suez, and you went via Panama, you would do the right thing in going to London, but you would do the wrong thing in pleasing yourself as to the choice of route. God wants all men to serve Him, and to serve Him in the Catholic Church. The Catholic way is completely right; the Protestant way is more than half wrong.

That you lead a good life is to be commended. But it would be better to do it in the way God wishes, rather than in your own way. Your leading a good life cannot prove your religion true. If it did, then the fact that a Catholic lives a good life also proves the Catholic Church true. Yet if your religion is true, the Catholic Church is not. You cannot appeal to your own life as proof, but must find out how Christ described His Church, and then look for that Church.

Some Protestants believe that. Many do not. Good Protestants can be saved, but if they are good they are Protestants in good faith who have the will to do God's will, and are not Catholics merely because they do not realize their obligation to join the true Church.

And is not one doing wrong when he refuses to bother about doctrinal belief? Why did Christ say, "He that believes shall be saved?" Why did He send the Apostles to teach doctrine? Not only are good works required, but also the true faith.

That is taking refuge in credulity. Every rational man, if he does a thing, should know why he does it. Moreover, Christianity is a set of truths to be believed as well as a life to be lived. It imposes obligations upon the intelligence as well as upon the will and the passions. Jesus said, "Repent and believe the Gospel." But before a reasonable man believes, he must either prove the doctrine true in itself, or at least that God has revealed it, then he knows that it must be true even though he himself does not fully comprehend it. To say that God is indifferent as to whether a man is a Protestant or a Catholic goes very close to blasphemy. If he revealed the doctrines of Protestantism, He could not possibly be pleased with one who would deliberately accept the opposite by embracing Catholicism.

If you mean that there are good men and bad men in all religions, you are right. But if you mean that the teachings of all churches, including the Catholic Church, are partly true and partly false, you are wrong. The teachings of all non-Catholic churches are partly true and partly false. Partly true, for a religion consisting wholly of error could not exist. Partly fabe, because all non-Catholic churches are a denial that Christ made sufficient provision for the Church He established. But not a single false doctrine is to be found in the official teaching of the Catholic Church, which is the work, not of man, but of God. If a man is obliged to accept the truth in its entirety, and not a fragment of the truth, he is obliged to accept the Catholic Church as his guide.

Few Protestants would thank you for such a dreadful description of their religion. Nothing more is necessary? Do what you like, but say that prayer in your heart! Also, had Christ but one doctrine to give, namely, "Say a prayer in your own hearts," He went a very strange way about teaching that doctrine.

In so far as you are sincere, Our Lord overlooks your mistaken notions and accepts your love for Him. But the fact remains that you serve Him in your way, and not in His, and that He does not obtain from you all that He desires. Also what He overlooks in you He would not overlook in a Catholic who has known the truth.

No. Not all the sincerity in the world can be a sufficient substitute for authentic credentials in this matter. An immense power and authority over the souls of men requires solid proof that it is really possessed. Christ proved that He had it. The Catholic Church can prove that He entrusted that power to Her. Founders of other churches had no more than their own personal conviction that they possessed such authority—a persuasion as insufficient as would be my own personal belief that I had the authority of the Chief Justice in the land.

Witness in oneself may easily be purely subjective persuasion, and is no sure test of truth. Men holding totally divergent views claim to experience this witness within themselves, yet they cannot all have the exact truth revealed by Christ. Thank God, intellectual mistakes do not always mean evil dispositions. But remember that Christ allowed the Jews to go because they knowingly refused to accept His teaching on the Eucharist—a teaching you also reject, as we shall see. If you knew what you were doing, He would reject you also.

The Kingdom of God as established by Christ is at once a visible Church in this world, and an invisible spiritual Kingdom of grace within the soul. External adherence to the visible Kingdom demands also that Christ reign by grace within the soul. But this interior grace does not dispense a man from accepting the will of Christ once he is aware of it, nor from the obligation to join the visible Kingdom established by Him in this world. Christ distinctly said, "I will build my Church"; and again, "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." He was obviously referring to the authority of a visible Church. He also likened His Church to a net holding good and bad fish. This cannot refer to a Kingdom of spiritual and invisible grace only, for bad fish are not in a state of grace.

The teaching of Christ clearly condemns Protestant principles, and insists upon the acceptance of Catholic principles. He did die for all who would accept Him, but one does not accept Him who rejects knowingly the very definite and particular religion He gave to the world. And He predicted that that religion would be characterized by unity of doctrine, holiness of moral precepts, catholicity or universatility, and continuous succession from the Apostles.

The authority of the priesthood will be the subject of our consideration in due time. Meantime the denominations were not necessary according to the mind of Christ. He prayed that all might be one, as He and His Father are one. St. Paul said that even though an Angel from heaven were to preach a gospel differing from that already given, he should be regarded as accursed. No one had any right to establish the denominations, with their varying doctrines.

It is ten thousand times a pity. But remember that the Catholic Church did not start the conflict. She cannot be blamed for the domestic troubles of Protestantism. All Catholics at least are in doctrinal unity.

Because Christ said, "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." He did not say, "If a man will not hear a portion of the Gospel in man-made substitute churches."

Bigotry is blind zeal. It is not bigotry to say that a thing cannot be true if its opposite is proved to be correct. Truth must exclude error.

You are. And you might be able to think out ideas just as valuable as ourselves. But here it is not a question of human opinions. It is a question of God's teaching, and neither your opinions nor our opinions have any value if they contradict that. Catholic doctrine is not our opinion, but His doctrine who sent the Church to teach in His name.

We are obliged by the law of charity. But charity does not forbid one to tell the truth. It forbids blaming people who, through no fault of their own, do not know the truth. Nor would the Catholic Church wish Protestants to admit that she is right if she were not right. And since she can prove that they are not right, she is not doing to them what she would not have them do to her in denying the correctness of their religion.

