The Catechism Explained: Newly Annotated with Corresponding References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Church may be compared with a school; the latter prepares its pupils to become good citizens of the State, the former trains up citizens of heaven. And just as a school has its head master, its staff of teachers, its pupils, along with its regulations for discipline, and appliances of education, so is the Church provided. It has a visible head, the visible ceremony of Baptism by which members are received, and a visible formula of belief. Hence Christ compares the Church with visible objects, with a city placed on a mountain, with a light on a candlestick; it is also called a body (Eph. 1:22), the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15), a holy city (Rev. 21:10). Wherever Catholic priests and Catholics are to be found, there is the Catholic Church. Two classes of people maintain that the Church is not visible: heretics, who have been cut off from it yet would gladly belong to the Church, and free thinkers, who wish to shirk the obligation of obeying a visible Church. The expression “Catholic Church” does not imply a mere building of stone or wood, though the comparison is frequently made in the Scriptures (Eph. 2:21), the Church having a living corner-stone, Christ (Ps. 117[118]:22) Who binds the faithful into one divine family, and the foundation-stones of the apostles (Rev. 21:14), the faithful being the stones of the edifice (1 Pet. 2:5). Nor by “Catholic Church” do we mean “Catholic religion;” the Church is to the religion as the body to the soul.

The Catholic Church is often called the “kingdom of heaven,” “kingdom of God,” “community of the faithful.”²⁷⁴

John the Baptist and Christ Himself announced that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matt. 3:2; 4:17). The parables on the kingdom of heaven bring out the various features of the Church. The gradation of offices in the Church—(Pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, ordinary Christians), is very suggestive of a kingdom, in which the aim is to lead men to heaven. “The Church is the people of God scattered through the world,” says St. Augustine; or in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, the community of the faithful. Our Lord compares it with a fold where He wishes to keep all His sheep.

The Church is very properly called the “Mother of Christians,” because she gives to men the true life of the soul, and because she trains her members as a mother brings up her children.²⁷⁵

The Church confers in Baptism the gift of sanctifying grace, the true life of the soul, for this grace gives a claim to heaven. As the father who goes away on a journey leaves all his power in the hands of the mother, so Christ, in leaving this earth, gave His Church full power (John 20:21). “We should love God as Our Father,” says St. Augustine, “and the Church as our Mother.” “If we love our native land so dearly,” says Leo XIII, “because we were born and bred there, and are ready even to die for it, how much deeper should be our love for the Church, which has given us the life which has no end.”

2. The Church prepares man for heaven by carrying out the threefold office which Christ conferred upon her; the office of teacher, of priest, and of shepherd.²⁷⁶

The Church teaches the doctrine of Christ, ministers the means of grace appointed by Christ, and is a guide and shepherd to the faithful. The teaching is carried on by sermons; the means of grace consist in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, blessings, and the holding of special devotions; the guidance consists in the laying down of certain precepts, e.g., the commandments of the Church, and the prohibition of what is sinful or dangerous, e.g., the reading of bad books.

This triple office was first exercised by Christ, and then passed on to the apostles and their successors.²⁷⁷

Christ used to preach, as we see in the sermon on the mount. He dispensed the means of grace, forgiving Magdalen her sins, giving His body and blood to the apostles at the Last Supper, blessing the little children. Christ was the Guide of men. He gave commandments, sent the apostles on missions, instructed them, and reproved the tyranny of the Pharisees, etc. He gave the apostles commission (1), to teach all nations (Matt. 28:19), and also (2), to exercise the power of the priesthood, to offer sacrifice (Luke 22:19), and to forgive sins (John 20:23); (3), in addition the apostles received the office of pastor, and with it the power of reproving and correcting (Matt. 18:17), and of binding and loosing, i.e., of making and revoking laws. The words of Christ included the successors of the apostles as well as the apostles themselves: “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:20).

3. The Lord and King of the Church is Christ.²⁷⁸

The prophets had foretold (Ps. 2), that the Messiah should be a great king, whose kingdom should last forever and embrace all other kingdoms. The archangel Gabriel told Mary that the Redeemer should be a king and His kingdom should be eternal (Luke 1:33). Christ calls Himself a king to Pilate, but denies that His kingdom is of this world (John 18:36). Christ directs the Church through the Holy Spirit; hence He is called the Head of the Church (Eph. 1:23), of which Christians form the body, each one being a member of the body (1 Cor. 12:27). He is also called the invisible Head, because He no longer mixes personally with man on earth. On account of His love for the Church, He is called her Bridegroom, and she is called His Bride (Rev. 21:9). Christ compared Himself to a bridegroom on several occasions (Matt. 22). Like Jacob, who served seven years for Rachel, Christ would serve many years for His Church (Phil. 2:7), and even gave His life for it (Eph. 5:25).

4. The Catholic Church consists of a teaching and a hearing body. To the former belong the Pope, bishops, and priests; to the latter the faithful.²⁷⁹

The word “Pope” comes from the Latin papa, i.e., father; “bishop” is from the Greek episcopos, i.e., overseer; priest is from the Greek word presbyter, meaning “the elder.” In Latin, priest is sacerdos.

2. THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH

The mainstay of the Church is the Pope. He is the rock on which the Church rests (Matt. 16:18); and his office secures the maintenance of unity. St. John Chrysostom says that the Church would fail if it were not for its Head, who is the centre of its unity, as a ship would be wrecked if deprived of its pilot; and St. Cyprian adds that the enemies of the Church direct their attacks against its Head, in the hope that deprived of his guidance it may be shipwrecked. Among the Popes are counted no less than forty martyrs.

1. Christ conferred on St. Peter the primacy over the apostles and the faithful by the command: “Feed My lambs, feed My sheep;” by giving over to him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and by special marks of distinction.²⁸⁰

After His resurrection Christ appeared to the apostles on the lake of Genesareth, and after the triple question to Peter “Lovest thou Me?” gave him the solemn precept: “Feed My lambs; [i.e., the faithful], … feed My sheep [i.e., the apostles]” (John 21:15). This office had been promised to St. Peter before the resurrection, on the occasion of his confession at Cæsarea Philippi: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt. 16:18–19). The special marks of distinction conferred on St. Peter were the following: Christ gave him a new name, Peter; He chose him to be with Him on the most solemn occasions, as on Mount Thabor and in the Garden of Olives; He appeared to St. Peter after His resurrection before showing Himself to any of the other apostles (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5, etc.).

St. Peter always acted as chief of the apostles and was so acknowledged by them.

He spoke in the name of the other apostles on Pentecost; he received into the Church its first Jewish and Gentile members; he performed the first miracle; it was he who moved for the choice of a new apostle; he defended the apostles before the Jewish tribunal; his opinion prevailed at the council of the apostles. The apostles recognized his pre-eminence, for the Evangelists in giving the list of the apostles always place St. Peter first (Matt. 10:2; Mark 1:36; Acts 2:14); and St. Paul, after his conversion, regarded it as his duty to present himself to St. Peter (Gal. 1:18; 2:2).

2. St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for some twenty-five years and died Bishop of Rome; and the dignity and power of St. Peter descended to the succeeding Bishops of Rome.²⁸¹

There is a great amount of evidence for the presence of St. Peter in Rome from the year 44 to 69. St. Peter writes about the year 65: “The Church that is in Babylon … saluteth you; and so doth my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13). Babylon was the name given by the early Christians to Rome, on account of its greatness and immorality. St. Clement of Rome writes about the year 100: “Peter and Paul were with an enormous number of the Christians martyred in Rome.” Tertullian, a priest of Carthage, about the year 200, congratulates the Church of Rome, because St. Peter died there, crucified like his Lord, and St. Paul died like another John the Baptist. In addition the grave of St. Peter was long ago discovered; his body lay in a catacomb under Nero’s circus; the third Pope erected a small chapel over it, to be replaced by a beautiful edifice built by Constantine (324); when this fell into disrepair, the present building of St. Peter’s was erected, in 1629.

The Bishops of Rome have always exercised supreme power in the Church, and that power has always been acknowledged.²⁸²

When dissensions arose in the Church of Corinth about the year 100, the matter was referred not to the apostle St. John at Ephesus, but to the Bishop of Rome, St. Clement. About the year 190 the Pope Victor commanded the people of Asia Minor to conform to the Roman usage in the celebration of Easter, and those who demurred were threatened with excommunication, whereupon they yielded. About the year 250 Pope Stephen forbade the Bishops of North Africa to rebaptize those who returned to the bosom of the Church, and excommunicated those who resisted. The Bishops of Rome had the first place in all general councils. When heresy broke out the Bishop of Rome always inquired into it; and to him other bishops appealed when unjustly oppressed; thus when St. Athanasius was deposed by the emperor, the Pope reinstated him. From the earliest times the titles “high priest” and “bishop of bishops” have been given to the Bishop of Rome. When, at the Council of Chalcedon, the letter of Pope Leo was read to the assembled bishops, they cried out with one voice: “Peter has spoken by Leo; let him be anathema who believes otherwise.” The Vatican Council declares that it is the will of Christ that till the end of the world there be successors to St. Peter.

3. The Bishop of Rome is called Pope, or Holy Father.²⁸³

He is also called, on account of his great dignity, the “holy Father,” “His Holiness,” “Vicar of Christ,” “Father of Christendom.”

On account of the opening words of Christ’s speech to St. Peter “Blessed art thou,” etc. (Matt. 16:17) the Pope is addressed as Beatissime Pater. The office is called the See of Peter, the Holy See, or the Apostolic See. The chair of St. Peter is still to be seen in Rome.

The Pope is also called from his see the Pope of Rome, and the Church under him the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIII was born at Carpineto, in Italy, on March 2, 1810, ordained priest December 31, 1837, Archbishop of Perugia, 1846, and Pope February 20, 1878. To his energy we owe the abolition of slavery in Brazil, the campaign against it in Africa by the European nations, the repeal of many laws against the Church in Germany, the prevention of war between Germany and Spain, the founding of over one hundred bishoprics, especially among the heathen, etc. By his encyclicals he has denounced the Freemasons, recommended in a special manner the Third Order of St. Francis, and the devotion of the Rosary, displayed his zeal for the working classes, and exerted himself to produce reunion of the various Christian communities with the Catholic Church, etc. He is the two hundred and fifty-ninth Pope.

The Pope has precedence of honor over all other bishops, and also of jurisdiction over the whole Church (Vatican Council, 4, 3).²⁸⁴

“The Pope,” says St. Bernard, “is the high priest, the prince among bishops.” The following are some of his prerogatives: He assumes a new name on his election, as St. Peter received a new name from Our Lord, to signify that he is wholly devoted to his new office. From the tenth century onwards it has been the custom to choose the name from those of previous Popes, St. Peter’s alone being excepted out of reverence. He is privileged to wear the tiara, or mitre with the triple crown, expressive of the triple office of teacher, priest, and pastor; he has also a crosier ending in a cross, and a soutane of white silk. His foot is kissed in memory of those words of St. Paul: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things” (Rom. 10:15). He has the highest power in the Church as “teacher of all Christians” (First Vatican Council) and “chief-shepherd of the shepherds and their flocks.” He has the most complete jurisdiction in deciding questions of faith and morals, and in arranging the discipline of the universal Church. This power extends over every single church, and every single bishop and pastor. He may elect and depose bishops, call together councils, make and unmake laws, send out missionaries, confer privileges and dispensations, and reserve sins to his own tribunal. For the same reason he may personally teach and guide any of the bishops or their flocks. He is the supreme judge of all the faithful; to him remains the final appeal. The Pope may choose seventy cardinals to act as his counsellors; they may have the right of choosing a new Pope after the see has been vacant for twelve days. Their dress is a scarlet hat and mantle, to remind them of their duty of loyalty to the Pope at the cost even of their blood. They form the various committees or congregations, e.g., the Congregation of Rites, of Indulgences, etc.

The Pope is quite independent of every temporal sovereignty and of every spiritual power.

For many years the Popes were temporal sovereigns, and ruled as such the States of the Church. The growth of the latter came about in the following manner: In the first centuries many estates were bestowed on the Popes as a free gift. From the time of Constantine the Great, the emperors lived away from Rome, and thus the Papacy began to exercise a certain authority over the city and central Italy. In 754 A.D., Pepin, the Frankish king, gave over to the Pope the territory he had won by the sword in the neighborhood of Rome, and also some towns on the eastern coast of Italy. This grant was confirmed by Pepin’s son, Charlemagne, in 774. The Popes lost and regained these possessions some seventy-seven times. In 1859 all the territory except Rome was torn from the Pope, and in 1870 Rome itself, so that now all the Pope possesses is the Vatican. This temporal sovereignty was of great advantage to the Church; it secured the Pope’s independence in the exercise of his authority, it gave him a status among the powers of the earth, and supplied him with funds for carrying on the business connected with the Church, besides insuring liberty in the choice of a Pope. At present he is helped by the alms of the faithful, called Peter’s pence. Though deprived of his possessions the Pope is still recognized as a sovereign, even in Italy; and he has acted as arbitrator between nations. Many will remember his decision in 1885 in the disputed claims of Spain and Germany to the Caroline Islands. He also issues medals, confers orders, has the gold and white standard, adopted in allusion to the words of St. Peter: “Silver and gold I have none” (Acts 3:6), and has ambassadors (legates and Nuncios) at various courts, etc. The Pope is supreme on earth, not being subject even to a general council (Eugenius IV, Sept. 4, 1439; Vatican Council, 4, 3). Any who appeal from the Pope to a general council are liable to excommunication (Pius IX, October 12, 1869).

3. BISHOPS, PRIESTS, THE FAITHFUL

1. The bishops are the successors of the apostles.²⁸⁵

This is the express teaching of the Vatican Council. The bishops differ only from the apostles in having a limited jurisdiction, while the mission of the apostles was to the whole world; moreover the apostles were personally infallible in their teaching, and having an extraordinary mission they had extraordinary gifts, such as infallibility, the gift of tongues, and miracles.²⁸⁶

The bishops have the following powers: They guide that portion of the Church assigned to them by the Pope, and assist him in the government of the universal Church.²⁸⁷

From apostolic times bishops were appointed to single sees, e.g., Titus to Crete (Tit. 1:5). These divisions of the Church are called sees or dioceses; some of them are very large. Paris, for example, contains more than 3,000,000 souls. The duties of a bishop are to educate candidates for the priesthood, to create and confer offices in the Church, to give faculties to confessors, to see to the religious education of his flock, to revise books written on religious subjects, to settle the days of fasting, etc. In addition he confers the Sacraments of Confirmation and Orders, reserves certain sins to his own jurisdiction, consecrates churches, chalices, the holy oils, etc. Each bishop has also the right of voting in general councils.

The bishops are not merely assistants to the Pope, but they are actually guides of the Church.²⁸⁸

They are the shepherds of their respective flocks (Vatican Council, 4, 3) and are appointed by the Holy Spirit to rule the Church of God (Acts 20:28). They are also called “princes of the Church,” and since they have ordinary or immediate jurisdiction they are often called “Ordinaries.” They are assisted by a number of canons, who make up the body called the chapter; one of these canons becomes vicar capitular if the see becomes vacant, and governs the diocese till a new bishop be elected. The bishop himself usually appoints the chapter, in rare instances the Pope or the archbishop. Many bishops have an assistant in the form of a coadjutor-bishop or a vicar-general. “The dignity of a bishop,” says St. Ambrose, “is higher than that of a king.” The privileges of the order are as follows: The right to wear a mitre, the sign of his leadership, and to carry a crosier, which is curved at the end in sign of his limited jurisdiction. He also wears a ring, symbolical of his union with the diocese, and a pectoral cross. The faithful kiss his hand, and he is addressed by the Pope as brother, because as bishop he has the same rank as the Pope.

The bishops are subject to the Pope and owe him obedience.²⁸⁹

The Pope gives their jurisdiction to the bishops; and no bishop may exercise his office before being recognized and confirmed by the Pope. He is obliged also to go to Rome (ad limina apostolorum) to report on the state of his diocese. An appeal may always be made from a bishop to the Pope. Bishops, such as the Greek or Anglican, who decline submission to the Pope, are neither members of the Church, nor have they jurisdiction, even where they have valid orders.

Archbishops or metropolitans are bishops who have powers over other bishops.²⁹⁰

Some have the privilege of wearing the pallium, a white strip of wool on the shoulders symbolical of gentleness and humility. The Primate is a still higher dignitary, and is the bishop of the whole nation. Above him in rank is the Patriarch or Exarch, who in former times was set over the metropolitans. The Bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome were patriarchs, because these sees were founded by St. Peter. In our days the titles patriarch and Primate signify nothing more than a precedence of dignity; they are not of divine institution. There are also others, of the clergy who are termed prelates; some of them enjoy most or all of the powers of bishops, and are called vicars apostolic. There are others whose title is merely honorary.

2. The priests are the assistants of the bishops.²⁹¹

They receive their Orders from the bishop, and so are his spiritual sons; and their business is to carry out the commands of the bishop; even when called in to assist at councils, they do not vote as judges but only as counsellors, nor have they powers to excommunicate.

The priests have only a portion of the episcopal power, and their office may be exercised only with sanction from the bishop.²⁹²

This sanction is called the canonical mission (missio canonica). The dress of the priest is a soutane, or black garment reaching to the feet.

Parish priests are those to whom the bishop has confided permanently the charge of a district.

The district is called a parish. Dean is the title given to parish priests of larger districts. In the assignment of a parish the bishop usually shows some consideration for the wishes of the patron or patrons, i.e., the person or persons who have been and are conspicuous benefactors in the district. The parish priest is the representative of the bishop, and no one may, without his leave, exercise spiritual functions in the parish, such as preaching, baptizing, giving extreme unction, marrying, and burying.

Parish priests who are appointed by the bishop over the priests of a large district are called rural deans.

They make a visitation of the parishes and act as intermediaries with the bishop.

Parish priests of larger districts have assistants, or curates.

3. A Catholic is one who has been baptized and professes himself to be a member of the Catholic Church.²⁹³

The Church is a community into which admittance is gained by Baptism. Thus the three thousand baptized on the first Pentecost became members of the Church (Acts 2:41). Moreover a man must make external profession of being a member of the Church, so that anyone who breaks away, for instance, by heresy, no longer belongs to the Church in spite of his baptism, though he is not thereby freed from his obligations to the Church. Neither heathens, Jews, heretics, nor schismatics are members of the Church (Council of Florence), though children baptized validly in other communions really belong to it. “For,” as St. Augustine says, “Baptism is the privilege of the true Church, and so the benefits which flow from Baptism are necessarily fruits which belong only to the true Church. Children baptized in other communions cease to be members of the Church only when, after reaching the age of reason, they make formal profession of heresy, as, for example, by receiving communion in a non-Catholic church.” The Christians were at first known by the name of Nazareans, from Nazareth, or Galileans, from Galilee; it was first in Antioch that the name Christian came to be in use (Acts 11:26), and the name Christians is appropriate. We are followers of Christ, willing to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). “We receive our name,” says St. John Chrysostom, “not from an earthly ruler, nor from an angel, nor from an archangel, nor from a seraphim, but from the King of all the earth.”

