Radio Replies Vol 1 - Catholic Apologetics Online

I am quite satisfied with the king, and wish to hear nothing to his discredit. I do not accept his hospitality. A child does not accept the hospitality of his own parents. I was born a British subject. I do my duty. The king does his. I admit that he is head of the Anglican Church, although I deny that he is head of the true Church of Christ. The question of the relative merits of the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church has nothing to do with national status and loyalty.

In other countries I would not have to deny that the temporal ruler was head of the Church. That anomaly seems to be peculiar to the British Empire. Of course it is no fault of our present good king. I think he must feel very uncomfortable about it at times.

If there be a conflict between the two interests, I put Church first. God comes before Caesar. The Church, as the Kingdom of God, is more important than any earthly kingdom. No country has rights against God. And in our own case, if there be a question of soul and body, the soul is the more important, and the body must give way to its interests. It is better to die keeping God's laws than to live breaking them. If a man is faithful to God and to his conscience, there is some hope of his being faithful to lesser duties. But if a man will not be faithful to God, how can a thing so much less than God as one's country expect him to be faithful to it? Think it over.

She makes that claim under certain conditions.

It is. But then, the Catholic Church is a very remarkable Church. She was not founded by a Martin Luther, or a Henry VIII., or a John Knox, but by Jesus Christ, who guaranteed her as His official representative in this world. Yet although the Catholic Church is a remarkable Church, it is not really remarkable that Christ should have kept His promises to her.

Not like any other. The Catholic Church is composed of human beings knit together by the authority of Christ, and rejoicing in His perpetual protection and assistance.

I should be appalled if a Church claiming to be established by Christ and to speak with His authority did not claim to be infallible. A fine sort of a guide to eternal destiny God would have given us, if that guide calmly admitted that she was not sure of the road herself.

I do. It would be an arrogant claim if she pretended to confer the prerogative upon nerself. But Christ endowed her with this gift, and she humbly admits the fact that it is not of her own ability. A duly accredited judge is not arrogant. But one who orders you to gaol without a vestige of authority for doing so is certainly arrogant.

They do. In order to live up to their religion, Catholics need God's grace and help individually all along the line. Their infallible Church teaches them with certainty what they must believe and do, but even this infallibility of the Church would be a farce without God. She is infallible because, and only because, God preserves her from error in her official teaching. God, therefore, becomes more necessary than ever.

Christ established His church upon a foundation as solid as a rock, and declared that the gates of hell, or forces of evil, would not prevail against it. This implies the perpetual retention of the truth taught by Christ, forbidding its corruption. He commanded her to teach all nations, "all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." Matt. XXVIII., 20. His presence guarantees that she will ever teach a doctrine identical With His own principles. He promised that the Holy Spirit would abide with the Church forever, undoubtedly a pledge of perpetual infallibility. Jn. XIV., 16. St. Paul clearly manifests this doctrine by his words, "Behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth." I. Tim. III., 15. The early Fathers insist upon the infallibility of the Church, and reason also tells us that the unity of the Church could not be maintained if she could fail in her teaching of the truth; her very holiness forbids heresy; her catholicity demands expansion without loss of the self-same teaching; whilst her apostolicity requires perpetual duration of an unchanged Apostolic doctrine. Finally, if the Catholic Church be not infallible, then there is no Church on earth which is such as Christ predicted.

Worm-eaten as the foundations of the Catholic Church may seem to you, the fact remains that she keeps adding story after story to her skyscraper heights. The Arians told her that her foundations were worm-eaten in the 4th century; the Greeks in the 9th; the Protestant Reformers in the 16th; the Rationalists in the 18th, and a few still continue to do so, although mere Rationalism is rapidly going out of date. At present the Modernists are the chief people who worry about the worm-eaten foundations of the Catholic Church. The only one who is not worrying about them is the Church herself. She just keeps on her way, never dying, but ever increasing, despite the fact that in every age outsiders have been busy composing her epitaph.

You err both in fact and in doctrine. In fact, for the Apostles complained of errors, not of the Church, but of individual professing Christians even in their own days. In doctrine, because you practically assert that Christ failed to preserve His Church; that the Holy Spirit did not remain with her; and that the gates of hell did prevail against her. In other words, your doctrine is that Christ could not do what He said He would do. No. Individuals in all ages have fallen into error in so far as they departed from the teachings of the Church. And in falling into error, they have fallen out of the Church, even as the Protestant Reformers themselves.

If you think that, by departing from the truth, the Catholic Church forfeited the claim to be the true Church, then you believe that the infallible retention of the teachings of Christ must be a mark of the true Church. Is your own Church, therefore, infallible? Does it even claim to be so? I admit that if the Catholic Church has failed in witnessing to the truth she is not true, and I would at once leave her. But as this would mean that Christ was unable to keep His promise, I would also abandon belief in Christ. Certainly, wherever else I might go, I would not return to a Protestant Church based upon the doctrine that Christ has failed to keep His promise.

Catholicity does not differ from what you call the simple teachings of Jesus, although they were not so simple as you suppose. However, the Catholic Church teaches all that Christ taught, whether His teaching was explicit or implicit. Essentially she exists just as He would have her exist. There may have been many secondary developments during the ages, but they were all foreseen and approved by Christ. After all, Christ established a living Church, and a living Church grows. He likened it to a seed. Even as a boy grows into a man with exactly the same personality, yet with many secondary changes in size, knowledge, and manners, so too has the Church rightly developed.

The principles of the Catholic Church are not man-made, nor can her constitution, given her by Christ, ever be changed. But just as many small by-laws can be made and repealed in a country without any essential constitutional change, so in the Catholic Church special disciplinary laws can be enacted at special times to meet special needs without any constitutional change of the religion. At the Reformation, however, men left the Catholic Church and set up new constitutions for themselves, and their sects can be called indeed man-made religions.

Both doctrines were believed in so far as Catholics believed in the revelation given by Christ, which contained thesendoctrines implicitly. When the Church denned them she merely made explicit and of faith what had been hitherto implicit She gave, not a new truth, but simply made these matters clear by defining these doctrines to be part of the revelation brought us by Christ. The Church is here for that. Indeed, of what use is a teaching Church if she does not teach? All doubts concerning the correct interpretation of the original Christian doctrine on these two subjects were cleared away by these definitions, and to-day the 400 million Catholics in the world know the truth and accept it without hesitation.