The Catholic Church has to condemn Protestantism as a system. But she desires to insult no single Protestant. That Protestants are human beings does not prove their religion true. Otherwise the fact that Catholics are human beings also would prove their religion true. As a matter of fact, in so far as Protestants are human beings we Catholics love them, and it is our very interest in them which makes us want to give them the best religion in the world—Catholicism. Protestantism is not good enough for them.

That is a great compliment to the Catholic Church, when we consider the conditions others lay down as the basis of reunion. For it means that she is doing more than any other church to keep intact the religion entrusted to her by Christ, and that she steadily refuses to let her heart run away with her head by admitting that whatever sincere but mistaken men would like to be true is good enough, and that what Christ exactly taught does not really matter.

One instance is enough to refute that statement. Your proportion would be about four hundred in forty millions. Now the population of England is about forty millions, and in England alone the average number of converts to the Catholic Church is over twelve thousand yearly. The number is even greater in America, and a steady stream of converts is the experience of most other countries also. However, the one instance of England is a sufficient reply to your extravagant assertion.

You take up an extraordinary position. If you do not say that you are right, you cannot have definite grounds for your belief, and such belief is credulity.And do you really believe in everyone believing in his own belief? Whether that belief be right or wrong? If so, you believe in people believing in error. But Christ came precisely to stop people from believing in error. Far from allowing people to believe in their own beliefs, He commanded them to give up their previous beliefs, and believe in what He taught, if they wished to save their souls. I believe with you in not criticizing others. I give them credit for sincerity and goodness. But it is quite lawful to criticize their theories.

If you except the Catholic Church, I'm afraid it is. That other churches think so is shown by the amazing exchanges of pulpits and attendances. But the Catholic Church is a different thing altogether. Until we prove a tiling it is a matter of opinion. Thus before Australia was discovered, it was a matter of opinion as to whetlier a southern continent existed or not. But once discovered, it was no longer a matter of opinion. So, too, if God had never given a revelation about religion, it might be a matter of opinion. But once God speaks in a definite way, it is no longer a matter of opinion. When the Creator speaks, the creature must simply accept. Now God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who established one definite Church, to which He gave His teaching authority. This does not look like religion being a matter of opinion. Here we have God's decision, and we must accept it. If our human opinions suggest anything against the teaching of Christ, or against the teaching of His Church, we just renounce our own fallible ideas as being the foolish notions of untaught children. The Protestant clings to his own opinions whether they are in harmony with God's explicit teachings or not. Nor does he make much effort to find out what those teachings are. But God would no more admit that the religion revealed by Him is a mere matter of opinion than your grocer would admit that the amount owing to him is a mere matter of opinion.

No. If the individual conscience is to be the guide, there will be as many religions as consciences. There are right consciences and wrong consciences. Conscience is right if it squares with the laws of God. It is warped if it be at variance with the will of God. However, if conscience alone matters, why did not Christ leave us all to our consciences, instead of carefully teaching His Apostles a definite set of doctrines to be preached and to be believed? Conscience must accept the teachings of Christ, who could neither be deceived, nor deceive us.

Why did Christ try to convert people to His special doctrines? And whv did He send His Church to teach all nations? If God gives the truth to man by sending His Son, is it not better to have that truth to guide one's conduct? Or is it better to be in partial or total ignorance, omitting much that ought to be done, and being forgiven by God only because not knowing any better? To know the truth and live exactly as God intends is much better than asking to be excused from it on the plea of ignorance.

Very often. But there is this difference. The Catholic who does not understand Protestantism does not know the wrong thing. The Protestant who does not know Catholicism does not know the right thing. I personally know both, having been brought up in Protestantism, which I renounced in favor of Catholicism.

All things else being equal, and strictly from the viewpoint of the religions, Catholics have many advantages. They have the full truth contained in Sacred Scripture and in the teaching Church. The Protestant accepts only part of Scripture, and has no God-appointed guide. Certainly a man with full information as to the road leading to a given destination has greater advantages than one with defective information. Again, Catholics have more means of grace than non-Catholics. They have the sacrifice of the Mass, and seven Sacraments. You may say that Christ gives grace at times independently of the Sacraments instituted by Him for this purpose. But why should He, when He definitely institutes seven Sacraments for the purpose? And even granting that He does give certain graces to those in good faith, those graces are not so plentiful, nor of the same nature as the special Sacramental graces.

Yes. As a matter of fact, a close study of other forms will suggest only reasons for abandoning them, whilst an equally close study of Catholicism intensifies the conviction that in the Catholic Church, and in her alone, can the full truth be found.

There is no such thing as the Protestant faith. There are hundreds of varieties of Protestantism, each variety containing some true things mixed up with its own particular errors. As religious systems I say that all Protestant sects are wrong.

In general it says that Scripture is a sufficient guide to salvation, although Scripture says that it is not; it denies the authority of the Church established by Christ; it has no sacrifice of the Mass; it does not believe in confession; it denies Christian teaching on marriage; it rejects Purgatory, and very often its advocates refuse to believe in Hell. But I could go on almost forever. Meantime, if you give me any doctrine taught by one Protestant Church, I will produce another Protestant Church which denies it, save perhaps the one doctrine that there is a God of some sort.

Christ said, "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." Matt. XVIII, 17. He referred, of course, to a deliberate and willful refusal of a known obligation. If a man knows that the Catholic Church is the true Church, yet refuses to obey it, he will certainly be as the heathen before God. But Protestants who are ignorant of the truth of the Catholic claims, and who believe in Christ, trying to serve Him as best they can, would not be regarded as heathens. An exception is made in their case because of their lack of knowledge and because of their good dispositions.