A true Catholic is not only one who has been baptized and belongs to the Church, but who also makes serious efforts to secure his eternal salvation; who believes the teaching of the Church, keeps the commandments of God, and of the Church, who receives the sacraments, and prays to God in the manner prescribed by Christ.²⁹⁴

He is not a true Christian who is ignorant of his faith. Such a one might as well call himself a doctor though knowing nothing of medicine. “Nor is he a true Christian,” says St. Justin, “who does not live as Christ taught him to live.” Our Lord said to the Jews: “If you be the children of Abraham do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39), and He might say to the Christians “If you be Christians do the works of Christ.” “If you want to be a Christian,” says St. Gregory Nazianzen, “you must live the life of Christ;” and St. Augustine: “A true Christian is the man who is gentle, good, and merciful to all, and shares his bread with the poor.” Christ Himself said that His disciples should be known by their love one for another (John 13:35). A Christian who neglects the sacraments is like a soldier who has no weapons; what a responsibility he incurs! Louis of Granada says, “A field which is well tended is expected to yield a richer harvest; so more good works are expected from a Christian than from a heathen, because the Christian has greater graces.”

Every Catholic has rights and duties. He has a special claim to the means of grace supplied by the Church, and he is obliged to obey his ecclesiastical superiors in spiritual matters, and to make provision for their support as well as for that of God’s service.²⁹⁵

A good Catholic ought also to hear the word of God, receive the necessary sacraments, take part in divine service, and he has a right to Christian burial, etc. The Church forces nobody to enter its pale, but whoever becomes a member of his own free will, and remains so, must be subject to the laws of the Church. Under certain circumstances those who disobey the laws of the Church are excommunicated or shut out from the Church. They lose their claim to the spiritual goods of the Church; they may not join in the divine service, nor receive the sacraments, nor an office in the Church, nor Christian burial. Some offences involve excommunication ipso facto; for instance, apostasy, duelling, freemasonry (Pius IX, October 12, 1869).²⁹⁶ In other cases the excommunication must be formally pronounced, and that, too, after warning and trial, as in the case of the Old Catholic bishops Reinkens and Döllinger. St. Ambrose forbade the Emperor Theodosius to enter the Church after the latter had, by his orders, caused the slaughter of some seven thousand people in Thessalonica; and it was only after doing severe penance that he was admitted. We know, too, that St. Paul cut off from the Church a vicious Corinthian (1 Cor. 5:13). The State exercises a similar power in banishing criminals.²⁹⁷

4. FOUNDATION AND SPREAD
OF THE CHURCH

Christ compared the Church to a grain of mustard-seed, which is the smallest of seeds, but grows into a tree in which the birds of the air build their nests (Matt. 13:31–32).

1. Christ laid the foundation of the Church when, in the course of His teaching, He gathered a number of disciples, and chose twelve of these to preside over the rest and one to be Head of all.²⁹⁸

2. The Church first began its life on Pentecost, when some three thousand people were baptized.²⁹⁹

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. After the miracle at the gate of the Temple some two thousand more were baptized.

3. Soon after the descent of the Holy Spirit the apostles began to preach the Gospel throughout the world, in accordance with the commands of Christ (Mark 16:15), and founded Christian communities in many places.³⁰⁰

St. Paul, after his conversion in 34 A.D., labored more abundantly than all the apostles (1 Cor. 15:10); he traversed Asia Minor, the greater part of Southern Europe, and many islands of the Mediterranean. After him St. Peter labored most. After escaping by a miracle from his prison in Jerusalem, he founded his see at Rome where, in company with St. Paul, he suffered martyrdom. St. John, the beloved disciple, lived at Ephesus with our blessed Lady, and governed the Church in Asia Minor. His brother, St. James the Greater, travelled as far as Spain, and was beheaded in Jerusalem in 44 A.D. His body rests at Compostella. St. James the Less governed the Church at Jerusalem, and was cast down from a pinnacle of the Temple in A.D. 63. St. Andrew preached to the people living along the lower Danube, and died on a cross in Achaia. St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew made their way to the Euphrates and Tigris, and as far as India. St. Simon evangelized Egypt and North Africa.

The apostles established their communities after the following plan: having converted and baptized a number of men in a place, they chose assistants, to whom they imparted a greater or less portion of their own powers; and before leaving the place they made choice of a successor, and gave him full powers (Acts 14:22).³⁰¹

Those who received only a small portion of the apostolic power were called deacons, and priests those who had ampler faculties. The representatives of the apostles were called bishops. Christ gave the apostles power to choose successors when He gave to them the self-same power which He had received from the Father (John 20:21); and it was His wish that they should choose successors, for He told the apostles that their mission should continue to the end of the world (Matt. 28:20).

Among all the Christian communities that of Rome took the highest rank, because it was presided over by St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, and because to the Head of that community as successor of St. Peter the primacy of St. Peter was transferred.³⁰²

St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (107 A.D.) in a letter to the Christians of Rome, begs them not to set him free and calls the Roman community the “chief community of the holy band of the faithful;” and St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons (202 A.D.), says “All the faithful over the whole world must conform to the Roman Church on account of its principality.”

All Christian communities which have been formed in the course of time professed the same faith, and acknowledged the same means of grace and the same Head. Hence they formed one large community—the Catholic Church.³⁰³

4. When the great persecutions broke out, the Church spread more rapidly over the earth.³⁰⁴

During the first three centuries there were ten persecutions, the severest being under Nero and Diocletian (284–385 A.D.), the latter monster condemning some 2,000,000 Christians. They were martyred in various ways; they were beheaded like St. Paul, crucified like St. Peter, stoned like St. Stephen, thrown to the lions like St. Ignatius of Antioch, roasted on gridirons like St. Lawrence, drowned like St. Florian, flayed like St. Bartholomew, cast over cliffs or from high places like St. James, burned at the scaffold like St. Polycarp, buried alive like St. Chrysanthus, etc. The very means adopted to exterminate the Christian religion helped to propagate it. The speeches of the Christians before their judges often converted the hearers. The joy with which they faced death, their superhuman patience, and their love of their enemies, were powerful influences on the heathen. Added to this were the miracles which often happened during the martyrdoms, as for instance in the case of St. Polycarp and St. John at the Lateran Gate. In the words of St. Rupert, the martyrs are like the seed which is buried in the earth, and sprouts and brings forth much fruit; or of St. Leo the Great, if the storm scatters the seed this benefit results that instead of one, some fifty other trees grow up. “The blood of the martyrs,” says Tertullian, “is the seed of Christians.” The life of the Christians was then a model, and they abounded in saints. At the risk of their life they prayed to God in the catacombs. Two years of probation were demanded of the catechumens before reception.

When the Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, had permitted his subjects to become Christians and later made the Christian religion the State religion (324 A.D.), the Church indeed flourished externally, but fervor and religious discipline soon began to suffer.³⁰⁵

Constantine was led to this step by the appearance of the luminous cross in the heavens (312 A.D.), and still more by his holy mother St. Helena. The following were some of his ordinances: Sundays and feast days were to be observed with solemnity; the temples of the heathen were to be handed over to the bishops; the gladiatorial combats and the crucifixion of criminals were forbidden, and many churches were built. By the miraculous draught of fishes related in the fifth chapter of St. Luke and the two boats almost sunk with the weight of fish, was prefigured the future of the Church, which should suffer schism with the increase of its members, while Christians should sink down to earthly things. The heresy of Arius (318 A.D.) began its deadly work in the time of Constantine, and had a great following. At this time also ceased the test of the catechumens, so that it was easier to become a member of the Church. St. Augustine had reason to say: “If the Church is harassed by external foes, there are many in her bosom who by their unruly life make sad the hearts of the faithful.”

5. In the Middle Ages nearly all the heathen nations began to enter the Church.

In Austria about 450 A.D., the monk Severinus preached the Gospel for thirty years along the banks of the Danube. St. Gregory the Great, in 600 A.D., sent St. Augustine at the head of a number of missioners to convert England; eighty years later the country was Christian and had twenty-six sees. Germany owes most to St. Boniface, who preached the Gospel there for about forty years (755 A.D.). The Greek monks Saints Cyril and Methodius worked among the Slavs, mainly of Bohemia and Moravia, with great success. The Hungarians wore converted by their holy king Stephen (1038 A.D.) “the apostolic king.” Christianity was gradually introduced into Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Poland after 1000 A.D.

The Church was hard pressed by Islam during the Middle Ages.³⁰⁶

Islamism or Mohammedanism was founded by Mohammed, a native of Mecca, who gave himself out to be a prophet of the one true God, promised sensual joy after death, allowed plurality of wives, imposed a pilgrimage to Mecca, taught fatalism, and after propagating his doctrines by fire and sword, was poisoned in 632 A.D., by a Jewess. The Koran is the sacred book of the Mohammedans. They keep the Friday with great solemnity, and pray five times a day turned towards Mecca. Mohammed’s successors were the caliphs, who undertook wars of conquest on a large scale, everywhere rooting out the Christian religion. They overran a great part of Asia, North Africa, Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean. Charles Martel, in a series of victories (732–738 A.D.), arrested their advance into France, and ever since their failure in 1638 before Vienna, their progress in the West was arrested.

In addition the Church lost many adherents in the Middle Ages by the Greek schism.³⁰⁷

The causes of the schism were as follows: The emperors of the East kept trying to make the patriarchs of Constantinople independent of Rome, while these were often for their heresies put under ban by the councils. In time it came about that the ambitious Photius, backed up by the emperor, held a council of the Eastern bishops, and broke away from Rome (867 A.D.). The succeeding emperor re-established the old relations with Rome. Two hundred years later, however, the patriarch Michael Cerularius renewed the contest (1054 A.D.), and the schism effected by him lasts till the present day. They call themselves the Orthodox Greeks, while we call them the Schismatic Greeks, in opposition to the United Greeks or Uniates, who preserved their allegiance to Rome.

6. In later times many nations of the newly discovered countries were converted.

The Spaniards and Portuguese led the van of missionary enterprise. One of the most famous of these missionaries is St. Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, who used to call the little children together with a bell, as he made his way through the cities of India, the islands of Molucca, and Japan, to teach them the truths of religion (1552 A.D.); he had the gift of tongues, and baptized some two million souls. After his death great work was done in China by the Jesuits, especially Ricci and Schall. Another great missionary is St. Peter Claver (1654 A.D.) whose work was mostly among African slaves in South America. Cardinal Lavigerie in our own time has done much in Africa, especially in resisting the slave trade, and founding a congregation for the conversion of the native peoples. The College of Propaganda was founded at Rome in 1662 for the training of young men from all nations for a missionary career. At present some 15,000 priests, 5,000 lay brothers and 50,000 nuns are at work in the foreign missions; the missionaries belong for the most part to the Orders of Jesuits, Franciscans, Capuchins, Benedictines, and Lazarists. The organizations for the support of the missions are the Propagation of the Faith and the Holy Childhood. It is a sacred obligation to help in such work, and the efforts of non-Catholics in this direction may well put us to shame.

In later times the Church has lost many members by the Lutheran and Anglican heresies.

Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk of Erfurt, and later teacher in the high school at Wittenburg, took offence because he thought that he was not sufficiently held in esteem at Rome. When Pope Leo X, anxious to complete the building of St. Peter’s, gave indulgences to those who should subscribe to the work, and sent out preachers to promulgate these indulgences, Luther came forward with his ninety-five propositions on indulgences, and nailed them to the door of the church at Wittenberg. These propositions at first condemned only the abuses of indulgences in the Church, but later went on to combat the teaching of the Church on the subject (1517). Refusing to withdraw them at the command of the Pope he was excommunicated (1520), and also outlawed by the emperor for not answering the summons requiring him to appear before the council at Worms. He sought protection from the Elector of Saxony. His heresy soon spread over Germany and led to many religious wars. The name Protestant was assumed by the Lutherans at Spires in 1529, on account of their protest against Catholic doctrine. The Peace of Augsburg secured to the Protestants the same rights as Catholics (1555). The Council of Trent set forth the points in dispute between Catholics and Protestants (1545–1503). Luther died in 1546. His chief errors are contained in the following propositions: (1). There is no supreme teaching power in the Church. (2). The temporal sovereign has supreme power in matters ecclesiastical. (3). There are no priests. (4). All that is to be believed is in the Scripture. (5). Each one may interpret the Holy Scriptures as he likes. (6). Faith alone saves, good works are superfluous. (7). This last follows from the fact that man lost his free will by original sin. (8). There are no saints, no Christian sacrifice, no sacrament of confession, no purgatory. The Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola (1540), won many back again to the fold of the Church. Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, and Henry VIII in England, about the same time helped in Luther’s deadly work. The errors of the Anglican Church were drawn up later in the form of Thirty-nine Articles, which are quite Lutheran in tone.

7. At present the Catholic Church numbers about 288,000,000 members.³⁰⁸

These are under the direction of about 1,478 bishops, counting about 15 patriarchs, 314 archbishops and 20 prelates with dioceses. There are some 375,000 Catholic priests in the whole world. The inhabitants of Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Belgium, and Ireland are nearly all Catholics. In Switzerland about half are Catholics; in Germany over a third of the population, and in Russia 11,000,000. In Europe about three-quarters of the entire population are Catholic. In America there are 80,000,000 Catholics, of whom there are 18,000,000 in the United States, forming one-fifth of the entire population, while Mexico, south and central America, with the exception of Brazil, are almost entirely Catholic. The adjacent islands are mainly Catholic. In Asia there are only 10,000,000 Catholics, in Africa 3,000,000, in Australia 1,000,000. The Protestants, comprising the various sects of Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, etc., number 167,000,000; they inhabit England, North and Central Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, parts of Switzerland and Hungary, and the United States of America. The Oriental Greeks or Schismatic Greeks number about 121,000,000. They occupy for the most part the Balkan peninsula and Russia. Besides these there are some 10,000,000 of various other Christian sects, hence a total of 576,000,000 Christians. Since the inhabitants of the earth amount to about 1,700,000,000 only a little over one-third of the human race is Christian. The Mohammedans number 227,000,000; they inhabit Arabia, Western Asia, the northern half of Africa, and part of Turkey. In addition there are 15,000,000 Jews; they are for the greater part in Russia and Austria. Finally there are still 1,116,000,000 heathens, dwelling for the most part in Southern Africa, India, China and Japan.

5. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS
INDESTRUCTIBLE AND INFALLIBLE

Indestructibility of the Church

1. The Catholic Church is indestructible; i.e., it will remain till the end of the world, for Christ said: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).³⁰⁹

Hence there will always be Popes, bishops, and faithful, and God’s revealed truths will ever be found in the Catholic Church. The archangel Gabriel bad announced to Mary: “Of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). “The Church,” says St. Ambrose, “is like the moon; it may wane, but never be destroyed; it may be darkened, but it can never disappear.” “The bark of the Church,” says St. Anselm, “may be swept by the waves, but it can never sink because Christ is there.”

a. Of all the persecutors of the Church none have succeeded against it, and some have come to a fearful end.

Judas’ end is the type of those of his imitators. Herod, the murderer of the infants of Bethlehem, died in unspeakable tortures; so, too, Herod the mur-derer of St. James was devoured by worms. Pilate was banished by the emperor to Vienne, in France, and there he took his own life. During the siege of Jerusalem 1,000,000 Jews died of hunger or sickness, or in battle, the city itself was reduced to ashes and some hundred thousand Jews carried off into captivity. The tyrant Nero was deposed, and in his flight from Rome was stabbed by a slave. Diocletian came to a shameful end. Before his death his family were sent into exile, his statues were destroyed, and his body attacked with a loathsome disease. Julian the Apostate was struck down on the field of battle by a lance; his last words were: “Galilean, Thou hast conquered.” The case of Napoleon is instructive. He kept Pius VII a prisoner for five years, he himself was a prisoner for seven years; in the castle at Fontainebleau he forced the Pope to give up the States of the Church, promising a yearly income of 2,000,000 francs; in the same place he was himself forced to sign his abdication, and received a promise of a yearly income of the same amount. Four days after giving the order to unite the States of the Church with France he lost the battles of Aspern and Erlingen. He answered the excommunication launched against him, saying that the words of an old man would not make the arms drop from the hands of his soldiers. This actually happened in his Russian campaign from the intense cold; and on the same day on which Napoleon died at St. Helena, Pius VII was celebrating his own feast day at Rome. No wonder the French have a saying: “Whoever eats of the Pope dies.” The same fate is shared by the founders of heresies, and the enemies of religion. Arius burst asunder during a triumphal procession; Voltaire died in despair. These facts and many more of the same kind illustrate the words of Holy Writ: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).

b. When the Church is in the greatest need, Christ ever comes to its help, either by miracles or by raising up saintly men.

The appearance of the cross in the heavens, for instance, seen by Constantine and his army, brought the Christian persecution to an end. “The Church,” says St. Jerome, “is like Peter’s bark. When the storm is at its height the Lord wakes from His sleep and commands peace.”

c. “It is peculiar to the Church,” says St. Hilary, “to flourish most when persecuted.”

“Persecutions,” says St. Augustine, “serve to bring forth saints.” To the Church as well as to Eve were the words spoken: “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children” (Gen. 3:16). The members of the Church increase under persecution. The Church is a field, fruitful only when torn up by the plough, or it is a vine, stronger and richer for being pruned. “As fire is spread by the wind, so is the Church increased by persecution,” says St. Rupert. Persecution purifies the Church; even if millions fall away, it is not a loss but a cleansing. The time of persecution is usually a period of miracles, attesting the divine origin of the Church, as in the Babylonian captivity they attested the truth of the religion of the Jews. How often have Christians come unhurt out of boiling liquid, like St. Cecilia, or remained unharmed in the midst of the flames, like St. Polycarp, or been thrown to the beasts and received their homage like St. Venantius? Facts like these force the enemies of the Church to exclaim: “Mighty indeed is the God of the Christians.” The Church comes triumphant out of every persecution. Easter always follows Good Friday. But a few years ago the bishops in Germany were cast into prison, the religious Orders driven out, the administration of the sacraments in part forbidden; at the present day the number of Catholic members in the Reichstag is over a hundred, the Catholic journals have increased to four or five hundred, yearly congresses take place, and all kinds of unions for Catholic objects are formed, while the Catholics themselves are stauncher and more self-sacrificing. “The more battles the Church has to fight, the more her powers are developed; and the more she is oppressed the higher she rises,” are the words of Pius VII. Such a privilege belongs to no institution save the Church, and by that she may be recognized as the off-spring of God, the Bride of Christ.

The Infallibility of the Church

God has planted in our hearts a longing for truth which must be satisfied. Our first parents had no difficulties to face in the search for truth. “In the state of innocence,” says St. Thomas, “it was impossible for man to mistake false for true.” Ever since the Fall, to err is human. God, however, sent an infallible Teacher, His only-begotten Son, that man might again find the truth; hence the words of Christ to Pilate: “For this came I into the world that I should give testimony of the truth” (John 18:37). Christ was to be a light to our understandings, darkened as they were by sin (John 3:19). As Christ was not to remain always on earth, He appointed another infallible teacher, His Church, and provided it with the necessary gifts, especially with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

Christ conferred on His apostles and their successors the teaching office, and promised them His divine assistance.³¹⁰

Thus He said at His ascension into heaven: “Going, teach ye all nations … and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:19–20); and at the Last Supper: “I will ask the Father and He shall give you another Paraclete that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16–17). To St. Peter He said: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church” (Matt. 16:18). Since Christ is the Son of God, His words must be true. If the Church, in the carrying out of her teaching office, could lead man into error, Christ would not have kept His word. Hence St. Paul calls the Church “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), and the measures decided upon by the apostles in the Council of Jerusalem were introduced with the words: “For it hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). It is no recent belief that the Church is infallible. Long ago Origen writes, “As in the heavens there are two great sources of light, the sun, and the moon which borrows its light from the sun, so there are two sources of our interior light—Christ and the Church. Christ, the Light of the world, shares His light with the Church, and she enlightens all the earth.” In the words of St. Irenæus: “Where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God.”