I am afraid this is a case of mistaken identity. The Catholic Church is not involved in this description. All through the ages men have departed from the faith in departing from the Catholic Church. Thus in the 16th century the Protestants departed from the original faith, and have been departing from each other ever since, going further and further into conflicting heresies. The Catholic Church does not teach doctrines of devils. No Church warns her children so earnestly against the devil as the Catholic Church. She clearly teaches that lies are never justified. The references to marriage and the eating of meats you simply do not understand. St. Paul warns the early Christians against those who would say that marriage of itself is evil, as also the eating of meat. But the Catholic Church does not forbid marriage. She certainly says to her young men, "You may marry, or if you feel that you are called to such a life, you may become a Priest. But if you become a Priest, you may not marry." That is a very different thing. Meantime, the fact that she forbids meat especially on Fridays shows that she permits it on other days.

The Church did not condemn Joan, but was responsible for her canonization. Joan died a good Catholic, receiving Holy Communion the morning of her death. A renegade and recalcitrant French Bishop, in the pay of the English, condemned Joan, and violated the laws of the Catholic Church in doing so. Joan had appealed to the Pope as she had a right to do, but her appeal was illegally disallowed. Within 25 years of her death Pope Calixtus III. declared her mock trial to have been null and void and ordered a new examination of the evidence. Joan, who had been burned to death in violation of Church law in 1431, was re-habilitated in 1456, the Pope's tribunal declaring that she was innocent of all charges. This was the only official judgment of the Church at the time. And her canonization in our days is in full accordance with that judgment.

I would deny that such a verdict had the true authority of the state behind it. And the state would disown the verdict if the facts were manifested, just as the Church disowned the verdict of the unjust ecclesiastical judges.

The Committee or Congregation appointed to consider his teachings declared that his theory was wrong. In doing so, the members of the Committee were mistaken. But as no infallible decision was given on the subject in the name of the Church, infallibility is not involved in this matter. Meantime Galileo had advanced no really satisfactory proofs of his theory, and the prudence of the prohibition forbidding its being taught is more than defensible, in the light of the circumstances of the times. But that is another question. 4

The Catholic Church is infallible in her official teaching on faith and morals. But she does not claim to be infallible in making people live up to those teachings. Her infallibility does not deprive her subjects of their freewill. After all, you yourself would admit that God is infallible, yet you would not account for people who violate the commandments by denying God's infallibility. You would account for it by the evil dispositions of the people concerned. And as the infallibility of God does not take away freewill from men, neither does the infallibility of the Catholic Church take it away from her subjects.

Because ability to do these things is not included in the gift of infallibility. The Church is infallible in teaching us what we must believe, and what we are morally obliged to do.

It is far from strange. Australia was colonized chiefly by Protestants. And because 75 per cent, of the population happens to be derived from Protestant forbears you prove, not that the Catholic Church is wrong, but only that the majority in this country happens to be Protestant. Again, this Protestant majority has not become Catholic because the greater number of Protestants go contentedly on, taking things for granted, and not bestowing much thought at all upon the subject of religion. Or, if they start thinking, many stop abruptly when the Catholic Church looms on the horizon, because social, family, business, or personal interests stand in the way of their becoming Catholics. Many, too, labor under an almost invincible prejudice which prevents them from admitting that there can be anything good at all in the Catholic religion, and they would not dream of inquiring into the claims of the Catholic Church. Finally, if you base your position upon relative numbers, then you have but to take a broad and world-wide view to find that there is a larger percentage of Catholics in the world than all Protestants taken together, regardless of the kind of Protestantism they support. It is absurd to restrict your outlook to Australia alone.

It is the Catholic doctrine that he is infallible when he speaks for the whole church in defining a question of faith or morals.

The Pope is not merely the mouthpiece of a Council. He may, and usually does, consult other Bishops before giving an infallible decision. But he need not do so, and in the ultimate analysis the infallibility of a definition is due to his own personal authority. The infallibility of the Pope simply means that in his official teachings or definitions, provided he speaks as supreme head of the Church in questions of faith or morals and with the intention of binding all the faithful, God would not allow him to define erroneous doctrine. The Pope, as successor of St Peter, is Vicar of Christ, and the final court of appeal in the Church. But all the conditions I have enumerated must be present. The Pope's word is not infallible whenever he speaks, though his decisions are always to be received with respect. But if he speaks merely as a private theologian, expressing his own views his opinions could be mistaken. Infallibility attaches to his decisions only when he speaks in his supreme and official capacity as supreme teacher of all the faithful.

No. Papal Infallibility was promulgated as a dogma in 1370, but the doctrine was not invented then. The Vatican Council under Pope Pius IX. merely said definitely, "This is the Christian doctrine contained at least implicitly in the revelation originally given to mankind by Christ." This prerogative of infallibility was conferred upon St. Peter, and upon his successors, in virtue of Christ's choice oi St Peter as the rock-foundation oi the Church, His prayer for St. Peter that his faith might not fail, His commission to him to confirm his brethren and to feed the whole flock, lambs and sheep. The Church does not say in her definitions, "I now reveal this doctrine," but, "I definitely declare this to be the doctrine revealed by Christ." If she never taught with such authority, men would say, "What is the good of the Church?" If she does teach with authority they say, "She is inventing new doctrines." After all, the Catholic Church defined the "Filioque" in 1439, and you accept that without complaining that she invented a new doctrine. Why complain when she exercises the same functions in 1870? She will define other doctrines more explicitly in future times as need arises, doctrines we already believe in believing all that has been revealed by Christ, though we do not advert to the fact that these particular doctrines are certainly included. For although the definitions will be new, they will not involve new truths of religion. Now that the personal infallibility of the Pope has been defined we know that it belongs essentially to the original teaching given by Christ.