Christ promised that His Church would not fail. The Protestant Reformers said that it did fail. Instead of protesting merely against the bad lives of some Catholics, and even of some Priests, they went too far, and protested against the Church as such, asserting that Christ had failed to keep His promise concerning it. This was a protest against Christ, who had promised to be with His Church till the end of the world. Protest as much as you like against individual abuses in the Church, but no man has the right to set up a new Church.

Protestantism was not a true reformation of the Church. The identity of the Church is indissolubly linked with a continuous identity of doctrine, worship, and discipline. The so-called Reformation involved the abolition of essential doctrines, worship, and discipline, substituting completely different and humanly invented alternatives.

You are supposing that the Protestant Churches have the same doctrine, worship, and discipline as those early Churches. But this is an unwarranted supposition. Those early branch foundations of the one true Church had the true doctrine, and were in communion with St. Peter, Bishop of Rome, who addressed his first Epistle to the Galatians and several other Churches. Protestant Churches do not hold the same doctrine as those early Churches, nor do they acknowledge the same obedience. Also, in all the countries where Protestant Churches exist, there exists also the Catholic Church which corresponds exactly with the Churches of the Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, etc.

Christ, as the Founder of the Catholic Church, was of course a Catholic. But your conclusion does not follow. Many profess to believe in Christ, but do not accept the whole of His teaching. They are mistaken. Certainly the Anglican does not believe in the correct doctrines of Christ if the Baptist does. The Catholic Church alone teaches the complete doctrine of Christ, and the only way to become a Catholic is to submit to her teaching authority and disciplinary directions.

The Protestant sects constitute a breakaway from the Catholic Church. That is their condemnation, for there could never have been a valid reason for leaving the Church established and guaranteed by Christ. In any case, branches of the Church must be living branches still retaining their union with the parent tree. The Catholic Church as established in England, or in America, or in Australia, fits in with the idea of living branches. But at best, the Protestant sects are branches sawn off, and without the true life of the tree. Protestant Churches are divisions from the Church, not co-ordinated parts within the Church, and making up one complete body.

On the same reasoning you would argue that because sin exists Christ meant it to be! Christ predicted that heresies would arise, but distinctly forbade men to abandon the Church and originate them.

Not everything is sent by God. He permits some things which the perverse will of men causes, and He permitted the evil of heresy. However, He never permits any evil without drawing some good from it. There are many good Protestants despite the sin of those who began Protestantism. And it is undeniable that Protestantism occasioned the reform of many abuses among the members of the Catholic Church.

None whatever. No body of believers has any right to arrogate to itself any powers at all in this matter, just as no ordinary citizen has the right to enter a court and declare himself to be judge. Yet a lawfully appointed judge has the right to act in virtue of his commission. The Catholic Church takes nothing upon herself, but she does endeavor to fulfill the commission given her by Christ. Historically she alone can possibly inherit the jurisdiction given by Christ to the Apostles, and handed down through tiie ages. All other churches exist because men arrogated to themselves the right to coin new doctrines and set up churches of their own.

Some Protestants have those things, at least theoretically. Others have some of them. Others have none of them. But in any case they would not prove Protestants to be true Christians. At most they prove that some Protestants are attempting to do some Christian things. But a true Christian accepts the complete teaching of Christ, and does all that He commands. And all is accepted on the authority of Christ, not on the authority of one's own human judgment. A self-made religion built upon a personally approved selection from the teaching of Christ does not give us the Christian religion.

The idea that there are Protestants as good as Catholics has no bearing on the question. There are very good and sincere Mahometans, but that does not make Mahometanism true. And again, there is not a Protestant Church, there are dozens of different brands of Protestantism. Tell me which brand of Protestantism is as good as the Catholic Church, and I shall tell you when it started and who started it. Christ certainly did not begin it.

And when they do they end in chaos, or with no religion at all! However, the chief characteristic of the majority of Protestants is absence of thinking on matters of religion.

No. There is no really rational foundation for Protestantism, and if Protestants did reflect soundly upon the subject they would discover this. But there is a rational foundation for Catholicism. All Catholics at least know that their Church would not be so vast and united, not to speak of its mere existence, after centuries of misrepresentation, hatred, and attack, were it not for the protection of God. And if they give deeper thought to the matter they find many other solid reasons for their conviction. Impartial study leads a man out of Protestantism. It never leads a man out of Catholicism.

You show complete ignorance of Catholic theological works, written by the cleverest men of the centuries. St. Thomas Aquinas had the Catholic Faith very deeply, yet wrote probably the greatest masterpiece of religious thinking the world has ever seen.

You are in a quandary. Catholics remain Catholics because they do not think, yet thinking led me to become a Catholic! However, Catholics are free to think as much as they like about religion, and the more the better. The Catholic Church merely keeps them from thinking wrongly. Protestants are free to think whatever they like, apparently, with no safeguard against error at all.

Because the ancestors of its present members rejected and left the Catholic Church, setting up Churches of their own. But must the religion of the British Empire be the true religion? Is that the infallible test? If Anglicanism is true because it is British, we may as well add, "and because it is not French, or Spanish, or Italian, or German, or Austrian, etc." In other words, because it is not the religion for all nations established by Christ.