1. The Catholic Church is infallible in her teaching; i.e., the Holy Spirit assists the Church in such a manner that she cannot err in the preserving and announcing of revealed doctrine.³¹¹

Just as our reason prevents us from making statements which are contrary to certain fundamental truths, so the Holy Spirit exerts His influence to prevent the Church giving any decision contrary to the truths taught by Christ. The infallibility of the Church is not in any way like that of God with God, for she attributes it not to herself but to God’s special providence over her.

2. The Church delivers her infallible decisions through general councils and through the Pope.³¹²

In every kingdom some court is established for the settlement of doubtful cases; it is evident that the all-wise God must have instituted some such tribunal in His kingdom; and this tribunal is the general assembly of the bishops, for at His ascent into heaven He gave them the power to teach, and promised them immunity from error (Matt. 28:18–20). Hence the expression of St. Cyprian: “The Church is in the bishops.” How since the bishops cannot always assemble together on account of their duties towards their particular dioceses, some other tribunal must exist with power to give infallible decisions. This tribunal is the Pope speaking ex cathedra. The priests have not this infallibility secured to them, though their services are indispensable to the bishops in the carrying out of the teaching office. Priests when present in the assemblies of bishops are so as counsellors, but without any deciding vote in the questions under consideration. So soon as the Church defines a question of doctrine, everyone is bound before God to submit under pain of excommunication.

A general council is the assembly of the bishops of the world presided over by the Pope.

The apostles in the year 51 held the first Council of Jerusalem, and announced their decisions as coming from God. Of the first four general councils St. Gregory the Great asserted that he held them in equal honor with the four gospels. Since the Council at Jerusalem there have been twenty general councils assembled. The first of these was held at Nicæa, in the year 325, to repel the Arian heresy. The following are specially worthy of note: the Third Council at Ephesus in 425, where Mary was declared to be the Mother of God; the Seventh General Council, or Second of Nicæa in 787, where the veneration of images was declared lawful; the Twelfth General Council or Fourth Lateran in 1215, which imposed the obligation of the Easter communion; the Nineteenth General Council at Trent (1545–1563), occasioned by Luther’s heresies; the Twentieth General Council in the Vatican (1870), where the infallibility of the Pope was defined as an article of faith. The presence of all the bishops is not required for a general council, but the greater number of them must be there; nor is a unanimous vote in any way necessary to secure a definition; a majority of votes approaching more or less to unanimity is quite sufficient. Thus in the Vatican Council five hundred and thirty-three bishops voted for the definition of Papal infallibility; two voted against, and fifty-two were absent from the meeting. Nor is it necessary that the Pope should preside in person; he may act through his legates as in the first, third, and fourth general councils. All that is necessary is that the Pope should approve of the decrees of the council. Others besides bishops have a vote, such as the cardinals, generals of religious Orders, and all who have episcopal authority, as in the case of many prelates and abbots; suffragans have also a vote when they are summoned, as happened in 1870. The general council only settles questions after mature consideration, relying generally on the teaching of the Catholic Church in the early ages. Besides general councils there are national councils, or assemblies of the bishops of a nation or kingdom under their primate, and also provincial councils or meetings of the bishops and dignitaries of a district under the archbishop; and finally diocesan synods, or assemblies of the clergy under their bishop. Such assemblies have no claim to infallibility.

The general consent of the bishops all over the world confirmed by the Pope is also infallible; this may happen when the Pope asks their opinion on a question of doctrine or morals.

A case of the kind happened in 1854. The Pope sent round to the various bishops of the world to ascertain the feeling of Christians at large as regarded the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. As nearly all the replies approved of the doctrine, it was solemnly defined as of faith. This consensus of the bishops, though living apart at the time, was infallible, because the Holy Spirit is not confined by limitations of place. Nor was this solemn declaration necessary; it was quite sufficient that all the bishops should teach in the same sense in regard of any given subject to make that teaching infallible; were it otherwise the Church would be capable of teaching heresy, or of falling away from the truth. Hence the Vatican Council declared that not only must that be accepted which has been solemnly defined by the Church, but also whatever is proposed by the lawful and general teaching authority (Vatican Council, 3, 3).

The Pope makes an infallible definition when, as teacher and guide of the Church, he proposes to the universal Church a doctrine of faith or morals. These decrees are called doctrinal.³¹³

The Vatican Council in 1870 decreed that all doctrinal decisions of the Pope were infallible.³¹⁴ This is the logical consequence of the words of Christ to St. Peter: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church” (Matt. 16:18). If the foundation of the Church were to fail, it would not be a rock but a quicksand. Moreover St. Peter was appointed shepherd of the apostles and the faithful in these words of Our Lord: “Feed My lambs, feed My sheep” (John 21:15, 17), and he received power to confirm his brethren in the faith (Luke 22:32). If then the Pope were to teach error, Our Lord’s promise would have come to naught. Decisions in matters of doctrine were held in the greatest reverence from the earliest times. When the Roman See condemned in 417 the errors of Pelagius St. Augustine cried out: “Rome has spoken; the cause is at an end.” And St. Cyprian says: “No heretics can gain admittance to the Church.” Even general councils call the Bishop of Rome “the father and teacher of all Christians” (Council of Florence, 1439), and the Roman Church “the Mother and Teacher of the faithful” (Fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215); of course the Church understood here is the teaching, the “hearing” Church having no claim to teach. The Pope must be infallible for this reason, too, that “he has full power to govern the whole Church” (Council of Florence); for with this power is necessarily linked authority to teach. The supreme teaching office of the Church involves infallibility in accordance with the divine promise of the assistance of the Holy Spirit. In consequence of this the decisions of the Pope are infallible of themselves, quite independently of the consent of the bishops (Council of Vatican, 4, 4). Were it otherwise the rock (or successor of St. Peter) would derive its strength and solidity from the building raised upon it (the Church). It would, however, be quite wrong to assert that the Pope is infallible in all things; for he is a man and can make mistakes as other men in writing, speaking, etc. He can also commit sin as other men, and unhappily some of the Popes led very scandalous lives. When the Pope gives a decision on a doctrinal matter, it is Christ Who keeps him from error by the agency of the Holy Spirit; moreover the bishops are always consulted before any such decision is given. Addresses to pilgrims, letters to kings and princes, the brief of suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, are not infallible pronouncements. Doctrinal decisions are usually accompanied by sentence of excommunication against those who refuse to submit to them; hence such decisions are binding for all Catholics. Although the Pope is infallible in his solemn decisions, general councils are not for that reason superfluous; for they confer a greater external solemnity on the Pope’s decrees, and the teaching of the Church can be more thoroughly examined in these assemblies. Hence these general councils may, under certain circumstances, be necessary as well as useful. Even the apostles held a general council at Jerusalem, though each single apostle was infallible in his office as teacher.

3. The Church pronounces infallible judgments in the following cases; On doctrines of faith and morals and their meaning and interpretation, on the Holy Scripture and Tradition and their interpretation.³¹⁵

If, for instance, the Church declares that the punishments of hell are eternal, the declaration is infallible, for it is made on a doctrine of faith; or again if it declare that the observation of Sunday is a command of God, the declaration turns on teaching with regard to morals and is therefore infallible. Christ made a special promise to His apostles that the Holy Spirit should teach them all truth (John 16:13); in other words that the Holy Spirit would teach them all truth bearing on religion; and that religion included morality as well as belief may be gathered from the words of Christ just before His ascent into heaven: “Going therefore teach ye all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20), and with regard to this last order He promised them the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and consequently, infallibility. Since the Church derives her doctrine from two sources, Holy Scripture and Tradition, it must be infallible in its interpretation of both.

Moreover, it is certain that the Church is infallible when it declares that any given opinion on faith or morals is contrary to revealed teaching, as also in the canonization of saints.

It is the common opinion of theologians that the Church is infallible in judging whether a proposition is opposed to revealed teaching. If, for example, the Church were to condemn the assertion that man is the offspring of a pair of apes as contrary to revelation, it would be acting quite within the limits of its infallibility, and on a subject most intimately connected with revealed doctrine. If the Church can see truth it must also be able to recognize error. From the earliest times the Church has condemned error, whether taught by writing or by word of mouth. At the Council of Nicæa (325), the errors of Arius were condemned by the bishops. Up to the present day the Pope has continually condemned books which have attacked faith or morals; and this could not have been unless God had conferred such powers. Any mistake in either beatifying or canonizing seems well-nigh impossible even on natural grounds, on account of the strict examination insisted on. By the act of canonization, the veneration of a saint, and so to a certain extent the acknowledgment of the Church’s belief in him, is imposed on the faithful, and he is then officially recognized in the Church’s offices, as in the Mass and Breviary; hence if anyone not a saint were declared holy, the whole Church would approve an error. Such a supposition is impossible. Pope Benedict XIV declares his own experience in these cases of the assistance of the Holy Spirit in removing insuperable difficulties which beset a process, or, on the other hand, in breaking it off entirely. Finally the Church in its decisions whether of beatification or canonization is dealing with things which have the closest connection with doctrine of faith or morals.³¹⁶

6. THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH

1. The ministers of the Church fall into three classes of distinct dignity and power: bishops, priests, and deacons (Council of Trent, 23 c. 4. Can. 6).³¹⁷

These were foreshadowed in the high priest, the priests, and the Levites of the Temple, as well as in Our Lord, the apostles, and disciples. To the apostles Our Lord said: “As the Father hath sent Me, so I send you” (John 20:21); to the disciples merely: “Go, behold I send you” (Luke 10:3). The apostles were sent to all the nations of the earth (Matt. 28:20); the disciples only to those places where the Lord was Himself to go (Luke 10:1). The bishops are now the successors of the apostles (Council of Trent, 23, 4); hence the bishops are of higher rank than priests because they belong to a higher order of the clergy and have higher orders; besides that they have greater powers, being the only real pastors of the flock, and in virtue of their jurisdiction deciding how far anyone else may share in their government of those committed to their charge. “The bishop alone can give orders,” says St. Jerome, and according to St. Cyprian he is the only ordinary minister of Confirmation. The Council of Trent assigned to bishops many other privileges beyond those enjoyed by the other ministers of the Church. In addition they have a judicial vote in councils. Priests rank higher than deacons, having higher orders and greater powers; they can offer the holy sacrifice, and forgive sins, while deacons can only baptize, preach, and give communion.

2. This hierarchy was in force in the time of the apostles.³¹⁸

We see in the Scriptures Timothy appointed with powers to judge priests (1 Tim. 5:19), to ordain them (1 Tim. 5:22), and to appoint them to various cities (Tit. 1:5). St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 A.D.) names the three orders: “Let all obey the bishops as Jesus obeyed the Father; let them obey the priests as the apostles, and honor the deacons as being the messengers of God.” Similar expressions occur in Clement of Rome (100 A.D.), and Clement of Alexandria (217 A.D.). There was, however, a certain vagueness in the use of terms in the time of the apostles; priests were called “elders” or “overseers.” The former title owed its origin to the Jewish converts, the latter to the heathen. In every community there were several priests (1 Tim. 4:14), of whom one was the superior or “high priest,” known in later times as the bishop. He was often called priest merely because he was in reality a priest; even the apostles Peter and John called themselves priests (1 Pet. 5:1; 2 John 1:1).

3. The episcopal and priestly office was instituted by Christ Himself; the diaconate by the apostles.

The deacons were appointed by the apostles to distribute alms, and were consecrated to this duty by the laying on of hands, accompanied with prayer (Acts 6:6); they also had spiritual functions as preaching (as in the case of St. Stephen) and baptizing (as in the case of St. Philip). In the early ages there were also deaconesses—widows who tended the sick and taught young girls. They were no part of the hierarchy, since it was a fixed principle in the Church that no woman should preach (1 Cor. 14:34), because she is subject to man and was first led astray in paradise (1 Tim. 2:12, etc.).

4. Besides these three classes there are other degrees varying in their powers: for example, Pope, cardinals, archbishops.

The distribution of authority is the basis of this classification: all, without exception, owe obedience to the Pope; the bishop rules all the clergy of his diocese; the clergy are in authority over those committed to their charge (1 Pet. 5:5; Heb. 13:17). The Church has its differences of rank like an army (Council of Trent, 23, 4); without these grades it would be a society without organization.

7. NOTES OF THE TRUE CHURCH

“When,” says St. Cyprian, “the devil saw that the worship of idols was abolished, and the heathen temples emptied, he bethought him of a new poison, and led men into error under cover of the Christian religion, the poison of false doctrine and pride, through which more than two hundred churches have started up in opposition to the true Church founded by Christ.” Now God has ordained that men should come to knowledge of the truth; i.e., of the true Church as distinguished from all others by certain marks.

1. The true Church is that one which is most persecuted by the world, and which has received God’s seal in the form of miracles.

Christ often spoke to His disciples of these persecutions: “The servant is not greater than his Master. If they have persecuted Me they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). “They will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues … you shall be hated by all men for My name’s sake” (Matt. 10:17–22). “Yea, the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God” (John 16:2). “Because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). Never in the history of the Catholic Church has it been free from persecution. Whatever be the differences between the sects they unite against the Church. The apostles, especially St. Paul, were objects of hate to the Jews (Acts 13:50; 17:8), and St. John (166 A.D.) testifies that their hatred of the Christians had not died out in his day. The present day is not wanting in examples in the sufferings inflicted on religious communities, in the interference of the secular governments in things spiritual, in the opposition made to processions and meetings and other devout practices. Can any Church be the true Church which does not oppose the spirit of the world? Then too it is only in the Catholic Church that we have miracles: those, for instance, of the apostles, all the saints worked both in their lifetime and after death, either at their graves or by the application of their relics. We know that God would work miracles only in confirmation of the truth.

2. The true Church is that one in which the successor of St. Peter is to be found.³¹⁹

The Church rests on a rock and that rock is Peter: “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church” (Matt. 28:20). “Where Peter is, there is the Church,” says St. Ambrose.

3. The true Church is known by the following four marks: she is One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.³²⁰

The Catholic Church alone has these marks:

a. The true Church is One. She has at all times and in all places the same doctrine, the same means of grace, and only one Head.³²¹

Truth can only be one; hence the teaching of the Church cannot change. Christ wished His Church to be one; for that He prayed at the Last Supper (John 17:20); “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16); He appointed one Head for the whole Church (John 21:17). The Catholic Church is One: her Catechisms the world over teach precisely the same doctrine. Everywhere the holy sacrifice is offered, and the sacraments given in the same way; the same ceremonies and feasts are observed all over the world. All Catholics acknowledge the Pope as Head of the Church. If there were antipopes it is none the less true that someone was the true Pope; the existence of many pretenders to a throne does not exclude the claim of the true king. Nor can heresy destroy this unity, for the heretic who refuses to submit is no longer a member of the Church. None need accuse the Church of want of progress because it holds fast by its old established doctrines; there is no true progress in giving up the truth and adopting error. The truth cannot change; hence Bossuet might well say: “Protestantism, thou art changeable, therefore thou canst not be the truth!”

b. The true Church is Holy, i.e., it has the means and the endeavor to lead all men to holiness.³²²

Christ founded the Church for the very purpose of making men holy. The Catholic Church is holy. All its teaching is lofty and pure; the great principle underlying its commands are self-denial and the love of one’s neighbor; all its sacraments, and especially penance and the Holy Eucharist are great aids to the sanctification of mankind, and the complete following out of the evangelical counsels can lead a man to the highest point of perfection; moreover the Catholic Church has a host of saints, whose holiness is attested by miracles. The misdeeds of some members, or abuses occurring within the Church are due not to the Church, but to the perversity of men. Even among the apostles there was a traitor, and Christ compared some members of the Church to weeds and worthless fish. Can any Church be holy which adopts Luther’s teaching that faith alone is sufficient for salvation, and good works unnecessary? or Calvin’s doctrine that some men are predestined by God to hell fire? or any Church which, on its own confession, owns that none of its members have been saints and their sanctity confirmed by miracle?

c. The true Church is universal or Catholic, i.e., she is empowered to receive men into her bosom in all places and all times.³²³

Christ died for all men, and on ascending into heaven gave His apostles the mission to teach all the nations of the earth till the end of time (Matt. 28:20). Hence His Church was meant to be for all nations, and this is confirmed by the miracle of tongues on the first Pentecost. The Catholic Church is universal; her teaching applies to all people, the polished Greek, the victorious Roman, the rude barbarian as well as to the outcast slave. At present the Catholic Church is spread over the whole world. “Heretics are everywhere,” said St. Augustine, “but no particular heresy is everywhere.” The Church has about 260,000,000 members, hence it is more widespread than any other religion, and is continually sending missionaries to the heathen. Can, then, any Church which depends entirely on the government, as, for instance, the Russian Church, or the Anglican, which is wholly national in England, be the true Church? or can one which has no real success among the heathen have a claim to truth?

d. The true Church is Apostolic; i.e., she comes down from the time of the apostles, her teaching is always what it was in the time of the apostles, and her ministers are legitimate successors of the apostles.³²⁴

The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles of which Christ is the corner-stone (Eph. 2:20). “That is the true Church,” says St. Jerome, “which was founded by the apostles and endures unto the present day.” The Catholic Church is Apostolic; it has lasted nineteen hundred years, Luther himself confessed that it was the oldest. The teaching of the oldest of the Fathers agrees perfectly with our Catechism, and our services are substantially the same as those of the first ages.

The consideration of these notes and marks has, in the course of ages, led many of the noblest of men into the bosom of the Catholic Church.

It is remarkable that men of the greatest learning and virtue have, even in the face of great sacrifices, entered the Catholic Church, while those who have deserted it have generally shown by their lives what they really were. We have reason to rejoice in our religion that it offers us such special consolation in trouble and at the hour of death. Thus Melancthon wrote to his Catholic mother: “The Protestant faith is the best one to live in, but the Catholic is the best to die in,” and again: “The new religion makes the best show, the Catholic gives most security.”

8. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ALONE GIVES SALVATION

In other words: “Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.”

