Catholicism : Christ's true faith sw*- , £ . A . £aM/veU‘ci&*'> - ' Price 35 Cents pjl o n In LJ j ij V CHRIST’S TRUE FAITH by R. A. SHORT Published by Bellarmine Publishing Company Mound, Minnesota SECOND EDITION All rights reserved. This booklet may not be reproduced by any means in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher. Copyright 1953 by R. A. Short Printed in the U.S.A. X O ALL who have no religious affiliation because they have not yet found a religion both spiritually and intellectually satisfying; to all non-Catholic religionists who seek a TRUE understanding of the great Mother Church of Christianity; and to all Catholics who lack background knowledge of the teachings and claims of their faith, this booklet is respectfully dedicated. Nihil Ohstat : R. G. Bandas, Ph.D., S.T.D. et M. Censor Librorum Imprimatur: £< John Gregory Murray, S.T.D. Archbishop of St. Paul October 10, 1952 DaaokMec <5X5X^>«X5X5X5X*XS><® CONTENTS •««SXSX5>«>«>«>«XSX5> PAGE I History Proves That Only the Catholic Church Was Founded By Christ 5 II Catholic Church Only Church to Fulfill Primary Christian Objective 11 III Original Christian Faith Preserved Only In the Catholic Church 15 IV The Perfect and Constant Unity Christ Promised His Church Found Only In the Catholic Church . 19 V The Apostle Peter Was the First Pope ... 23 VI Catholic Church is the Abode of the Living Christ 26 VII The Bible Is A Catholic Publication . . . .31 VIII Catholic Church Has Proper Attitude Toward Christ's Mother 40 IX Supernatural Character of the Catholic Church Proved By Her Miracles 45 X Catholic Church Is Modern Civilization’s Greatest Benefactor 48 Answers to a Few Questions 52 <^<^><^<^X^><^<®> I HISTORY PROVES THAT ONLY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS FOUNDED BY CHRIST ]3y the most ovenvhelming and conclusive array of evidence the world has ever seen Jesus Christ proved that He was the promised Messiah of the Jews, the Redeemer of the world. That is, He proved He was God. He proved it by fulfilling to the letter the prophecies of Scripture concerning the time and the place and the miraculous birth of the Messiah that was to come. He proved it by His impeccable holiness and the flawless perfection of His doctrine. And He proved it beyond the last vestige of doubt by the miracles He performed, great and awesome miracles so far removed from the natural order they could not possibly be other than manifestations of the power and glory of Almighty God. Hence the reality of Christ’s Divinity is the first and primary reality of Christianity. The second reality of Christianity, one which proceeds from the first, which is inextricably bound up with it, is the reality of Christ’s Church. In order that His holy ministry of salvation would be per- petuated after His sacrifice on the cross, Christ founded a Church, a vital, living Church projected into the entire remaining lifetime of the world — a Church invincible, a Church divine. "... I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH, AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT.” Matthew 16:18 Yes, the existence of a divinely constituted Christian Church is just too obvious to be disputed. It is a truth affirmed by the Apostles [ 5 ] and fully substantiated in history. Even the educated pagans and Jews, while they may not believe in its precepts, readily admit that Christ founded a Church. Yet, strangely, it is here that we run smack into one of Chris- tianity’s biggest enigmas. In these modern times there are approxi- mately four hundred individual Christian church bodies, each one teaching a different doctrine, each one claiming to be the true Church of Christ. To be sure, none of them could hope to attract members unless they did claim divine sanction. And to further confuse the situation, more and more “divine” Christian churches and doctrinal variations are springing into existence as the years go by. Recalling that Christ founded only one Church, to which He gave only one doctrine, the utter absurdity of hundreds of true Christian churches and doctrines becomes very apparent. The Sacred Scriptures* and our common sense both tell us that God, He who is Truth, one and indivisible, would never approve of divisions and conflicting doc- trines in the household of the faithful—never. Who in their right mind can conceive that He who declared that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mar\ 3:25) would subsequently inspire or condone divi- sions in His own house ? It just naturally follows, therefore, that somewhere in this great assortment of churches there is one which really is the true Church of Christ. Somewhere the Church He promised to preserve “all days” must still be in existence. But which one? That is the sixty-four dollar ques- tion. An enigma, yes, but fortunately not an unsolvable one when we have the courage to face up to certain facts. The fact of history, for example. A scholarly perusal of history reveals that in the world today there is one Christian church, and only one, that can trace its history all the way back to the day Christ founded His Church, that can furnish positive historical proof that it has enjoyed a continual, uninterrupted existence from that day till now. That church is the Catholic Church, the church sometimes referred to as the “Roman” Catholic Church, the same church called Catholic by the Apostles and the primitive Christian Fathers: “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. . .” The Apostles ' Creed, composed by the Apostles in 67 A. D. “Polycarp, the •Eph. 4:4-5. [ 6 ] Catholic Bishop of Smyrna.” Signature on the letters of Bishop Polycarp, ordained in the priesthood by the Apostle John about the year 88 A. D. “Where the Bishop is there let the multitude of believers be; even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.” Ignatius of Antioch in a letter to the Christians of Smyrna in 110 A. D. “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. . .” Nicene Creed, composed by the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A . D. Note the reference to “one” Catholic Church in the Nicene Creed. Note also that in the history of Christianity only one Church has been continually and universally known as the Catholic Church. There are some other old Christian churches, true, but none that go all the way back to Christ like the Catholic Church. The Nestorians, Predestinarians and Monophysites (Copts), the next oldest in existence today, cannot trace their history past the fifth century A.D. The Greek Orthodox and Waldensian Churches cannot trace their history past the ninth century A.D. And there is not a single Protestant denomination that can point to the pages of authentic and unabridged history and show where it was in existence prior to the sixteenth century A.D. Verification of the dates the above churches sprang into existence and the names of the men and women who founded them can be obtained at any first rate public library. The Catholic Church, by virtue of her singular antiquity, therefore, must of necessity be the original Christian Church, the only church personally founded by Jesus Christ Himself. How can we account, then, for the claims of a number of other denominations that they too can trace their origin back to primitive Christianity? Such claims cannot be accounted for; not without ignoring the clear testimony of history and sullying our reason. Some denomina- tions, for instance, advance the argument that when their founding fathers departed from the historic Catholic Church they took a share in the apostolic inheritance of the Catholic Church with them. That they, with a great deal of acrimony, renounced the authority of the his- toric Catholic Church and severed all relations with her matters not; the important thing, according to them, is that they were once in com- munion with her and that makes them her lawful heirs. Not a very realistic argument would you say? How can one be an heir to that which he has renounced ? Another point which somehow evades their thinking is that their organization, their form of government and many of their articles of faith, in short everything that identifies them as individual denomina- tions, has never at any time existed within the framework of the his- toric Catholic Church. Never has the Catholic Church been a function of the State as the Lutheran Church is in Sweden and Norway and as the Anglican (Episcopal) Church is in England; never has the Catholic Church believed in the doctrines of Justification by Faith Alone and Pri- vate Interpretation of the Scriptures, the basic tenets of these and all other Protestant denominations. To claim that they can trace the origin of their denomination back to the beginning of Christianity via the Catholic Church is, therefore, utterly absurd. According to their kind of reasoning one could justifiably claim that the U.S.A. originated, not with the American Revolution, but with the Anglo-Saxon conquest of ancient Brittany, the U.S.A. being carried intact, albeit incognito, into the eighteenth century and planted on the North American continent via the English. Indeed, if origin is determined by past association then it could be claimed that Christianity originated, not with Christ, but with Abraham. For history attests that the past association between the U.S.A. and England, between Chris- tianity and the old Jewish dispensation, is every bit as real as the past association between the founders of the first Protestant denominations and Catholicism, perhaps even more so. Other denominations, those formed since the Reformation period, defend their claim to being the direct descendants of the primitive Christians by asserting that they have “recaptured” the primitive Chris- tian faith. Like the first Christians, they tell us, they are “Bible Christians” who obtain their rules of faith, not from any ecclesiastical authority but from the Word of God as contained in the Sacred Scriptures. But here again the argument is inconsistent with the facts. For the primitive Christians had no Bible. The few extant copies of the Old Testament were in the hands of the Jews and scholars and the New Testament was not yet compiled. The Bible, as Christians know it today, did not make its appearance until late in the fourth century; but even if it had ap- peared earlier and through some miracle made available to everyone (remember, there were no printing presses in those days), the masses were not literate enough to read it. So you see, there could have been only one prime source of Chris- [ 8 ] tian knowledge during primitive Christianity: the teaching Church — the Church called Catholic. And the Catholic Church, then as now, was administered by bishops, that is to say, ecclesiastical authority . Any similarity, therefore, between the “Bible Christians” of today and the first Christians is purely coincidental. Yes, many and sundry religious denominations will tell you that they were founded by God; but remember this: history must support such claims. The most reputable historical reference libraries recount that the founder of the Greek Orthodox Church was Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, a human being. They likewise give the details of the origin of the Protestant denominations, pointing out Martin Luther, a human being, as founder of the Lutheran denomina- tion; John Knox, a human being , as founder of the Presbyterian de- nomination; King Henry VIII, a human being, as founder of the Episco- pal denomination; John Smith, a human being, as founder of the Bap- tist denomination; John Wesley, a human being, as founder of the Methodist denomination; and so forth. Nor can it in all Christian sincerity be said that these men were inspired by God to found their respective denominations; first because God is an advocate of unity and harmony, not vicious rivalries (/ Cor. 14:33 ); secondly because none of them possessed the personal qualifica- tions that would entitle them, according to God’s justice, to the extreme high honor of founding a divine establishment. With the single excep- tion of John Wesley * none of them were men of outstanding Christian virtue. Martin Luther admitted that the state of his Christian virtue left much to be desired. In his diary Luther wrote: “Why do I sit soaked in wine? ... to be continent and chaste is not in me.” Nor was Luther the assiduous defender of fundamental Christian doctrine an emissary of Christ would perforce have to be. In a lecture at Wittenburg Luther counseled his followers: “If Moses should attempt to intimidate you with his stupid Ten Commandments, tell him right out—chase yourself to the Jews.” Henry the Eighth was not nearly so contrary from a doctrinal point of view, but the monarch’s moral conduct would certainly dis- * John Wesley, called good John Wesley by most Catholic historians, started the Methodist movement which later resulted in the formation of the Methodist Church, but he himself never became a member of the Methodist Church. He was an Angli- can minister and he died an Anglican minister. His sole purpose in starting the Methodist movement, according to his writings, was to correct certain abuses in the Anglican Church to which he was intensely devoted, not to create a new church. C9] qualify him for the role of reformer. His favorite pastime: marrying every damsel who caught his fancy, stocking his palace with mistresses and summarily cutting off the heads of all who dared interfere. True, there have been times in the long history of the Catholic Church when men of few moral scruples occupied positions of high ecclesiastical rank. This has never been denied. Like Christ who pointed out weaknesses in some of His Apostles the Church has never claimed that she is an exclusive society of saints. The kingdom of God, the Church of God, Christ said, is like a wheat field which has its weeds, weeds which must be tolerated until the harvest, or Judgment, when they will be separated from the wheat. But sinful in their ways and derelict in their duties as those clerics were, the fact remains: they were not in any way connected with the foundmg of the Catholic Church. The Church was a living, flourishing entity long before any of them appeared on the scene. Of significance also and to the everlasting credit of those disrepu- table churchmen, they never attacked the doctrinal or moral teachings of the Church nor did they ever have the temerity to claim divine ap- probation for their contrariness—none of them posed as reformers. They at least had the honesty, the humility and sufficient faith to admit that it was they, the human element of the Church, which needed re- forming, not the Church itself; because the Church, the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24), being divinely constituted, cannot be reformed . Think! Any Tom, Dick or Harry can found a church and call it a “Christian” church. You could do it ... I could do it. All we would need to “qualify” us is a new slant on the Gospels, an overinflated ego to give us “inspiration” and some glib oratory. A following would be virtually assured because there are a great number of people in the world gullible enough and mentally unstable enough to believe anything if it is garnished in sweet talk and extravagant promises. But it stands to reason that at best our new found religion would never be more than a human religion. It stands to reason that only God can found a divine religion, a Church endowed with His Authority and His guid- ing Spirit—only God can found a church capable of insuring the salva- tion of the human soul. C10J II CATHOLIC CHURCH ONLY CHURCH TO FULFILL PRIMARY CHRISTIAN OBJECTIVE For three years Christ schooled the Apostles in the tenets of His Holy Faith; for three years He showed them by His own perfect example of humility, love and compassion the way to true Christian piety. Not a very long time according to ordinary school standards, to be sure; but then Christ was no ordinary tutor —He was the Son of God and He taught with the power of the Holy Spirit. Three years of schooling, then came the “graduation ceremony.” after resurrecting himself from the tomb, the miracle that was to seal His divinity in the eyes of all the world, the Master summoned His proteges to a mountain in Galilee where He very solemnly announced to them the objective for which they had been chosen and so carefully trained: “ALL POWER IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH HAS BEEN GIVEN TO ME. GO, THEREFORE, AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THAT I HAVE COMMANDED YOU; AND BEHOLD, I AM WITH YOU ALL DAYS, EVEN UNTO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD!’ Matthew 28:18-20 What tremendous import these words contained. Here, in sum- mary, was revealed the purpose, the whole objective, of His Church: to convert all nations to Him— to the Triune God — through baptism, Cll] through obedience to all His commandments and through the sacra- mental life He prescribed for imparting sanctifying grace to the soul. Here was the divine mandate of the Christian Church. For that is what the Apostles were: the first administrative body of the Christian Church. When Christ issued directives to the Apostles, He was issuing them, not to a small group of mortal men who would soon be gone from the world, but to the divine Church which they represented, the Church that would never be gone from the world. In this all Christian denominations agree. Now why do we bring up something that is already generally un- derstood? Simply this: because if Christ issued a mandate to what was unquestionably His one and only duly authorized Church it would naturally follow that before any of today’s churches can claim legitimate authority to teach in His Name and administer His lawful sacraments, they should he able to show evidence that they have com- plied with that mandate. Christ certainly would not, could not, sanction a church which has failed to accomplish the main purpose for which the Christian Church was conceived. Accordingly, the church, or churches, that have complied with Christ’s great mandate can be regarded as heirs to the Apostolic authority; and those that have not complied are to be regarded as pretenders, devoid of authority and therefore unqualified to lead us in the way of salvation. Simple logic, born of faith in the divine sincerity of Christ, leaves us no other alternative. The all important question, therefore, is: Where in the world today is that Church which can furnish this proof of its divine heritage? Without taking the interminable time to go calling on all the churches here and abroad, let us spend a few hours in a well-stocked library and there examine the records of all the Christian denomina- tions. By studiously comparing their respective records with the text of Christ’s directive we will obtain our answer quickly — accurately; and we will be spared a lot of unobjective sentimentality. Ah, the records of Christian achievement are so complete and well ordered in history they leave no room at all for doubt. Behold , all of the Christian nations of the world, plus all nations that were at one time Christian but have since apostatized,* were originally Christianized by the Roman Catholic Church and her alone. Behold, * Egypt, Turkey, etc. [ 12 ] all nations converted to Christ hy the Roman Catholic Church were converted by “teaching,” by appealing to the individual citizen s own intellect and conscience, never by a proclamation of state law imposed on the people without their approval and consent, the method used by those who later substituted new state religions * How clear the apostolic heritage of the Catholic Church is in the archives of Christian evangelism. After the labors of the Apostles in the North Africa and Mediterranean areas, the Faith of Christ was extended to the British Isles by her Sts. Augustine and Patrick, to Scandinavia by her Sts. Anschar and Olaf, to Germany by her Sts. Willibrord and Boniface, to the Slavs by her St. Methodius, to South America by her St. Francis Solano and Father Anchieta, to Asia by her St. Francis Xavier and Friar Gutierrez, and so forth. But what is especially noteworthy: every single one of these great emissaries of Christ were sent forth from the See of Rome and labored under the patronage of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Yes, dear reader, the papacy which some Christians hate so bitterly, which they malign and denounce so vehemently, is the same papacy, the very same, which made it possible for them to be Christians. For had the popes of the Catholic Church not been so concerned for the spiritual regeneration of their ancestors, it is certain that the great majority of them would be Moslems, pagans or neo-pagans today. How is that for irony? “What about Russia and the U. S. A.?” you may ask. “Can the Catholic Church claim these nations among her converts to Chris- tianity also?” Well, let us see: History relates that the first Christian missionaries to Russia were Greeks despatched from Constantinople by the Patriarch, Photius, in either 866 or 867 A.D., during his 863-869 schism from papal authority. But it also relates that, due to language and travel difficulties, those missionaries did not actually begin winning converts until after Photius and the Greek Church were reunited with Rome; and the Christian Faith was spread and firmly established throughout Russia long before the next schism (the current one) of the Greek Church from papal authority in 1054 A.D. That the Russian Church was in communion with Rome during its infancy is evidenced by its liturgical books which even to the present day address Pope Martin thus: “Thou didst adorn the divine throne of Peter, and, hold- # England and the Scandinavian countries. £13] ing the Church upright on this rock which cannot be shaken, thou didst honour thy name,” and Pope Leo III: “O chief shepherd of the Church, thou do represent the place of Jesus Christ.’ , There can be no question, therefore, that it was the Roman Catholic Church which brought Christianity to Russia, not the Greek Orthodox Church as many people suppose. The U. S. A. was Christianized by immigration, not by evange- lization. But the Indians, the only real natives of this country, were introduced to Christianity by Catholic missionary priests who arrived on these shores long before the representatives of any other Christian religion; thus accounting for the fact that now the vast majority of American Indians are Catholic. If you would question or underrate the accomplishments of the Catholic missionaries in North America during and before colonial times, you are invited to obtain a good biographical history of early America and read the exploits of the priests Marquette and Jogues of the North, De Smet of the Rocky Mountain area, Gallitzin of Pennsylvania, Mazzuchelli and Loras of the plains, Flaget of Kentucky, Las Casas and Joliet of the deep South and Serra of the West Coast, to mention only a few. It is indeed no coincidence that this nation’s oldest cities have Catholic names, e.g., St. Augustine, St. Louis, St. Paul, St. Joseph, San Antonio, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc., and that the State of Maryland, site of one of the oldest American settlements, was named after the Blessed Mother of Christ. True, collective Protestantism enjoys a numerical superiority in the U. S. A. at the present time; but for this no credit is due its missionaries. All credit must go to the colonizing ambitions of the British politic and to an unusually great influx of Protestant immigrants from Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Thus, looking back over the years since the advent of Christianity, we see that, invariably when pagan nations are converted to Christ, it is the great Mother Church, not the Methodists or the Baptists or the Episcopalians or the Lutherans, who is the apostle and the teacher; it is the Catholic Church who alone of all churches has faithfully complied with the divine mandate to baptize and teach and make disciples of all nations, thereby proving that she alone is the Church to which the mandate and all the authority that goes with it belongs. [ 14 ] Ill ORIGINAL CHRISTIAN FAITH PRESERVED ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH A he Apostles received their tenets of faith and expressions of divine worship direct from Christ, and the Church Fathers received theirs firsthand from the Apostles. It will be conceded, therefore, that the faith and mode of worship believed in and practiced by those members of the infant Christian Church was the pure Christian religion, the divine precedent to be adopted by all future generations of the faithful. The Apostle Paul made this abundantly clear when he issued dire warnings to those who would deviate: “Stand firm, and hold the teachings you have learned, whether by word or letter of ours. ,, (2 Thes. 2:15). “And we charge you, brethren, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from every brother who lives irregularly, and not according to the teachings received from us” (2 Thes. 3:6). “If we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed!” {Gal. 1:8). Now precisely what are the teachings of which Paul writes? What in summary, did the Apostles and Church Fathers believe and how were their beliefs expressed? Providentially we know the answers to these extremely important questions. We know from the preserved writings of the Church Fathers and primitive Christian historians that the first Christians (1) worshipped at mass, (2) believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist (the consecrated bread of the altar), (3) believed in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, (4) believed [ 15 ] in seven sacraments, viz. Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Holy Com- munion, Matrimony, Holy Orders and Extreme Unction (the anoint- ing of the sick and dying), (5) offered devotion to Christ’s Mother Mary, (6) held that Mary’s virginity was inviolate, (7) held that the Church, not the books of scripture, is the pillar and mainstay of truth,* (8) held that the Church is the only authorized and competent inter- preter of the scriptures, (9) recognized the Bishop of Rome (pope) as Peter’s successor and head of the Church, (10) venerated the saints. There they are, a summary of the principal teachings of the Christian Church, the cardinal tenets of Christian belief as espoused by those greatest of authorities, the holy Apostles and the Church Fathers. Now some real food for serious thinking is the fact that all of the aforementioned articles of faith have been preserved in only one church on the face of the earth — the Catholic Church. And, inciden- tally, this is not a statement that originates with the author, but belongs to the Church Fathers themselves, plus a great many other eminent Christian ecclesiastics and scholars of bygone centuries. Hear the voice of the Fathers: IRENAEUS (Second Century) —“The Catholic Church, hav- ing received the apostolic teaching and faith, though spread over the whole world, guards it sedulously, as though dwelling in one house; and these truths she uniformly teaches, as having but one soul and one heart; these truths she proclaims, teaches and hands down as though she had but one mouth.” Adv. Haer., L, x., 2; IV., xxxiii., 7. LACTANTIUS (Fourth Century) — “The Catholic Church, therefore, is the only one that retains the true worship. This is the source of truth; this the dwelling place of faith; this the temple of God.” Divine Institutions , Boo\ 4, Chap. 30. ANTHANASIUS (Fourth Century) — “But it will hardly be out of place to investigate likewise the ancient traditions, and the doctrines and faith of the Catholic Church, which the Lord communicated, the Apostles proclaimed, and the Fathers preserved; for on this has the Church been founded.” First Letter to Serapion, n. 28. * 1 Tim. 3:15 ni6] AUGUSTINE (Fifth Century) — “These ties (traditions) of the Christian name, therefore, so numerous, so powerful, and most dear, justly keep a believing man in the Catholic Church.” “But didn’t the Catholic Church corrupt the original deposit of Christian Faith during the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries by teaching new, unchristian doctrines?” Positively not. That is what the Church’s adversaries would have you believe but it is an accusa- tion without any basis in fact whatsoever. Such a thing would be contrary and thoroughly inimical to everything the Church stands for. In her lifetime she has elaborated upon several traditional Chris- tian beliefs, making them more intelligible and meaningful, but never has she invented new ones. When a Catholic priest is ordained he ta\es a solemn oath not to teach any doctrine that was not promulgated by Jesus Christ. This accusation undoubtedly stems from the Church’s ex cathedra pronouncements in the past few centuries on Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Assump- tion of Mary into heaven. But how anyone who has familiarized himself with the beliefs and practices of primitive Christians can call these new beliefs is hard to imagine — unless they just want a bone to pick with the Catholic Church. Far from being modern innovations, these articles of faith have been held by the main body of Christians since the very dawn of Christianity. The Church merely waited until she was absolutely convinced of their essential Christian character before giving them the status of a dogma; meaning that they shall thereafter be universally regarded as divinely revealed truth and there- fore indispensable tenets of Catholic faith. It is just a necessary, and surely understandable, precaution the Church takes to insure the purity of Christian orthodoxy. The same course was followed when the Church decreed that Sunday, the day of Our Lord’s Resurrection, was to replace the Sabbath as the Holy Day of the week, and when the Church established the Advent, Christmas and Easter devotions. Really, if the Church’s critics have so little faith in her wisdom and authority, should they not be consistent and reject these practices also? But it would be rash, indeed, for sincere Christians to reject the beautiful Advent, Christmas and Easter traditions. And if every [ 17 ] sincere Christian looked deep enough into the source of all the other Catholic teachings they would realize that it would be rash to reject them too. Because the Catholic Church, more than any other human agency, is eminently qualified to distinguish what is authentically Christian from what is not Christian. She is the Church to which the Christian faith was bequeathed in the first place, the only Church where the whole deposit of Christian truth , whether committed to tradi- tion or in writing, had a chance to survive because for many centuries she was the only Christian church in existence. We say, therefore, that if you are the kind of person who wants Christianity in all of its beautiful, original fullness; if you want a faith whose revealed truth you can trust — here it is. C183 IV THE PERFECT AND CONSTANT UNITY CHRIST PROMISED HIS CHURCH FOUND ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH .A. careful, sober analysis of the New Testament writings as they relate to the formation of Christ’s Church reveals that Our Lord was particularly emphatic on one point: His Church, put on earth to represent the eternal unity of the Divine Trinity, would also be characterized by a perfect and constant unity; would, in fact, be a part of the divine unity. Witness Christ’s poignant prayer to the Heavenly Father on this subject: “AND THE GLORY THAT THOU HAS GIVEN ME, I HAVE GIVEN TO THEM (His followers), THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE, I IN THEM AND THOU IN ME; THAT THEY MAY BE PER- FECTED IN UNITYr John 17:22-23 Nor was Christ any less explicit when He declared, “There