It is not certain that men would realize their mistakes on other subjects. In political and national affairs men differ hopelessly, and absurd political policies seem ever to find followers. Yet, even granted that men would realize their mistakes in other matters, they would not therefore realize the falsity of Protestantism. In the first place, religion is very different from other matters. It is not here a question of a merely intellectual admission. The acceptance of Catholicism is a complex matter demanding adherence of mind, heart, and will, under the influence of God's grace. The absence of one or other necessary condition can mean a dimming of one's powers of comprehension. And until a man sees the truth of Catholicism, he is liable to rest more or less content with the religion he has. Again, Protestant prejudice is a real, if unrealized, force in those educated under the influence of Protestantism, a force blinding people to the defects of Protestantism, and to the merits of Catholicism. I remember a man who went through many forms of Protestantism, ending in Agnosticism, and who replied to my question as to whether he had ever studied Catholicism, "No. But Catholicism can't be right!" Protestantism had ceased to grip him positively, yet still left the negative poison in his system, "Rome must be wrong—I would not even consider it." Finally, and especially with Englishmen, the Protestant religion has been so blended with nationalism that it has become a matter of sentiment and patriotism. Its adherents go far more by feeling and emotion than by reason and true faith. Indeed it has been said strongly, yet not without a degree of truth, that when an Englishman enters his Church, he leaves his brains on the doormat. In other words, the average Protestant gives little real thought to his religious position at all.

The world is not afraid of Protestantism, which has always been ready to water down Christian obligations to suit it. But instinctively the world hates and fears the Catholic Church, which will make no compromise, but insists upon the fullness of Christian doctrine, comfortable or uncomfortable. She insists upon the intellectual obedience of faith; disciplinary submission of the will; the impossibility of divorce and re-marriage; the iniquity of birth-control by evil means; the inadequacy of a merely secular education. Her repetition of Christ's axiom, "Deny thyself; take up thy cross; and follow Me," interferes too much with the comfort of men. If Christianity demanded merely the admission of a few religious doctrines, men would not object to it. But since it imposes moral obligations difficult for human nature, I am not surprised that men refuse it in its original and austere form when they are offered a less exacting substitute with the assurance that it is just as good.

Not for reunion with the Catholic Church. Meantime, if they were to unite among themselves, the union would not last a generation. As long as men refuse to submit to the Catholic Church, they will insist upon the right to think for themselves and build up systems accordingly. If Protestantism grants the right of private judgment, it may secure the cry, "Good. I think Catholicism wrong." But it must be prepared to hear the words, "And I think Protestantism wrong also." Already-established Protestantism can say nothing, and the man sets up for himself. So it will go on. The Catholic Church alone can preserve true unity. Every year finds Protestantism splitting up into still further sects, and in the end it will fall, as must every house divided against itself.

He gave many excuses, but no real reasons. Before he left the Church, he was a member of a religious order, vowed for the love of Christ to poverty, chastity, and obedience. He broke all three vows. Vices, whether intellectual or moral, are excuses, not reasons, for leaving the Church.

He had a certain natural courage. But that was no more a virtue than the courage often found in evil-doers. I do not maintain that merely human courage is the monopoly of good Christian men. However, I deny that Luther was following his sincere convictions. Rather he followed his passions.

Luther knew that it was certainly contrary to his duty to God to violate the solemn vows he had made to God, and still more so, to take a Nun from her Convent as his wife. As for love of God, Jesus invited His Apostles to love Him so much as to leave aside all attachment to father, mother, wife, or children, in order the more closely to follow Him. He blessed marriage for such as are called to that state. But He Himself did not marry, nor did His Apostles after they were called to the ministry.

The only lawful sense of such a saying is, "Happy is he whose conduct never goes against what a right conscience allows." With Luther it meant, "Happy is he whose conscience is twisted and distorted until it allows whatever one wishes to do." If a Catholic Priest to day did what Luther did then, the Protestant world would hold up its hands in horror, and the newspapers would broadcast it as yet another scandal in the Catholic Church. Picture the heading, "Priest runs away with Nun!" Yet you pretend that it is edifying in Luther. No one who has an elementary knowledge of the life of Christ and of that of Luther could possibly reconcile them. The majority of those who glorify Luther know little or nothing about him save his name. They believe in a legendary Luther, accepting it on trust that he tried to follow the pure Gospel. Sincere Protestants to-day do wish to follow Christ, but the more they do so, the less like Luther they become.

Intellectually, not much. He declared that reason was of the devil, and that the Christian must regard it as his greatest enemy. Morally, less still. St. Paul says that those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences. Gal. V., 24. That Luther indulged his vices and concupiscences is clear from his writings, where he gives disgraceful descriptions of his own indulgence in everything passionate. His diaries record shocking excesses of sensuality, which could not be printed in any decent book to-day. A true Apostle of Christ does not give vent to such expressions as, "To be continent and chaste is not in me," or, "Why do I sit soaked in wine." I do not say these things merely to detract from the memory of Luther. But it is not right that people should be duped by the thought that Luther was a well-balanced and saintly reformer. He was not entirely devoid of good qualities. He was endowed with a certain kindness and generosity. But this does not compensate for his vices. He should have controlled his sentimentality and emotional nature in the light of Christian principles. He did not, but gave free rein to his lower passions, calmly saying that a man has to do so, and will not be responsible for such conduct.

Under Catholic auspices. It was convened by Charles V., a Catholic sovereign, chiefly to secure temporal peace. In 1517 Luther had broken into open revolt against the Catholic Church, preaching new and heretical doctrines. Charles V. became Emperor in 1520. Many German states, anxious to revolt politically against Charles, followed the new religious revolt of Luther. Chaos reigned in Germany. The Emperor was anxious for political peace; the Pope was anxious to stop the corruption of Catholicism by the preaching of these new doctrines. Charles, therefore, called a Diet or general assembly of all the lesser German princes at Spires in 1529. Pope Clement VII. urged Charles to take up the cause of the Catholic religion at the same time, and in reference to religion, the Diet made three main propositions. The celebration of Mass was to be permitted in those states where Protestants had forbidden it. The reformers were to be free to practice their new religion in those states where it had already been accepted, but it was not to be propagated beyond those states. No sect which denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist could be tolerated. The vast majority of Protestants at the Diet approved these laws, but the evangelical minority, whilst accepting the third law, refused to permit Mass, and to refrain from preaching Protestantism to still Catholic peoples. They formally protested that the religion of the people in a given place must be the religion of the temporal ruler of the country, and it is from this protest at the Diet of Spires in 1529 that the word Protestant is derived. It was a protest against freedom of conscience, and against the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church, as well as against the temporal authority of Charles V.