1. The Catholic Church alone gives salvation; i.e., the Catholic Church alone possesses those means which lead to salvation, viz., the doctrine of Christ, the means of salvation appointed by Christ, and the teachers and guides of the Church established by Christ.³²⁵

The Church cannot teach that truth and error lead equally well to salvation; she makes no declaration as to who is saved, but states only what is necessary for salvation. The judgment of particular individuals is left to the God Who searches hearts (Ps. 7:10). Her doctrine is not a declaration of intolerance to the individual, but of intolerance of error, such an intolerance as God Himself expressed when He forbade false gods to appear before Him (1 Cor. 5). So far is the Church from hating those outside her pale that in her public prayers on Good Friday she begs God’s mercy for them. The persecutions of the Middle Ages formed no part of the work of the Church, which desired not the death, but the conversion of the sinner; it was the civil power which used force to repress heretics, because as a rule they disturbed the public peace and morality. The Church is the way to salvation; it differs in this respect from the synagogue; the latter merely pointed out the way of salvation in the distant future, while the Church claims itself to be the true way. The Catholic Church is distinct from the heretical churches which have corrupted Christ’s doctrine and have rejected the means of grace, especially Mass and penance. Their way is a roundabout way, or the wrong way. “The further one goes out of the right path,” says St. Augustine, “the further he is from the goal of his journey.”³²⁶

2. Hence every man is bound to become a member of the Catholic Church.³²⁷

Some will say that a man ought not to change his religion; they might just as well argue that, a man may keep an inheritance which his father obtained unjustly. Others say: “One faith is as good as another, and all lead equally well to heaven.” This is to profess indifferentism. It is certain that one religion only can be the true one, i.e., the one revealed by God; and reason alone would tell us that the truth is what we should aim at. It is absurd to suppose that God is unconcerned whether man adore Him or sticks and stones, or whether Christ be regarded as His Son or as a blasphemer. Why should Christ, and after Him the apostles, preach the Gospel amid so much persecution, if it were of no moment what a man believed? Why were the apostles so vehement in denouncing those who perverted the teaching of Christ (Gal. 1:8; 2 John 1:10)? Why should God have converted Saul, and sent an angel to Cornelius? The apostles gave the reason: “There is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 6:12). And Christ said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). Hence it is that so many eminent people enter the Church, despite the sacrifices entailed. Queen Christina, the only daughter of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the arch-enemy of the Catholics, studied the Catholic teaching and was persuaded of its truth; and as the laws of the land forbade her to practice her faith, she resigned her crown and spent the rest of her days in Rome. So, too, in the beginning of the century Count Stolberg resigned his post on his conversion. In England during the last few decades very many most distinguished men have entered the Church, especially Cardinals Newman and Manning. Even from Judaism there have been remarkable conversions, as, e.g., those of Ratisbonne and Liebermann.

3. Whoever through his own fault remains outside the Church will not be saved.³²⁸

A man who, knowing the Catholic Church to be the true one, leaves it, say, to make a good marriage, or to push on his business, or for some such unworthy motive, will not be saved; so, too, of the man who from a cowardly fear of the reproaches or the disesteem of others, does not enter the Church. The same is true of the man who having solid doubts as to whether his Church is the true one, takes no pains to find out the truth. Such as these love the darkness better than the light (John 3:19). “He cannot have God for a Father, who has not the Church for a Mother,” says St. Cyprian. “He who has not Christ for a Head,” are the words of St. Augustine, “cannot be saved; and he who does not belong to the body of Christ, i.e., to the Church of Christ, has not Christ for his Head.” “He who breaks away from the Church separates himself from Christ” (Council of Lateran, iv.).

If, however, a man, through no fault of his own, remains outside the Church, he may he saved if he lead a God-fearing life; for such a one is to all intents and purposes a member of the Catholic Church.³²⁹

The majority of men who have been brought up in heresy think that they belong to the true Church; their error is not due to hatred of God. A man who leads a good life and has the love of God in his heart, really belongs to the Church, and such a one is saved, not by his heresy, but by belonging to the Church. St. Peter said: “In every nation he that feareth God and worketh justice is acceptable to Him” (Acts 10:35). “The Catholic Church,” says St. Gregory the Great, “embraces all the just from Abel to the last of the elect at the end of the world.” All who lived up to their lights were Christians, though they might have been looked upon as godless, as, e.g., Socrates among the Greeks, Abraham and Elijah among the Jews. They do not belong to the body of the Church, that is, they are not externally in union with the Church, but they are of the soul of the Church, i.e., they have the sentiments which the members of the Church should have.

Thus the Catholic Church has members both visible and invisible.

The visible members are those who have been received into the Church by Baptism. The following are not members: The unbaptized (heathens, Jews, Mohammedans), formal heretics (Protestants), and schismatics (the Greeks), those who are excommunicated. The invisible members are those who without any fault of their own are outside the Church leading God-fearing lives.³³⁰

The visible members of the Church are called living or dead members, according as they are in the state of sanctifying grace or not.³³¹

It is an error to think that those who have fallen into grave sin are no longer members of the Church. The Church is like a field, in which grow both wheat and cockle (Matt. 13:24), or like a net which contains fish both good and bad (Matt. 13:47). It is not enough to belong to the Church; a man should also live up to his belief, otherwise is membership will help only to his greater condemnation.

9. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN
CHURCH AND STATE

The State might be defined as an institution having for its end the promotion of the temporal well-being of its members. Church and State have similar ends in view, but the Church looks mainly to the eternal welfare of its members. Both have their power from God, the Church holding hers from Christ, while the State receives its powers, not from an assembly of men, but from God (Leo XIII). There are various points of difference between Church and State: the Church is one, while States are many; the State includes one or more nations, the Church embraces all the nations of the earth; States grow up and pass away, the Church remains forever. The Church recognizes every form of existing government, for there is nothing in the various forms that contradicts Catholic teaching (Leo XIII). Hence Leo XIII has frequently enjoined on the French monarchists to recognize and support the existing republic. Christ Himself taught that what was Cæsar’s should be given to Cæsar (Matt. 22:21).

1. The Church is, in its own department, absolutely independent of the State, for Christ left the teaching and government of His Church to the apostles and their successors, not to any temporal sovereign.³³²

Hence the State has no claim to dictate to Christians what they are to believe and reject, nor to instruct priests what they are to preach, nor how and when they are to give the sacraments, say Mass, etc. Such interference has always been resented by the Church; thus Hosius, at the Council of Nicæa, addressed the Roman emperor when the latter was meddling in matters of faith: “Here you have no right to dictate to us; it is rather your duty to follow our commands.” The State, too, is in its own affairs independent of the Church. “The power of the State as well as that of the Church is circumscribed by limits within which it can work uncontrolled” (Leo XIII). There are many points however where these limits touch; hence a mutual agreement is necessary on both sides. If contrary orders were given in the same matter strife would arise, and the subject would not know where his duty lay (Leo XIII). Between the two powers there should be some such union as there is between the body and soul in man (Leo XIII). Agreements between State and Church are of frequent occurrence in history: they are called Concordats. These are often conspicuous proofs of the tender love of the Church in pushing her mildness and toleration as far as is consistent with her duty (Leo XIII).

2. The Church is an essential factor in promoting the welfare of the State, for she teaches obedience to authority, prevents many crimes, incites men to noble endeavor, and unites together various nations.³³³

Plutarch speaks of religion forming a better protection for a city than its walls. The Church teaches that the civil authority has its power from God (Rom. 13:1), and that even wicked rulers are to be obeyed (1 Pet. 2:18). How many sinners have been rescued by the Church and changed into saints and benefactors of mankind! How many have been restrained from crime by the teaching of the Church, or God’s judgments! How much unjustly acquired property has been restored, and how many enemies reconciled! More than this, the Church teaches that salvation depends on works of mercy, and makes it a point of duty for her members to assist their suffering brethren. How many institutions for orphans, for the sick and blind and deaf-mutes, etc., owe their foundation to the servants of the Church! Indeed, the needy are the Church’s first care. Moreover the Church binds the nations together in the bonds of brotherhood, both by a common profession of faith and by the precept of charity. Hence it is that as far as possible the priests of the Church should keep aloof from all strife between nations.

In consequence of this all good rulers and statesmen have supported the Church to the best of their power.

Such was the policy of Constantine the Great, of Charlemagne, of St. Stephen, Ring of Hungary, and St. Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia. Rulers who reject the Church saw at the branch which supports them; the people see in them no longer the representatives of God but merely the elected of the people removable at the people’s will.

The States which have persecuted the Church have always sooner or later experienced the evil results of so doing.

Our Lord’s words are very apt here: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation” (Luke 11:17). Religion is to the State what the soul is to the body. “The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish” (Is. 60:12). “The surest sign of ruin in a State,” writes Machiavelli, “is when religion is neglected.” The fall of the great Roman empire and the horrors of the French revolution may be traced to the same cause. Even Napoleon confessed that no nation could be governed without religion. The absence of religion means the introduction of crime: “There is no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery have overflowed” (Hos. 4:1–2). Our prisons are filled with people who for the most part neglect religion.

3. The Church was, from the earliest times, the patron of true education and culture.

It is to the interest of the Church to promote culture. Ignorance and immorality are usually close companions. The world is a book displaying the wisdom of God; the more we know of this book, the more we shall know of God, and the more will our love for Him be increased. Hence it is the duty of the Church to encourage scientific research (Leo XIII). It was Christianity which tamed the wild nations of Europe, civilizing them and making them the rulers of other peoples (Leo XIII). “Had the Church been established with the view of ministering to the temporal wants of man, it could not have conferred greater benefits than it has done,” is the judgment of St. Augustine on the work of the Church.

It was the Church which first charged itself with the education of the young and founded the first schools.

The schools of the monastery, cathedral and parish in the time of Charlemagne owed their origin to the Church. Most of the universities owe their existence to the Pope. Whole Orders of Religious, such as the Benedictines, Jesuits, Christian Brothers and others devote themselves to the education of youth. The success of the Jesuits was acknowledged even by their enemies, and in spite of their suppression in 1773 Frederick of Prussia, and Catherine of Russia, neither of them Catholics, retained them to instruct the youth of their kingdoms.

It was the Church which rescued the great works of antiquity from destruction.

The monks of the Middle Ages transcribed the works of the heathen philosophers and historians, thus preserving them to posterity. The great libraries of the monasteries, as well as the museums and libraries of the Popes, preserved many treasures. We might remark, too, that the Benedictines have produced sixteen thousand authors and the Jesuits, in their comparatively short existence, twelve thousand.

It was the Church which, from early times, raised the noblest buildings.

Such a structure, for instance, as St. Peter’s in Rome, which was one hundred and ten years in building, or the Cathedral at Cologne, begun in 1249 and finished in 1880. Not to mention the glorious structures to be seen all over the Continent, in Germany, France, Spain, Italy. England is filled with magnificent buildings like Westminster, Lincoln, York, Durham, etc. A large proportion of the finest edifices in the United States are Catholic churches.

It was the Church which from the earliest times gave the greatest encouragement to the fine arts.³³⁴

We owe Plain Chant or Gregorian to St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (397 A.D.) and St. Gregory the Great (604 A.D.), and its developments to many other artists. It was the Popes who encouraged men like Palestrina (1594). Twice in its history the Church resisted the Iconoclast (or image-breaking) movement, at Nicæa in 787, and at Trent in 1563. Artists of world-wide fame, such as Leonardo da Vinci (1519), Raphael (1520), Michael Angelo (1564), Correggio (1564), Canova (1822), etc., owed much of their success to the support of the Popes. It was the cloister which produced some of the finest artists and their works.

It was the Church which made whole tracts of land fertile and habitable.

The work of the Benedictines and Cistercians in the way of clearing and draining land and developing agriculture was especially conspicuous in the German forests. The same work is carried on in lesser-developed nations now by the Trappists and other religious Orders.

It is to priests and monks that we owe some of the greatest discoveries.³³⁵

The Deacon Flavio Gioja discovered the magnet and compass in 1300; Veit, a monk of Arezzo, discovered the scale, the rules of music and harmony; the Dominican Spina the use of spectacles; the Franciscan Berthold Schwarz gunpowder (1300); the Jesuit Kircher exhibited the first burning glass (1646); Copernicus, a canon of Frauenberg discovered his famous system (1507); the Jesuit Cavaliere the components of white light (1647); the Spanish Benedictine Pontius invented a method of teaching deaf-mutes (1570); the Jesuit Lana a way of teaching the blind to read (1687); and the Jesuit Secchi (1878) made many discoveries with regard to sun-spots. Only lately the Dominican Calandoni invented a type-setter to replace the compositor. The enemies of the Church are always crying her down as opposed to progress, enlightenment and freedom.

10. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

The members of the Church may be divided into three classes: those who are still on the earth, “having not here a lasting city, but seeking the one that is to come” (Heb. 13:14); those who have reached their goal in heaven, the saints; and those who are expiating their sins in purgatory. All are “fellow citizens with the saints and domestics of God,” working together for the same object of union with God. The members of this great community are called “saints” because all are sanctified by Baptism (1 Cor. 6:11), and are called to a holy life (1 Thess. 4:3). Those in heaven have already attained to perfect holiness. Yet St. Paul calls the Christians still on earth “saints” (Eph. 1:1).

1. The communion of saints is the union and intercourse of Catholics on earth, of the souls in purgatory, and of the saints in heaven.³³⁶

The Church on earth is called the Church Militant, because of its ceaseless struggle with its three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. The souls in purgatory form the Church Suffering, because they are still expiating their sins in the cleansing fire. The blessed in heaven are called the Church Triumphant, because they have already secured their victory. These three divisions are one Church by the common bond of Baptism.

2. Catholics on earth, the souls in purgatory, and the blessed in heaven are united with Christ, just as are the members of a body with the head (Rom. 12:4).³³⁷

The Holy Spirit works in all the members (1 Cor. 12:13). “The soul,” says St. Augustine, “animates all the organs of the body, and causes the eye to see, the ear to hear, etc.;” just so does the Holy Spirit work in the members of Christ’s body; and as the Holy Spirit proceeds from Christ, Christ is the head of the Christian body (Col. 1:18). He is the vine carrying strength and nourishment to the branches (John 15:5). Each member of the body has its own special functions, so each member of the Church has his own gifts (1 Cor. 12:6–10, 28). Each member of the body works for the whole body; so every member of the Church works for the common good. All the members of the body share the pain or pleasure felt by one, and the same is true of the mutual sympathy of the communion of saints: “If one member suffer anything, all the members suffer with it; or, if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). Thus the saints in heaven are not indifferent to our condition. Catholics who have fallen into mortal sin are still members of this great body, though dead members; but they cease to be members if they are excommunicated.

3. All the members of the communion of saints have a share in the spiritual goods of the Catholic Church, and can help one another by their prayers and other good works. The saints alone in heaven have no need of help.³³⁸

In a similar manner all the people of a country have a share in the institutions supported by the country, such as hospitals, asylums, law courts, etc. So also, in the family circle, all the members have a claim to share in the common goods, such as riches or honors. Thus all the Masses, the means of grace, the prayers of the Church, and all the good works done by individuals, are for the benefit of all its members. In the Our Father we pray for others as well as for ourselves; holy Mass is offered for the dead as well as the living, and the same is true of the Office recited by the priest. Hence it is that one may have more hope of converting the greatest sinner who still belongs to the Church than a Freemason who outwardly leads a good life, yet who is cut off from it; and a Catholic may look forward to a quicker release from purgatory than others. St. Francis Xavier constantly cheered himself with the thought that the Church was praying for him, and supporting him with her good works. Moreover, all the members of the Church can give mutual help. There is the same sympathy as in the human body, where a sound member comes to the help of one that is weaker, and the possession of good lungs, a sound heart, or healthy stomach, may help the body to recover from what might otherwise have been a fatal illness. The eye does not act for itself alone; it guides the hands and feet. Sodom would have been saved had ten just men been found within its walls.

a. All Catholics can help each other by prayer and good works.³³⁹

St. Peter was freed from prison by the prayers of the Christians. “The prayer of St. Stephen,” says St. Augustine, “procured the conversion of St. Paul.” The tears and prayers of St. Monica converted her son. Even in the Old Testament God promised that He would be merciful to the prayers of the priest (Lev. 4:20). St. James bids us: “Pray one for another, that you may be saved” (Jas. 5:16), and St. Paul: “I beseech you … help me in your prayers for me to God” (Rom. 15:30). Christ revealed to Marie Lataste that as Esther saved her people by her intercession with Assuerus, so the prayers of a single soul may save a whole nation from the avenging hand of God. Prayer is a work of mercy, and brings down a blessing on the one who prays and the one who is prayed for. Fasting and almsgiving are also means of help. As a man’s, debts may be paid off by his neighbor, so the debt of sin may in some measure be paid off by the good works of others; and thus it was in the early Church that penances were often remitted or shortened at the intercession of the martyrs.

b. We can also help the holy souls in purgatory by prayers and other good works; they in turn can help us by their prayers, especially when they reach heaven.³⁴⁰

The Jews even believed that help could be given to the souls of the departed; for we read (2 Macc. 12) how Judas Maccabeus caused sacrifices to be offered for those who had fallen in battle, and sent money to the Temple for that purpose. The passing-bell and the knell are signals to pray for the dying and the dead. In the Memento after the Consecration at Mass a special petition is made for the departed. “Prayer,” says St. Augustine, “is the key by which we open the gates of heaven to the suffering souls.” The prayers of the living, especially holy Mass, almsdeeds, and other works of piety are of great efficacy in lessening the sufferings of the holy souls (Council of Lyons, 1274). The souls in purgatory can also help us. Many saints held that we can petition the holy souls to pray for us (Bellarmine; St. Alphonsus). St. Catherine of Bologna (1463), used often to call upon the holy souls when the saints seemed to fail in helping her, and she never asked them in vain.

c. The saints in heaven can help us by their prayers before the throne of God (Rev. 8:4), especially if we call upon them for help.³⁴¹

The saints must know much of what happens on earth, for their happiness consists in the complete satisfaction of all their desires. The devil knows all our weaknesses, as we know from the way in which he tempts us. The prophets of the Old Testament sometimes foretold future events, and knew the most hidden things; is it likely that the saints are less favored than they? They rejoice when a sinner is converted (Luke 15:7). “What can escape those,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “who see Him Who sees all things?” And the Church teaches us that when we call upon the saints for their prayers, they join their prayers to ours. Their intercession has great efficacy, for the “continual prayer of a just man even on the earth availeth much” (Jas. 5:16). What power Abraham had when pleading for Sodom! (Gen. 28) “If,” says St. Jerome, “the saints had such power when in the flesh, what can they not obtain for us now that they have secured their victory?” St. John Chrysostom compares their intercession to the pleading of old soldiers who display their wounds. This power has often been demonstrated by miracles.

Our dead relatives and friends, who are in heaven, are always pleading for us at the throne of God, and often save us from danger.³⁴²

“Charity never dies” (1 Cor. 13:8), and the ties which bind us to those we love remain unbroken by death. Even in hell the wretched Dives showed he had some affection still for his relatives on earth (Luke 16:27). The prophet Jeremiah, and the holy high priest Onias, prayed in limbo for the Jewish nation (2 Macc. 15:14); and Christ promised His apostles that He would pray for them (John 14:16; 1 John 2:1). St. Augustine, after the death of his mother St. Monica, and St. Wenceslaus after the death of his grandmother St. Ludmilla rapidly advanced to greater heights of sanctity. So too the saints help the souls in purgatory. “Our Lady alone rescues daily some souls from purgatory by her prayers.” On the anniversary of the Assumption of Our Lady thousands of souls are delivered from their prison (St. Peter Damian; St. Alphonsus). On Saturdays, the day specially dedicated to Our Lady, she rescues many poor souls from purgatory (John XXII, Sabbatine Bull). Nor are the holy angels indifferent to their future companions; one of the Church’s prayers speaks of St. Michael leading souls into heaven. Our angel guardian, and the angels whom we have specially honored on earth, will take up our cause in purgatory.

TENTH ARTICLE OF THE CREED:
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH ARTICLES
OF THE CREED: THE LAST THINGS

1. DEATH

Every day some eighty-eight thousand men die; that is, one death per second.

