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Show I I j ilon-Catftolic Queries, and wmm Vmm l ' (San Francisco Monitor.) Will you not admit that a reformation was needed In the sixteenth century? ' 'c will readily prant that a reformation in ' . tTe lives of many unworthy churchmen of the (day ' was imperatively, needed, and that unless many i Catholics of the period had been living most cor- I rupt lives, they would never have abandoned the j Church of Jesus Christ. The Catholic's loss of ; faith is ever traceable to the breaking of the Ten ; j Commandments. The Church felt this keenly her- self, and xeformed many abuses at the Council of ! t Trent, 1545-1563. But once grant that the Church is a divine in stitution founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to teach and save men for all time; once grant that He promised to build it secure forever against ,; sll attacks of hell, and to guarantee its perpetuity bv Hh own "biding presence and that of the Iloly Spirit (Matt, xxviii, 19, 20; Matt, xvi, 18; John xiv, 13) and the right of separation can in no way be justified. ! As long as our country remains a country it will over have the power to reform by law the abuses inevitable to any government among men. If, for example, a city, became full of corrupt officials, , we j would not be justified in trying to destroy it, but ; ; would strive at the nrxt election to put the proper men in power. So the Church, in like manner, has I within herself the power to remedy any abuses that may. arise. You do not cure a man of cancer by chopping off bis head. ?, A so-called reformation which denied the con- ! ': stitution of the Church, the doctrines of Christ, and the manner of Christian worship Holy Mass, handed down from the beginning was not of God. f St. Paul put it plainly: "Though wc, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel beside that 1 which we have preached to you, let him be ana- thema." (Gal. i, S.) 1 t The very lives of the Reformers; the immoral, ; ! destructive, unchristian doctrines they taught : v. g., private interpretation of the Scriptures, jus tification by faith alone, total depravity, the slave will, God the author of evil, the denial of the sac- I ; ramental system are proof positive that the Refor mation was inevitably a tendency toward utter un-; un-; ( belief. '! Whence again, Catholics a&k, the right of Lu ther, Calvin, etc., to teach? Where were their credentials? cre-dentials? Hovr shall they preach, unless they be sent T' (Rom. x, 15.) Xo wonder, then, that the Reformers themselves admitted that their Reformation did not reform, Ibut, on the contrary, led to intellectual, social, moral and religious deterioration. This is amply shown in a work drawn exclusively from Protestant Protes-tant sources, "The Reformation: Its Interior Development De-velopment and Its Effects," by Dollinger Ratisbon, I 1S4G-S. (Cf. article in Dublin Review, September, ; 14S.) :' Why do uneducated people count beads? Does not the counting: prevent real prayer? 1 Why ten prayers to the Virgin and only one to God? Why do you make the people repeat mechanical prayers on the Rosary without any warrant in the Bible? The Rosary is a simple method of prayer, con-sistinc con-sistinc of the repetition of the Our Father and ten Hail Marys, five or fifteen times. It is not for the uneducated alone, being used with profit by all classes. It was originally a devotion of the faithful in the Middle Ages, who, unable to read the Psalter, used to recite the Our Father and Hail Mary in- . :; ' stead of each psalm, while the monks chanted the I divine office in choir. The same custom is also, 1 ; recorded of St. Paul, the first hermit, in the fourth century. It owes its present form to the Domini-' Domini-' cans of the thirteenth century, and is today one of the chief devotions of Catholics. Its fifteen mysteries the Annunciation, the Vis- itation, the Nativity, the Presentation, the Finding in the Temple, the Agony, the Scourging, the ! Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, 1 ' the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption, 1 ' and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin present a beautiful summary of the gospels to the devout I . . ' : meditation of loving souls. ! ; It is natural that in 'a devotion especially hers, j y the major portion of the prayers should be ad- dressed directly to the Blessed Virgin. Catholics I know full well that in honoring the Mother of God I they necessarily honor God, whose masterpiece i -v fche is. . - ! It is absurd to imagine that in reciting the Ro- j; sary we are counting prayers. Indeed, the very arrangement of the beads prevents our counting the number of Aves we say. Instead of preventing ; 1 real prayer, the Rosary, on the contrary, helps I ' ' greatly to concentrate our attention, as even Pro-j Pro-j testants (Episcopalians) who have practiced this I " devotion for a long time have a ckon pledged to me. I Many a simple soul reciting the Rosary before the I altar of God will put to blush many a speech-1 speech-1 prayer of the proud pharisec. As for Bible war-j war-j . - rant, the Our Father add half of the Hail Mary j are taken from the Holy Scriptures (Matt, vi, 9-13; iLuke i. is), while the repetition of these prayers fo much objected to by non-Catholics rests on the word and example of the Savior (Luke six. 5-8, sviii, 3-10; Matt, xxvi, U; cf. Ps. exxxv; Matt! I Why must Catholics gro to church every Sunday " under penalty of sin? Our churches are not so ex- I ac'Jng. j " Because it is one of the laws of their Church, ; which as the divine, infallible teacher of the reve- lation of Jesus Christ alone dares command men with authority, to show at least this much homage to Jesus Christ present on her altars at the sacri-; sacri-; fice of Calvary. I remember being asked once by a Congregational minister in Connecticut the se-! se-! . ': ret of our large church attendance compared to I tie average small , attendance in Protestant ' churches throughout the country. "Jesus Christ I really present," was my answer, "with the convic- - lion that the Church, His living, divine voice, has . ': ; power to command even as He, under penalty of damnation." When men disclaim all notion of in-I in-I fallibility for their church, and teach merely views, opinions and speculations about the Gospel Gos-pel of Christ, religious faith becomes daily more and more vague and shadowy, and its obligations soon vanish entirely. What prayers does the priest say at Mass? The chief prayers of the Mass are: The Forty- ! second Psalm, "Judge me, O Lord"; the Confiteor or confession of sins: the Introit, consisting gen-! gen-! rrally of a verse of a Psalm from the old Itala ver sion of the Scriptures; tire Kyri Eleison, or "Lord I Jiave mercy on us" (Matt, xx, 30; Luke xvii, 13); I -1hc Gloria in Excelsis. or the angels' song of joy at the birth of Christ (Luke ii, 13, 14); the Domi-nus Domi-nus Vobiscum, "The Lord be with voir' (Ruth ii 1: Luke j, i'S; II. Tim. iv, 22); the Collects, or J ravers, some pf which are over thirteen hundred years old; the Epistle and Gospel, read .from the earliest limes, as the Jews used to read Moses and ihe prophets in the synagogue (Acts xiii, 15); the Credo, or Xicene Creed; the Offertory, so-called for the offerings formerly made by the people of bread and wine for the sacrifice; -Hie' Preface, or the in- , troduetion to the most solemn part of .the Mass, called the Canon; the Sanctus (Isaias vi, 3; Apos! ' Y' 8L Iatt Xxi' 9 ' tlie memento or special prayer for the lmuff; the consecration, "This is My body; ' this is my blood" (Matt, xxvi, 2G) ; the memento for the dead; the Pater Foster, or Our Father (Matt, vi, 9); the Agnus Dei (John i, 29); the Communion, Com-munion, the Blessing, the Last Gospel generally John i, 1-14. The prayers of the liturgy breathe the simple sweetness of the Word of God and of the carly Fathers, who prayed with hearts full o love for Jesus Christ. Xo non-Catholic can read them once and not perceive their wondrous beauty and devotion. devo-tion. Indeed, a study of these prayers, has made more than one earnest soul realize how false the spirit of the Reformation that could stigmatize them as "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." de-ceits." (Rev. John O'Brien, "A History of the Mass.") Most of the beautiful prayers in the Episcopal Epis-copal prayer book, so much admired and loved, arc merely translations of the old Catholic prayers. Does not your Church teach that it is lawful to lie to Protestants? . ' . . How can we "heretics" believe any statement that you may make, when one of your fundamental teachings, teach-ings, as set forth in the Council of Constance, declares de-clares that "faith need not be kept with heretics ? Was not the safe conduct granted by this cquncil to John Hubs violated on this very principle? The Catholic church never taught that it was lawful to lie or break faith with any one. She has always considered lying as intrinsically evil, according ac-cording to the. eighth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." An honest inquirer after truth has merely to read the words of the decree (cited by ALzog, "Universal Church History," vol. iii, p. D64) to recognize the utter dishonesty of the above accusation. This false principle was preached and acted on by Protestants Pro-testants in Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. ' m This calumny has been refuted time and time again, as