It did, but rather for evil than for good. It led to dire results and the wrecking of the Catholic faith in many unthinking people. I am speaking, of course, of those delegates at the Diet who protested against its decisions, and am dealing with religious thought. Scientific thought would have gone on in any case. It is not to Protestantism that we owe the scientific and mechanical progress of modern times. That would have come just the same. But in religion Protestantism has given us only chaos, dreary contradictions, and several millions of would-be infallible individual authorities on religious questions. It was a regression from the authority of God to that of erratic man. And where Protestantism began by pretending to defend the rights of the Bible, it has ended by practically declaring the Bible to be worthless.

The Anglican Church did not exist then. But when later established it gradually adopted Protestant principles, and is a Protestant Church.

I myself was brought up as an Anglican, and in the firm belief that I was a Protestant. An Anglican paper. The English Churchman is subtitled A Protestant Family Journal, The King of England is an Anglican, and in his coronation oath uses the words, "I solemnly and sincerely profess, etc., that I am a faithful Protestant."

Some Anglicans do; some do not. In any case, if a stray child wandered into some home and declared that it was a member of the family, it would not avail much if the whole family declared that it was no relative at all. And despite the claims of a few Anglicans, not only Catholics, but practically everyone knows that the Church of England is not a part of the Catholic Church, and that it is as Protestant as the Plymouth Brethren. Catch an Anglican off his guard, whoever he may be, and his own Church never enters his head when asked to direct someone to a Catholic Church. The oath taken by the King of England is as un-Catholic a formula as could well be conceived, and it definitely declares Anglicanism to be a Protestant sect cut off from, and distinct from, the Catholic Church.

If you have any respect for the law of England you must regard the King as head of the Anglican Church. The law says that he is, and to deny it is disloyal. As an Anglican I always accepted the King as head of the Anglican Church. As a Catholic, I still look upon him as head of that Church. Every loyal subject must do so. In the Book of Common Prayer, prior to the Articles, you will read the profession of the King, "Being supreme governor of the Church which is committed to our care." By law the very Bishops of the Anglican Church are subject to him in things spiritual as well as in things temporal. A man is loyal if he respects the laws of his country. We Catholics admit that the King is head of the Church of England, and we are loyal in doing so. But whether the Anglican Church is the true Church of Christ is another question. That we deny, and no law asks us to admit it. Nor could any valid law demand such an admission.

It is the Catholic Church, a Church which has its headquarters at Rome, subjection to the Bishop of Rome being the test of true Catholicity. Anglicans, or at least some of them, would like to pretend that we have the Roman form of Catholicity, and that they have the English form. But this is mere pretense. The Catholic Church is international. The Church of England is national, its authority being vested, not in a successor of the Apostles, but in a successor of Henry VIII.

The differences are legion. Firstly, there is all the difference between a Church established by Henry VIII., King of England, and that established so carefully by Christ. Secondly, the Anglican Church is still subject to parliament; is national in character; is chaotic in doctrine and discipline; has no valid orders; rejects the Mass, and the obligation of Confession. But why continue! All is summed up in the fundamental difference that the Catholic Church is the true Church, whilst the Church of England is a man-made substitute Church.

If you mean by the English Catholic Church that Catholic Church in England which is under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, there is no difference. But if you mean the Church of England I can only reply that that Church is not Catholic at all.

Other Protestant Churches are doing as much as the Church of England in this matter, yet you will not admit that they are Catholic because of that. But apart from that, what does the word Catholic really mean in its technical Christian sense? It does not refer to area alone. To be really Catholic a Church must have originated with Christ; must have existed in all ages since Christ; must be suitable for all nations and be ever expanding amongst them; must possess all the doctrine of Christ; and must ever retain all its members within the same unity of authoritative discipline. The Church of England fails in all these requirements. In origin, it was by British law established, and remains subject to the crown of England. In time, it dates from the 16th century, and therefore has certainly not existed in all ages since Christ. Nor is the Church of England adapted to all peoples. If a man seriously accepts the Church of England Prayer Book, he has to accept the King of England as the supreme head and governor of the Anglican Church. How could you ask a Frenchman to accept the President of France as his civil ruler, yet the decisions of the British parliament as his rule of faith? If we turn to facts, we find no trace of a truly Catholic expansive principle in Anglicanism. In spite of its belated and isolated missionary efforts since the 18th century, some hundreds of years after its establishment, it is not even attempting to convert all peoples. I have never met any body of Italian Anglicans, or Spanish, or German, or French, or Austrian Anglicans. No European nation accepts your Church except the British. Why does the Church of England make no effort for these peoples? Have they not the right to the truth taught by Christ? Or is it because the Catholic Church is quite all right for them? Yet if this be the case, why does the Church of England plant missions in newer lands where the Catholic Church already exists? The fact that it neglects other European countries shows that it has not a truly Catholic spirit, whilst the fact that it does set up isolated missions in opposition to already existing Catholic missions shows that it is not really conscious of being part of the Catholic Church at all. But let us turn from origin, time, and extent, to doctrine. Catholic doctrine demands that all members of the Church accept the same truths. Otherwise it cannot be a question of the same religion everywhere. Now the Church of England does not accept all the doctrines of Christ It terms many of them fables and blasphemies. Nor only that. In such part of Christian doctrine as it does accept, Anglicanism is a house of confusion. Bishop Barnes and Lord Halifax claim to belong to the same Church, yet would cheerfully excommunicate each other as heretics. A low-church missionary will establish a Church in Papua which can scarcely be recognized as being of the same religion as that established by a high-church man in Fiji. Finally, I need scarcely speak of unity in discipline. There is hardly any such unity within the Anglican Church in practice, and whilst some Anglicans claim unity with the Catholic Church, that Church denies any such bond. So great is the difference between the Church of England and the Catholic Church that we can safely say that, if the Anglican Church be the true Church, then the Catholic Church is certainly wrong, and vice-versa.