1. At death the soul is separated from the body, and enters the world of spirits; the body decays, and falls into dust.³⁴³

St. Paul speaks of death as a dissolution (2 Tim. 4:6), and St. Peter calls the body a tabernacle of the soul (2 Pet. 1:14). The body is, as it were, a shell through which the soul breaks to enter in its new life. “The soul is freed from its prison at death,” is the expression of St. Augustine. The body, deprived of the soul, is no longer alive, because it has no longer the principle of life. At death the spirit returns to the God Who gave it (Eccles. 12:7). “Death,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is a journey into eternity.” Hence it is wrong to believe with the ancient Egyptians that the soul is joined to other forms, whether human or animal; and those too are mistaken who think that the soul enters into a sort of sleep till the day of judgment. After death the body returns to the dust from which it came (Gen. 3:19); exception was made, however, in the case of the bodies of Christ and of His blessed Mother; and the bodies of some of the saints have been preserved free from corruption to the present day. At the last day our bodies will all rise again. Death is represented symbolically as a skeleton carrying a scythe, with which he cuts short our lives as the reaper mows the grass of the field (Ps. 102[103]:15); he is also represented carrying a key to open to us the gates of everlasting life.

2. All men must die, because death is the consequence of original sin.³⁴⁴

Our first parents lost by their sin the gift of immortality, and as a consequence we all have to die. “By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Death is the punishment of man’s ambition to be as God. Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) alone were removed from earth without dying, and they are to return before the Last Day, and then die; St. Thomas teaches that even those who survive till the Day of Judgment shall die. Christ alone was not under the law of death because He was free from all sin; His death for us was a purely voluntary act. “Life,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is a play in which for a short time one man represents a judge, another a general, and so on; after the play no further account is made of the dignity which each one had.” We are all like so many chess-men, who at the beginning of the game have our fixed places on the board, but at the end are all tumbled into a box. The rich man cannot take his riches along with him (Job 27:15). After death many who have been the first on earth shall be last, and the last first (Matt. 19:30). Our days upon earth are but a shadow (Job 8:9); our years shall be considered as a spider’s web (Ps. 89[90]:9); life is a vapor which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away (Jas. 4:15). The hour of our death is unknown to us. We shall die when we expect it not (Matt. 24:44); death will come like a thief (Matt. 24:43). To use the expression of St. Ephrem, death is like the pounce of the hawk, or the spring of the wolf. St. Gregory of Nyssa compares life to a torch, which a slight puff of wind may put out. To some of the saints the hour of their death has been revealed, but from most men it is hidden. We see in this arrangement the action of God’s wisdom and goodness. Since we do not know the hour of our death, we should always be ready to die: “Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come” (Matt. 24:44). The parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25) is another warning on this subject. “Death is a great lord,” says St. Ephrem, “waiting on no one and demanding that all wait upon him.” As a man lives, so he dies. Those who put off reforming their lives are like those students who begin to study when the examination is already upon them.

3. Death is terrible only to the sinner, in no wise to the just.³⁴⁵

To the sensual and self-seeking only is death fearful, for it means the end of their enjoyment and the beginning of woe. “The death of the just man,” says St. Vincent Ferrer, “is like the pruning of a tree preparing it to bear nobler fruit in the future; while the death of the sinner is the uprooting of the tree before it is cast into the fire.” “For the just man there is no death but a passing into everlasting life.” The saints rejoiced in death, desiring like St. Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23). St. John Chrysostom compares the desire of the saints for death with that of a traveler for the end of his journey, or a farmer for his harvest; in another place he speaks of death as of a change from a tumbledown cottage to a beautiful mansion. “O how sweet it is to die, if one’s life has beeN a good one!” exclaims St. Augustine. It is not the kind of death, but the state of the soul that is important: “As the tree falls so shall it lie,” says Holy Writ (Eccles. 11:3); so it is with man: as his will was directed on earth, so shall it be directed after death. Happy the man whose will has been always fixed on God; in other words who has in his heart the love of God and sanctifying grace; he will see God. Unhappily, many are bent solely on things of the earth, those, for instance, who love the world and are not in the state of grace; they remain separated from God forever.

4. In order to secure a happy death, we should in our daily prayer ask God to grant us a happy death, and of our own accord detach ourselves now from earthly goods and pleasures.³⁴⁶

He dies a happy death who is reconciled with God, and has put his worldly affairs in order. We ought often to pray that God may give us the grace to receive the last sacraments before dying. It is also a duty to make a will in good time; to do this is to behave like a prudent captain who heaves his cargo overboard to avoid shipwreck. A sudden death is not a thing to be desired, for we cannot then put into order our spiritual or temporal affairs; hence we pray in the Litanies: “From a sudden and unprovided death deliver us, O Lord.” The Church often recalls the thought of death, on All Souls, Ash Wednesday, by the passing-bell, etc. The thought of death is useful for keeping us out of sin: “In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Sir. 7:40). Whoever thinks seriously of death will take as little pleasure in the things of the world as the condemned criminal in a good meal; he is another Damocles, with the sword hanging over him by a hair. Every day’s sunset is a reminder from God of death, and sleep is an image of it. We ought to detach ourselves even now from earthly goods and pleasures. After death our eyes will no longer see, nor our ears hear, nor our tongues speak; and we should prepare for that state by our voluntary restraint now. We should crush the curiosity of the eyes and the ears, our unruly speech and inordinate enjoyment of good, following the counsel of St. Basil: “Let us die that we may live.” The good works which the Church imposes on us, such as prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, are nothing but a loosening of the heart from earthly ties. Only those who have this detachment shall see God after death: “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).

2. THE PARTICULAR JUDGMENT

1. Immediately after death follows the particular judgment.³⁴⁷

“As soon as the soul leaves the body,” says St. Augustine, “it is judged.” We learn from the parable of Dives and Lazarus that both were judged immediately after death. St. Paul tells us: “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). In the hour of death God will say to us: “Give an account of thy stewardship” (Luke 16:2). After judgment comes the sentence. If God has ordained that the workman should not be kept waiting for his wage, it is not likely that He will delay to reward him who has labored faithfully. “Death is the reward of merit, the crown of the harvest” (St. Ambrose).

Christ will sit as Judge in the particular judgment. He will examine our whole lives, and will deal with us as we have dealt with our fellow-men.

Christ will be our Judge: “For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). He promised His apostles at the Last Supper to return after His ascension and take them to Himself (John 14:3). Evidently this meant at their death; of St. John too He said: “So I will have him remain till I come” (John 21:22). The apostles rejoiced at the thought of seeing Christ again (1 John 3:2); so long as they were in the flesh they were in some sense far from Christ (2 Cor. 5:6). We are not to imagine that the soul is led before Christ in heaven. He enlightens the departed soul in such a manner that it is quite convinced that its Saviour has passed a true judgment upon it. “As lightning cometh out of the east and appeareth even into the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:27); that is, as Blessed Clement Hofbauer puts it, at our death, when Christ comes to us, our whole life will be revealed to us with the rapidity and clearness of lightning. A man’s works shall be revealed at his death (Sir. 11:29). All those who have been near to death say that in that moment all sorts of things long forgotten and occurring in childhood are presented to the mind. At death, too, our most secret deeds are brought to light: “For there is not anything secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:17). We must give an account even of every idle word that we have spoken (Matt. 12:36). St. Basil compares the soul to an artist who has produced a number of pictures; at the hour of death the veil is removed from these, and they cover him with glory, or if they prove to be wretched work, condemn him to disgrace. As the sun reveals to us the floating particles in the air, so when the Sun of justice shines into our souls we shall see there even our slightest faults. “On the Day of Judgment,” says Louis of Granada, “God will wear the same aspect to us as we have shown in our lifetime to our neighbor.” God is, as it were, a mirror, reflecting most perfectly the image of him who looks into it. “With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matt. 7:2).

2. After the particular judgment the souls of men go into hell, or heaven, or purgatory.³⁴⁸

We see from the parable of Dives and Lazarus that the sentence of the judge is carried out at once (Luke 16). The Church has defined that those who have not sinned after Baptism, and those who having sinned after Baptism, have expiated those sins on earth or in purgatory, are received at once into heaven; while those who die in mortal sin descend at once to hell (Second Council of Lyons, 1274). St. Gregory the Great and St. Justin taught the same in their time. Those are in error who believe, as in the Greek schismatic Church, that the souls of the just have merely a foretaste of their blessedness after death, and have complete happiness only when they are joined to their bodies, and that the wicked experience full damnation only after the resurrection. They are very few who enter heaven at once, for: “Nothing defiled can enter heaven” (Rev. 21:27). According to Bellarmine it is seldom even that a just man escapes purgatory. All have it in their power to be saved, but not all use their graces. After the particular judgment there is to be a general judgment; in the former the soul receives its punishment or reward for the evil or good it has done; in the latter the body shares in the dispensation as the instrument of the soul.

3. HEAVEN

Heaven is an abode of everlasting joy.³⁴⁹

Christ gave His apostles on Mount Thabor some foretaste of the joys of heaven (Matt. 17). The heavens opened at the baptism of Christ (Matt. 3:16). St. Stephen saw the heavens open (Acts 7:55). St. Paul was rapt into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2). Heaven is both a place and a state. Many divines teach that it is somewhere beyond the stars; though this view is not of faith, yet it has some foundation, for Christ came down from heaven, and ascended again to heaven. Heaven is also a state of the soul; it consists in the vision of the Godhead (Matt. 18:10), and in the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17); so the angels and saints do not leave heaven when they come to our assistance. Christ is the King of heaven. He called Himself King before Pilate, though He maintained that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36); He was acknowledged as King by the penitent thief: “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42); in heaven the angels worship Christ (Heb. 1:6). Heaven is our true home; on this earth we are but strangers (2 Cor. 5:6).

The joys of heaven are unspeakably great: the blessed are free from even the slightest pain; they enjoy the vision of God and the friendship of all the inhabitants of heaven.³⁵⁰

Of the joys of heaven St. Paul writes: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). “This happiness may be felt, but not described,” says St. Augustine. And David addresses God: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure” (Ps. 35[36]:9). “The present life,” says St. Gregory the Great, “in comparison of everlasting bliss, is more like death than life.” We shall enjoy there the same delights as God Himself (Matt. 25:21), for we shall be made partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and like to God (1 John 3:2). We shall be transformed in heaven like the iron in the fire. In heaven there are many mansions (John 14:2); the kingdom of heaven is like to a banquet (Matt. 8:11; Luke 14:16), in which Our Lord Himself waits upon the guests (Luke 12:37). In heaven there is no bodily, only a spiritual food (Tob. 12:19); there is a great light (1 Tim. 6:16); there are heard the songs of the angels (Ps. 83[84]:5). The saints are robed in white (Rev. 7:14); they are crowned by their Lord (Wisd. 5:17); they have perfect freedom, and are set over all God’s works (Matt. 24:47). “If, O my God, Thou dost give us such beautiful things here in our prison, what wilt Thou do in Thy palace!” exclaims St. Augustine. Lastly the joys of heaven are not sensual (Matt. 22:30). The blessed are free from all suffering. “It is easier,” says St. Augustine, “to name the evils from which the blessed are free than to count up their joys.” They shall neither hunger nor thirst (Rev. 7:16); death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor sorrow (Rev. 21:4); and night will no more be (Rev. 22:5). The blessed see always the face of God (Matt. 18:10); they see God as He is (1 John 3:2), and face to face (1 Cor. 13:12); nor do they see God as it were in an image, but He is as present to the understanding as a visible object to the eye which sees it. The blessed enjoy this vision not by any power of their own, but by a special divine operation, called the light of glory, and in consequence of this they become like to God (1 John 3:2). This vision of God is the source of untold happiness. “The blessed,” says St. Bonaventure, “rejoice more over God’s blessedness than over their own.” “If the contemplation of creation is so sweet,” says St. Charles Borromeo, “how much more so must be the contemplation of the Creator!” With the knowledge of God is necessarily linked the love of God, and increase of one means increase of the other. Hence this great joy banishes all sadness. The blessed in heaven also love one another; they are as one (John 17:21). “The love of the elect in paradise,” says Blessed Suso, “is so great that souls removed at an infinite distance from one another love with a greater affection than that which exists between parent and child.” “It is love alone,” says St. Augustine, “which separates the children of the eternal kingdom from the children of perdition. What happiness to meet again our relations and friends after so long and painful a separation!”

The joys of heaven last forever.³⁵¹

Christ says: “The just will enter into everlasting life.” The Holy Spirit will be united with them forever (John 14:16). This joy no man can take from them (John 16:22). No one can snatch them from the hand of the Father (John 10:29). Great kings and princes support their dependents even when these are no longer capable of rendering service; surely God, Who is the King of kings, will not be less generous. His reward is eternal, the only one worthy of Him. Were it not so, the joy of heaven would be incomplete from the fear of its coming to an end.

a. The happiness of the blessed varies according to their merits.

The master in the gospel of St. Luke (19:16, etc.), gave to the servant who had used his ten talents to gain other ten talents the command of ten cities, and to the one who had successfully used his five talents the command of five cities. Thus God acts, and in so doing acts with the greatest justice. St. Paul says: “He who soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he who soweth in blessings shall also reap of blessings” (2 Cor. 9:6). The just see in heaven the triune God, yet some see Him more perfectly than others according to their merits (Council of Florence). “One is the glory of the sun [Christ], another the glory of the moon [Mary], and another the glory of the stars [the saints]” (1 Cor. 15:41). The knowledge and love of God are greater in one saint and less in another; and the same is true of the joy of heaven. Men are intended to take the place of the fallen angels, and of these there are some from all the nine choirs of angels. The degree of glory in heaven depends on the amount of sanctifying grace which a man has at his death (Eccles. 11:3); in other words the degree of glory is greater in proportion as a man has at his death more of the Holy Spirit, or more of the love of God in his heart. The degree of glory in the blessed cannot be increased nor diminished throughout eternity; yet there are accidental delights, as for instance when special honor is paid to a saint. Our Lord revealed that there is a particular joy in heaven when a sinner is converted (Luke 15:7). The canonization, beatification, the feast day of a saint on earth, the prayers, the holy sacrifice, and other good works which the faithful perform on earth in honor of a saint are a special source of joy to that saint. St. Gertrude saw on such occasions the saints clothed in more resplendent raiment, and surrounded by a glorious escort; they seemed also to be raised to a state of greater bliss. Yet among the blessed there is no envy. They are all children of one Father and have received their portion from Him (Matt. 20). To use the homely illustration of St. Francis de Sales: two children receive from their father a piece of cloth to make a garment; the smaller child will not envy his brother the bigger garment, but will be quite satisfied with the one that fits him. So it is in heaven, and more than this, each one rejoices over the happiness of the other as though it were in some measure his own.

b. Only those souls enter heaven which are free from all sin, and from the penalty due to sin.³⁵²

According to the Council of Florence, the souls only of those who after Baptism have not sinned, or who, if they have sinned, have done perfect penance on earth or in purgatory, can enter heaven. “Nothing defiled can enter heaven” (Rev. 21:27). Moreover none could enter heaven before the death of Christ; they had to remain in limbo.

c. Heaven is won by suffering and self-denial.³⁵³

St. Paul writes: “By many tribulations must we enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:21), and Christ’s words are: “He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:25), i.e., he who goes after all the joys and pleasures of this world will be damned, and he who despises them will be saved. There is no blessedness without self-denial. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure or a costly pearl; whoever will possess it must give his all for it (Matt. 13:44–46), i.e., he must give up all inordinate attachment to the things of this world. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence” (Matt. 11:12). “Narrow is the gate and straight is the way that leadeth to life” (Matt. 7:14). He wins the prize in the race who runs swiftly and steadily, and refrains from all things (1 Cor. 9:25). He who would be among the blessed must be a martyr at least in intention. The greater efforts we make to secure salvation, the greater will be our joy.

d. For the just heaven begins already on earth.³⁵⁴

“While we seek life eternal we already enjoy it,” says St. Augustine. The just have the true peace (John 14:28); they have the peace of God which surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4:7); hence they are joyful even when fasting (Matt. 6:17), and in the midst of sufferings (Matt. 5:12). The just possess the Holy Spirit, hence they are, even while still on earth united with God (1 John 4:16). Christ ever dwells in their hearts (Eph. 3:17); they have within them the kingdom of God (Luke 17:21). “Think of the reward and thou wilt suffer with joy,” says St. Augustine. The sufferings of this world are not to be compared with the glory which shall be manifested unto us (Rom. 8:18). “If we think of the joys of heaven, the things of this world will appear worthless” (St. Gregory the Great). “He who stands on a hill-top,” says St. John Chrysostom, “either does not see objects in the valley, or they appear to him very small.”

4. HELL

1. Hell is the abode of everlasting torment.³⁵⁵

The unhappy rich man of the Gospel prayed Abraham to send one from the dead to his brothers “that they might not come to this place of torments” (Luke 16:28). In His discourse on the general judgment Christ speaks of hell as “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46). Hell is both a place and a state. In the exorcisms we find the expression: “God has cast you from the heights of heaven into the bowels of the earth.” Hell is sharply defined from heaven; between them yawns a chasm (Luke 16:26). The lost are separated from the saints (Matt. 24:51). With good reason St. John Chrysostom exhorts us not to inquire so much where hell is as how to avoid it. Hell is a state, and moreover the continuation of that same state in which the sinner is found at death. “Thus,” says St. John Damascene, “the pains of hell are due not so much to God as to man himself.” Since hell is also a state, it is quite clear that the evil spirits may be near to us (1 Pet. 5:8), and even dwell in sinners (Matt. 12:45). Even the pagans believed in a hell; hence the story of Tantalus, condemned to suffer perpetual hunger and thirst, and unable to satisfy either, because the water which he tried to drink or the fruit which he attempted to eat withdrew from his lips; the Danaids, condemned to draw water in sieves, and Sisyphus, forced ever to push a great rock to the top of a hill only to see it roll down again, furnish other examples of this belief.