God alone is infallible of His very nature. But God can certainly safeguard a particular man so that he will be also infallible in certain matters on certain occasions. Thus Christ guaranteed that Peter would not fail in his teachings of the Faith. And if an infallible God says that He will make a certain man infallible, then that man will infallibly be infallible. Again the claim of the Pope is nothing like the claim of Satan. Satan claimed to be independent of God; the Pope claims to depend very much upon God. Nor does the Pope make himself equal to God. An infallible Pope is capable of sinning and losing his soul. And should a Pope do so, he would meet with a fate similar to that of Satan because of his unrepented sins. But he would not meet with that fate because of his claim to an infallibility which God insists upon giving him for the good of the Church whether he likes it or not.

God says He does. But the Pope is not infallible because voted for. He is elected by votes, and when elected he receives infallibility from God. The Pope does not derive his infallibility from those who elect him.

Infallibility is not inspiration. If God inspired the Pope in his official teachings there would be no need of human research. But infallibility means that the Pope acts according to all the laws of ordinary prudence, studying and comparing the doctrines of the Church before coming to a decision. When research has concluded, the Pope may decide simply that the matter does not warrant definition. But if he does decide to define a given doctrine, the Holy Spirit will certainly preserve him from any error in doing so. And the defined dogma will owe its infallibility, not to previous human research oi ability, but precisely to the assisting influence of the Holy Spirit

The doctrine is contained in Christ's words to St. Peter, and the early Church was well aware of the fact. TertuUian, about the year 200 A.D. wrote concerning St. Paul's rebuke to St. Peter, "If Peter was rebuked by Paul, it was certainly for a fault in conduct, not in teaching." St. Cyprian, about 256, wrote of the See of Rome, "Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence Apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come." St. Augustine in the 4th century gives us the famous expression, "Rome has spoken; the cause is finished." The early Popes had little need to insist often upon a doctrine which was denied by none of the faithful. The Council of Ephesus in 431 thus expressed its firm convictions, "No one doubts, nay it is known to all ages, that Peter, the chief and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from Our Lord Jesus Christ .... Peter, who even to these our own days, and always in his successors, lives and exercises his authority." In 451 Pope Leo wrote his decision to the Bishops of the Church assembled at Chalcedon, and when the letter was read all cried out, "Peter has spoken through Leo."

Firstly, Honorius did not give an infallible decision concerning the matter in question. Secondly, his personal opinion was not heretical. Within a few years of the death of Honorius, Pope John IV. wrote, "Some men have distorted the meaning of Honorius to their own purposes and contrary to the truth." Thirdly, no later Pope condemned Honorius as a heretic, but for imprudence and neglecting to settle die controversy of the time and thus prevent the growth of further heresy. He was blamed rather for not using his infallibility than for misusing it.

It is not necessary that all the laws of earlier Popes must be those of later Popes. Infallibility concerns doctrine, and morals, not necessarily discipline. Disciplinary laws adapted to particular times change with the times.

Yes. The conduct of some Popes in their personal lives it is impossible to justify. They ought to have been thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

With His Church, preserving her as a Church, in spite of the personal iniquity of these men. I have never claimed that the Pope can do no wrong. As a man he will have temptations like other men, and he will be free to resist those temptations, or consent to them. After all, he must save his soul like anyone else. He is not going to be preserved from sin in spite of himself. Why should he be compelled to be good? Goodness results in Heaven, and Heaven must be earned. Every man, infallible or not, must have his own struggle to be good and to save his soul. The Pope is not, and has never claimed to be impeccable. But for our sake, not for his own, God endows him with infallibility that he may tell us with certainty what we must believe and do in order to save ourselves; whether he lives up to it himself is quite another matter and his own business. It is quite possible to give splendid advice and not live up to it oneself.

The Pope cannot be evil in the sense that he is free to be wicked. He is not morally free to do as he pleases. But if some rare and individual Pope did happen unfortunately to be wicked, then we say that God would infallibly preserve him from error in such ex cathedra definitions as he might be called upon to make for the good of the whole Church. After all, under God's providence, the false prophet Balaam and Caiphas the Jewish Priest, both men of evil dispositions, predicted and taught the truth in spite of themselves.

If a thing be not true, it is not to be accepted as true, no matter who says it But when the Pope defines infallibly, he cannot say what is not true, and Catholics accept his official teaching precisely because it is infallibly true. If, prior to a definition, a Catholic was of a diverse opinion, then once the Pope has given the definition, such a Catholic becomes aware that his conjecture was erroneous, and abandons it in order to have the truth.

Because he is not infallible in everything. He is infallible only when he speaks in virtue of his supreme office as head of the Church on matters of faith and morals. He notifies us when he intends to define in accordance with all the conditions required for infallibility. This restriction to set occasions is as reasonable as the restriction of the jurisdiction of a civil judge to his official decisions in court.

That is a question of science, not of faith or morals. The Pope is not infallible on every possible question, nor has the Church ever maintained him to be so. If you have difficulties because the Pope is not infallible when he is not supposed to be infallible you have only yourself to blame.

You mean by a storm. There is a great difference between the wrath of Heaven and the wrath of the heavens. On your principles every man who has ever suffered shipwreck or been drowned or struck by lightning is a wicked wretch and the victim of God's anger. I am as happy as you are that the Armada failed, but I do not admit that God gave no graces to the poor men on that ill-fated fleet in virtue of the Pope's blessing. Nor will I admit that God's curse was on the fleet as a whole any more than that God's curse rested on Englishmen when they lost the American war of Independence. We are too ready to distribute God's curses and blessings according to our own prejudices, regarding ourselves as the fitting object of the blessings only. In any case, blessings bestowed upon various enterprises by the Pope have no connection whatever with the prerogative of infallibility.

You do not say which Archbishop; but even so, infallibility does not come into the question. Meantime, the blessing of the Pope, or even if you wish, of God, is not intended to ward off every possible temporal evil, including death. God blessed Job, yet it did not preserve him from temporal trials. If the Pope blessed m©. and a few days afterwards you put arsenic in my tea, I fully expect that I should die. Nor would death within 43 days prove the futility of the Pope's blessing any more than death within 43 years. The Pope did not bless the Archbishop, if your facts be true, in order that poison would have no effect upon him. There are much more important things than that. But all such difficulties as these are beside the point where infallibility is concerned. First find out exactly what the Catholic Church teaches concerning infallibility, noting the limits within which her claims are confined, and then restrict your examination of the question to those limits.