History shows that the Catholic Church was in England before the time of Henry VIII. To-day we have the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, in addition, of course, to many others. The Anglican Church was unheard of, until Henry VIII. determined to establish it. Previously, he had been as subject to the Pope as I am. The Church which history records as being in England before Henry corresponds exactly with the Catholic Church in England to-day under the Archbishop of Westminster. Anglicanism is the intruder.

Henry gave no Church back to England. To give back is to restore what was possessed before. But nothing like the Anglican Church had previously existed in England. You cannot term Henry's action the removing of foreign matter from an eye. Rather he removed the eye, and filled up the cavity with foreign matter. The Catholic Church was suppressed, and a new Church of England was created.

Historians use the word reformation to designate the religious changes of the 16th century, but the radical change cannot be called reform. The Church of England began with a new constitution altogether, with Caesar as supreme in the things which should belong to God. Before the Reformation the Mass was the very centre and essence of religion, yet before very long it was banished and ridiculed. The new religion meant a change in both worship and discipline.

Never. The Catholic Church, subject to the Bishop of Rome, has the same constitution as that given her by Christ when He said to St. Peter, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my Church." She has the same foundation as the one and only Church in England until the substitution of himself by Henry VIII. as the foundation stone of the Church of England. The Anglican Church came into existence by a complete change of constitution which every previous Archbishop of Canterbury from the time of Augustine would have rejected with horror.

Your statement is erroneous, and in any case you cannot claim that the present Church of England has any connection with the Church which was in England prior to the coming of St. Augustine. Let us put it this way. There are two sets of Bishops in England to-day. There are the Bishops of the Church of England, and the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church—if you like such a phrase. The Anglican Bishops are not subject to the Pope—the Catholic Bishops are. Now in the year 1500—we need not go back to the pre-Augustine Church, though the same thing was true then—there was but one set of Bishops in England. Which of the two sets of Bishops now corresponds with the one set of Bishops then? If we can solve that, we shall be able to find the intruder.Without dwelling upon probable traditions concerning the sending of missionaries by Pope Eleutherius about the year 170 A.D., it is certain that the very first elements of Christianity came to England from the Continent, where all true Christians were subject to the Pope. In 314 A.D., English Bishops were present at the Council of Aries, in Gaul. This was over 200 years before St. Augustine set foot in England. Now every Bishop of the Council of Aries was in communion with Rome. The Council was held under authority from Pope Sylvester, who sent his legates, and who received from the assembled Bishops this greeting, "In the unity of our mother the Catholic Church, we salute thee, most glorious Pope, with the reverence due." No Anglican Bishops to-day would be invited to sit in Council with the Bishops of Italy, Spain, France, Africa, Germany, and other regions, as those early English Bishops did at the Council of Aries. Something has gone wrong somewhere!In 596 Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine to England, giving him authority over all the Bishops already in England. They must all have been Roman Catholics for the Bishop of Rome to use such words as these: "We give you no authority over the Bishops of Gaul. But as for all the Bishops of Britain, we commit them to your care, that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by persuasion, the perverse corrected by authority."In 735 the Venerable Bede wrote, "The Pope bears pontifical power over the whole world." St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote, in the 11th century, "It is certain that he who does not obey the Roman Pontiff is disobedient to the Apostle Peter, nor is he of that flock given to Peter by God." In 1154 a member of the Church in England at that time was elected Pope. His name was Nicholas Breakspeare. You cannot imagine a member of the Anglican Hierarchy to-day being elected Pope! In 1170 St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote, "Who doubts that the Roman Church is the head of all Churches, and the source of doctrine." In 1208, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote, "Pope Alexander, possessing plenitude of power, gave back this Archbishopric to Thomas independently of the royal assent." This was the one set of Bishops in England before the reformation, and the Catholic Bishops in England to-day are their corresponding Bishops. Where were the Anglican Bishops before the reformation? They did not exist. Or take this simple reasoning. St. Thomas More was beheaded because he refused to give up the old religion. Then whatever religion he was clinging to, was the old religion. But he was clinging to what you would call the Roman Catholic religion, refusing the oath of supremacy which Henry VIII. claimed over the new Church of his own creation. If this new Church of England was the same as the old Church in England, St. Thomas More was a fool indeed to lose his life. Yet he was an exceedingly good and wise man.

He has no link with them either by jurisdiction or by Holy Orders. He merely retains the name without the reality, and owes his position to the crown. All the privileges once granted to the Archbishops of Canterbury by Rome are now granted to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. If the present Archbishop of Canterbury were converted to the Catholic Church, and wished to exercise priestly functions in that Church, he would have to be ordained as if he had never claimed to be a cleric of any description previously.