The torments of hell are terrible; for the damned never see God, they are in the company of evil spirits and in fire, they endure great anguish of mind, and after the resurrection will have to suffer in their bodies.³⁵⁶

St. Paul says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). St. John of the Cross teaches us that as a hundredfold is promised for every sacrifice that is made, so for every unlawful pleasure indulged in, a hundredfold penalty must be paid. St. John Chrysostom applies the words of St. Paul on heaven to describe hell: “Neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for them that love Him not” (1 Cor. 2:9). Christ calls hell an “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:44), because the sensation of burning is the greatest pain which man can conceive on earth. In other places He speaks of the “outer darkness” (Matt. 22:13) because the damned never see God, the source of eternal light. It is the place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12), where the “worm never dies” (Mark 9:43), and conscience never ceases to reproach the damned. Christ also speaks of the lost as “bound hand and foot,” to show that they have no freedom and are in a place of banishment. From the words used by Christ to the damned: “Depart from Me, into everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41), we learn that they have a double pain; they are banished from the vision of God (pain of loss), and condemned to suffer torment (pain of sense). The pain of loss is the greatest of the sufferings of hell. The greater the value of what is lost, the greater is the pain of the loss. “The damned have lost what is of infinite worth, hence their pain is infinite,” says St. Alphonsus. How keenly does he suffer who is cut off from the sight of the beauty of creation by blindness; yet how much greater is his suffering who is deprived of the sight of the infinite beauty of God (St. John Damascene). The possession of God, the highest good, is the end of every rational being. This is evident from the way in which man in this life strives after the greatest happiness. This longing increases after death, for then the things of earth no longer distract the mind, nor can they give any more satisfaction. What an awful fate if this longing can never throughout eternity be satisfied! In the words of St. Augustine: “It is right that he who rejects God should be rejected of God.” The sorrow of Esau in the loss of his father’s blessing is but a type of the sorrow of the damned for the loss of the vision of God. The saints have trembled at the mere thought of this loss. The damned have no communication with the blessed. They may see them as the rich man saw Lazarus: “They see them not to their joy, but to their sorrow,” says St. Vincent Ferrer, “they see them as a hungry man may look on a plenteous table which he may not touch.” Besides this the damned have much to suffer from evil spirits; and it is meet that those who sided with and subjected themselves to the evil spirits on earth should be of their company after death. We are warned in the book of Job and in the case of the possessed persons in the Gospel, how cruel the devil is when he has a little power. What an awful experience it must be for the damned in hell, where the devil has full power! The damned in hell cause one another great suffering; for they hate one another. In that region of hatred of God there is no love of God. Hence the numbers in hell only increase its torments. Moreover fire will torture the lost souls. “They shall be sunk in fire like fish in the sea,” says St. Alphonsus. And we learn from the teaching of Christ (Luke 16:24) and the holy Fathers that this fire is a real fire. Even on earth God punished by fire the sins of Sodom and Gomorrha (Gen. 19:24; 2 Kings 1:14). “If,” says Bellarmine, “the soul can be united to the body so as to suffer in company with it, so can the soul be reached by this avenging fire.” Is it so much beyond almighty power that God could not call into being all those sensations in the soul, which the latter had while in the body? It is probable also that the fire of hell is not like fire as we know it on earth. Our fire destroys; that of hell does not consume but rather preserves, as salt preserves meat (Mark 9:48); our fire gives light, while in hell there is darkness (Matt. 22:13). Our fire warms, while the fire of hell is accompanied by an insupportable cold, and moreover it is much more painful; “Our fire,” says St. Vincent Ferrer, “is cold in comparison with that of hell.” The soul suffers also from continual remorse of conscience. The lost are given up to despair; they recognize what fools they were to reject God’s grace so often, and to prefer a passing pleasure to eternal happiness. How unhappy they are in losing forever that God Who loved them so much! And their shame is ever present, for their sins are revealed to all, and those whom they despised and laughed to scorn on earth are now in honor. “They will be tortured with envy,” says St. Anthony, “for they will envy the blessed their glory.” Our experience on earth teaches us that mental suffering is often greater than bodily pain; suicides confirm this. After the resurrection the lost will have to suffer also in the body: “They shall come forth to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:29). All their senses will receive punishment; the sight by darkness, the hearing by the wailing and cursing of the other lost souls (Matt. 8:12), the taste by hunger (Luke 6:25) and thirst (Luke 16:24), the smell by the unbearable stench, and the sense of touch by the torture of heat and cold. Other pains may be added; for instance, we read of wicked men whose bodies were devoured by worms (Acts 12:23).

The tortures of the damned are eternal.³⁵⁷

Satan with his followers is cast into a pool of fire and brimstone, where he will be tormented day and night forever (Rev. 20:10). In hell there is no redemption, for the day of grace is gone (John 3:36). Life in hell is the “everlasting death” or “second death” (Rev. 21:8), for a life without joy and full of torture is rather death than life. “O Death!” says Innocent III, “how sweet wouldst thou be to those to whom thou wert so bitter!” Christ tells us that the pains of hell are eternal; He calls the fire of hell an everlasting fire (Matt. 25:41), the torment of hell eternal (Matt. 25:46). So too teaches the Church in the Council of Trent. The error attributed to Origen (254 A.D.) that the punishment of hell came to an end was condemned by the Church (Second Council of Constantinople, 553). “Eternal woe is due to him who destroys in himself eternal good,” says St. Augustine. Our judges on earth inflict lifelong punishment on criminals, and even a sentence of death.

The torments of the damned are not all alike, but vary according to the sin.

“The punishments in hell are not all alike” (Council of Florence). According to St. Thomas they are as various as the sins committed on earth; they depend on the nature, number, and gravity of the sin. Those who have lived in pleasure shall be punished by a corresponding amount of suffering and torment (Rev. 18:7). The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha will have a lighter judgment than that city which rejected the apostles (Matt. 10:15).

2. The souls of those who die in mortal sin go to hell.³⁵⁸

By grave sin a man cuts himself off from God; and in that state is like a branch broken off from Christ the vine, which withers and is cast into the fire (John 15:6). The souls of those who die in mortal sin go at once into hell (Second Council of Lyons). In particular the following go to hell: the enemies of Christ (Ps. 109[110]:1), all those who refuse to believe in the Gospel (John 3:18), the impure, thieves, covetous, railers (1 Cor. 6:10), all who have neglected the talents given to them by God (Matt. 25:30); many who were among the first on earth (Matt. 19:30). Those, too, who die with only original sin on their souls (unbaptized children) go to hell; (i.e., are excluded from the vision of God), but are not visited with the sufferings of those who have committed actual sin (Second Council of Lyons).³⁵⁹ A single mortal sin, done however secretly, is enough to send a man to eternal perdition.

Sinners begin their hell even on earth.³⁶⁰

The wicked are like the raging sea which can never rest (Is. 57:20). Every sinner sits in “darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79). To him the lessons of religion are folly (1 Cor. 2:14). It is in the hour of death that the worldling will awake to his misery; at present he feels it not, because he is distracted by a thousand things. Think often about hell; the thought will keep us from sin. “Often go down to hell during thy lifetime, that thou mayst not have to go after death” (St. Bernard). “He who despises hell or forgets it,” says St. John Chrysostom, “will not escape it.”

5. PURGATORY

1. Purgatory is a place where the souls of those must suffer for a time, who, though dying without grave sin on their souls, have not done complete penance for their offences against God.³⁶¹

Judas Maccabeus was convinced that the souls of those who had died in battle with idols on them had to be punished, and for that reason ordered sacrifices to be offered for them in Jerusalem (2 Macc. 12:43). “The stains which the soul has received during its sojourn in the body must be removed by the purging fire,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa; and St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us that in the future life there is a baptism of fire, a hard and weary baptism, to destroy what is earthly in man. As to the situation of purgatory, most of the saints seem to think it is beneath the earth; hence the prayer of the Church: A porta inferi, etc. (“From the gates of hell deliver him, O Lord!”) and the De Profundis (“Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord”). Some also believe that many souls, for a time at least, suffer their purgatory in those places on earth where their sins were committed, and that they are often present at the prayers which are offered for them. It is certain also that the holy souls have appeared to many saints, e.g., to St. Teresa, St. Bridget, St. Philip Neri. As to the state of the holy souls, the saints are of opinion that they suffer in all resignation to God’s will. St. Catherine of Genoa tells us that God fills them with His love, so that their greatest pains become tolerable. Moreover the knowledge that they will finally attain the vision of God and that they are secure of their eternal salvation, gives them great consolation. “Besides,” as St. Frances of Rome tells us, “they are comforted by the prayers of the faithful on earth, and the blessed in heaven, and by the visits of holy angels.” “The consciousness that they are making atonement to God and suffering for Him makes them courageous as martyrs” (St. Catherine of Genoa).

The holy souls suffer in purgatory to expiate either their venial sins, or those mortal sins, which, though absolved, have not been completely atoned for.³⁶²

Venial sins are visited with temporal punishment, as in the case of Zachary who doubted the angel, or Moses. Mortal sins also, though repented of and put away, are often visited with temporal punishment, as in the case of Adam and David. The Council of Trent (6, 30), teaches that whoever does not satisfy completely for his sins on earth, must do so in purgatory. So on earth a man may be punished by a fine; if he does not pay it he must go to prison. Hence we should not be satisfied with the penance given us by our confessor; we should add something of our own. Much may be done by patient enduring of sickness or willing acceptance of death. Not even the least sins should be neglected; they must all be atoned for.

The sufferings in purgatory include exclusion from the vision of God and other great pains.

Hence the prayer: “Grant rest to the souls of the faithful departed, and let perpetual light shine upon them.” When we burn candles by the coffins or on the graves of the dead, we pray that the poor souls may be admitted to the sight of God. Apart from the duration, there is no distinction between the torments of hell and those of purgatory (St. Thomas). “The same fire,” says St. Augustine, “burns the lost and the saved.” Hence we see why the Church, in the Requiem Mass, prays God to deliver the souls from the pains of hell (Benedict XIV). St. Augustine tells us that the pains of purgatory are greater than the sufferings of all the martyrs; and St. Thomas teaches that the least pain in purgatory is greater than the greatest on earth. “All the tortures that one can conceive of in this world are,” says St. Cyril of Alexandria, “refreshing, compared with the least pain of purgatory.”

The greatness and duration of the sufferings in purgatory vary according to the gravity of the sins.

St. Augustine tells us that those are longer in the purging fire who have been more attached to the goods of this world; that those who have grown old in sin take longer to pass through the cleansing stream. The foundation Masses going on for centuries, lead us to suppose that some souls have to suffer through many generations of men; were this impossible the Church would have abolished such Masses. Catherine Emmerich, in her revelations, says that Our Lord descends into purgatory every Good Friday, and frees one or more souls of those who had been witnesses of His Passion. Even where the punishment has lasted only an hour, we are told by St. Bridget, that it appears intolerably long. Those who wear the scapular are assured of a considerable shortening of their sufferings. Several saints hold the view that some souls suffer no pain but are merely excluded from the vision of God. According to St. Mathilda the sufferings in purgatory are in intimate relation to the past sins. St. Bridget saw souls suffering most in those things in which they had sinned most; and St. Margaret of Cortona saw some who could not be released till the evil done by them on earth had been made good.

2. That there is a purgatory we learn from the teaching of Christ, and especially from the practice and doctrine of the Church.³⁶³

Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that nearly all the nations of the earth believe in a purging fire. In addition we know from sound reason that there must be a purgatory.

Christ’s words are: “lie that shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come” (Matt. 12:32); He compares purgatory to a prison: “Amen, I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing” (Matt. 5:26). And St. Paul adds that many shall be saved, yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:15). The practice of the Church in the following points reminds us of purgatory: the prayer for the dead said in every Mass (the Memento after the Consecration); the Masses for the dead, in particular those on All Souls’ Day, on the day of death and burial, and on anniversaries; the passing-bell (which calls upon us to pray for the departed), and the solemnities on All Souls’ Day, which were first introduced in 998 by the abbot Odilo of Cluny, and later extended by the Popes to the universal Church. St. John Chrysostom reminds us that “the practices of Christians are not meant for mere show, but that they are ordained by the Holy Spirit.” The bishops of the Church at Florence (1439), and Trent (1445–1463) expressly defined that there is a purgatory. The idea of purgatory is common among the nations. The Egyptians believed in the transmigration of souls into animals. Among the Greeks we have the story of Prometheus, condemned to be bound to a rock and his liver gnawed by a vulture, because he stole fire from heaven. The Jews had the same belief, for they offered sacrifice for the dead, as we saw in the case of Judas Maccabeus. The early Christians were accustomed to pray for the dead during the holy sacrifice. St. Augustine relates that his mother St. Monica, on her death-bed, said to him and his brother: “Bury me where you will; only, I pray you, think of me always at God’s altar.” St. John Chrysostom declares that the Christians from the very beginning prayed during Mass for the dead by order of the apostles. St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “It is of great service to pray for the dead when the holy sacrifice is being offered.” Hence the oldest Mass-books contain prayers for the dead. Reason also teaches that there must be a purgatory. We know, for instance, that nothing defiled can enter heaven (Rev. 21:27); yet there is many a man not so wicked as to be lost forever; and if he can enter neither heaven nor hell there must be a third place where he can be purified.

3. The faithful on earth can help the holy souls in purgatory by good works; in particular by prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, by offering or being present at Mass, by receiving the sacraments and gaining indulgences.³⁶⁴

The holy souls cannot help themselves, since they can no longer do good works to satisfy for their sins. After death “the night cometh when no man can work” (John 9:4). Hence they must pay off their debt by enduring the pains which God has laid upon them. Yet we on earth can help to diminish their pains by Masses, by prayer and almsgiving, and other works of piety (Second Council of Lyons, 1274); the holy sacrifice is of all things the most helpful to them (Council of Trent, 25), and according to St. Bonaventure the offering of holy communion is of very great assistance. “Not by weeping,” says St. John Chrysostom, “but by prayer and almsgiving are the dead relieved.” No pompous funeral nor profusion of wreaths are of any avail without good works; it is far more to the purpose to give to the poor the money which is spent on idle show. As to the prayers, God does not regard so much their length as their fervor. Christ once said to St. Gertrude: “A single word from the heart has far more power to free a soul than the recital of many prayers and psalms without devotion; the hands are cleaned better by a little water and much rubbing than by merely pouring a large quantity of water over them.” We are not to conclude from this that in ordinary cases a short prayer, an Our Father, for instance, will at once set free a soul. “For,” says Maldonatus, “God would he very cruel if He kept a soul, for which He had shed His own blood, in such terrible suffering for the sake of an Our Father which had been omitted.” The Church uses holy water in the burial service because it has great efficacy for the holy souls. But the greatest help which we can give is the Heroic Act, that is, the resignation in their behalf of all the satisfaction made to God by our good works. Those who make this act gain, every time they approach the Holy Table, a plenary indulgence applicable to the holy souls; and priests, who make the Heroic Act, have, every day they say Mass, the personal privilege of a privileged altar (Pius IX, Sept. 10, 1852).

The relatives of the departed are bound to help them.³⁶⁵

To them apply the words of Holy Writ: “Have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me” (Job 19:21). God sometimes reveals the unhappy state of the dead to their relatives. In the year 202 St. Perpetua saw in a dream her young brother imprisoned in a dark place, all covered with dirt, and parched with thirst. She began to offer up fervent prayer for him, and soon after he appeared again to her but this time beautiful and happy (Meh. vi., 413). When St. Elizabeth of Thuringia received news of the death of her mother Gertrude, Queen of Hungary, she began to pray and scourge herself with disciplines, and soon she had the satisfaction of seeing her mother in a vision, and of knowing that she was delivered from purgatory. Yet we should not rely too much on the good works which our relatives may do for us after death; for the proverb comes often only too true: “Out of sight, out of mind;” and besides, after all, the works done for us after death can avail us only to a limited extent. “One Mass devoutly heard during life,” says St. Anselm, “is of more value than a great sum left for the celebration of a hundred Masses after death.” “God,” says St. Bonaventure, “values more a little voluntary penance done in this life than a severe and involuntary satisfaction in the next.”

Prayer for the dead is of great benefit to ourselves, for it is a work of mercy.³⁶⁶

It might be objected that by doing too much for the holy souls, a man neglects himself. But this is not true. Prayer confers a blessing on him who is prayed for, and on him who prays. He who has pity on the holy souls will find in God a merciful Judge: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7); Christ accepts every deed of mercy as a favor done to Himself (Cf. Matt. 25:40); the departed also display their gratitude when they get to heaven. Says Marie Lataste: “Thou canst do nothing more acceptable to God or profitable to thyself than to pray for the holy souls; for they will be mindful of your favors in heaven, and will pray unceasingly for you … that you may become holier in life and be freed from purgatory soon after death.” “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins” (2 Macc. 12:46).

6. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

The Jews had some sort of belief that the bodies of the dead would rise again. Job consoled himself in the midst of his sufferings by the thought of the resurrection (Job 19:25); so too the brothers Machabee (2 Macc. 7:11); and Martha said to Jesus: “I know that my brother will rise again in the resurrection at the Last Day” (John 11:24).

1. Christ on the Last Day will raise the bodies of all men from the dead, and unite them to the soul forever.³⁶⁷

a. He often declared that He would raise the bodies of all men from the grave, and proved His power by miracles; this resurrection will be heralded by many signs in nature.

We proclaim in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead; that is, He will call to life the bodies of those who are already dead, while for those who survive till that day such a change will take place in their bodies that in a moment they will die and awake again to a new life (1 Thess. 4:16); those will arise who are in the grace of God as well as those who are in mortal sin (John 5:28; Matt. 25:31); and this resurrection will take place in a moment (1 Cor. 15:52). Christ announced that He would raise the dead to life again: “The hour cometh wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28–29); on another occasion: “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the Last Day” (John 6:55). Our Lord often compared death to sleep, e.g., when He said that the daughter of Jairus (Matt. 9:24) and Lazarus (John 11:11) were sleeping. In face of the fact of the resurrection death may well be called a sleep (1 Thess. 4:13). The following miracles were performed by Christ in proof of His power to raise the dead; the raising of the daughter of Jairus in her own house, that of the son of the widow of Naim before the gates of the city, and that of Lazarus from the grave itself. We might add His own glorious resurrection and that of His Virgin Mother. In very truth Christ might say of Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Many natural phenomena show that the idea of the resurrection is in harmony with the rest of nature; for instance, our own periods of rest and activity, the reawakening of spring after the winter sleep; the change in many insects of the larva into the pupa, and of the pupa again into the butterfly; the coming forth of the bird from the egg, the sprouting of the seed buried in the earth, and so on.

b. God will awake our bodies to life again to prove His justice, and to honor Our Redeemer.

If the soul only were rewarded, there would be a want of completeness; “for,” as Tertullian says, “there are many good works, such as fasting, chastity, martyrdom, which can be carried out in their perfection only in the body; hence it is right that the latter should share in the reward of the soul.” God’s justice demands that the body should take part in the triumph. Again, Tertullian reminds us that Our Saviour redeemed mankind body and soul. Had the body been unredeemed the devil would have secured a triumph by destroying it. Such a thought is unworthy. “By a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:21).

c. As to the state of our bodies after the resurrection, we have the following facts: (1). After the resurrection we shall have the same bodies as we now have. (2). The bodies of the just will be glorious and those of the wicked hideous. (3). All the risen bodies will be without defect and immortal.³⁶⁸

We shall have the same bodies after the resurrection: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). This we learn also from the Athanasian Creed. Even Job knew it to be true: “I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God” (Job 19:26); and one of the Maccabean brothers, in the midst of his torments, addressed the tyrant thus as his limbs were being torn away: “These I have from heaven but for the laws of God I now despise them; because I hope to receive them again from Him” (2 Macc. 7:11). While St. Perpetua and her fellow martyrs were being exposed to the vulgar gaze of the heathens, she addressed them thus: “Look well and mark now our faces, that you may know them again in the Day of Judgment;” and her words converted many of the bystanders. For this reason we rise in our bodies “that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done whether it be good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10). It is not beyond God’s power to rejoin the scattered elements of our bodies; if He could make that which had no existence, He can replace that which already has had an existence. St. Thomas teaches us that just as our bodies remain the same bodies over periods of ten or twenty years, in which time the component elements have been renewed again and again, so the bodies of the risen will be the same, even supposing they are not composed of the same identical elements as before. It is the thought of the resurrection that makes Christians careful in the burial of the dead, and in their veneration of the relics of the saints. Our risen bodies will not be all alike. “We shall all rise again; but we shall not all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51). The bodies of the just will resemble the glorified body of Christ (Phil. 3:21), and will have the following properties: they will be impassible (Rev. 21:4), shining like the sun (Matt. 13:43), swift as thought, and capable of penetrating matter. The word spiritual is sometimes used to describe the risen body, because the latter will be quite subject to the spirit and freed from earthly concupiscence (Luke 20:35). The beauty of the body will be in proportion to that of the soul (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:41). The most physically marred, if he has lived a good life, will have a beautiful body; while one who has had every personal charm and lived a bad life, will rise again to be an object of aversion. The bodies of sinners will have to suffer, and will be bound hand and foot (Matt. 22:13). The risen bodies will be without any defect. The martyrs will recover their limbs, and their wounds, visible like Christ’s, will be glorious and resplendent. The risen bodies will also have no trace of old age, sickness, or mutilation. The wicked will have their bodies also complete, but for punishment; for the more perfect the body is the more it can suffer. All the bodies of the risen will be immortal (1 Cor. 15:42). Just as in paradise the fruit of the tree of life gave immortality to the body, so now the Blessed Sacrament in communion, for it is a pledge of the resurrection and of immortality (John 6:55). The bodies of the damned are also immortal, but for their torment.

d. Belief in the resurrection is a great help to us; it consoles us in our sufferings, and comforts our relatives and friends when we come to die.³⁶⁹

Job cheered himself with this reflection (Job 19:25); and it was belief in the resurrection which gave the early Christians such courage and calm in the great persecutions. Christians who believe in the resurrection ought not to mourn for their dead like the heathen who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:12). St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (258 A.D.), used to caution his flock against such excessive grief, lest the heathen should come to think that the Christians had no firm belief in the life to come. Hence he considered it unbecoming to wear mourning for those who were rejoicing before the throne of God. Those only should be mourned for who died in mortal sin.

7. THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

1. Immediately after the resurrection the general judgment will take place.³⁷⁰

For Christ has often said that after the resurrection all mankind will be assembled before Him to be judged.³⁷¹

The return of Christ as Judge was announced to the apostles by the angels on the occasion of Our Lord’s ascent into heaven (Acts 1:11). Christ Himself spoke about the judgment in the following terms: (1). The form of a cross is to appear in the heavens announcing the coming of Christ: and the sight of it will fill the wicked with confusion (Matt. 24:30).³⁷² (2). Christ will come in great power and majesty (Matt. 16:27; Luke 21:27). Hence we cannot conclude that the divine essence will be manifested to all at the judgment, for this no man could see without being rapt in heavenly joy. According to St. Thomas, the lost will have some sort of perception of God’s majesty and essence. Possibly they will see it as manifested through the veil of the sacred humanity of Christ at the Judgment. (3). The holy angels will accompany Our Saviour (Matt. 25:31). They helped to the salvation of mankind and now they will receive their meed of honor. (4). All the nations of the earth will be assembled before Christ seated on His throne (Matt. 25:32). (5). He will separate the sheep and the goats; the blessed will be placed on His right hand, and the lost on His left (Matt. 25:33). When the prophets speak of the judgment being held in the valley of Josaphat (Joel 3:2), they do not mean that the nations will be gathered into that particular valley lying between Jerusalem and Mount Olivet; they mean simply that mankind will be assembled in the vale of the “judgment of God” (Josaphat in Hebrew means the judgment of God), i.e., in some place appointed by God for this judgment. We speak of the general judgment because angels as well as men will be judged (Jude 6), and of the Last Judgment because it will be held on the Last Day.

a. The general judgment will take place in order that God’s wisdom and justice may be made manifest to all creatures. Christ will be Judge in order that the honor of which He was robbed may be restored to Him before all creation.³⁷³

On this day God will reveal to men with what wisdom He disposed the career of mankind and of each individual, so that all might attain their end and be happy even on earth. It will then be seen how various kinds of evil, the sufferings and even the sins of men have been turned by God to their advantage. Much which the world now esteems foolishness will then be seen to have been wisdom. This judgment will also demonstrate God’s justice; He will then bring forward what could not have been brought forward at the particular judgment. The deeds, words, writings, of many men have produced their results often only after their death; what blessings, for instance, apostles and missionaries have conferred on whole nations, and what harm has been done by heretics, not only to their contemporaries, but to those coming after them. Christ will be Judge, this office demanding wisdom in an especial degree, and Christ is the eternal wisdom. Moreover He will be Judge because the honor due to Him was refused by so many and by all irreligious and godless men ever since. He was condemned as a malefactor by Pilate and, as the Apostle says, “Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). Then will His enemies call upon the mountains to fall upon them, and the hills to hide them (Luke 23:30); hence Christ’s words: “For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. That all men may honor the Son as they honor the Father” (John 5:22). When Christ was on earth He repudiated all judicial power: “I judge not any man” (John 8:15). Christ is Judge at the Last Day because He became man: “The Father hath given Him power to do judgment because He is the Son of man” (John 5:27). God’s mercy, too, has ordained that the Judge of mankind should be a man. No wonder St. Thomas of Villanova exclaimed in ecstasy, “Happy am I to have my Saviour for my Judge.”

b. Christ will conduct the judgment in the following manner: He will reveal all, even the most hidden things, will exact an account from all men of the works of mercy they have or ought to have performed, and by a final sentence separate forever the good from the bad.³⁷⁴

The general judgment is thus a solemn repetition of the particular judgment; and it might also be called a repetition of the world’s history, for each event will be represented to the eyes of the assembled multitude: “And the books were opened … and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books according to their works” (Rev. 20:12). The Lord “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness” (1 Cor. 4:5). He “will search Jerusalem with lamps” (Zeph. 1:12). It is to the general judgment that these words of Our Lord apply: “There is not anything secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:17). When the sun rises the snows melt and leave bare all that lies beneath them; so shall it be when the Sun of justice mounts the heavens. All sins will be revealed, and the revelation will be worse than hell to the sinner, while to the just there will be glory because they did penance. “The white robe of sanctifying grace,” as St. Gertrude tells us, “will hide the sin, and instead of the stains which were removed by penance there will be ornaments of gold.” All good works will then be revealed (Eccles. 12:14), and the secrets of men’s hearts shall be known (1 Cor. 4:5). The martyrs will receive honor for the contempt which they endured, and sinners will exclaim as they look on the just: “These are they whom we had some time in derision and for a parable of reproach. We fools, esteemed their life madness and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God and their lot is among the saints” (Wisd. 5:3–5). Works of mercy will be required of every man (Matt. 25:34–36); the Gospel explains to us why the saints and all pious Christians are so eager in the performance of works of mercy. When people asked St. Elizabeth why she was so zealous in good works, she used to answer: “I am preparing for the Day of Judgment.” There will be no question then of riches or social position, for God is no respecter of persons (Rom. 2:11); on the contrary: “to whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required” (Luke 12:48). The judgment will end with the sentence of the Judge, which will divide forever the good from the bad (Matt. 25:46). This separation was fore-shadowed in the parable of the cockle: “Gather up first the cockle and bind it in bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into My barn” (Matt. 13:30). Many friends and relatives will be separated forever on that day (Matt. 24:40); many who were rich and powerful will be lost, and their dependents, or those who sued as beggars to them, will be saved. “Then, too,” says St. Augustine, “creation will take on a new and glorious form, to correspond to the glorified bodies of the elect.” “We look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promises, in which justice dwelleth” (2 Pet. 3:13). The existing universe will be destroyed by fire, and this fire will purge those who have yet to do penance for sin; and since there will be no purgatory after the Day of Judgment the want of duration will be made up by the intensity of the pain; as for the just, they, like the three children in the furnace, will remain untouched by the flames. The thought of the judgment is a wholesome one. St. Methodius had a picture executed for the King of the Bulgarians, representing the dividing of the good from the bad at the Last Day; the king could never expel the image from his mind, and in consequence became a Christian and promoted Christianity with great zeal in his kingdom. In the Acts we read (Acts 24:25) how Felix trembled when St. Paul spoke of the judgment to come; yet Felix does not seem to have acted up to grace, for he broke off the discourse and gave up St. Paul to the Jews.

2. The Day of Judgment is unknown to us, though certain signs have been revealed which are to herald its approach.³⁷⁵

Christ said: “Of that day and hour no one knoweth; no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Matt. 24:36). The knowledge of it would be of as little use as the knowledge of the hour of our death. St. Augustine recommends us to do now as we should do if tomorrow were to be the Last Day: then we shall have no occasion to dread the coming of the Judge. Christ gave some signs of the approach of the Last Day (Matt. 24:3, etc.), so that Christians might remain steadfast and courageous. The signs are:

a. The Gospel shall be preached to the whole world (Matt. 24:14).

Some two-thirds of the world are still pagans.

b. The greater part of mankind will be without faith (Luke 28:8; 2 Thess. 2:3) and immersed in things of earth (Luke 17:26, etc.).

Mankind will be much as they were in the days of Noah (Matt. 24:38).

c. Antichrist will appear.³⁷⁶

Antichrist is a man who will give himself out to be Christ, and by the help of the devil will perform many wonders (2 Thess. 2:9). He will be a terror by the persecution which he will raise (Rev. 20:3–9). It is probable that he will choose for his kingdom Jerusalem and those places where Christ lived. Our Lord will kill him on the Last Day (2 Thess. 2:8). Types and forerunners of Antichrist have existed from time to time (1 John 2:18), “for the mystery of iniquity already worketh” (2 Thess. 2:7).

d. Enoch and Elijah will return and preach penance.

“Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:5); i.e., he will bring the Jewish people round to the sentiments of their forefathers, the patriarchs: Christ also foretold that Elijah should come and restore all things (Matt. 17:11). Of Enoch we know that “Enoch pleased God and was translated into paradise that he may give repentance to the nations” (Sir. 44:16). Enoch and Elijah will preach for three years and a half, and recover many souls from Antichrist, who in the end will kill them, and their bodies will be left unburied. After three days and a half God will raise them to life again (Rev. 11:3–11).

e. The Jews will be converted.³⁷⁷

The conversion of the Jews was foretold by Hosea: “The children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod, and without theraphim. And after this the children of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the last days” (Hos. 3:4–5); blindness was to be the lot of Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in (Rom. 11:25). Elijah is to restore the tribes of Jacob (Sir. 48:10).

f. Dreadful signs will appear in the heavens and great tribulations will come upon mankind.³⁷⁸

“The sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be moved” (Matt. 24:29); war, pestilence, and famine shall come as at the time of the siege of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:7, etc.). Men shall wither with fear and from expectation of the things that will come upon the earth (Luke 21:25).

CHRISTIAN HOPE

1. THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

Christian hope is the confident expectation of all those things which Christ promised us with regard to the fulfilment of God’s will.³⁷⁹

“Hope,” says St. Paulinus, “gives us a foretaste of the promised joys of paradise.” “How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord … which Thou hast wrought for them that hope in Thee” (Ps. 30[31]:20). Such hope may be called holy, because directed to God and supernatural things; by this is fulfilled the precept of the Apostle: “Seek the things that are above” (Col. 3:1).

1. As the reward of carrying out God’s will, Christ has promised us eternal happiness, and the means required for attaining it; in particular God’s grace, temporal goods for the sustaining of life, forgiveness of sins, help in our necessities, and the answering of our prayers.³⁸⁰

Christ promised us eternal happiness (1 John 2:25); “In the house of My Father are many mansions. If not I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2); He has further promised to raise our bodies again after death (John 5:28). The desire for perfect happiness is planted deep in our nature. Christ also promised His grace, i.e., the help of the Holy Spirit, for His will is that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). Grace is absolutely necessary for salvation: actual grace for our conversion, sanctifying grace for entrance into heaven. Temporal goods are promised: “Be not solicitous for your life what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on…. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things,” and we are taught that since the Father feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the weeds of the field, much more will be His care for us (Matt. 6:25–32). The experience of the saints in this matter is a great consolation and lesson to us; over and over again they have been in difficulties for the means of subsistence, yet help always came. Forgiveness of sin is assured to us if we wish to amend: “There shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than over ninety-nine just who need not penance” (Luke 15:7). The parable of the prodigal son and of the lost sheep reveal to us how readily God will forgive the sinner: “So long as we are on the earth it is never too late to repent,” says St. Cyprian. The penitent thief on the cross found salvation. “God wills not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live” (Ezek. 18:32). We are certain of help in our necessities. When the apostles were filled with fear at the storm on the lake, Christ’s reproach to them was: “Why do you fear, O ye of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26). God is called the “helper in tribulations” (Ps. 45[46]:2). It is true He seems at times to delay answering our prayers, as in the marriage-feast at Cana, when He said: “My hour is not yet come” (John 2:4); yet the longer we have to wait, the more wonderful is His answer, and we might reflect on the calming of the storm on the lake, on the release of St. Peter from prison, on the fate of Aman, the persecutor of the Jews (Esther 7). “When our necessity is greatest,” says St. Ambrose, “God’s help is nearest.” Christ promised that our petitions shall always be heard: “If you shall ask Me anything in My name, that will I do” (John 14:14). “Amen, Amen, I say to you; if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you” (John 16:23).

Christ taught us in the Our Father to ask our heavenly Father for all these things.

The second petition is a prayer for salvation, the third for grace, the fourth for temporal necessities, the fifth for forgiveness of sins, the sixth and seventh for help in our needs.

2. Christian hope is based on faith, for we hope for the fulfilment of God’s promises because we believe that God is infinitely true, infinitely powerful, and infinitely good, and that Christ has merited all for us.³⁸¹

“We are firmly convinced,” says St. Clement of Rome, “that He Who forbade deceit cannot Himself deceive.” Hence the words of St. Paul: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He is faithful that hath promised” (Heb. 10:23). Moreover, we are convinced that God, to Whom nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37), is able to carry out His promises (Rom. 4:18); that God, Who is love itself (1 John 4:8), is more ready to give than we are to receive (St. Jerome); that Christ, by His death on the cross, has merited for us salvation and all things necessary for its attainment. Thus St. Augustine, “I could never hope for pardon or heaven when I think of my great sins, but I venture to hope that through the merits of Christ I may be saved by means of penance and keeping of the commandments.”

3. He only who carries out God’s will can hope for the good things promised by Christ.³⁸²

“Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21).

Hence the sinner can hope in God only when he really repents and is willing to reform his life.

“Hope without virtue is presumption,” says St. Bernard. If the wicked do penance for their sins and do judgment and justice, God will no more remember their sins (Ezek. 18:21). Manasses, King of Israel, led his people into idolatry and put the prophets to death. For this he was given over to his enemies and led in chains to Babylon. There he repented and promised amendment. God then set him free, and gave him back his kingdom, and Manasses destroyed the temples of the idols and did much good (2 Chron. 33).

The just man may hope that God will provide for all his needs; yet he must exert himself to gain those things which he hopes for from God.³⁸³

Christ’s words are: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). We are God’s servants. As St. John of the Cross says: “It is our affair to serve the Lord; it is His to provide for us.” No one who has been faithful to God’s commands has ever been abandoned by Him (Sir. 2:12). “We are unjust to God if we do not place great confidence in Him,” says St. Augustine. “Cast all your care upon the Lord, for He hath care of you” (1 Pet. 5:7). We must not, however, desist from exerting ourselves; we must use those gifts which God has given to us; for God will give us only what we cannot obtain by our own exertions. In the words of St. Charles Borromeo: “We must hope for the best and do our best.” “To expect help and to do nothing,” says St. Francis de Sales, “is to tempt God.” We ought to employ the natural means at our disposal; St. Paul, for example, though he had the gift of healing sickness, recommended Timothy to take a little wine for the sake of his health (1 Tim. 5:23). And all this is true of any kind of necessity: “Help yourself and God will help you.”

4. A wholesome fear of falling into sin must always accompany Christian hope.³⁸⁴

God’s will is that we should work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). No one has complete assurance that he belongs to the number of the elect, or that he will persevere in virtue till death (Council of Trent, 6, Can. 15, 16). Many an old and rotten ship has reached harbor, while many a great and noble vessel has sunk in the sea. Men, illumined of God, like Solomon, have fallen into godless ways before their death, and many a great sinner, like St. Augustine or St. Mary Magdalen, has become a very great saint. “He that thinketh himself to stand take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). “We carry our treasure in frail and earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). “Mistrust of ourselves,” says St. Augustine, “should help us to hope.” Hope and fear are companions; where they reign, the heavenly crown is easily secured (St. John Chrysostom). Hope makes us strong and fear makes us prudent. Hope is like the breeze to a ship, driving it in to the harbor; fear is like the ballast, steadying it and preventing shipwreck. Fear, so far from diminishing hope, increases it. “Trust in God and distrust of ourselves,” says St. Francis de Sales, “are like the two arms of a balance; as one rises the other goes down; the more we distrust ourselves, the more we confide in God, and vice versa.”

5. Christian hope is necessary for salvation.³⁸⁵

A man who has no hope will not do good works, nor avoid sin; while he who has hope is secure of his salvation, just as a man is certain of a plant when he has the seed; “for we are saved by hope” (Rom. 8:24). “Belief in God’s truth, His almighty power, and His love for us, is a triple cord,” says St. Bernard, “which is let down into our prison from heaven; to this we must cling so that it may raise us to the vision of His glory.” “The house of God (i.e., holiness which leads to salvation),” says St. Augustine, “is founded on faith, built up on hope, and finished in love.” In heaven there is no more hope, for we shall then possess all that we hoped for.

6. Christian hope is a gift of God, and we can attain to this hope only by sanctifying grace.³⁸⁶

In this respect we may speak of hope almost in the same words in which we spoke of faith. It is the Spirit of God which awakens in us a longing for heavenly things, and fills us with confidence in God. As sanctifying grace increases, this power of hoping increases; hence the saints hoped most at the approach of death. Hope, like a river, becomes wider as it approaches the sea.

2. THE ADVANTAGE OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

1. He who hopes in God enjoys the special protection of God.³⁸⁷

Examples may be seen in the three children in the furnace, in Joseph in the Egyptian prison, in our blessed Lady when St. Joseph had thoughts of putting her away. Modern history has also its examples, as when Vienna was besieged by the Turks in 1683. Two hundred and fifty thousand Turks were investing the city, which was defended by a garrison of sixteen thousand Christians. Again and again were the enemy repulsed, though the ramparts had been undermined and blown up. Yet as the case of the Christians became more desperate, so increased their trust in God; and at the last extremity there appeared Sobieski’s force, an army of some ninety thousand men. The battle lasted but a day, and the Turks were put to complete rout. God protects those who hope in Him (Dan. 13:60). “A Christian whose hope is in God may be oppressed, but he cannot be overcome,” says St. Cyprian. “Such a one,” adds St Francis de Sales, “is like a general backed by a strong reserve. They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion” (Ps. 124[125]:1). If a man puts his entire confidence in God, God takes him under His special protection, and he may be certain that no harm will come to him (St. Vincent of Paul). The greater our confidence in God, the more certainly will He protect us and come to our help in all dangers (St. Francis de Sales). No one hath hoped in the Lord and been confounded (Sir. 2:11). “We will not have you as the heathens that have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:12).

2. He who hopes in God can obtain everything from Him; for Christ said that such a one might move mountains (Mark 11:23).³⁸⁸

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus did literally move a mountain. Such was the confidence of Moses when he divided the Red Sea with his staff, and of Elijah when he prayed for rain. “Hope is an arrow which pierces the Heart of Christ, and opens the founts of His mercy to the soul that hopes in Him.” “A man gets just as much as he hopes for” (St. John of the Cross).