shall be ONE fold and ONE shepherd.” John 10:16. The Apostle Paul did not mince any words either when, writing to his disciples, he told them, “You were called in ONE body.” Col. 3:15. “ONE body . . . ONE spirit . . . ONE hope . . . ONE Lord . . . ONE faith . . . ONE Baptism.” Eph. 4:4-5. Thus it is plain to see that unity was intended by Christ to be one of the most outstanding marks of His Church; just as it is plain to see that in the history of Christianity there is only one church with a record of long lived and perfect unity: the Church called Catholic. [ 19 ] Not only during the lifetime of Christianity but never in all the annals of the human race has there existed such magnificent concord and singleness of purpose. Never has a human society, whether religious, political or fraternal, remained solidly intact as a single body, holding to a single rule of conduct, under a single administrative authority, as long as the Catholic Church. Check on this, you scholars, and see for yourselves if this is not the case. Granted, there have been differences of opinion within the Church from time to time, some of them very sharp differences; but never has the Church, through her Councils and Papal Decrees, failed to resolve those differences when they posed even the slightest threat to her doctrinal or organizational unity. And there have been schisms and apostacies, groups which, for one reason or another, rebelled against papal authority and formed their own separate denominations; but never has there occurred a division of authority within the Church. For understand, unity of faith and organization and authority, under the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is more than just an ideal: it is essen- tial to her very existence — it is the epidermis of the Church's whole organic structure without which she would instantly lose her identity as the one true Catholic Church. Catholic unity has long been recognized as one of the great paradoxes, one of the greatest miracles, of Christianity. Paradoxical because it seems to defy the natural bent of humans to shift with the changing moods of the times, to rebel against authority and dis- cipline and seek for modes of life which demand the least possible moral restraint. A miracle because Catholic unity has withstood, over the course of nineteen hundred years, a long succession of determined attempts by mighty temporal rulers and great continental armies to destroy it. The Caesars killed 30 Popes, countless members of the Church hierarchy and faithful laity and outlawed all public worship for four centuries. Attila and his armies ravaged the Church horribly as they swarmed over Europe — until they were stopped cold on the steps of St. Peter’s in Rome and turned back by one lone, unarmed figure — the Pope. The Protestant Reformation witnessed the martyr- dom, especially in England, of tens of thousands of Bishops, priests and members of religious orders because they refused to break with Holy Mother Church and embrace the new state religion. Then it was Napoleon’s turn to vent his inordinate lust for power on the C20] . Church. He vowed that he would destroy the authority of the Pope forever* And in our own times, we see that the perennial war against the Catholic Church is being waged by the Communists. It is reliably estimated that the number of priests and faithful laity killed by the red tyrants in China, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, already exceeds the toll of any previous period of persecution. A miracle of survival, indeed. In the history of Christianity liter- ally hundreds of self-styled Christian churches have sprung into existence during periods of religious tolerance, flourished for awhile, then either disappeared entirely or broke up into isolated, sterile little camps when the going got rough. Take the Marcionites, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Manicheons, the Arians and the Jovin- ians, for instance. All of these churches enjoyed large followings at one time — Arianism had a larger membership than the present-day Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches combined — but, alas, today no trace of them is left on earth. And consider the Nestorian, Pre- destinarian, Monophysite and Waldensian Churches — old churches all of them; today you would need a magnifying glass to find them on the map. But the Catholic Church, by far the oldest Church of them all, how she has continued to grow and expand throughout the centuries, mysteriously drawing from all her persecutions greater strength and virility — ever maintaining that indomitable unity which obviously was her birthright from the beginning. Eusebius, one of the great Christian Fathers of the Fourth Century, made a comment on Catholic unity which certainly is as relevant today as it was then. Said he: “For the inventions of the enemies soon disappeared, being refuted by the truth itself; because while sect after sect appeared with their innovations, the earlier ones always passed away and splitting up into numerous and manifold forms would go to ruin in one way or another; the only true, the glorious, the Catholic Church, on the contrary, remaining ever firm and ever the self same in all things, still went on increasing and developing; and showed forth in brilliant light the venerableness and the purity of its divine doctrine and mode of life.” — Eccl. Hist., Boo\ 4, Chap. 11. Prophetic words, these. •Humbled by defeat, Napoleon, who was born a Catholic, reaffirmed the authority of the Pope and on his deathbed asked for, and received, the Last Sacraments of the Church. [ 21 ] Now, what of Protestantism and the Eastern Orthodox Churches? Can you ascribe to them any real honest to goodness unity? Lo, what has become of the original Protestant and Greek Churches? Look at their histories: In contrast to the nineteen hundred year old, stead- fast oneness of the Catholic Church, Protestantism and the Eastern Orthodox Churches have, in a relatively short time, become divided and sub-divided into over four hundred separate church organizations, no two of them recognizing the same administrative authority, no two of them holding to exactly the same articles of faith. Lutheranism, for example, is divided into 22 independent church bodies (called synods) and doctrinal variations; Methodism is divided 17 ways; the Baptists are divided 15 ways; the Presbyterians are divided 15 ways; the Mennonites are divided 12 ways; and the Greek-Russian Church is divided 14 ways. Then there are the numerous sects (Mormons, Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, etc.) which, while they cannot properly be called Protestant, are definitely a product of Protestantism in that they emerged from the Protestant doctrine of private interpretation .* Even the Jews, since the destruction of their temple city of Jerusa- lem in 70 A.D., have ceased to recognize a central Rabbinical authority and became split into many independent factions. And the divisions outside of the Catholic Church continue unabated. The records show that for every two Protestant bodies that merge in an attempt toward unity, four new ones spring up on the sidelines. The situation has gotten so out of hand that many of the more con- scientious Protestant leaders are admitting now that real unity within their ranks appears to be just so much wishful thinking. And they have begun to cast wistful, envious eyes at the great, imperishable unity of the Mother Church of Christianity; for never has it been more obvious than now that the perfect and constant unity Christ promised His Church is to be found only under her ancient and holy mantle. * The right of each individual to disavow the authority of the Church and interpret the Scriptures according to his own pleasure. [22n V THE APOSTLE PETER WAS THE FIRST POPE Ahe Catholic Church claims that Christ placed the Apostle Peter in a position of highest authority in the infant Christian Church and that Peter established himself and his primacy in Rome, Italy, in his later life thus becoming the first pope of the Catholic Church. And here, because of the enormously important implications of this claim, because if this claim can be proved it certifies the exclusive apostolicity of the Catholic Church, we find ourselves dealing with one of the most controversial issues in Christianity. The question, therefore, that we would like to take up here is: What valid evidence does the Catholic Church present to the world to support her claim? The author has gathered together in this chapter some of the more pertinent evidence offered by the Catholic Church to support her claim and invites you the reader to examine it carefully. Examine it carefully and impartially, without the impediment of past prejudices, then judge for yourself whether or not her claim is a valid one. Peter’s Primacy According to the Scriptures When Peter was first ushered into Christ’s presence Christ beheld him, saying, "THOU ART SIMON, THE SON OF JOHN; THOU SHALT BE CALLED CEPHAS John 1:42. In Aramaic, the lan- guage that Christ spoke, Cephas means “rock.” In Greek, the language of John’s Gospel, the word for rock is Petros, or when used for a person’s name, Peter. Addressing Peter later, Christ said, “AND, 1 SAY TO THEE THOU ART PETER (Cephas) AND UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH . . . AND I WILL GIVE THEE THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN C23] Matt. 16:18. “FEED MY LAMBS; FEED MY SHEEP.” John 21:15-17. “STRENGTHEN THY BRETHREN.” Lufc 22:32. Never once did Christ single out one of the other Apostles and address him in this manner. Thus, according to the scriptures, Peter was appointed the highest ranking Apostle. Nor can there be any doubt that Peter was recog- nized by the other Apostles as their leader. Peter presided at the elec- tion of Matthias ( Acts 1:22); he is the first to preach the Gospel (Acts 2:14); the first to work miracles ( Acts 3:6); he is the judge of Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5:1-10); the first to declare the universality of the Church’s mission (Acts 10); the first to receive a pagan convert (Acts 10); he presided over the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15). And when- ever the names of the Apostles are listed in the Scriptures, Peter’s name always appears first. Peter’s Presence in Rome The fact that Peter wrote his Epistle from Babylon, i.e., Rome, is proof positive of his presence there.* Babylon, the ancient city of iniquity spoken of by the Old Testament prophets, was a cryptic designation for Rome in Apostolic times, as we learn from the Jewish writings and the Sibylline Books of the first century. Equally con- vincing is the testimony of the Romans themselves: About the year 140 A.D., Papias wrote, “Peter came and first by his salutory preaching of the Gospel and by his keys opened in the city of Rome the gates of the heavenly kingdom.” Then there are the recent excavations in the catacombs beneath St. Peter’s in Vatican City in which some of the world’s foremost archeologists participated. According to the official report the writings found on the walls and on religious articles estab- lish beyond any doubt that the Apostle Peter was buried there after having suffered a martyr’s death. So overwhelming, in fact, is the evidence that places Peter in Rome during his last years almost every scholarly non-Catholic historian, men like Cave, Grotius, Whitby, DeWette, Weisler, Credner, Pearson, Bleck, Meyer, Renan, Hilgengeld and Mangold, have long since expressed their complete agreement with the Catholic Church on this score. Peter the First Pope Among the evidence offered by the Catholic Church to prove * 1 Peter 5:13. £ 24 ] her claim that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, the office which has always designated the holder of the tide “pope,” are the writings of the Christian Church Fathers: In 160 A.D., St. Hegessippus com- piled a succession of Bishops of Rome to the time of Anicetus, which contained the name of Peter as first. In 190 A.D., Tertullian states that the Church of Rome recounts that Clement (fourth pope) was ordained by Peter. A poem, “Adverse Marcionem,” written about the same time, speaks of Linus (second pope) being the first “whom Peter bade to take his place and sit on the chair in mightiest Rome where he himself had sat.” In 214 A.D., Caius calls Victor “the thirteenth Bishop of Rome from Peter.” In 225 A.D., St. Hippilytus counts Peter as the first Bishop of Rome. In 250 A.D., St. Cyprian relates that Cornelius (twrenty-first pope) “mounted the lofty summit of the priest- hood . . . the place of Peter.” To the above testimony must also be added the highly significant fact that at no time in Christian history has anyone other than the Pope laid claim to the tide, Successor of St. Peter the Apostle. No one has ever come forth and said, “I, not he, am the rightful holder of the title.” Certainly, if the head of any other church possessed the credentials to jusdfy such a claim he would not hesitate for one instant to present them to the Chrisdan world. There you have it, not all the evidence the Catholic Church can furnish to prove her inheritance of the “keys” of authority vested in the Aposde Peter, for a complete presentation would require volumes, but surely enough to give you a solid basis for opinion. Think it over, dear friend, then let your better judgment settle the issue in your mind once and for all. C25] VI CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE ABODE OF THE LIVING CHRIST .A. ny church congregation can, with a certain justification, claim that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is present in their midst. In fact even the Jews, the Moslems and the Buddhists could make the claim if they wished. That is because Christ, being consubstantial with the Father, is omnipresent—he is spiritually present everywhere, in people’s homes, on ships at sea, with aviators high above the clouds, with miners deep underground—everywhere. No field of human activity can, even if it would, escape His constant Presence and surveillance. “For in Him were created all things in the heavens and on earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things have been created through and unto Him, and He is before all creatures, and in Him all things hold together.” Col. 1:15-17. Nothing particularly newsworthy about that observation, the aver- age Christian will say. But what will doubtless be a revelation to many is this: No place or assembly of people on earth is blessed with the Savior s divine Presence in the perfect, transcendent sense that Catholic churches are. In Catholic churches, incredible as it may at first seem, Christ is present, not only in Spirit, but in Body; that is, He is entirely present—Body, Soul and Divinity—just as entirely as when He walked the earth nineteen hundred years ago. Utterly incomprehensible, yes, but not incredible. For it is Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist that we have reference to, the actual living Incarnate Christ dwelling on the altar under the appear- ed] ance of bread and wine, the only difference between the living Christ of nineteen hundred years ago and the living Christ of the altar being one of mere visible form. Whereas before He lived in the world un- der the form and appearance of man, the better to bring salvation to the world, He now continues to live in the world under the form and appearance, or sacramental veil, of bread and wine, the better to keep the world nourished in salvation. Christ himself said it was to be: “AND THE BREAD THAT 1 WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD HE WHO EATS MY FLESH AND DRINKS MY BLOOD HAS LIFE EVERLASTING AND I WILL RAISE HIM UP ON THE LAST DAY." John 6:52-55 . Our Blessed Lord certainly could not have been speaking figura- tively, as some opponents of the doctrine argue, because He refused to