There have been Anglican Bishops continuously since the Reformation, but valid Orders have not been continuously handed on. Henry VIII began the Church of England in 1534. The Bishops who submitted to him were validly consecrated, and validity lasted until 1550. But in that year, under Edward VI, a great effort was made to protestantize still more the Church of England both in doctrine and in practice. The form of Ordination was deliberately changed, all reference to priesthood in the true Christian sense of the word being eliminated. This defective form, utterly useless for the true ordination of priests, remained unchanged until 1662 - 112 years later. Then the mistake was realized and the form was corrected. But the correction was too late, for those with correct Orders had died, and only those who had been invalidly consecrated remained to hand on their pretended Orders. Not a few Anglicans have tried to make sure of Orders by re-ordination at the hands of schismatical Bishops. The Anglican Bishop Knox, writing in the National Review for September, 1925, said correctly, "The Pope refused absolutely to recognize our Anglican Orders on the ground that our Church does not ordain priests to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. In spite of attempts made by our Archbishop to conceal this defect, the Pope from his point of view was unquestionably right. It is true that certain priests of the Church of England offer so-called Masses, but as they were not ordained by the Church with the intention that they should offer the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father, the Sacrament of their Ordination is for this purpose a failure. The Prayer Book and Ordinal are simply un-Catholic, since they show no sign of fulfilling the most important of all Catholic functions."

Firstly, there is no such thing as a united Orthodox Church. Nor can the admissions of one or two sections of that Church be quoted as the universal judgment of the Greek Church.Secondly, the Greek Bishops do not claim infallibility. They may say, "This is our opinion," but they cannot add, "And our opinion is certainly true." In other words, the admissions of some isolated Greek Patriarchs prove nothing.Thirdly, such opinion as some Patriarchs may have expressed was based upon defective information. They could judge only upon the information given them. But the true facts were not put before them. High-Church men submitted an exposition of the case against which Anglican newspapers in England protested strongly as being a most distorted view of Church of England principles. The verdict of a misinformed Greek Bishop cannot avail against the verdict of a well-informed Anglican Bishop, such as Bishop Knox.

Yes. It is an infallible decision concerning a secondary object connected with and necessary for the defence of revealed dogma. We have to accept the decision, not from a motive of divine faith, but because of the infallible authority of the Church. The question was submitted to a thorough and even sympathetic consideration, the Pope knowing that if Anglican Orders could be admitted as valid the road to re-union would be much easier. But the evidence compelled the Pope to declare them invalid. Pope Leo XIII. definitely adopted the decision of die appointed Commission, and published the condemnation with his own infallible authority to support it. No Anglican clergyman could officiate in the Catholic Church without being ordained by a Catholic Bishop.

I am afraid I would have to ask you to tell me what you believe to be the teaching of the Anglican Church. Anglicans hold all kinds of conflicting beliefs. Dr. Gore writes a book on Church of England doctrine, and Bishop Barnes flatly contradicts it I have a dozen Anglican books on Church of England doctrine, and all explain it differently. Anglican teachings, however, do contradict those of Christ.

All Anglicans at least accept an Erastian Church subject to political and parliamentary authority in England, and throughout the world they deny the necessity of submission to the lawful authority of the successor of St. Peter, the present Bishop of Rome. Again, half the members of the Anglican Church say that they believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and half say that they do not. Now Christ said, "Hear the Church." If the Anglican Church were the true Church, which half must men hear? As a teaching Church Anglicanism fails, and is compelled to tolerate such men as Bishop Barnes, who openly deny the explicit doctrines of Christ.

You recite the same Creed, but you do not believe in it in the true Catholic sense. Catholics recite and accept the Apostles' Creed in practice. Anglicans recite it. All Anglicans say, "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord." Many Anglicans do not believe that He is truly the Son of God. All Anglicans say, "Born of the Virgin Mary." Many deny the Virginity of Mary. All Anglicans say, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." But none of them joins it, or if he does, he ceases to be an Anglican. All Anglicans say, "I believe in the Communion of the Saints," but few dare enter into communication with the Saints. All say, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," but the vast majority ignore the Sacrament of Confession. Anglicans may recite the Creed, but most Anglicans certainly do not realize what the words imply.

He preaches the doctrine of the Church of England as he understands it, and being in good faith, no fault probably attaches to him. But the real question is, "Are the doctrines of the Church of England anti-Christian?" The reply is, "Not in every single matter. Various groups within the Anglican Church have kept some parts of Christ's teaching intact. But in many things all Anglicans reject certain doctrines without warrant. The present Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury is, of course, a heretic and a schismatic objectively. Catholic Bishops throughout the world will enter into no official relations whatever with those Anglican Bishops who have appeared on the scene only since the 16th century."

Why should they have to do so, if the Anglican Church is right, and has ever been right? But, even so, Anglo-Catholics are not passing to Catholic ways. The Catholic way is obedience to the God-given authority of the Catholic Church, and Anglo-Catholics are as far off from that as ever.

They imitate many of our external practices. But even this attempt is in defiance of their own Bishops. Nor does their imitation of Catholic worship make them Catholics. If some stranger were my double in appearance, that would not make him my blood brother. The only way to be a Catholic is to be one. We went from God by disobedience, and the one way back is by obedience. Obedience is the very essence of religion, and it is obedience to the Catholic Church in belief and practice which makes a man a Catholic.

The Clergy of that Church wish to adopt the titles and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, but not the obligations of Catholics. No Requiem Mass was really celebrated. A service was held, and called a Requiem Mass. At the Synod held shortly after this event Bishop D'Arcy Irvine protested most strongly against the whole affair. Here are his words, as reported in the Daily Guardian, October 13th, 1930, "Requiem Masses are in direct contrariety to the plain and emphatic statements both of the Articles and also of the devotional language of the Book of Common Prayer. They are repugnant to Anglican theology; they are repugnant to Anglican authority; they are repugnant to the Anglican Liturgy and worship. From the fable, or deceit, or folly—from the practice and doctrine of Requiem Masses may God preserve the Church of England. From cover to cover the Book of Common Prayer has no place for Requiem Masses."

I presume you are High Church because you think it right, and not Low Church because you think that wrong. If you think them equally right there is no reason why you should insist that you are High Church rather than Low Church. You could not defend your own position without criticizing the position you cannot accept.

Had he left the Catholic Church in order to become a better man himself, and in order to make his people better, you might have a case. But he did not.

