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Show Explanation of Masses for Non-Catholic Dead. Editor Freeman's Journal: Many readers will remember that Cardinal Newman wrote, concerning his accuser Mr. Kingsley: "And when I heard of his death, I said mass for his soul. And Lady Herbert tells of Cardinal .Manning saying mass for her non-l non-l Catholic husband: "I begged him to ! say some masses for my husband's i soul. He complied with ray wish." She herself, indeed, writes of her own days before final submission: "I came up from the country by a night train and sat outside the church door on the steps in pouring rain and in pitch darkness for two hours till the doors were opened so that I might not lose a mass on All Souls' day for my husband." Father Livius, C. S. S. R., gives his opinion: "That it is lawful per se. to offer up mass directe et in particulari, nomine Christi, et nomine ecclesia, for all such as are living, and also for those deceased, whose souls may be in purgatory," consequently, he adds, for Protestants who die in union with the soul of the church and have corresponded with such grace as they have received. Your journal has quoted from the St. Louis Review a citation: "Ex-presse "Ex-presse prohibuit missam applicare pro iis qui in manifesta haresi moriuntur." But is not St. Augustin applicable here, when he says that there are those in heresy, material heretics, "who jet are not to be accounted heretics," formal for-mal heretics? Pope Pius IX., in his allocution of Dec. 9, 1854, wrote: "It is indeed of faith that no one 'can be saved outside out-side the apostolic Roman church; that this church is the one ark of salva-ton salva-ton hat he who has not entered it will perish in ths deluge. But, on the other hand, it is equally certain that, were a man to be invincibly ignorant of the true religion, he would not be held guilty in the sight of God for not professing it." (Quoted by Fr. Rus-so, Rus-so, S. J., in "The True Religion," p. ;143.) j I once saw the first part of Pius IX.'s words quoted alone, by a priest; for the purpose, I think, of proving the latter part untenable. And so ir l understand him rightly, and his son in editing him, the late Dr. Brownson took upon himself to imply that the church is wrong in her explanation of her own words, "No salvation out of the church." . , To quote one more of the theologians Cardinal Satolli, in the. International Journal of Ethics (?) May, 1S9: . "Christ founded a church and intrusted in-trusted to her the means of salvation, hence objectively speaking and in general, gen-eral, the necessity of belonging to that church. Those who recognize this fact, yet refuse to enter the church, evidently evi-dently deprive themselves of the means of salvation, besides disobeying the ordinance of God. Those who remain re-main outside the church because they are convinced that their own religion is the true one, possess the means of salvation in an imperfect manner, or perhaps not at all. Should they be lost, it will not be because they were not Catholics, but on account of the sins they have committed. Such is the meaning of the proposition, extra ec-clesiam ec-clesiam nulla salus. It is, however, to be noted that, while the church maintains main-tains this doctrine as to the conditions fixed by Christ for salvation, she forbids for-bids us to pass sentence upon the lot of any one who is called from this life, declaring that the destiny of everyone is a question for God's judgment alone." There are, indeed, some unfortunate eclectics, Christians born into the confusion con-fusion of inconsistency outside the church, who repeat the Catholic "Ath-anasian "Ath-anasian creed" and its declarations on exclusive salvation, while they reject the framer thereof, the only person who knows how to explain her own words therein used. They would not thus treat any other ,. speaker and ; spoken words. And hence their end- less disputations. But Catholics are less excusable if they grudge this liv- ing embodied Catholic church the right of explaining her utterances, the right she so naturally and inevitably uses, whether they like it or no. W. F. P. STOCKLT3Y. All Souls' Day, 1901. |