retract or temporize even when many of His disciples, scandalized at the literal interpretation they gave His words, deserted Him. John 6:67 . The literal interpretation, therefore, must have been the true interpreta- tion; otherwise Christ, in His infinite solicitude for souls, would have followed with a concise explanation of the figurative meaning and pre- vented the apostacy . Christ was not one to let misunderstanding provoke the apostacy of a single soul, must less that of a large number. Instead of explaining, for there was nothing to explain, He turned to His Apostles and asked, “Do you also wish to go away?” meaning that they too could take their leave of Him if they questioned the literal import of His words. Whereupon Peter, always the spokesman for the group, replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of everlasting life.” John 6:68-69. Quite aside from their great faith, the Apostles had been present when Christ fed five thousand hungry people with five loaves of bread and two fishes, when He raised Lazarus from the dead and when He performed many other stupendous miracles, so to them it was unthinkable that He could not also do this thing of which He spoke. Christ was God and nothing was beyond His power. That He was speaking literally and not figuratively becomes all the more certain when we note that at the Last Supper He translated His words into reality. Taking bread and wine, Jesus blessed it, then offering it to the Apostles, said, “Take and eat, THIS IS MY BODY . . . THIS IS MY BLOOD ... DO THIS FOR A COMMEMORA- TION OF ME.” (Matt. 26:26-28, Mar\ 14:22-24, Lu\e 22:19-20). Could [27] He have been more explicit? What other reasonable interpretation can be applied to His words other than that the bread and wine, by His omnipotent power, was changed into His own divine Flesh and Blood and that the Apostles and their lawful successors would thereafter be empowered to perform the selfsame miracle for the spiritual nourish- ment of future generations of the faithful? Remember , Christ, by His own admission, had previous to the Last Supper ceased to spea\ in par- ables, that is, figuratively (John 16:25-29). This was no precedent in the long history of God’s true Church. God had found it expedient to appear to humanity in some prosaic form before. On Mount Sinai He appeared to Moses in the guise of fire and on the occasion of Christ’s baptism in the guise of a dove, which- ever form was most appropriate to the occasion. Call them disguises if you will but they were God in all His Omnipotent Power and Glory nevertheless and were necessary if He was to appear among His crea- tures without revealing His true likeness, a sight reserved only for the inhabitants of heaven—a sight which constitutes, as it were, heaven’s greatest reward. In keeping with His promise to give himself, flesh and blood, to the faithful that their souls might be nourished with divine food, what, therefore, could be more appropriate than that He should give himself in the guise of bread and wine? Was not He a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech (Heb . 5:6, 6:20 and 7:11) and did not the High Priest Melchisedech make offering of bread and wine ( Genesis 14:18)? Did not He call himself the manna which came down from heaven? It is a mystery, to be sure, but a most logical mystery once the supernatural side of it is considered, once our faith and divine revelation fall in line with each other. Thus when Catholic priests, successors of the Apostles, consecrate the unleavened bread and the wine at the Canon of the Mass, they perform the miracle of transubstantiation, the same miracle performed by Christ at the Last Supper; thus when Catholic priests, by the power of God and the authority vested in them as priests of His Church, change the bread into the Body of Christ and the wine into the Blood of Christ and offer it up to the Most High for the remission of sins, they are dutifully complying with Christ’s command to perpetuate this most sublime act of sacrificial love “in commemoration” of Him; thus when Catholics the world over receive into themselves the consecrated [ 28 ] Bread at Holy Communion, they are receiving into themselves the ac- tual Incarnate Body of Christ their Savior, the food of everlasting life. Protestant theology, preferring the figurative interpretation of Our Lord’s words, does not agree, arguing that the Holy Eucharist of the Catholic Church and the Communion Bread of Protestant churches is not the real Flesh and Blood of Christ, but only a symbol of His Flesh and Blood. Symbol, indeed! Doubtless that is true of the Prot- estant Communion Bread, for having seceded from the apostolic suc- cession the Protestant ministry lacks the power to effect a change in the bread. In fact the Communion Bread is even less than a symbol of the Body of Christ in some Protestant churches for we know of instances when jam sandwiches were unceremoniously made of the leftover bread and at least one instance when it was consigned to the pastor’s chickens. But to deny the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist of the Catholic Church is not only tantamount to accusing Christ of double-talk, it is a blatant refutation of the Apostle Paul, the primitive Christian Fathers and the voice of Christian orthodoxy throughout all the history of Christianity. To quote the Apostle Paul.: “For he who eats (the bread) and drinks (the wine) unworthily, without distinguishing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment to himself.” (1 Cor. 11:29). Con- cerning the heretics of his time, Ignatius, disciple of the Apostle John, wrote: “They have abstained from the Eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Ad Smyrn.7PG,v.713). Justin Martyr, illustrious Church Father of the second century, had this to say: “This food is known among us as the Eucharist . . . We do not receive these things as com- mon bread and common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior, being made flesh by the Word of God.” (ApoLi.66yPG.vi.428). In the sec- ond century Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: “Since then He has declared and said of the bread, ‘This is my body,’ who after that will venture to doubt? And seeing that He has affirmed and said, ‘This is my blood,’ who will raise a question and say it is not His blood?” (Cat. Mystag. xxii,4,PG.xxx.iii.l097). Similar statements by leaders of the primitive Christian Church and their successors down through the ages could be multiplied almost without end. But all of the written testimony, authoritative as it may be, is but a whisper compared to the evidence which has emanated from the Holy Eucharist itself. Countless are the times when God, by some of [29] the most awesome miracles, has made it plain that this is not mere earthly substance but the living body of the Host of Hosts, Jesus Christ Incarnate. Ethereal rays of light have been observed radiating from the Sacred Species by multitudes of people; Hosts lost through acts of vandalism have been recovered years later in a state of perfect preserva- tion and freshness though exposed all the while to insects and humid weather; holy people have been known to subsist in perfect health for years on no other food but one little consecrated Host per day. Universal observance of the Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated June 17, was inspired by a most striking manifestation of the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In 1264 a priest who entertained some doubt about the Real Presence was saying Mass in Bolsena, Italy. Suddenly the Host turned into living flesh and spilled blood onto the corporal cloth and altar stones before his very eyes. The corporal, still bearing the blood stains, has been preserved in a chapel in the Cathedral of Orvieto and can be seen by present day pilgrims. Is it any wonder then that Catholic churches the world over are filled on Sundays, even before the sun has risen and while the rest of Christendom sleeps? Is it any wonder that many Catholics, those who can spare the time from their domestic and professional employment, attend Mass day after day throughout the week? No wonder at all, for to pay worshipful homage directly to God and to partake of His real lifegiving Flesh and Blood is a privilege and a joy which surpasses all expression. Here, in a word, is the secret of the invincible youth and inex- haustible vitality of the true Church of Jesus Christ — here is the fulfill- ment of Christ’s solemn promise to His Church : “And, lo, 1 am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” C302 VII THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC PUBLICATION Of all the books ever printed there is one which has consistently and overwhelmingly outstripped all others in popularity. That book is the Holy Bible. Since the advent of mechanical printing in 1448 an esti- mated billion copies have either been sold over the counter or distributed free by church societies until now there are few families in the civilized world without one. Before the printing press the story was very much the same. Al- though the shortage of supply necessarily restricted its circulation to the libraries and seminaries, it was the reproduction of the Bible which occupied most of the time of the scribes, used up most of the fine vel- lum and wore out most of the writing quills. It is for good reason then that the Bible is known as the “Book of Books.” Not only is it the one book which truly enjoys universal appeal, it is one of the very few books truly deserving of universal ap- peal; for in its pages is contained the divine chronicles—the holy Word of God. Modern man knows that, in a world so beset with the destruc- tive forces of hate, greed and godless materialism, meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospel of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, provides him with a mental refuge of incomparable safety. His dignity as a rational being is restored and he is reminded of a prom- ise: the promise of the Son of God that all who persevere in faith and righteousness shall be eternally rewarded in heaven. That most of us, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew or curious ag- nostic, have, at one time or another, indulged in the salutary pastime of reading the Bible is, therefore, to be assumed. There is a question, however: Is the mere reading of the Bible ade- L31] quate for a true understanding and appreciation of its divine author- ity —of its importance to the spiritual welfare of mankind? Take the New Testament, for example: what do we know of the events and people involved in its compilation? Who edited it, numbered its chap- ters and verse and ratified its use for the Christian faithful? Upon whose authority do Christians accept the 27 hoo\s of the New Testa- ment as the inspired Word of God? Certainly if we are to repose full confidence in the veracity of the books of the New Testament, which many people regard as the very foundation of the Christian Faith, we should have this information. Otherwise our conscience is taking entirely too much for granted, even exposing itself to the possibility of a fraud, as much as we dislike men- tioning the word here. The conscience of man has been duped before by self-styled seers of the supernatural so it behooves us in this grave matter to be at all times vigilant. Of course, anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of Biblical his- tory knows that it was the primitive Church which collected the early Christian writings, separated those written by the Apostles from the others and the inspired writings of the Apostles from the uninspired. Further, most of us know that it was the scholarly Jerome who trans- lated the approved writings into the universal Latin vernacular in 387 A.D. and compiled them into one volume for the first time, and that Innocent I, who was highest in authority in the Christian community at the time, passed on their canonicity in 417 A.D. These little tidbits from Christian Biblical history are fairly well known. But if we are to conduct a really objective investigation we should not be satisfied with such incomplete and superficial information. We should obtain a complete and authentically documented Biblical history, unaffected by sectarian bias, and study all of the facts. Once this is done it is amazing how much interesting and thought provoking data will be uncovered. It will surprise many to learn, for example, that the primitive Christian Church which collected the Apostles’ writings and the Roman Catholic Church were one and the same Church; that the Church Fathers who did the actual collecting and editing of the New Testament books were all members of the Catholic Church hierarchy; that Jerome was a devout Catholic monk commissioned to execute his famous work C32] by Pope Damascus, under whom he once served as secretary; that Inno- cent I was none other than Pope Innocent /. The testimony of history in this regard is all too clear — there can be no doubt but that it was the hierarchy and scholars of the Roman Catholic Church who gave the New Testament to the world and no others. It could not have been otherwise because the Roman Catholic Church was the only organized Christian church then in existence. To be sure, there were a few isolated little bands of Christian revo- lutionaries in those times, the same as in every other period of Chris- tianity. But only the Catholic Church, under the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, embraced the whole of Christendom, only she concerned herself with matters of universal import. Particularly in the matter of the Christian Bible, there is no record at all of any other group having taken even a minor part in its compilation. They were much too busy attempting to justify their heresy, too concerned, albeit vainly, with their own survival; proof of which is the fact that before many years had elapsed they were all extinct, having given way to still newer innova- tions. “But what about the reports describing the Church’s suppression of the Bible?” you may ask. Bunk! Pure, unadulterated bunk! Honestly, would the Catholic Church spend three centuries collecting the books of the New Testament from the four corners of the known world, spend many more centuries laboriously copying it by hand in order that more and more copies might be circulated and shed her blood protecting it from marauding heathen tribesmen if she did not value it most highly? Think! Would she base the liturgy of her divine worship on the Gos- pels, incense the Gospels at High Mass, \iss the Gospels at Low Mass and read the Gospels and Epistles aloud at mass each day of the year if she did not love them and cherish them as the holy Word of God? Why do you suppose the Catholic Church calls the right side of her altars the “Gospel Side” and the left side of her altars the “Epistle Side”? Why do you suppose the Church commands her priests to read a breviary, a book containing the Gospels, for an hour every day in addition to reading the Gospels and the Epistles of the mass? Why do you suppose at mass every Catholic throughout the world offers up the prayer: “The Lord be in my heart and on my lips, that I may worthily and in a becoming manner, proclaim His holy Gospel”? t! 33 ] Let those who specialize in anti-Catholic rumor mongering answer those questions for you if they can. It may very well be that devout Protestants spend more time read- ing the Bible than Catholics do (a claim some Protestants like to make and which, for want of any statistics, we won’t dispute here), but that, if true, certainly does not mean what it implies, namely, that Protestants have a greater knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Sacred Scripture. Far from it. For the Bible is only one among several Catholic devotional books containing the Sacred Scriptures. The Missal, for ex- ample, which Catholics take to