The Apostles held and taught the same doctrines. St. Paul denied the right of anyone to preach different faiths. Gal. I., 8-9. In any case, the differing Protestant sects cannot go back beyond the 16th century, and certainly have derived neither their being nor their specifically Protestant doctrines from any of the Apostles.

There has never been more than one true Pope. At times there have been rival claimants to the Papacy, but if several pretenders put forward to-day their claims to be King of England, their claims would not invalidate the right of the present king. Anti-Popes are not really Popes. But take the 14th century. In 1378 Urban VI. was lawfully elected Pope at Rome. Some French Cardinals, wrongly thinking or maintaining that he had not been rightly elected, elected another who called himself Clement VII. Good men on both sides believed in each Pope's right, but no one admitted that both could be Popes at once. All held that one only of the two could really be Pope. To settle the difficulty, another group of Cardinals later on wrent beyond their rights, declared the rival Popes deposed, and elected a second anti-Pope, Alexander V. This gave rise to three lines of claimants and thus complicated the position. A general Council was called. The legitimate successor in the Urban line, Gregory XII., resigned. The successors of the anti-Popes were declared to be unduly elected, and the difficulty was overcome by the election of Pope Martin V. in 1417. The true succession was never lost; nor was essential unity. All the time there was but one true Pope, and the mistake on the part of the faithful as to which was the true Pope was not an error in faith. The Church, under God's guidance, weathered this difficulty of internal dissension, once more showing the divine protection which the Catholic Church has ever enjoyed in virtue of Christ's promise to be with her all days till the end of the world.

It is to be found whole and entire only in the Catholic Church, as a Church, for the Catholic Church is holy in her Founder, in her teachings, worship and discipline, and can alone inspire a completely Christian spirit in men of goodwill. This, however, does not imply that every member of the Catholic Church is holy. Many, to their own shame, do not live up to their faith.

Protestantism was not holy in its original founders, cannot preserve Christian teaching intact, and dare not insist upon truly Christian moral principles. Even its leaders excuse and approve laxity in practice, tolerating divorce and re-marriage, birth-control, contempt of Scripture, indifference in religion, and rationalism and humanitarianism in place of faith and charity. And you term this renunciation of Christ's principles tolerance! Tolerance may spare evil individuals, but it never says that evil conduct is justified. As for Mahometanism, you know as little about that as you do about the Catholic Church. The Koran allows divorce, polygamy, the right of husbands to thrash their wives, the right to murder unbelievers, the sanction of impurity provided a man washes his hands in clean sand, and much other evil doctrine absolutely condemned by the Catholic Church, and indeed by every right conscience.

Satan is said to be an angel of light in so far as he makes evil appear to be good, not that he ever inspires real good. He never inspires people to hate sin and to love God as does the Catholic Church.

He mixes no good works with his errors. He permits some good to continue side by side with the evil he inspires. And that is the secret of the continued existence of Protestantism. It speaks much of belief in Christ, of broadminded tolerance, of being good to one's fellow men, of owing no man anything. But it shuts its eyes to Satan's propaganda of divorce, birth-control, the flood of doubtful literature poured out by the Press, the banishing of religion from schools, and a hundred other dangers of the day. People can be good Protestants yet carry on with practices for which they would never get absolution from any Catholic Priest unless they promised to abstain from them. At times Protestantism does raise its voice in protest, but nearly always against the wrong things, avoiding current evils which it finds it too unpopular to face.

Then she is a very poor agent indeed. She would be far more efficient if she cried out, "Sin does not matter—go ahead. Confession is nonsense. Eat anything you like on Fridays, the day on which Christ died. Marriage does not bind, divorce yourselves whenever you like. Continence is absurd. Artificial birth-control is progress. Don't believe in Christ, or God, or Heaven, or Hell. Away with religion in flie schools. The chief thing is to be comfortable. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Then get cremated, and that ends everything." Don't you see how ridiculous your statement is? All these things are the exact opposite of Catholic teaching.

No. He describes a city of abominations which he terms Babylon. The early Christians, therefore, regarded pagan Rome, with its idolatry and sensuality, as a very Babylon. Thus St. Peter, writing from Rome, called it by that name. But once the city had given up its paganism for Christianity it ceased to be called by that name which had been given it precisely because of its paganism. Some few people since the 16th century, blinded by anti-Catholic prejudice, have termed modern Rome Babylon because it happens to be the headquarters of the Catholic Church. But no sensible people support such a view. The fight of the Catholic Church for the rights of Christ, and her urgent recommendations of true holiness to her spiritual subjects, are too obviously opposed to the conduct of the Babylon described by St. John.

History shows no such facts. It does show that there have been wicked men in the Church, and Christ predicted that there would be bad fish in the net. But these evil men were wicked in spite of the teachings of their Church, not because of them. Meantime in every age there have been Saints, good precisely because they lived up to Catholic teaching. It is proof that the Chmch as a Church is good, if men have to violate her teachings in order to, be wicked. And it is proof of her divinity that she has survived not only attacks from external enemies, but the still worse evil of corrupt members within.

Occasionally Priests have left the Church. Some have unfortunately lost the gift of faith altogether, but such men often speak with great respect for the Catholic Church. The majority, however, have gone rather because they have been unwilling to live up to the lofty standards of morality demanded of them. They have obviously adopted, not higher, but lower standards of living. In their attempts to justify themselves, these men have often pandered to Protestant prejudice by reviling the Church they once served. Their case would sound better if they contented themselves with the mere admission that they had been hitherto mistaken. But if they confess that they have been habitual liars over a period of many years, you can hardly take their word for anything. A witness who admits that lying has long been almost second nature to him for years is not much of a witness.

No. Some Catholic individuals have lost their own spirituality through political ambition, but this does not affect the Church. Christ promised that His Church would never go wrong, not that individuals in the Church would never go wrong. You cannot argue from bad fish in a net to the rottenness of the net. A very good net can hold some bad fish.

If the Pope were to ask me to adore him, I would tell him to go to confession and ask forgiveness of so great a sin before attempting to celebrate Mass. For he would commit mortal sin did he accept adoration even as it would be mortal sin to offer it to him.