by Lethmathius in 1544, Copus in 1581, Campion in 15S5, Molanus in 1611, Rosweidt and Sweert in 1608, 1609, 1611, Becanus in 1612, Mar-' Mar-' quez in 1645, etc. (Cf. Hergenrother, "Church and State," Essay xvi; Jungmann, "Church History," vi, p. 339; Hefele, "History of the Councils," vol. vii, p. T67, cited in the Catholic University Bulletin, Bulle-tin, July, 1896, pp. 380, 381.) The Council of Constance never granted & safe-conduct safe-conduct to John Huss. The "Emperor Sigismund did, but his letter was merely a passport commending commend-ing Huss to all the officials of the empire in order . to assure him protection from violence on his way to the Council. It by no means protected him from the due course of the law of the empire, which in the fififteen century regarded heresy as a civil offense of-fense punishable by death. This is evident from, the safe-conduct itself, the address of the Bohemian Bo-hemian nobles of the council, and the letter of Sigismund to the King of Aragon onhis very point. (Alzog, ''Church History, vol. iii, pp. 952-967.) 952-967.) What Is "the attitude, of your Church on the temperance tem-perance question? How can you explain the fact that so large a proportion pro-portion of liquor dealers are reirular attendants of your Church, in good standing? Are they not responsible respon-sible for most of the sin and misery of the present time? They are not on the books of any Protestant church. The Catholic church regards intemperance as a great vice, which carries in its train many other sins, such as anger, blasphemy, neglect of Mass and the Sacraments,' murder, lust, theft.. Catholics Cath-olics realize that the drink evil is the fruitful source of pauperism, insanity, disease, death, corruption cor-ruption in citizenship, and the destruction of home life. The Church declares temperance, or moderation modera-tion in the use of drink, binding. upon all under penalty of sin. She declares total abstinence binding bind-ing upon all who find in drink the proximate occasion oc-casion of sin, as is the case with the habitual drunkard. drunk-ard. She counsels total abstinence to all for four reasons: First, as a protest against a public abuse in our country; second, as an example to the weaker weak-er brethren (Rom. xiv, 21) ; third, as a practice of self-denial; fourth, as a reparation for the sins committeed by the drunkard. The mind of the Church can be 6een Yrom the words of the Bishops of the United States in the Second Council of Baltimore, 1866, Xo. 470: "Since the very worst scandals owe their origin to excess in drink, we exhort pastors, and we implore them for the love of Jesus Christ, to devote all theii; energies to the extirpation of the vice of intemperance. intem-perance. To that end we deem worthy of praise the zeal of those who, the better to guard against excess, pledge themselves to total abstinence"; Xo. 469: "Let pastors frequently warn their flocks to shun saloons, and let them repel from the Sacraments Sacra-ments liquor dealers who encourage the abuses of drink, especially on Sunday." The Third Council of Baltimore, held in 18S4, declares, Xo. 263 : "We " admonish Catholics engaged en-gaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors to consider con-sider seriously how many and how great are the dangers and the occasions of sin which their business, busi-ness, though not iu itself illicit, is surrounded. Let them, if possible, choose some more honorable way of making a living. And if they find it impossible im-possible to quit it, then let them strive with all their might to remove the occasions of sin from themselves and from others. Let them not sell drink cither to minors or to those whom they foresee will go to excess. Let them keep their saloons closed on the Lord's day. Let them at no time permit per-mit on their premises blasphemy, cursing or obscene ob-scene language. But if, through their action, or with their eo-operation, religion is dishonored and men are led to ruin, let them remember that there is an Avenarcr in heaven, who will certainly demand of them a terrible retribution." A Catholic saloon keeper, whose saloon is evidently evi-dently an occasion of sin to others, is not a Catholic Cath-olic in good standing. For although he may attend at-tend Sunday Mass. he cannot approach the Sacraments Sacra-ments of Penance and the Eucharist until he promise amendment. Membership with us, however, how-ever, does not mean enrollnient on the Church's books, but it a right God-given in the Sacrament of Baptism. Xo matter how low a man may have fallen, the Church is always ready, like Christ, to go after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Public Pub-lic excommunication is a penalty she rarely ecv ploys. - - |