mass in order to participate in the mass with the priest at the altar, contains Gospel and Epistle reading for each day of the year. And Catholic prayerbooks are composed, for the most part, of Bible passages. Add up the average Catholic’s reading in these three books and it will total a very considerable amount of Scripture. Another thing to bear in mind is that the main concern of Catho- lics is not so much the reading of the Scriptures as it is the living of the Scriptures. When a Catholic attends mass he is participating with the priest in an actual repetition of the great drama of Gethsemane, the Last Supper and Calvary. When a Catholic makes the 14 Stations of the Cross, meditating on the Passion and Crucifixion of our Divine Lord, he is back there in Jerusalem sharing in his heart each torment and each humiliation He was subjected to. When a Catholic recites his rosary, he is not indulging in vain repetition as so many non- Catholics erroneously believe, but taking a grandiose tour over the whole route of the New Testament, pausing briefly at each one of the main episodes in the life of Christ and His Blessed Mother to reflect and to pray. To those who have received their knowledge of the Catholic Church from those who know her not all this may come as a surprise, but in order to remove any lingering doubts all one needs do is consult a Catholic manual, or, better yet, attend one of the above mentioned devotions and share in the joyful experience. History tells us that after the Catholic Church compiled the Bible back in Christian antiquity it remained her exclusive property for a cen- tury or more, until the formation of the Coptic Church late in the fifth century. Now that, in itself, is highly significant. For if the Catholic C34] Church has shown little respect for the Bible, as her critics allege, how, pray tell, can they be sure the Bible they have received from her is whole and true? How can they be sure the Catholic Church did not make a great lot of mischievous changes and omissions in the context of the New Testament Scriptures when she had them all to herself—or that the complete work is not a big Catholic forgery? The plain truth is: no one—absolutely no one—can be sure of the authenticity and inspiration of the Christian Bible without complete faith in the holy integrity of the Roman Catholic Church. Unless there is complete faith in her integrity and authority there can be no cer- tainty at all in the religion of those who regard the Bible as their sole guide to eternal salvation. True, the Catholic Church did condemn John Wycliff’s, Martin Luther’s and William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible. This she freely admits. But not, as some allege, because they translated the Latin Bible into the vernacular of the people (vernacular translations were already in existence), but because they made erroneous translations. Bunsen, eminent Protestant Biblical scholar, reported that he found no less than 3,000 inaccuracies in Luther’s translation alone. Therefore it is easy to see that in condemning the Bible transla- tions of those ambitious but self-willed men the Church was merely exercising a sacred trust, that of keeping God’s articles of faith whole and incorrupt. She was doing no less than the United States Govern- ment would do if someone printed and circulated spurious copies of the United States Constitution. Another charge frequently hurled at Holy Mother Church by those who seek to discredit her is the charge that she has inserted profane writings into the Bible. Why, they ask reproachfully, has the Catholic Church retained the seven deutero-canonical books* of the Old Testa- ment in her Bible instead of labeling them as apocryphal (unscriptural) and deleting them as the Jews did and later the Protestants? Very simple. The Catholic Church does not now nor has she ever regarded those books as apocryphal. Moreover, she thinks it scandalous that any other professed Christian body should regard them as such. For Jesus Christ, whose example all sincere Christians are bound in conscience to follow, accepted the deutero-canonical books as genuine Scripture as did all of * Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Machabees. [ 35 ] His Apostles—indeed, all of Christianity accepted them until the advent of Protestantism. That Christ and His Apostles accepted the deutero-canonical books as genuine Scripture can be proved in a number of ways: (1) Out of the 350 quotations of the Old Testament found in the New Testament, 300 were taken from the Greek Septuagint Version of the Old Testa- ment, the version which contained the deutero-canonical boo\s and which was as popular in Christ's time as the Hebrew Version. (2) Every book of the New Testament save one, Matthew’s Gospel, was written originally in Greek after the style of the Septuagint. Matthew wrote in Syro-Chaldaic. (3) There was no canonical Old Testament dur- ing Christ’s time, both Hebrew and Septuagint versions being equally approved by the Sanhedrin, or High Priest, of Jerusalem. It was not until a half century after Christ’s death that the Jews disqualified the Septuagint in favor of the Hebrew Version and then only as a show of contempt for the Christians who by this time were using the Septuagint almost exclusively. (4) A multitude of the Church Fathers — Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Leo, etc. — quoted the deutero-canonical books in their writings and public discourse the same as they quoted the other books of the Old Testament. If Protestant Biblical authorities want to recognize only the He- brew Version of the Old Testament, after the example of the new era Jews, that is their business; but the fact remains, the true Christian canon of Old Testament Scripture contains the seven deutero-canonical books. Every authority qualified to speak for the Christian community has declared it to be so, and, except for a smattering of modernists, all of Christianity — Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Cop- tics — agree with them. “Ah, but if the Roman Catholic Church is the great and faithful champion of the Bible you say she is, why has she deviated from it? You cannot deny that the Catholic Church teaches doctrines not con- tained in the Bible.” This is another stock criticism which will prob- ably be interjected at this point and which certainly deserves a reply. Yes, the Church does teach a few points of doctrine not explicitly contained in the Bible. But— mark this — she positively does not teach any doctrine not implicitly contained in the Bible. By that is meant: there are some things which Christ said and did that are only inferred [36] in the Apostles’ writings, hence escape the notice of all but the most adept Biblical scholars and theologians, and other things which were not written at all but were passed on to the Church by word of mouth or, as the Church is wont to define it, by tradition . The Apostle John affirms and explains this in the last paragraph of his Gospel (John 21:25) and the Apostle Paul affirms it in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (2 Thes. 2:15) as he does in numerous other places. Also bear in mind that Christ did not order the Apostles to publish His teachings in the form of a book, nor did He advise His followers to obtain their rules of faith from a book. But rather He ordered His Church to “teach” all nations (Matt. 28:20) and He admonished the faithful to “hear” the voice of His Church (Matt. 18:17 and Lu\e 10:16). Christ instructed His Apostles to pattern their ministry after His own, saying to them, “As the Father has sent me, I send you” (John 20:21), and Christ, as we all know, did not commit one iota of His divine message to parchment. Then there is the verdict of the primitive Christian Fathers. In the fourth century St. John Chrysostom wrote: “It is evident that the Apostles did not communicate all in writing; (they communicated) . . . much without writing. Both deserve equal faith ... It is tradi- tion; ask no more.” (hom. ov. in II Thess.). In a similar vein and about the same time St. Epiphanius wrote: “We must call in the aid of tra- dition; for it is impossible to find everything in Scripture; for the Apos- tles delivered to us some things in writing and other things by tradition” (Adv. Haer. Ixi , 6). If the Bible and not the Church was intended to be the prime source of Christian truth, the sole repository of Christian faith, Christ certainly would have made at least one copy available to the world at the outset. But the Christian Bible, as we have already shown, did not take form until four centuries after His death, after the conversion oj millions of souls and after the Christian faith was spread and firmly established throughout most of the Roman Empire. Where did those first Christians get their faith, a faith so strong it defied every punishment the Caesars could devise and for love of which they were willing to exile themselves to the underground cata- combs? They could not have gotten it from the Bible. They could only have received it from the teaching Church and from the doctrine rooted, C37] for the most part, in the traditions received from the Apostles by that teaching Church (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church), traditions which have been zealously guarded by her ever since. In short, the Catholic Church holds that the Bible is indeed the holy Word of God, but she also holds with the Apostles and Church Fathers that other truths were also revealed by God which were not committed in writing but were committed orally and preserved in tradi- tion. Further, she holds that, by virtue of her apostolic origin and his- tory, she and she alone is in possession of this whole deposit of revealed truth; by virtue of the authority vested in her by her divine Founder, she alone retains the right of definition and administration. Hence she is called “authoritarian” by her adversaries, a term meant as a criticism but which certainly is proper to the true Church of Jesus Christ. Further evidence of the Catholic Church’s wisdom with respect to the Holy Bible is in the manner she dispenses its truths. Whereas all other Christian churches either give their members divers interpretations or encourage them, learned and unlearned alike, to figure it out for themselves and draw their own conclusions, the Catholic Church gives her faithful one, uniform, authoritative and never changing interpreta- tion; whereas other denominations tell their members that there is no infallible authority, no guarantee, no certainty , outside of their own private judgment, the Catholic Church, reiterating the words of Paul (I Tim. 3:15), assures her faithful that God in His wisdom and solici- tude has not left them without an infallible authority to whom they can go—His Church. No matter where a Catholic might travel, whether to far off Afghanistan, the remote hinterlands of Africa or to Paducah, Kentucky, he will always find the same Gospel being preached, the same identical interpretation from every pulpit the world over — the same now as dur- ing all the centuries of her great and glorious history. For the Catholic Church regards God’s Truth as one, immutable and everlasting truth, not to be bandied around by human whim and prejudice. She holds, as all sane and God-fearing people must, that it is not only highly irrational but grossly insulting to the Divine Intelligence for anyone to suppose that the Holy Spirit of God would inspire separate individuals to arrive at separate interpretations of Divine Law, thereby [ 38 ] splitting Christendom into a hodgepodge of rival sects and contradictory doctrines, some of which even deny the deity of Christ. Yes, it is not difficult to see that, far from being the “intellectual strait jacket’’ the so-called free thinkers say it is, this total submission of Catholics to rigid orthodoxy is a source of immeasurable consolation. It is the main prerequisite for peace and harmony, the best guarantee one can have of religious certainty. It is unity—unity under God. Truly, therefore, all Christianity can raise its voice in a great con- cert of thanks to the Catholic Church, not only for giving them the Holy Bible in the first place, but for her devoted guardianship over the whole truth of its contents. For unless the Holy Bible is preserved whole and incorrupt it ceases to be of value in the edification of the soul — it ceases to be a holy Bible. [ 39 ] VIII CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS PROPER ATTITUDE TOWARD CHRIST’S MOTHER one characteristic of the Catholic Church that strikes the observer as being most peculiarly Catholic is her great and unswerving devo- tion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary has been variously referred to by Catholics as “the Fair Bride of the Canticles,” “the Stay of Believers,” “The Church’s Diadem,” and many other such lavish terms of affection. So great, in fact, is the love and tribute paid to Mary by Catholics it very often is mistaken for adoration. Now the question is, what justification is there in the House of God for such magnanimous affection for another human being? For that is what Mary is — not a deity, not an angel, but another human being. The Catholic position concerning Mary, briefly, is this: That while she is a human being, she very definitely is not an ordinary human being. She is the Mother of Jesus . Through the Special Prov- idence of God she was conceived immaculately without any stain of sin and given all the graces proper to qualify her to become the Mother of the Redeemer. By virtue of her Divine Maternity Mary became the Media through which Salvation came to the world. The Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary has come up for some rebuffs in Protestant circles but a little serious re- flection on the circumstances and supernatural character of the Incar- nation process will show forth in brilliant light the sound Christian orthodoxy of this position. Recall that the Angel of God, upon notify- ing Mary that she was the one chosen to be the Mother of Jesus, hailed L40] her as “full of grace” (Lu\e 1:28), No person before or since has been so designated in divine revelation. Now any competent theologian knows that before one can be full of grace they must be empty of sin, or im- maculately sinless. Further, since Mary’s existence and role as Mother of the Messiah was anticipated (Isaias 7:14) it also follows that she was conceived in this pure state. Mary’s Immacuate Conception was absolutely necessary in order to compliment and insure the purity of her Divine Son; for had she been conceived in original sin, that is, born with the sin of Adam and Eve like other mortals, the humanity Christ received from her likewise would have been sin stained. Worse than that, His Soul, the very Es- sence of Divinity, would have been united to a body thus stigmatized —an obviously impossible union. For divinity and sin are absolutely and forever incompatible, they could never under any circumstances be made components one of another. As darkness excludes light, and as light destroys darkness, so where God is, sin cannot be, and where sin is God is not. That is the gist of Paul’s words when he described Christ as “holy, innocent, undefiled, elevated above the heavens, separate from sinners” {Hebrews 7:26). The implication contained in Paul’s words is inescap- able: Christ was distinct from sinners but He was not distinct from Mary—He became Incarnate through her—therefore Mary was not a sin- ner. That is also what St. Hippolytus, venerable Church Father of the third century, affirmed when he stated: “The Lord was sinless, because, in His humanity, He was fashioned out of incorruptible wood, that is, out of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost, lined within and without as with the purest gold of the Word of God.” Dialogue , 1 (PG, 10:864-65). That is also what St. Ephrem the Syrian