At least he did not say that he was God Almighty! He simply meant that, through no merits of his own, he had been promoted to a position which had annexed to it the promise of Christ, "Whatsoever you bind upon earth is bound also in Heaven." Pope Leo was speaking of his commission, not of himself. Gladstone said to Queen Victoria, not with pride but with simple truth, "Madam, I am the people of England."

The Pope's claim is not arrogant, even as Gladstone's claim was not arrogant The Pope merely claims to be the occupant of a constitutional office established and endowed with certain privileges by Christ.

That is verified in the Pope, whose official title is Servant of the servants of God. Being first, he is the servant of all Catholics. He ministers to our spiritual needs and gives his life to the work, renouncing a self-chosen career. But the words you quote do not dispense us from honoring the Pope as Vicar of Christ.

Some misguided writers have spoken of a female Pope named Joan, who was supposed to have reigned from 855 to 857 A.D. But never was a greater hoax put over a credulous public. Voltaire laughed at the gullibility of fools who believed this tale. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica says that she is a pure myth. Chambers Encyclopaedia calls her "a fabulous personage." Gibbons, in his Decline and Fall exploded the legend half a century ago, saying, "A most palpable forgery is the passage about Pope Joan, which has been foisted into some manuscripts." Her advocates bear testimony against themselves, producing echoes of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries—at least five centuries after her supposed death. She has been annihilated by two learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, but others still attempt to save this poor engine of controversy.

Not unless they live good lives, or at least die repentant of their sins. They must save their own souls just as others, and can lose their souls if they wish.

Not quite, although he certainly was a disgrace to his office. But it is just because his office demanded such holiness that his life was so utterly incongruous. Yet if you reject the Papal System because of Alexander, you must logically reject the College of the Apostles because of Judas. And remember that the life led by Alexander disgusts Catholics far more than it disgusts Protestants, for Catholics know what is really to be expected of a Pope in accordance with Catholic spiritual principles. Had Alexander lived up to Catholic teaching in its fullness he would have been a saint, even as many of the Popes were saints. But then, of course, he would never have been mentioned by Protestants.

Not so many—a few, very few. But the assassination of the king would prove neither that he was never lawful head of the nation, nor that he was an evil man.

Not a large proportion. History records six or seven as having been really unworthy of their office. Out of 260 Popes, the proportion is about 1 in 40. One in 12 is the proportion of evil men among the Apostles chosen by Christ Himself. But this does not affect the question under discussion. It proves nothing more than that certain individuals failed to live up to the obligations of their state in life, and that some bad men were rulers of the Church. And they could be quite good rulers from many points of view, even though personally lax.

There are various ways of ministering to the needs of souls. The Pope administers, with the help of many officials, a Church of some 400 millions. Jesus predicted that the small seed would develop into a vast tree, and the looking after the vast tree is a very different matter from tlie initial care required. Any of the 400 millions may visit the Pope, but it is unreasonble to expect tlie Pope to visit the 400 millions, except of course by letter as he does whenever he issues his encyclicals.

Priestcraft is the product of man's imagination, superstition, and perhaps fear. But priestcraft has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. The Catholic priesthood, a very different thing, is of divine institution, as can be proved to the hilt.

Why do you think they are? If I were to ask you suddenly, "Why are all people of English descent born cross-eyed?" you would be rather astonished for a moment, to say the least. When I was a small Protestant boy I used to fear the very sight of a Catholic Priest, and I used to think that Catholic children must be equally terrified. I am a Catholic Priest to-day, and I have never seen the faintest sign of fear on any Catholic face when I have appeared on the scene.

That is because Catholic Priests alone are conscious of the authority to guide their people. But they do not speak severely. They speak earnestly, because they do not wish to see their people running the risk of eternal loss. They speak at times with just indignation, because they are charged with the protection of God's interests. No Catholic Priest has even spoken more strongly than the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Those Priests would have been more comfortable at home reading some pleasant book. Wriy should they put themselves out like that? Look at things from a Catholic standpoint. A Priest is obliged to do all he can that not one soul be lost through his indifference. If he knows that a Catholic is dying, he must do all he can to bring that soul to a good frame of mind before actual death. And the more such a soul does not want to rectify things, the more that soul needs the help of a Priest. Uneasiness for a few moments before death is nothing to uneasiness for all eternity. And if, after a few moments of uneasiness, a man dies repentant and with the last rites of the Church, he will bless for all eternity the Priest who had the unselfish zeal to labor for his conversion.

Would you condemn a whole family as criminal because one child went wrong? An unworthy Priest does not inspire you with half the indignation he inspires in Catholic hearts. But try to grasp this principle. I have never undertaken to defend the conduct of every individual Priest. Nor, for a moment, would I wish to defend the evil conduct of anybody. But I say that the Catholic Church is the true Church, even though not all her individual members are true to her ideals. No valid argument can be based upon the conduct of individuals. I might argue against the Wesleyan Church from history, logic, or Scripture. But I would not condemn it because of the bad conduct of some Wesleyan minister.

No. The Catholic Church is the body of all the faithful. But not each member of the faithful constitutes the whole Church. And the vast majority in every age has been sufficiently good morally, even though saints have necessarily been the minority.

It may be that your notions of Christ's attitude towards wealth need rectifying, before we can proceed with this question.

He did not.

He lived poorly Himself, but He never commanded others to follow His own example in this matter. Meantime He did not aim at having no means of support. St. Luke, VIII., 3, speaks of many who ministered to His needs and those of His Apostles out of their possessions. He accepted their offerings, and we know that Judas carried the common purse, which held enough to allow of almsgiving to the poor. Jn. XIV., 29.

That is not so. He was dining in the house of a wealthy man jvheni the woman who was a sinner came in and washed His feet with her tears.

He did at times teach in the open air. But Scripture tells us that He often spoke in the Temple at Jerusalem, calling it His Father's House. And He had an immense respect for that edifice as dedicated to His Father.

That proves my assertion of His respect for that religious edifice. But it does not prove that Christ condemned money. Christ condemned the abuses of these traffickers in the Temple. They were desecrating that holy place by usury, and also as we know from various sources by selling dried peas, raisins, grapes, and apples, which should have been sold in the market place.