You have said it. Henry was not going to be told even by the Pope to keep God's law, so he rebelled, and his rebellion was the genesis of Anglicanism. It began in disobedience, even as all the world's troubles began in the cry of Satan, "I will not serve." When men refused to obey God, they found everything else refusing to obey them, even their own passions. And when Anglicanism refused to obey the Catholic Church, it lost the power to secure obedience even from its own clergy.

The Protestant flag of what liberty? You are dealing with a very dangerous word. There is no absolute liberty. Liberty always implies relative restriction. If I am free from truth, I am subject to error; if free from virtue, subject to vice. When science proved the world round, it took away my liberty to believe it to be flat. But I do not want to be free to believe it flat. When God revealed His law, that revelation took away my liberty to do what that law forbade. When He revealed a definite religion, He took away my liberty to belong to any religion I might wish. His law takes away the liberty of divorce and re-marriage. Good old England gives her subjects the liberty to have it. But that is the liberty of the devil and refusal of submission to God. A man can be free from God and be the servant of Satan, or be free from Satan and be the servant of God. Choose which liberty you will have. But quite a lot of England's liberty is liberty from the law of God. I am of purely English descent, and there is no national prejudice in what I say. But if my own mother commits murder, I refuse to be so blinded by my love for her as to deny that it is a crime.

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Failure of Protestantism

The Truth of Catholicism

The Catholic Church and the Bible

The Church and Her Dogmas

The Church in Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

Catholic Apologetics in Question & Answer Form

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Failure of Protestantism

The Truth of Catholicism

The Catholic Church and the Bible

The Church and Her Dogmas

The Church in Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

QUESTIONS IN VOLUME 1

200. Then men can believe or disbelieve in Christianity as they please?

201. I have studied Christianity and it is my honest opinion that it is not true. Yet you tell me that I am to believe that it is true!

202. If God did not give me sufficient intelligence to be able to believe, surely no blame attaches to me?

203. I cannot adopt any definite profession of faith because the heads of all the different Churches disagree.

204. But if the clergy themselves are in deadly opposition, and cannot tell me for certain what Christianity means!

205. Why is there such enmity between the Churches?

206. How is it possible to believe all the religions that claim to be true?

207. Can any one Church claim to have all the truth, which has so many angles?

208. Your preceding replies are based upon a misapprehension. There is no real lack of essential unity in the Christian Churches at all. All together form the one true Church.

209. Did not St. Paul acknowledge the various individual churches of his time?

210. Tertullian says that, as in the ocean there are many seas and ports, so in the Catholic Church there are many churches. How can the Roman branch exclude the other branches?

211. To my mind the whole of Christianity is like a wheel. Christ is the centre, whilst the various churches are the spokes.

212. Could we not call Christ's Church a garden? The Roman Catholic Church is the original tree—the others slips cut off, and growing in the same garden, and producing the same fruit, but with a slightly different flavor?

213. I admit that it is impossible to maintain that all the churches are really united into one Church; but I deny that lack of unity really matters. After all, go into any Christian church, and you will hear Christ preached, and the Word of God spoken.

214. But our intentions at least are all good. We are all striving for the one end.

215. If there were twelve roads leading to the one goal, would it matter which you took?

216. We Protestants worship the same God as you Catholics—how can we be wrong?

217. I am a Protestant who leads a good life. That is enough.

218. But we Protestants believe that if a man lives a good life, no matter what Church he accepts, he will save his soul.

219. Yet surely the only thing wrong is to do wrong.

220. Christianity is not a thing to be proved; it is a life to be lived.

221. There is good and bad in all the churches.

222. Protestants know that no more is needed than prayer in their own hearts.

223. You must admit that spiritually I am your brother.

224. Have not the disciples of Jesus, even outside the Catholic Church, power and authority given them by the Holy Spirit?

225. But I feel that I am right. I have the witness in myself.

226. The Kingdom of God is within you.

227. Christ died for all, and does not say that He did so for members of any particular Church. He does not mention either Catholicism or Protestantism.

228. The denominations are necessary to save us from the dictation of priests.

229. I admit that it is a pity that there is so much conflict.

230. But why keep insisting that the Catholic Church is the only Church?

231. You cannot deny that you are bigoted in your exclusive claims.

232. We are as entitled to our opinions as you are to yours.

233. But are you not obliged by the law of charity? Christ said, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you."

234. All the same, your claims are insulting to Protestants, and they are human beings just as Catholics.

235. Your Church is doing more to prevent reunion than any other Church.

236. Anyway, only one in a hundred thousand ever changes from the religion of his parents.

237. At least Protestantism is more tolerant than Catholicism. I am an Anglican, but I do not say that I am right. I believe in everyone believing as he thinks best, and not criticising others?

238. But in the end, is not religion a matter of opinion?

239. Would it not be better to say that religion is a matter of conscience?

240. Why try to convert people to the Catholic Church?

241. I know that Protestants are ignorant of Catholicity, but are not Catholics ignorant of Protestantism?

242. Have Catholics any advantages not possessed by good Protestants?

243. You insist, then, that not any form of Christianity will do, but that we ought to join the Catholic Church?

244. Do you say that the Protestant faith is false?

245. How does Protestantism in general disobey Christ?

246. Would you call Protestants heathens?

247. Protestantism is not a protest against Christ, but against the Roman Church.

248. But a re-formed Church is not a new Church.

249. The Protestant Churches have as much right to say they have the truth as the Churches of the Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, etc., in early times.

250. According to you, Christ was a Catholic. All followers of Christ, therefore, belong to the Catholic Church.

251. Since Christ forbade divisions in the Church, you must admit that every Christian Church is a branch of the true Church. The Protestant Churches are but offshoots from the Roman Catholic Church.