affirmed so cogently when he wrote in the fourth century: “Thou and Thy Mother are the only ones who are perfectly beautiful in every respect; for there is no spot in Thee, O Lord, nor any taint in Thy Mother.” The Nisibis Hymn , 27. The Immaculate Conception of Mary, in order to give Christ a human nature compatible with His divine nature, must, therefore, be accepted as a foregone conclusion. To deny it would be to challenge the purity of Christ himself; and the Catholic Church will have no part of that. Another Marian doctrine which many non Catholics have difficulty with is the Assumption, meaning that Mary’s body accompanied her [41] soul into heaven. And here again is a doctrine firmly grounded in tradi- tional Christian theology and, once all the facts are known, as reasonable as can be. Proof that the Assumption of Mary is a traditional Christian belief is to be found in the fact that all ancient and semi ancient Christian bodies—Catholic, Coptic, Greek and Russian Orthodox—have always held to it and hold to it yet to this day. Confirmation of this can be obtained from any official manual of the Churches mentioned. The theological reasonableness of the doctrine can be drawn from four Biblical and historical considerations: (1) Mary’s sinlessness proven in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception: since she did not inherit the sin of Adam and Eve like other mortals she would not have to suffer the consequences of their sin like other mortals, namely a reverting of the body back to dust. See Genesis 3:17-19. (2) Mary’s flesh and blood relationship to Christ: Christ saw fit to Resurrect His own Sacred Body, therefore it was fitting and proper that He should see to the resurrection of the body out of which His own was formed. If Christ had considered His Mother’s body unworthy of resurrection He would have been dis- honoring His own bodily Resurrection, for both bodies were of the same corporeal clay. (3) Mary’s total disappearance from the earth: Christianity knows with certainty the whereabouts of the tombs of the Apostles and other prominent early Christians, but no trace of Mary's tomb has ever been found, no mention of Mary's tomb ever made in \nown primitive Christian writings. If Mary, revered as she was by the infant Church, had been buried the event certainly would have been solemnized and the location of her grave widely publicized—her grave would have immediately become one of the great shrines of Christen- dom. (4) The circumstances of Mary’s Assumption in tradition: A story circulated widely during primitive Christianity and handed down through the centuries has it that the Apostles, those who had not yet suffered martyrdom, came to Mary on her deathbed, witnessed her death and soon thereafter discovered that her body had mysteriously disap- peared. Satisfied that Mary had been assumed into heaven body and soul the Apostles agreed to keep the whole episode a secret until the more important mystery of Christ’s Resurrection was broadcast and its significance fully appreciated. The origin of this story has never been definitely established but the fact that the primitive Christians be- lieved it certainly gives it an aura of authenticity. 11423 _ So you see, Mary was indeed no ordinary person. She was drawn into a more intimate relationship with God than any other creature. Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, was Blood of her blood, Flesh of her flesh. At her breast He was suckled, in her arms He was cradled, bathed, coddled and clothed. It was Mary, always the tender and devoted mother, who watched over the Divine Infant until He was grown to glorious manhood, who trudged the tortuous Calvary Road with Him, who received His Sacred Body down from the Cross and laid Him in the tomb. Alas! It was from Mary that Christ too\ the blood He shed for the redemption of the world. When Catholics pay homage to Mary, therefore, they are express- ing their gratitude for the great and vital part she played in the divine plan of redemption, gratitude to her and gratitude to God for con- ceiving her. When Catholics pay homage to Mary they are simultane- ously and in the most gracious way paying homage to her Divine Son. It is as reasonable as that. Despite the reasonableness of this, however, there may still be some who find it difficult to accept Mary in the same spirit of reverence. Very often old prejudices become so deeply ingrained in the mind they cannot be uprooted even by reason. For the benefit of those persons we simply point out that if Catholics are wrong in their great reverence for Mary, then so was the whole Christian community from the time of the Apostles until modern times. For history furnishes abundant proof that devotion to the Mother of God is as old as Christianity itself. One of the most heroic figures of the early Church was St. Am- brose, hence it can be said that his sentiments concerning devotion to the Blessed Virgin were representative of the whole primitive Christian community. Wrote St. Ambrose: “Oh, the riches of Mary’s virginity . . . As a cloud she waters the earth with the rain of Christ’s grace. For it has been written of her: ‘Lo, the Lord cometh seated upon a light cloud’ (Isa. 19:1) . . . She was indeed light who carried in her womb the Remission of Sins . . . Run after this good cloud, for within her she has brought forth a fountain to water the face of the earth . . . Prepare yourselves as vessels of the Lord that you may receive this fountain of living water, the source of virginity, the healing balm of £ 43 ] integrity, the perfume of faith and the sweet flowering of gracious mercy . . The Instruction of a Virgin , 13, 81-86 (PL, 16, 325-26) If space permitted we could quote similar statements by Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and elo- quent Church Fathers. Even Martin Luther, though he repudiated a number of traditional Christian beliefs, held fast to this one. In his Deutsche Schriften Luther wrote, “Therefore, in a word, all dignities are embraced in Mary when we call her the Mother of God; no one can speak greater things of her or to her.” Again in his Postille on the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity, he wrote, “Gladly will I have Mary pray for me.” Calvin shared Luther’s sentiments. He wrote: “We cannot acknowledge the blessings brought us by Jesus without acknowledging at the same time how highly God honored and enriched Mary in choosing her for the Mother of God” (Comm.sur rHarm.,Evang.,20). In fact we need not rely wholly on the testimony of history. There is tangible proof of Mary’s great prestige among the first Christians. On the walls of the ancient catacombs of Rome one can still see the primi- tive Christian mosaics depicting the faithful kneeling in reverent prayer before her image. One can also still visit the beautiful Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, constructed and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in the year 431 A.D. Still standing in Jerusalem, Greece and Turkey, likewise, are Christian edifices of the primitive era containing icons, bas-reliefs and mosaics of Mary, some of which are inscribed with the most beautiful eulogies concerning her exalted station in heaven. All of the above testimony notwithstanding, however, there is yet another factor, one of basic human morality, which must be reckoned with concerning Christian veneration of the Mother of Jesus: To com- pliment the mother is to compliment the son; to scorn the mother is to offend the son. This truism would naturally apply all the more strin- gently to that Mother and that Son who, by the express Will of God, became the Exemplars of all mothers and all sons. [ 44 ] IX SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH PROVED BY HER MIRACLES up until now in this little work we have examined some of the per- tinent passages of Sacred Scripture, heard the voice of the Church Fathers, reviewed the testimony of history and mulled over a host of statistics. That the Catholic Church is all she claims she is, i. e., the one true, apostolic Church of Christ, should be very apparent by this time. Yet we know that there will be some hardened skeptics who will demand additional proof. The Scriptures, they will say, have been interpreted too many ways to instill confidence in their exact meaning; the Church Fathers could have been premature in their classification of the Catholic Church; history, like those who write it, can be bias; and statistics can easily be rigged. A cynical view for anyone to have, to say the least, and one that could conceivably shut the door on all faith, not only faith in religion but faith in humanity as well. Still, as cynical and unreasonable as this challenge is, the Catholic Church is fully prepared to meet it. Like Christ, who was also asked to furnish positive proof of His Divinity,* the Catholic Church points to her many miracles. Not those simple mind over body “healings” indulged in by some religious sects, called “neuro-pathical cures” by medical science, and which are not miracles at all in the religious sense, but real miracles entirely removed from the natural order, miracles that visibly reveal the Divine Presence— miracles such as have never occurred within the framework of any other religion since the time of Christ. •Matthew 11:3-5. [ 45 ] The miracle of St. Francis, for instance. This humble and devout monk, founder of the Franciscan Order, was absorbed in prayer one day in 1220 on the slopes of Mount Alvernus in Italy when a flaming light in the form of a cross appeared out of the sky and hovered immediately above him. In his prayers Francis had been petitioning Christ for a share in His suffering. When the blazing cross ascended back into the heavens Francis was left with the wounds of the Cruci- fied Christ in his hands, feet and side, exactly where Christ had received them , wounds that never stopped bleeding during all of Francis' life- time. The whole countryside testified to having witnessed the dazzling white cross over Alvernus and doctors from far and wide who exam- ined Francis' wounds were never able to attribute them to natural causes. Francis' was the first recorded case of the Holy Stigmata but since then at least 148 cases have been reported and duly examined by Church and medical authorities, all of them Catholics \nown for their Christian piety . Two stigmatics are living in the world today.* And medical science still can offer no explanations other than to say, “Miraculous!" Of world renown are the miraculous waters at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, France. Here, in 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared to the girl Bernadette on 18 different occasions and on her last ordered a spring of water to flow from the spot where she stood. Church authorities, after lengthy investigation and being satisfied that Bernadette’s experience was more than just an hallucination, erected a beautiful basilica on the grotto site in 1876. Then pilgrims came to bathe in the grotto waters and at once the miraculous curative properties of the water became evident. Incurables, people with mal- formed bone structure and people completely ridden with cancer, who bathed in the water emerged normal, healthy people. At the invitation of the Church a clinic was installed on the premises (now one of the most modern in all Europe) and every cure was given thorough medical examination to determine whether or not they might be due to psychological or other natural influences. The diagnosis of leading clinicians who have come to Lourdes from every part of the world and examined the case histories: “Miraculous.” * Theresa Neumann of Bavaria and Padre Pio of Italy. [ 46 : The appearance of the Blessed Virgin in 1917 to the three Catholic shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal, during which the sun danced, spun and fell from its normal position in the sky, is a miracle of singular significance in our times. Here she prophesied that unless the world turned from its wickedness to God Russia would grow powerful and bring great deprivation and suffering to the people. Over 75,000 people testified to having witnessed the Fatima miracle and the entire world has witnessed the fulfillment of its prophesy. If space allowed we could go on and on describing the supernatural occurrences that distinguish the Catholic Church from all others. There was the Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney, who healed the blind and lame and wrought thousands of conversions with his prayers. A throng of people observed rose petals falling mysteriously out of the air during the canonization of St. Theresa of Lisieux. In the church at Limpias, Spain, the Corpus of Christ on the crucifix above the altar came to life and shed living blood from the head wounds. Significantly the only ones who saw this miracle were little children and the many non-Catholics who came to scoff, those who were least lively to he deceived. And even as this is being written a great new miracle is being reported. A half- relief image of the Blessed Virgin belonging to a devout girl of Syra- cuse, Sicily, has been observed shedding tears over a period of several days. Scientists called in by the Church to investigate the incident have reached two startling conclusions: the material of which the relief is made is a nonporous plastic which cannot retain moisture and chemical analysis of the tears reveal them to be real human tears. Yes, we could cite many supernatural manifestations that have occurred within the holy framework of the Catholic Church, but the above should serve to prove our point; namely, that the Catholic Church is divinely constituted, the only church on the face of the earth so constituted, the only church on the face of the earth in direct and visible communion with Almighty God and His Heavenly Court. C47] X CATHOLIC CHURCH IS MODERN CIVILIZATION’S GREATEST BENEFACTOR By THEIR FRUITS SHALL YOU KNOW THEM.” With these words Christ restated an old axiom: The best way to distinguish the useful from the useless, the godly from the godless, is to measure the good they do for society. Fame, wealth and power, in themselves, are negative. God works born of brotherly love and in tune with the Will of God—only that is positive. The Apostle James put it this way: “Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith also without works is dead.” James 2:26. It is a rule, moreover, that applies not only to individuals but to every branch of our social order—fraternities, civil governments, insti- tutions, religions—but particularly to religions. Religions, and here we have special reference to Christian religions, by virtue of the very name “Christian” must show tangible and ample evidence of their humani- tarianism or they are not worthy of the name. Which brings us to the question: What is the temporal value of the Catholic Church to society? How much good has she contributed to the world during her lifetime, not only in the sphere of religion but in the fields of social, cultural and scientific achievement? How do her good fruits compare with those of other religions? Here again the record speaks for itself. A glance into the history of our civilization’s progress reveals that the Catholic Church has, by and large, been the world’s greatest single contributor for the common good. In the field of social justice we note that it was she who not only con- ceived of the Magna Carta, that great document which formed the basis [ 48 ] of all modern law and jurisprudence, but collaborated in its writing. Then, more recently, there was the encyclical of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI on the inherent rights of all classes; especially the laboring classes. We have the word of no less an authority than the late great U. S. Senator, Robert Wagner,* that these papal encyclicals provided the inspiration for almost all of the