Christ Himself set the supreme example of poverty, although, as I have said, Judas carried the purse containing money for His use, and for the needs of His Apostles. But Christ never commanded that His followers should adopt actual and absolute poverty. God had sanctioned the right of private property when He gave the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." The right to private property is therefore just and not sinful. Christ did forbid men to make earthly goods their only treasure to the exclusion of their spiritual welfare. In fact, He warned those who have mammon or wealth, not necessarily to give it up, but to make it their friend by giving alms to the poor.

This was not a command, obliging in conscience. It was a special invitation which the young man was free to accept or reject. If the possession of goods as such were evil, Christ would have been recommending the young man to cause evil in the very ones who bought or accepted possession of his goods. But you have misunderstood the passage. The rich young man said to Christ, "What must I do to be saved?" Christ replied, "Keep the commandments." Thus He specified what was necessary for salvation. But hearing that the young man had kept them, He went further: "If you desire not only to be saved, but to be perfect, then do more than is of obligation. Sell all, and follow Me." The young man turned away sad, for he had not the generosity of character required. But the Gospel does not suggest that he was lost. No man is lost who loves God enough to keep all the commandments. Meantime, in the Catholic Church, thousands of Priests, Brothers, and Nuns have renounced all worldly possessions and have vowed poverty for the love of Christ, giving up the right to possess or administer anything in their own name. Thus the invitation of Christ is fulfilled in the Religious Orders of the Catholic Church.

He did not. He said that the rich would encounter special difficulties in the matter of salvation. But this is not because they are rich. It is because rich people are in danger of being so attached to their earthly goods as to forget God. The same Christ said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." A rich man can be poor in spirit by being at least sufficiently detached from his worldly goods that he would not for all of them offend God.

A family is not wealthy if it has scarcely enough to meet all its essential needs, and the Catholic Church certainly has not enough for its necessary work. Meantime she spends millions on her many works for men's temporal welfare, and is very hard put to it to provide her thousands of missionaries, who are laboring for the spiritual welfare of pagans, with the bare necessities of life. If ever a Church has tried to feed her sheep spiritually it is the Catholic Church.

For the administration of a huge society like the Catholic Church, consisting of over 400 million members, offices and temporalities are necessary. But these properties are not the possession of any individual Catholic, not even of the Pope. Even the Pope can will none of it away when he dies, as if it were his own private property.

Quite. Christ is God. Yet God ordered the Jews to build at Jerusalem a magnificent Temple. During His life on earth, the Son of God commended the poor widow for her contribution to the needs of the Temple. When Judas blamed the woman for wasting precious ointment in Christ's honor instead of giving it to the poor, Christ rebuked him.

Yes. The government has no claim whatever to private property, unless in extreme necessity it has to confiscate or appropriate from all citizens alike. Our Catholic people voluntarily erect permanent buildings for the needs of their religion. Others have just as much money, in fact more than Catholics. If the government confiscates the useful results of Catholic generosity with surplus earnings, then it has the right to confiscate the surplus money of everyone else, above all when it is not put to good use. As for giving it back to the people, there is no Church on earth which can compare with the Catholic Church for the number of charitable institutions. She has more hospitals for the sick, orphanages for destitute children, homes for the aged and dying, for the deaf and dumb, than all other churches put together.

The opinion of the one doing the work is of more value than that of the onlooker. The Church knows that these temporal things are necessary. Anyway these properties have been honestly and laboriously acquired by charitably minded citizens, are held in their name, and are not actually theirs only, because they have freely resigned the ownership of them to God. They certainly do not belong to the clergy. And it is quite unjust for other citizens to talk of confiscating them. Remember also that, besides beautifying the cities of the world, the greater part of the expense of these churchs, cathedrals, and institutions, has gone in wages to the workers.

The poor who belong to the Catholic Church far exceed in numbers the rich. As for convenience, the Catholic Church is the most inconvenient of all to live up to, although I admit that it is convenient to die in, since it fits one so well for one's meeting with God.

If the new convert did contribute to the support of his religion that would already be an advantage to him, if Christ rightly commended the poor widow who gave her mite to the Temple. But even if a convert could give nothing he would be none the less welcome. The Catholic Church never wants anyone for what he will bring to her, but for what she can give to him—absolution for his sins, Christ as his Saviour and Guest of his heart in Holy Communion, relief after his death, and heaven in the end. It is all very much to the advantage of the convert.

There are thousands giving their lives to the service of God and of their fellow men, their fellow men making a return, not by giving their lives, but by giving a small percentage of their temporal goods. One's life is more precious, and a greater gift, than a portion of that life's earnings.

That is not true. The thousands of Priests, Brothers, and Nuns who have vowed poverty in the Religious Orders of the Catholic Church never receive a penny personally in wages, they renounce the possession and administration of property, and are given merely such shelter, food, and clothing as are absolutely necessary. Those Priests who do not undertake this obligation of poverty are entitled to such revenue as the people provide in return for a life-work on their behalf.

The Pope lives in the Vatican without for a moment pretending to own it, for it is simply the headquarters of the largest single institution on earth, containing the central offices of administration of that Church which Christ said would grow from a mustard seed into a great tree. Such buildings as the Vatican are built to last for generations, and in them the Pope must live a simple and Christ-like life. It is absurd to say that the Pope owns fabulous wealth. You might as well accredit all the assets of the Bank of England to the manager of that bank. Nor does the Pope live on the fat of the land, enjoying luxury and ease. He keeps a frugal table, has few amusements, gives from twelve to sixteen hours a day to work, hard worrying work with a great responsibility, and scarcely knows the meaning of the word ease. The Pope must be able to meet kings on their own level, and the faithful insist upon providing him with quarters befitting his position and dignity. But these externals give no indication concerning the spiritual life of the Pope personally.

All men are equal in so far as each is a human soul before God, and must meet the same judge. And God will not be more lenient with the Pope than He will be with the simple layman. But all men are not equal in other ways. Christ certainly gave the Apostles a higher office than simple Christians possess, and they and their successors were to rule the faithful. Preference on this earth follows one's office, but the office does not necessarily make a man any better as a Christian. He may or may not be better, and he will answer for his life just as anyone else.