progressive social legislation in the past several decades. This and other knowledge of Catholic justice eventually led to Senator Wagner’s conversion to the Catholic religion. Former President Woodrow Wilson, in his book, The New Free- dom , had this to say about the Church’s role in the development of democratic principles in government: “Society from the bottom has always interested me profoundly. The reason why government did not suffer dry rot in the middle ages, was that most of the men who were efficient instruments of government were drawn from the Church — from that great religious body which was the only Church, that body wT hich we now distinguish from other religious bodies, as the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was then, as it is now, a great democracy.” Woodrow Wilson knew what he was saying because, besides being a great statesman, he was one of the most astute scholars of his day. A similar observation was made by the eminent non-Catholic clergyman, Dean Farrar, who wrote: “What was it wrhich saved the principles of law and order and civilization? . . . What kept alive the dying embers of science? . . . What was the sole witness for the cause of charity, the sole rampart against intolerable oppression? . . . What weak and unarmed power alone retained the strength and the determin- ation to dash down the mailed hand of the baron when it was uplifted against his serf, to proclaim a truce of God between warring violences, and to make insolent wickedness tremble by asserting the inherent su- premacy of goodness over transgressions, of knowledge over ignorance, or of right over brute force? You will say the Church; you will say Chris- tianity. Yes, but for many a long century the very bulwarks and ramparts of the Church were the monasteries, and the one invincible force of the Church lay in the self-sacrifice, the holiness, the courage of the monks and of the missionaries sent forth from the monasteries.” Statements like these by learned and fair-minded people on the * Author of the Social Security Act, National Labor Relations Act, National Industrial Recovery Act and the United States Housing Act. [ 49 ] contributons of the Catholic Church to social justice and good govern- ment would fill volumes. The roll call of Catholics who have risen to immortality in the fields of science and the arts reads like a modern big city telephone directory. On her roster of famed scientists appears such names as Copernicus, Gerbert,* Galileo, Pasteur, Ampere,** Mendel,*** Volta, Muller, Madame Curie and Marconi. Among her musicians are to be found the immortal names of Beethoven, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, Lizst, Gounod, Verdi, Schubert, Strauss, Paderewski and Kreisler. Her artists include such renowned names as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, Goya, El Greco, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck and Durer. In the field of literature we find such Catholic names as Cervantes, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare,**** Hugo, Dostoevski, Chesterton, Undset and the late Fulton Oursler. And it might be. noted in passing that mechanical printing, the medium by which all culture and learning is preserved and transmitted, is the invention of the very devout Catholic, Johannes Gutenberg. Guten- berg’s first printed work was the Catholic Bible. Then there is the field of exploration, the establishment of the world’s avenues of communication and commerce. Again we see Catholics play- ing the dominant role in the persons of Leif Ericson, Marco Polo, Co- lumbus, Magellan, Cortez, Ponce de Leon and Vasco da Gama. History recounts that America is named after the Catholic navigator and map maker, Amerigo Vespucci. And finally, in that field that best reflects the attributes of Almighty God, charity, it is to be observed that the Catholic Church, since her very inception, has operated more orphanages, homes for the aged, hospitals, leprosariums and charities for the afflicted and oppressed than all other religions in the world combined. Biased opinion? No. The International * Gerbert was the family name of Pope Sylvester II, known as the father of modern mathematics. He introduced the use of Arabic numerals into Europe, formulated the decimal system for computing fractions and invented the first mechanically operated calculating machine. ** Ampere, a Catholic priest, was first to discover a system for measuring electricity. *** Mendel, a Catholic monk, pioneered the study of heredity. **** Recent discoveries furnish conclusive proof that Shakespeare never relinquished the Catholic faith he received from his parents, although he was forced to practice his faith in secret because of the intense persecution loyal Catholics were being subjected to in England during his lifetime. [ 50 ] Red Cross, which is noted for its impartiality, can verify these figures and, very likely, add a few of their own. In 1946, Mahatma Ghandi wrote of the Catholic Church and its care for the world’s lepers: “A leprosarium demands the highest idealism and the most perfect abnegation. The world of politics and journalism possess no heroes comparable to Father Damien of the Molokai Lepro- sarium. But the Catholic Church can count in thousands those who, after the example of Father Damien, are dedicated to the service of the lepers. It is worthwhile to seek the source of such heroism.” The Catholic Church, at the present time, is caring for over 79,000 lepers, or about 65-percent of all the hospitalized lepers in the world — and only the smallest fraction of these lepers are Catholic. Moreover, 95-percent of the leprosariams under the Church’s administration were founded by her and are being supported solely from Catholic charities. Needless to say, a great many priests and nuns have fallen victim to the dread disease as a result of their close contact with it—but that has not deterred them. The greater the squalor and the misery, the greater the need for charity; and the great heart of the Catholic Church never ceases to respond. Do not, however, misconstrue what is meant here. The author does not mean to convey the impression that the Catholic Church has a corner on charitableness, or on any of the other forms of humanitarianism here- in described. A large number of secular organizations, and not a few non-Catholic religious bodies, have contributed much toward social welfare and the progress of our civilization. It would indeed be a gross injustice to deny to others the credit which is their due. The point this chapter was meant to convey is this: The Catholic Church, since the advent of Christianity, has been, and continues to be, the greatest single force in the world for justice, morality and the advancement of modern culture; especially where churches are concerned she has been the most faithful and consistent Good Samaritan. The truth of this statement, as we have already shown, is simply a matter of record. In other words, dear reader, if you are looking for a really good and holy cause with which to associate yourself, a cause which has proven its value to humanity in unprecedented fashion — be a Catholic. Your life and your life’s eternal reward cannot help but be the better for it. C51] ANSWERS TO A FEW QUESTIONS Q . Christ said all who believe in Him will be saved. John 6:47. Is not Christ’s true Church then a spiritual union of all who believe in Him, regardless of denomination, and not any one physical and autonomous organization? A. Yes, Our Lord did say all who believe in Him will be saved, but He qualified that statement by asserting that belief in Him implies belief in all His teachings and recognition of the authority of His visible Church to administer those teachings. Matt. 16:18 and 18:17. Bear in mind that Christ taught only one doctrine; therefore, in order for a church to qualify as His true Church, it must also teach only one doctrine. Hence, to presume that Christ’s true Church is a union, spiritual or otherwise, of hundreds of denominations teaching hundreds of different doctrines is abso- lutely contrary to all reason. How can the various denominations constitute a union of belief when it is precisely for the reason that they are divided in belief that they are separate denominations ? Further, the divine Christ was too filled with compassion and mercy to make people obtain their means of salvation from any- thing so intangible and incomprehensible as a spiritual body. That is why He committed the perpetuation of His holy ministry of salvation to the Apostles, a physical, living organization, declar- ing to them: “He who hcareth you, heareth me.” Lu\e 10:16. “As the Father has sent me, I send you.” John 20:21. “Go, there- fore, and make disciples of all nations . . . and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” Matt. 28:19-20. Obviously, the last statement is a guarantee that His visible, living Church, its unity and its authority, would not end with the Aposdes but would continue on in their legitimate successors throughout the lifetime of the world. [ 52 ] Q. Explain the Infallibility of the Pope. A. The Infallibility of the Pope does not mean that he is completely immune to sin and error of judgment. Popes are usually men of outstanding piety and astute judgment but, nevertheless, they are humans possessed of a finite intelligence and subject to the same temptations as the rest of us. Like the rest of us they must answer to God for any and all infractions of His Laws. What Papal In- fallibility really means is: the Pope is protected from error by the Holy Spirit of God when, speaking ex cathedra in his capacity as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church, he defines and binds upon all the faithful a precept of faith or morals which is proven to be divinely revealed. Note that he defines and binds, he does not for- mulate anything new as some non Catholics erroneously believe. It should also be borne in mind that the Pope enters into considerable consultation with the Church’s world wide bishopric and foremost theologians before making an ex cathedra pronouncement, so that it can rightly be said that his voice is not so much that of an indi- vidual as that of the whole Church. These infallible definitions in matters of faith and morals are very rare, only three having been issued in the past four centuries and then only when the Providen- tial Hand of God was so evident the Pope was compelled to act. Where is Papal Infallibility mentioned in the Bible? In Matthew 16:18-19 the Apostle Peter was given the “keys” of authority over the whole Church with powers to bind and to loose, and the Pope, as we have shown elsewhere in this book, is Peter’s lawful suc- cessor. Reason also speaks up for Papal Infallibility, because falli- bility in the highest authority of the Church would presuppose doctrinal error which, of course, is quite incompatible with the true Church of God. Q. What is the real purpose of statues in Catholic Churches? A. The practice of placing likenesses of the Holy Family and the Saints in the Church originated during primitive Christianity and was done to accomplish a twofold purpose: to provide the faithful with a visual portrayal of the main figures and events of Christianity * and to remind and inspire the people to emulate the heroic Christian virtues of the prototypes they represent. Many * The value of visual education is recognized by all modern educational authorities. [ 53 ] Protestant churches use paintings and stained glass murals to accomplish this aim but the Catholic Church, in addition to pic- tures, uses statues which, being more realistic, are more effective. Q. Can the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory he proved by Scripture and reason ? A. The Scriptures refer to Purgatory but they do not call it by that name, the same as the words Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Resur- rection, etc. appear nowhere in the Scriptures but are clearly in- ferred. Purgatory, simply, is the name the early Christians gave to the place where souls go that are defiled, hence cannot go to heaven (Apoc. or Rev. 21:27), but are not sufficiently defiled to be eternally committed to hell. It is the place where slight sins are purged away and the “soul saved so as by fire.” 1 Cor. 3:15. The reason and justice of a place of purgation in between heaven and hell is best illustrated by our courts of justice when they acquit the innocent man (heaven), sentence a man guilty of a minor crime to temporary imprisonment (purgatory) and sentence a man guilty of a great crime to life imprisonment (hell). Q. Why aren't priests permitted to marry and have families? A. In some areas of the Catholic Church, as in the Eastern Rite Churches of Syria, Armenia, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, priests are permitted to live in the married state. It is an old, time honored tradition with them and is tolerated because, in the final analysis, celibacy is not a dogma of faith. But to under- stand the wisdom of celibacy in the priesthood of the Western Church, which constitutes the main body of Catholicism and which holds to traditions more ancient than those of the Eastern Church, it is necessary to understand what the vocation of the Catholic priesthood really represents: The Catholic priesthood is a continuation of the earthly Priesthood of Christ. Christ cast the die for the priesthood when He declared to the Apostles, the first priests of His Church, “As the Father has sent me, I send you.” John 20:21. Which is plain language meaning: as He lived, so should those who carry on His work live. He was to be regarded as the Archtype, the Divine Model, in all things pertaining to the priestly vocation —and He was a celibate. His ministry was C 54 2 one of complete dedication, therefore the continuation of His ministry should also be one of complete dedication allowing for no separate interests and restricting obligations such as marriage would impose. By their own admission the Apostles accepted celibacy and all the other sacrifices that complete dedication to God implies. Matt. 19:27. And by Christ’s comment on their admission it is clear that they were doing the correct thing. Matt. 19:29. But perhaps the most eloquent testimonial in the Sacred Scriptures for the justification of celibacy in the priesthood was given by the Apostle Paul when, addressing those of his disciples who wished to serve God with their whole heart, he said, “I would have you free from care. He who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please God. Whereas he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided.” 1 Cor. 7:32-33. Also see Matthew 19:12. Q. Why do Catholics pray to Mary? A. Catholics pray to Mary for the same reason the vast majority of Christians have always prayed to her: (1) because it is fitting and proper and an honor to Christ that His followers should show His Mother their affection and esteem via spiritual courtesy calls from time to time, (2) because Christian etiquette insists that she should be congratulated on her impeccable holiness and intimate relationship with Jesus, God Incarnate, (3) because it would be base ingratitude if Christians did not convey a personal thank you for her great and vital role in the divine plan of Redemption, (4) because being the Mother of Christ who is the body of the Church (Col. 1:24), Mary is also the spiritual Mother of the Church and all its members, (5) because she can, and does, help those who go to her for aid and comfort. Concerning the aid Mary gives to those who have recourse to her it is to be borne in mind that she can give no aid directly. The Church realizes that. Mary is, after all, a human creature with no supernatural powers. But she can use her tremendous influence in heaven in our behalf, she can inter- cede for us before the throne of her Divine Son and her Divine Son, because He honors His Mother the