Not all production is measured by bodily comforts. There is an intellectual world and a spiritual world. If you know nothing of these, at least suspend your judgment, and do not interpret all things in terms of food and clothing. Not by bread alone does man live. Meantime you will let Catholics estimate the usefulness of their Bishops to them, and not judge by your own personal lack of benefits which you will not let them confer upon you. The Bishops of the Catholic Church have to visit Rome at stated intervals, for the administration of the Church must be carried on. The poor we shall always have with us, whether the Bishops visit Rome or not. And no Church expends so much upon the poor as the Catholic Church, with her charitable institutions in every diocese, and benevolent societies in every parish.

We must note carefully the force of the teachings given. Christ taught some things as being absolutely necessary; others He recommended, without obliging His followers to adopt them. Every Priest is obliged to ayoid all deliberate sin, and to fulfill all that Christ declared to be necessary. The Church also obliges every Priest to renounce marriage in order that he may give undivided attention to the service of Christ and the salvation of souls. But whilst it is good if he does so, there is no obligation that every Priest adopt absolute poverty, as do those who enter Religious Orders. If a Priest avoids the sin of avarice and does good with such possessions as he lawfully obtains, he is fulfilling the necessary teachings of Christ

Had they devoted the same number of years to the study of law or medicine they would be immeasurably better off, have more time to themselves, and would not have had to renounce wife, home, and children, and much else that men so love. Christ promised that if they labored for the spiritual well-being of souls, giving their very lives to the work, the faithful would give a portion of their earnings towards their support. Lk. X., 7. I. Cor. IX., 13. St. Jerome wrote in the 4th century, "Priests have a right to be supported and there will always be those ready to support them, not as beggars, but as those more worthy than themselves, whom it is their honor and glory to support." The Priest keeps himself in a state in keeping with his position according to the general standard of living prevailing in the society around him. And if you despise him for that, there are hundreds who would despise him were he shabby and unkempt. This too would be the shame of Catholics, and no Priest has the right to cast a reflection upon the generosity of parishioners. Whatever is over from necessary expenses, the Priest usually devotes to the good of the Church or the relieving of the poor. And the poor know that the Priest is the most ready of all men to give to them. In any case the fat income and luxury are as a rule mere chimeras. The vast majority of Priests are saintly men, as poor and detached in spirit as many who have entered Religious Orders, actually taking the vow of poverty. I am not a secular Priest trying to justify myself. I am a member of a Religious Order who would like to be as holy as many a secular Priest I know.

Christ did not always walk. Motor cars were not in existence then, and Christ used the ordinary means of locomotion at the time. Instead of walking round the lake, He went across it by boat. Motor cars are efficient means of transport, and if a car gets a Priest to a dying man in time to help him prepare to meet God, instead of his arriving too late by walking, it is a good thing. In America, country Priests have to travel up to two hundred miles in order to say Mass in some parts of their parishes. Meantime, despite his car, such a Priest can be as detached in spirit from worldly goods as anybody else.

In the Catholic Church there are two vocations open to a man who feels called by God to His service. Either he will feel called to be simply a Priest, or else, in addition, to enter a Religious Order. If called to be a Priest, he enters college and is prepared for parish work, in which he must provide for his own necessities. This involves the necessity of income from which he can save enough to provide for possible years of sickness, or later years of retirement. If called to a Religious Order, he takes a vow of poverty, renouncing all personal income, the Order providing his necessary food and clothing. Both types give their lives to God, but in different ways, according to their different vocations. The former are called Secular Priests, because they must live alone in the world; the latter are called Religious Priests, because they live in Religious Communities. Secular Priests are not worldly Priests, Order men only being religious Priests. A Secular Priest could be a far more religious man than an Order Priest, and many an Order Priest is greatly edified by the Secular Priests he meets. It is simply a question of different types of vocation.

Priests who do not join Religious Orders may own and administer their own property. They have vows of chastity, and obedience to their Bishops, but they do not take the vow of poverty. If such a Priest inherits wealth from his family, he may reserve it to provide for himself in case of illness, old age, or incapacity. Such large legacies are very rare indeed, and not the result of one's priestly work. Nor does the leaving of large sums of money prove that such Priests have set their hearts upon money to the exclusion of God and works of charity.

How do you know that they did not? One Priest I know who left a large sum of money deliberately refused to give his capital to the poor and be finished with it, but left it safely invested, regularly distributing the income from it to the poor over a period of many years. The poor got far more that way than otherwise. When he died, he left the whole of the capital to charity, to the scandal of unintelligent critics. But even supposing that a Priest who had wealth did not use it in the relieving of the necessities of the poor, his omission of this good work should not blind us to his other good works. All the more credit to him that, possessing such means, he did not devote himself to a life of idle pleasure, but to the service of God, and of his fellow men in their spiritual needs.

The duties of a Priest are very different from those of Nuns. Priests have parochial obligations, necessitating the visitation of the people, sick calls, the organizing of parochial functions, etc. Also the Nun belongs to a Religious Order, her vocation involving necessarily a retired life and Community observance. A Secular Priest is not obliged to the rules of Community life.

You may know of some individual Catholics who do not. Unfortunately, so do I. But would you say that all Englishmen are dishonest because you know of some individual dishonest Englishmen? Be sure that a Catholic can be evil only by breaking the laws of his Church, and you cannot blame the Church for the conduct of members who can be evil only by refusing to live up to her teachings. If a man lives right up to Catholic teaching and then is evil, blame the Church by all means, but not otherwise.

Firstly, your implied assertion merits no more than mere denial. Secondly, close examination shows that such Catholics as happen to be criminals have, for the most part, never been in Catholic schools to receive a Catholic training, whilst many were once in a Catholic school only to be transferred to a state school later on, eventually dropping their religion, save in name only. Finally, granted that some Catholics are criminals, their conduct is in spite of, and not because of their religion, for they do just what their religion forbids. They are in no way an argument against the holiness of the Catholic Church. That Church is holy in her Founder, doctrines, worship, and those of her members who are faithful to her guidance. Above all is she holy in the numerous Saints of the ages who have been supremely faithful to her teachings. And no other Church can claim a holiness similar to that of the Catholic Church under all these aspects.

It is derived from the Greek language, and means universal and complete. And as Christ told His Apostles to go and teach all nations all His doctrines, the word Catholic is reserved to that Church which alone teaches all Christ's doctrines to all peoples—the Catholic Church. St. Ignatius of Antioch, about the year 110, first used the word to designate the true Church. He wrote, "Where the Bishop is, there is the Catholic Church." Donatism broke away from the Church in the 4th century, just as Protestantism in the 16th, and St. Augustine declared that this heresy was cut off from the Catholic Church. In the same 4th century Pacian used the word Catholic as a mark of identification, saying, "Christian is my name, Catholic my surname." He did not wish to be taken for one of those who protested against the Catholic Church, yet still continued to call themselves Christians.

The word Roman is derived from the fact that St. Peter established the headquarters of the Church in Rome. I am not a Roman Catholic in any sense of Roman citizenship. I am an American Catholic in communion with that Church which has its centre in Rome.

The same as between a Britisher and an Englishman, or if you wish, as that between the Jewish and the Mosaic religions. There is no real difference. The words Roman Catholic do not mean that there are other kinds of Catholics, but oniy that all true Catholics belong to that one great Church which has its centre in Rome. There are no Catholics apart from that one great universal Church. Those who leave that Church cease to be Catholics. At the time of the Reformation Protestants left the Catholic Church. They cannot leave it and belong to it. The only way they can be Catholic is to return to the Church their forefathers should never have left.

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

400. If you are not satisfied with the king, why accept him as your protector? Why not get out? Why continue to accept his hospitality?

401. You could not say the things in other countries that you say in this!

402. Tell us plainly. Do you put Church first and country second?

403. I see the Catholic viewpoint in this matter, but a far greater difficulty arises for me concerning your Church in so far as she claims within her spiritual sphere to be infallible.

404. It is a most remarkable claim.

405. Your Church is composed of human beings like any other.

406. I find the Catholic assumption of infallibility simply appalling!

407. Do you deny the claim to be arrogant, to say the least?

408. With their infallible Church, Catholics do not need God at all.

409. Upon what grounds does your Church claim infallibility?

410. It is all a matter of viewpoint. In my opinion your viewpoint is utterly wrong, and the foundations of your Church worm-eaten.

411. We Protestants believe that Christian doctrine was kept pure as long as the Apostles lived, hut after their deaths, errors crept in.

412. If was the Catholic Church which early departed from the doctrines of Christ, and thus forfeited the claim to be the true Church.

413. But you cannot tell me that the Catholic religion is carried out to-day in accordance with the quite simple teachings of Jesus!

414. The constantly changing laws of the Catholic Church show that her principles are man-made.

415. The doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Infallibility of the Pope were not believed before 1854 and 1870 respectively, yet had to be believed after those dates.

416. The Catholic Church is described in I Tim. IV., 1-3. In the latter times some shall depart from the faith—teaching doctrines of devils-speaking lies in hypocrisy-—forbidding to marry—commanding to abstain from meats. Where is her infallibility?

417. Did the Church depart from the faith when she condemned Joan of Arc, a condemnation reversed 500 years later?

418. If a civil judge gave an unjust verdict because of a bribe, would you deny that the judiciary was part of the legal system?

419. Was the Church right or wrong in condemning the theory of Galileo?

420. No one would guess from the lives of bad Catholics that their Church was infallible.

421. If your Church is infallible; why does she not impose peace upon earth, and banish poverty and suffering?

422. It is strange that there is so small a percentage of Catholics in Australia, if your Church alone has the accurate teachings of Christ!

423. It is intelligible that the whole Church would be preserved from error; but you go further, and claim that the Pope is personally infallible.

424. Do you mean that he is the mouthpiece of a General Council, or that he is infallible independently?

425. Was not this doctrine invented in 1870?

426. There is only one who is infallible—God. Satan tried to be equal to God9 and the Pope who makes a similar claim will meet with a similar fate.

427. Do you say that God makes a man infallible who has to be voted for just like politicians?

428. If God makes the Pope infallible, why does he need theologians to go into questions first and arrange what he is to define?

429. The early Church did not admit that the Pope was infallible, nor did any Pope before Pius EX. claim such a privilege.

430. A later infallible Pope condemned Pope Honorius for having taught heresy.

431. If the Popes are infallible, the laws of earlier Popes must be those of later Popes—yet the laws of the Catholic Church have varied.

432. Did not bad Popes do acts which their successors thought wrong?

433. Then where was the protection of Christ?

434. What an elastic system! The Pope can be evil, and your doctrine from a sink of iniquity will be good !

435. Have you to believe the Pope whether what he says is true or not?

436. If you are not obliged to believe all that the Pope says9 how say that he is infallible?

437. Why does not the Pope define the facts about evolution?

438. Many things show the utter futility of your infallible Pope's blessings. Sixtus V. blessed the Armada9 yet it was destroyed as much by the wrath of Heaven as by the English leaders.

439. The Archbishop of Peru was blessed by the Pope9 and died of poison forty-three days later.

440. You said that the unity of the Church could not he maintained unless the Church were infallible. But are not the different faiths to-day accounted for by the fact that the Apostles went different ways and preached according to their different views?

441. But where was unity even within the Catholic Church during the fourteenth century, when there were three Popes at once, each with his own section of adherents?

442. You mention not only the unity but also the holiness of the Catholic Church. Here at least your position becomes impossible. Indeed, how much of the spirit of Christ is found in any Church to-day?

443. All religions teach holiness, Protestantism and even Mahometanism are as moral and tolerant as the Catholic Church.

444. The holiness of the Catholic Church is no argument. Satan pretends to be an Angel of Light.

445. How would he win people if he did not mix a few good works with his errors?

446. The Catholic Church is Satan's Organisation.

447. But does not St. John, in Revelations, call Rome the Babylon of sin?

448. Bui history shows thai the Roman Church has been a hot-bed of vice, murder, trickery, violence and oppression.

449. Have not Priests left the Church, admitting that they have been telling lies for years?

450. Rave not political intrigues sapped the Catholic Church of all spirituality and holiness?

451. Do not Catholics adore the Pope?