same as all sons are commanded to honor their mother, will not turn His back on her pleas. He did not refuse her a miracle when she interceded in C 55 ] behalf of the guests at the Wedding Feast of Cana, therefore He would be even less likely to refuse her intercession in our behalf now, we who ask not wine for the stomach but sustenance for the soul. It is easy to see, therefore, that when Catholics pray to Mary for help they are not by-passing Christ as many non Catholics erroneously believe, but rather going to Christ through Mary; an approach He thoroughly approves of because He came to us through Mary. Besides, Catholics pray directly to Christ, to God, as often as anyone else. Attend Mass or any other Catholic service some- time and that will become immediately apparent. Something else non Catholics are not generally aware of is the fact that prayers to Mary are almost always prefixed with a prayer to God, usually the Lord’s Prayer, and ended with a prayer to God, usually the Glory Be to the Father. Q. Is not confessing one's sins to a priest a contradiction of that passage in Sacred Scripture which declares that Christ is the sole mediator between God and man? A. No. Not unless one thinks Christ was given to contradicting himself. For it was none other than He who instituted confession, or the Sacrament of Penance as it is properly called, in the Church. t John 20:21-23. That no contradiction exists, however, is easily explained. Simply bear in mind that it is not to some ordinary Joe Doakes that one confesses his sins, but to a priest of Christ’s Church, the Church which is the visible Body of Christ living still. Col. 1:24. Hence it is directly to Christ, “the sole mediator,” mystically present in the living fibers of His Church, to whom confessions are made. And it is by Christ’s authority vested in His Church that sins are forgiven. Matt. 18:18. The Church points out, however, that the conditions for forgiveness are sincere con- trition and a firm resolve to resist the temptations that might lead to future offenses against God. Q. Why do Catholics believe in the necessity of good wor\s? Does not the Bible say that man attains his salvation by faith alone? A. Catholics believe in the necessity of good works but not, as some non Catholics are mistakingly informed, in good works alone. The Church teaches that man is justified, that is, judged, both by good works and faith — because such is the teaching of Christ. Said Christ: “Therefore all that you wish men to do to you, even so C56] i do you also to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matt. 7:12. “Let your light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Matt. 5:16. “Many good works have I shown you from my Father.” John 10:32. With these statements and many more like them Christ pointed out the necessity of good works. The Apostles were even more explicit. Said Peter: “Therefore, brethren, strive even more by good works to make your calling and election sure ... in this way will be amply provided for you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:10-11. Said Paul: “And let us consider how to arouse one another to charity and good works. Heb. 10:23. Protestants, citing Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:8-10, claim that man is justified, saved, by faith alone, without having to do any good works. But Paul does not say that as anyone who examines that text carefully can plainly see; he de- clared that man should not think he is saved by worlds alone. If Paul was eliminating the necessity of good works altogether he would have contradicted not only Christ and the other Apostles but himself as well; for it was the same Paul who, on another occa- sion, said very categorically: “If I have all faith so as to move moun- tains, yet do not have good works, I am nothing.” 1 Cor. 13:2. Also see Titus 3:8 and James 2:26. Not only did Christ and the Apostles point out the necessity of both faith and good works for salvation but so did the Church Fathers. Wrote St. Irenaeus in the second century: “For what is the use of knowing the truth in word, while defiling the body and accomplishing the works of evil? Or what real good at all can bodily holiness do, if truth be not in the soul? For these two—faith and good works—rejoice in each other’s com- pany, and agree together and fight side by side to set man in the Presence of God.” Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. (Newman) p. 48. Q. Why is the Catholic Church opposed to divorce, even for mismated couples? A. Divorce is forbidden in the Catholic Church because Christ forbade it. When Christ was asked if it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause, He answered in the plainest possible lan- guage: “A man shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh . . . What therefore God has joined together, let no man C57] put asunder.” Matt. 19:4-8. Also see Mai\ 10:11-12, Lul{e 16:18 and 1 Cor. 7:39. In the eyes of God there is no such thing as a mismated marriage when two adult people, possessed of all their faculties and given ample time to get acquainted, consent of their own free will to unite in holy wedlock “until death do us part.” A contract is a contract, especially when that contract is with God. If by “mismated couples” is meant a marriage entered into under duress or false pretense, the Church will, if appealed to, grant an annulment, meaning that the marriage, being fraudulent, never did exist. Or if one’s mate threatens injury, grows unfaithful, de- velops insanity, becomes a drunkard, or for any other reason imposes an insufferable hardship on the marriage, the Church will grant a separation. But never a divorce. Divorce is not only con- trary to the Law of God, it is contrary to right reason. For were it not for divorce, married people would make a more determined effort to reconcile their differences and live in peace; they would be obliged by necessity to swallow their false pride and accept the responsibilities they owe to their spouses, their children and society as a whole. Any law enforcement agency will confirm that most of this nation’s juvenile delinquency can be traced directly to homes broken up by divorce. Divorce is a modern innovation. It was not allowable in any part of the Christian community until the six- teenth century. Q. Why is the Catholic Church so opposed to birth control when it appears to be the only practical solution to the problem of over- population? A. The Catholic Church is not opposed to birth control in principle. In cases of grave danger to life and health, when the restricting of a family’s size is accomplished by abstinence and continence, the Church is, in fact, all for it. What she is opposed to is unnatural birth control, the direct and willful obstruction of God’s creative processes by chemical, mechanical or other artificial means, because such practices are not only counter to the natural law, they are violations of the Fifth and Sixth Commandments of God. We who owe our existence to the natural employment of the marital act have no right in the sight of God to deny the same privilege to those yet unborn. Also, since contraceptives frequently fail their purpose, there is yet another danger which should move the conscience of C58] . wedded folk: the heinous possibility that the child they beget will owe its existence not to parental love, but to the failure of a mechani- cal contraption or chemical. Such a child would have every right to disown the parents and feel disgraced at the mere thought of them. Furthermore, there is no problem of over-population. That bugaboo was raised three thousand years ago in pagan Greece, was sounded again when the Romans held sway and has been repeated ever since by ignoramuses who believe that creation was fulfilled the glorious day they were conceived in their mother’s womb. The fact that whole continents are still so sparsely settled that one can travel for days without sighting another human does not seem to affect their thinking one little bit. Leroy Beaulieu, a sociologist of first rank, estimates that the world could triple its present popula- tion without the slightest danger. At the present rate of population increase it would take three thousand years for the world to triple its population. It is easy to see, therefore, that the problem is not one of overpopulation, but rather of unequal distribution and in- adequate soil reclamation. Q. What is the extent of the loyalty Catholics owe to the Pope and what is the justification for it? A. The only loyalty Catholics are required to give to the Pope is in matters relating to faith and morals. As Successor of St. Peter, appointed by Christ the first head of His Church (Matt. 16:18), the Pope is recognized by Catholics as Christ’s Vicar on earth, the supreme authority on such matters in the household of the faithful. Nor is there anything illogical or totalitarian connected with such authority; first because Christ, who is Infinite Wisdom, could not create an illogical office, and secondly, because there is not now and never was a united, harmonious branch of human society without a supreme authority in its government. Put an army in the field without a high command and see how confused and ineffectual it becomes. The fact that the papacy has endured without change or interruption longer than any government that has ever existed on earth is further proof of its divine origin and soundness. Q. Does not the Bible say that Mary had other children besides Jesus? A. No. The Bible, when its texts are interpreted and correlated L 59 U properly, is very emphatic in saying that Mary did not have other children. You no doubt have reference to Matthew 12:46-49 and 13:55-56 which mentions Christ’s “brethren” and “sisters,” and Galatians 1:19 which describes James as the “brother” of the Lord. On the face of it, that is, according to modern terminology, these texts would indeed indicate that Mary had other children. But — and here is the rub—the Bible was not written in modern termi- nology. It was written in an idiom peculiar to the Hebrews two thousand years ago and that idiom, as any authority on ancient Hebrew will testify, applied the words brethren, brother and sister to all blood relations. Particularly in regard to cousins, there was no word in the ancient Hebrew vocabulary meaning cousin, so that family relationship was always designated as “brother” or “ sister.” Hence there is no justification whatsoever for the belief, held by some non Catholics, that the Biblical characters in question were Jesus’ real brothers and sisters. In view of the ambiguity of the text one would be just as justified in regarding them as cousins, aunts or uncles. There are, however, several texts in the Bible which are not so ambiguous, one being quite clear, which should resolve the question once and for all. For example, the word mother in the ancient Jewish vernacular had the same express meaning as it does now, and nowhere in the Bible is Mary referred to as the mother of the so-called brothers and sisters of Our Lord. The only times she is identified as a mother is when she is called “the mother of Jesus.” Also consider the Jewish custom (still prevalent) which made it a strict norm of family discipline for sons and daughters to take their mother into their household when she became wid- owed. But Jesus, when He was dying on the Cross, committed His Blessed Mother to the care of the Apostle John, “the disciple He loved” (John 19:27), proving that she had no other children to whom she could go. The evidence of the Scriptures nothwithstand- ing, however, is it conceivable to the Christian conscience that ordinary sin-stained mortals would be allowed by Divine Provi- dence to spring from the same maternal font as the Incarnate God? Is it conceivable that she who was “full of grace” would be so in- different toward the divine trust placed in her, the care and up- bringing of the Savior of the World, that she would take other interests and obligations upon herself? Of course not. C603 Q. Does the Catholic Church teach that only Catholics go to heaven ? A. No. The Catholic Church holds that it is much easier for a Catholic to attain eternal salvation because she alone is in posses- sion of the whole deposit of saving precepts and the Christ given authority to administer them. She believes that God will make allowances on the Judgment Day for those people who, through no fault of their own, are unaware of the divine mission of the Catholic Church and who live virtuous, Christlike lives to the best of their knowledge and ability. God is Justice. The form and extent of those allowances can only be speculated on, but reason demands that a person will attain a higher state of spiritual perfection with its commensurate reward through Grace received from the Sacramental Life of the Church, than that which is attainable outside of the Church. If this were not true Christ would never have founded the Church in the first place. Q. Are Jews and Negroes welcome in the Catholic Church? A. Jews, Negroes, Asiatics, Anglo Saxons, etc.—it matters not. All races and colors, rich or poor, are most welcome in the Catholic Church. Catholic means universal, hence the Church does not differentiate between peoples or regard one race or class above another. As for Jews, let it be remembered that all Catholics are Semites spiritually, being members of a body the Head of which is Christ, a Jew. The Patriarch of the Jews, Abraham, is also re- garded as Patriarch of the Catholic Church. And of course, Peter, the first Pope of the Catholic Church, was a Jew. Yes, the Jewish people have a unique claim on the Catholic faith and it is for this reason that an ever increasing number of them are finding their way into the Catholic fold. Negroes also have good reason to regard the Catholic Church as their true spiritual home. Three popes are reputed on good authority to have been Negroes and on the Church’s calendar of great saints Negroes figure very prominently. In our own times there are an estimated 20 million Negro Catholics in the world, over 300 of whom are priests and bishops. THE END [ 61 ] HOW TO BECOME A CATHOLIC The first step in becoming a Catholic is to cultivate a keen awareness of the Reality and Omnipotence of Almighty God. This can be done in a variety of ways: by reflecting on the ingeniousness and beauty of nature, by studying the laws of metaphysics or simply by reading the Sacred Scriptures. Then lift up your soul to God in prayer. Pray that He will light and guide your thinking, instilling in you a fervent desire to do His Will and sufficient courage to set aside past religious preju- dices in favor of an objective search for His Revealed Truth. Then, in keeping with this objectivity, introduce yourself to a priest requesting that he instruct you in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Pay close attention to all the priest says, par- ticularly his discourses on the Divinity of Christ and the identi- fying marks of the Church He founded. Note the unfaltering logic of his argument, the vast array of incontestable evidence. Then if you agree that, in the face of it all, the Catholic Church MUST be the one true Church of Jesus Christ on earth, you are ready for admission info her fold. If you have been validly bap- tized before, you need not be baptized again. Your Profession of Faith is all that is necessary — you can then begin living the beautiful sacramental life prescribed by God for the eternal salvation of your soul. C 63 ] Blessed be the chosen one, who has chosen the Catholic Church, that Holy Lamb which the devouring world has not consumed. Give heed, therefore, to my instructions, as my disciples, and depart not from the Catholic faith, which I also, having received in my boyhood, have preserved immovable; neither turn aside from it in any doubt . Ephraem, Church Father of the Fourth Century Book 2 , Testament, pages 242-243