3. He who hopes in God is strengthened by God, so that he is not afraid of man, and is patient and courageous in suffering, and more especially in face of death.³⁸⁹

We have examples in David before Goliath and Leo before Attila. St. Martin was once attacked by robbers who threatened his life; when they asked why he did not fear, he made reply: “I am a Christian and under God’s protection. I have no need to fear; on the contrary, it is you who ought to be afraid.” The man whose trust is in God troubles himself little about the favors of the great or the sayings of his fellow-men; such was St. Paul’s attitude (1 Cor. 4:3). He who puts his trust in God will be patient in suffering, for he knows “that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). Job was patient in the midst of his sufferings because he looked forward to the resurrection (Job 19:25). How can he be unhappy who looks to the unspeakable reward of heaven? St. Paul calls to us amid his sufferings: “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations” (2 Cor. 7:4). “To die is gain … having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:21–23); and again, “As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me in that day” (2 Tim. 4:8). So joyful was the death of St. Andrew (62 A.D.), that when he saw the cross on which he was to die, he exclaimed: “Hail, blessed cross, sanctified by the death of my God; with transports of joy I come to you; how long have I sought you, how long have I desired you!” St. Ignatius (107 A.D.), Bishop of Antioch, rejoiced when he heard his condemnation from the mouth of the Emperor Trajan; and when the Christians in Rome were planning to set him free, he prayed them not to deprive him of his martyr’s crown: “I fear neither the beasts nor the rending of my limbs, if only I can win Christ;” and so we and innumerable instances in the lives of the saints. Hope is the anchor of the soul (Heb. 6:19). Like the eagle soaring into the light of the sun, it rises above the cares and sorrows of earth.

4. He who hopes in God is impelled to the performance of good works and of heroic acts.³⁹⁰

This is the secret of the zeal of missionaries in the land of the heathen. The hope of the Christian is something more solid than that of the husbandman, or the warrior, or the artist. “He hopes for that which Truth itself has promised,” says St. Paulinus. Our hope is as certain as though it were already an accomplished fact (St. Augustine).

3. THE OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

The Christian may not hope for more or less than what God has promised.

1. The Christian may not rely on his own powers, on his fellow-men, nor on earthly things more than upon God; otherwise he is sure to fail, because outside of God nothing is to be relied upon.³⁹¹

The hope of him who relies only on earthly means is not a heavenly nor a Christian hope, but merely human hope. St. Peter boasted of his strength, and yet he denied his Lord. Goliath trusted in his might, and he came to nought. St. Francis Borgia gave all his service to his patron, the Empress Isabella; she died and then he recognized the folly of it. It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust to men (Ps. 117[118]:8). To build on the favor of men is to raise one’s house on sand or snow. Those who put their trust in men will perish like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). He who relies on his own strength and not upon God has only himself for protector; God will not protect him because he does not hope in His protection (St. Augustine).

2. The Christian may not despair; i.e., he may not give up hoping that God will forgive his sins, or help him in adversity.³⁹²

Cain despaired when he said: “My sin is too great to be forgiven” (Gen. 4:13). Saul despaired by throwing himself on his sword when hard pressed in battle by the Philistines (1 Sam. 31).

The Christian may not despair, because God’s mercy is infinite, and God’s help is nearest when the need is greatest.³⁹³

“Before sinning fear God’s justice,” says St. Gregory the Great; “after sinning trust in His mercy.” Who would doubt of being able to pay off his paltry debts if he were placed before a kingly treasure and told to help himself? Much less should we doubt of God’s mercy. “As a spark is to the ocean, so is the wickedness of man compared to the mercy of God,” says St. John Chrysostom. The greater a sinner is, the dearer is he to God in his repentance, for more glory is given to God when the sins that He forgives are very great.

Despair often ends in suicide and everlasting death.

Judas is an example of this. Despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit, and as such is never forgiven. “Hope,” says St. Isidore, “opens heaven’s gates, while despair closes them.” St. Augustine says that he who despairs of God’s mercy, dishonors God as though he did not believe in His existence; and St. Jerome adds that the sin of Judas in despairing of God’s mercy was greater than his sin of betraying Christ. He who sins kills his soul, but he who despairs is already in hell.

3. The Christian must never presume on his trust in God’s mercy, i.e., he may not continue sinning with the idea that God’s mercy can never condemn him to hell.³⁹⁴

Confidence in God and fear of God must ever be equally present in us. It is wrong that there should be only fear of God without trust in Him, for this is despair. It is also wrong that there should be no fear at all; if a man thinks his salvation already secure he sins by presumption. “Despise not God’s mercy,” says St. Bernard, “if you would escape His justice.” Christ says: “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). No man may safely say to himself, “I can always do penance for this sin,” or, “I will reform before my death.”

4. The Christian may never tempt God; i.e., he must never expose himself rashly to danger in the hope that God will save him.³⁹⁵

He only can hope for help who does what God requires of him. He who is indifferent to God’s will, and acts with thoughtless rashness, is deserted by God. Hence: “He that loveth danger shall perish in it” (Sir. 3:27). The devil urged Our Lord to tempt God by throwing Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple (Matt. 4:6). So a man who should refuse to call in a doctor or to take medicines in a dangerous sickness, on the plea that God would come to his help, would be tempting God. Those who in the first ages of Christianity exposed themselves without reasonable cause to martyrdom were not accounted martyrs even when they died for the faith.

_________________

¹ CCC 163, 330–331.

² CCC 356,

³ CCC 31–50, 156.

⁴ CCC 51–53.

⁵ CCC 54–66.

⁶ CCC 67.

⁷ CCC 29, 37, 1960.

⁸ CCC 74–76.

⁹ CCC 80–82.

¹⁰ CCC 84–86.

¹¹ The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven was dogmatically defined by Pius XII in the apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), CCC 966.

¹² CCC 80.

¹³ CCC 101–114.

¹⁴ CCC 120.

¹⁵ CCC 124–125, 127, 514–515.

¹⁶ CCC 126.

¹⁷ CCC 131–133.

¹⁸ CCC 111–119.

¹⁹ CCC 81–90.

²⁰ CCC 186–197, 1124, 1327.

²¹ CCC 153–155, 172–175.

²² CCC 154–155.

²³ CCC 156.

²⁴ CCC 159.

²⁵ CCC 144, 150, 157.

²⁶ CCC 217, 548.

²⁷ CCC 800, 891–892, 2003, 2035

²⁸ CCC 830,

²⁹ CCC 2089.

³⁰ CCC 1229, 1248.

³¹ CCC 1253.

³² CCC 153, 1253.

³³ CCC 27.

³⁴ CCC 166–168.

³⁵ CCC 29, 160, 162, 678.

³⁶ CCC 161, 183.

³⁷ CCC 162, 1037, 1816, 1821, 2009–2011, 2016, 2087–2089.

³⁸ CCC 156.

³⁹ CCC 547–548, 670.

⁴⁰ CCC 2115.

⁴¹ CCC 2116.

⁴² CCC 122, 601, 652, 2115.

⁴³ CCC 799–800.

⁴⁴ CCC 801.

⁴⁵ CCC 817, 2089.

⁴⁶ CCC 846–847.

⁴⁷ CCC 818–819. Catholics are called to work with the grace of God to overcome these lamentable divisions in Christ’s Body; CCC 820–822.

⁴⁸ CCC 2123–2128.

⁴⁹ Unbelief can be the result of “indifference” and “a sluggish moral conscience” (CCC 29, 2128). The Church also, however, recognizes factors which can lessen or nullify the imputation of guilt (CCC 1735).

⁵⁰ CCC 1863, 1865, 2087–2089.

⁵¹ Since the time of Fr. Spirago’s writing, the Church has now ceased publishing an Index of Forbidden books and did away with any associated canonical penalties. The Christian faithful must exercise virtue in refraining from reading anything that would damage their faith. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith still bans individual books it has reviewed and determined to be theologically in error.

⁵² CCC 1036.

⁵³ CCC 189, 425, 851, 1058, 1816, 2471–2472.

⁵⁴ CCC 992, 1173, 2474.

⁵⁵ CCC 1258, 2472–2473.

⁵⁶ CCC 675, 2120.

⁵⁷ The Holy See’s Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism (1993) states that Catholics visiting other Christian Churches or ecclesial Communities “are encouraged to take part in the psalms, responses, hymns and common actions of the Church in which they are guests. If invited by their hosts, they may read a lesson or preach.” Note that this participation is non-sacramental.

⁵⁸ CCC 2166.

⁵⁹ CCC 234, 240–241, 262, 265.

⁶⁰ CCC 233.

⁶¹ CCC 604.

⁶² CCC 1669, 1671.

⁶³ CCC 2157.

⁶⁴ CCC 192–193.

⁶⁵ CCC 194–196.

⁶⁶ CCC 190.

⁶⁷ CCC 191.

⁶⁸ CCC 191.

⁶⁹ CCC 36.

⁷⁰ CCC 33.

⁷¹ CCC 34.

⁷² CCC 32.

⁷³ CCC 28.

⁷⁴ CCC 29, 37.

⁷⁵ CCC 35, 37–38.

⁷⁶ CCC 38, 41, 52.

⁷⁷ CCC 39–43, 230.

⁷⁸ CCC 202, 212, 2086.

⁷⁹ CCC 370.

⁸⁰ CCC 707

⁸¹ CCC 199–202, 212–213, 228.

⁸² CCC 41, 43.

⁸³ CCC 212.

⁸⁴ CCC 300–301.

⁸⁵ CCC 788, 1027–1029, 1088, 1265, 1374.

⁸⁶ CCC 1303, 2144.

⁸⁷ CCC 212, 2086.

⁸⁸ CCC 678.

⁸⁹ CCC 309–314.

⁹⁰ CCC 311.

⁹¹ CCC 219, 314.

⁹² CCC 268–271.

⁹³ CCC 274, 305.

⁹⁴ CCC 214, 218–221.

⁹⁵ CCC 41, 339.

⁹⁶ CCC 51–52, 343, 356–358.

⁹⁷ CCC 901, “the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit may be produced in them.” In answer to the question of whether God loves some creatures more than others, St. Thomas Aquinas responded in two ways: (1) God loves all things by an act of the will that is one, simple, and always the same. In this sense, then, He loves all things equally. (2) If, however, we are speaking of God’s love as the cause of a thing’s goodness, then no; God loves some things more than others. God’s loving one thing more than another is nothing else than His willing a greater good for that thing. Thus, those things which bear a greater degree of goodness are more loved by God (Summa theologiae, I, q. 20, a. 3–4).

⁹⁸ CCC 270, 456–457, 545, 1058.

⁹⁹ CCC 210-211, 1037, 1058.

¹⁰⁰ CCC 270, 1421, 1427, 1470, 1485–1491.

¹⁰¹ CCC 311

¹⁰² CCC 677, 1022, 1039.

¹⁰³ CCC 2010, 2550.

¹⁰⁴ CCC 1465.

¹⁰⁵ CCC 1041.

¹⁰⁶ CCC 208.

¹⁰⁷ CCC 215–217.

¹⁰⁸ CCC 207, 211, 215.

¹⁰⁹ CCC 253, 256, 262–264, 266, 689.

¹¹⁰ CCC 237.

¹¹¹ CCC 258–259, 267, 291–292.

¹¹² CCC 238–248, 253–256, 262–264.

¹¹³ CCC 237, 240–241.

¹¹⁴ CCC 232–236, 249, 1239–1240, 1449.

¹¹⁵ CCC 289, 337.

¹¹⁶ CCC 325–327.

¹¹⁷ CCC 337–344.

¹¹⁸ CCC 345–349.

¹¹⁹ CCC 296–298, 318.

¹²⁰ CCC 295, 319.

¹²¹ CCC 293–294.

¹²² CCC 302.

¹²³ CCC 299–301.

¹²⁴ CCC 303–304, 312–314, 322–324.

¹²⁵ CCC 303–305, 2822–2826, 2305.

¹²⁶ CCC 1733, 1803–1804.

¹²⁷ CCC 1696, 1723.

¹²⁸ CCC 1039–1040.

¹²⁹ CCC 311, 396.

¹³⁰ CCC 312–313.

¹³¹ CCC 314.

¹³² CCC 428, 556, 793.

¹³³ CCC 312–314, 428, 618, 1505.

¹³⁴ CCC 2848.

¹³⁵ CCC 1473.

¹³⁶ CCC 1820.

¹³⁷ CCC 793.

¹³⁸ CCC 327–329, 350.

¹³⁹ CCC 391–393.

¹⁴⁰ CCC 394–395.

¹⁴¹ CCC 331, 333.

¹⁴² CCC 332–336, 352.

¹⁴³ This is pious speculation, not a matter of Church teaching.

¹⁴⁴ The Church has never made an official statement on the matter and recognizes the question of when man appeared on earth as a valid point of scientific inquiry. Since Fr. Spirago’s writing, monolithic human architecture dating to 8000 BC has been uncovered in Turkey. Because God is truth itself (CCC 215, 2151), there can never be any true conflict between the truths of revelation and those arrived at through properly conducted scientific inquiry (CCC 159).

¹⁴⁵ CCC 356–368, 1703.

¹⁴⁶ Since Fr. Spirago’s writing, the Magisterium of the Church has issued further clarification on this matter. Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), stated, “The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith” (36).

¹⁴⁷ CCC 359–360, 375.

¹⁴⁸ CCC 356.

¹⁴⁹ CCC 355–357, 363–364, 1702–1704.

¹⁵⁰ CCC 366, 997.

¹⁵¹ CCC 374–378.

¹⁵² CCC 374–376.

¹⁵³ CCC 390.

¹⁵⁴ CCC 396, 2541.

¹⁵⁵ CCC 215, 397–398, 1707.

¹⁵⁶ CCC 402–403, 405, 407–409, 1264, 1426, 2515.

¹⁵⁷ CCC 1261, “Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.”

¹⁵⁸ CCC 404–406.

¹⁵⁹ CCC 490–493, 722.

¹⁶⁰ CCC 422, 430, 519–521.

¹⁶¹ CCC 410–412.

¹⁶² CCC 59–62, 705–709.

¹⁶³ CCC 64, 711–716.

¹⁶⁴ CCC 497.

¹⁶⁵ CCC 718.

¹⁶⁶ CCC 528.

¹⁶⁷ CCC 1333, 1544.

¹⁶⁸ CCC 713.

¹⁶⁹ CCC 58, 122, 436, 489, 522, 608, 762, 2130, 2571–2572, 2574, 2579.

¹⁷⁰ CCC 59–64, 145, 205–212, 705–710, 2570–2584.

¹⁷¹ CCC 58, 64, 843–845, 2569.

¹⁷² CCC 27–29, 401, 407–409.

¹⁷³ CCC 422–423.

¹⁷⁴ CCC 574–594.

¹⁷⁵ CCC 522, 572.

¹⁷⁶ CCC 436.

¹⁷⁷ CCC 517,

¹⁷⁸ CCC 430–434.

¹⁷⁹ CCC 484.

¹⁸⁰ CCC 437, 525.

¹⁸¹ CCC 525, 528.

¹⁸² CCC 527.

¹⁸³ CCC 529–30.

¹⁸⁴ CCC 530–534.

¹⁸⁵ CCC 534.

¹⁸⁶ CCC 523, 717–720.

¹⁸⁷ CCC 535–540.

¹⁸⁸ The current norms for fasting and abstinence in the Latin Catholic Church require fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as well as abstinence on the Fridays of Lent. (If possible, the faithful are asked to continue the Good Friday fast until the Easter Vigil.) “Abstinence” means refraining from eating meat, “Fasting” here means that a person restricts himself or herself to one full meal and two smaller meals (that together do not equal a full meal). During the other days of Lenten season, the Church recommends self-imposed fasting, increased prayer—especially participation in the Eucharist—and almsgiving.

¹⁸⁹ CCC 551–556, 858–862.

¹⁹⁰ CCC 546, 2613,

¹⁹¹ CCC 544, 716.

¹⁹² CCC 541–546, 2612.

¹⁹³ CCC 554–556, 1114–1116, 1716–1719, 2761–2865.

¹⁹⁴ CCC 547–550.

¹⁹⁵ CCC 574–594.

¹⁹⁶ CCC 559–560, 569–570.

¹⁹⁷ CCC 610–615.

¹⁹⁸ CCC 596–600.

¹⁹⁹ CCC 2669.

²⁰⁰ CCC 625–630.

²⁰¹ CCC 631–637.

²⁰² CCC 638–639, 648–650

²⁰³ CCC 645–646, 999.

²⁰⁴ CCC 639, 651–653, 1170, 1217, 1243.

²⁰⁵ CCC 641–644.

²⁰⁶ CCC 659–667.

²⁰⁷ CCC 668–672, 689–690, 731–732.

²⁰⁸ CCC 673–679, 681–682.

²⁰⁹ CCC 484–486.

²¹⁰ CCC 496–498.

²¹¹ CCC 437, 531–534, 564.

²¹² CCC 461–463.

²¹³ CCC 464, 469.

²¹⁴ CCC 432, 618.

²¹⁵ CCC 464–467, 476–477.

²¹⁶ CCC 470, 2599.

²¹⁷ CCC 464–469.

²¹⁸ CCC 470–474.

²¹⁹ CCC 475, 2824.

²²⁰ CCC 468.

²²¹ CCC 479.

²²² CCC 466, 495, 2677.

²²³ CCC 475.

²²⁴ CCC 1476.

²²⁵ CCC 477.

²²⁶ CCC 468–470.

²²⁷ CCC 443.

²²⁸ CCC 444.

²²⁹ CCC 494.

²³⁰ CCC 442.

²³¹ CCC 439-440.

²³² CCC 547–548, 557, 653.

²³³ CCC 458–459, 823, 827, 1716–1717, 1933, 2419, 2608.

²³⁴ CCC 446–451.

²³⁵ CCC 245, 689, 703.

²³⁶ Father Spirago covers the complicated history preceding the break between the Church of the West and East with a great deal of brevity, and we do not wish readers to draw any false conclusions. For that reason, curious readers are strongly encouraged to study the history in greater detail. See CCC 247–248 for some clarification regarding Catholic and Eastern Orthodox expressions of the divine processions.

²³⁷ CCC 739, 746–747, 2011, 2017.

²³⁸ CCC 733–734, 799, 1997, 1999.

²³⁹ CCC 2001–2002, 2007–2010.

²⁴⁰ CCC 2024

²⁴¹ CCC 696–697, 701.

²⁴² CCC 1953, 1993, 2002.

²⁴³ CCC 682, 1993.

²⁴⁴ CCC 2010.

²⁴⁵ CCC 830, 836.

²⁴⁶ CCC 1076, 1287.

²⁴⁷ CCC 830, 837, 1269.

²⁴⁸ CCC 1041, 1438.

²⁴⁹ CCC 737, 798, 1104, 1392, 1434, 1969.

²⁵⁰ CCC 1999–2000. See also CCC 1468.

²⁵¹ CCC 1213, 1215, 1226, 1265, 1848.

²⁵² CCC 683–684, 694,

²⁵³ CCC 1987–1990, 1263, 1426.

²⁵⁴ CCC 797, 1197, 1265, 1695.

²⁵⁵ CCC 1995, 1266.

²⁵⁶ CCC 1832.

²⁵⁷ CCC 1091, 2681.

²⁵⁸ CCC 798, 1813, 2008.

²⁵⁹ CCC 1996–1997, 2009.

²⁶⁰ CCC 798, 2008–2009, 2024–2027, 1855–1856.

²⁶¹ CCC 1856–1858, 1864, 1874.

²⁶² CCC 2005.

²⁶³ CCC 712, 1299, 1830–1831.

²⁶⁴ CCC 1845.

²⁶⁵ CCC 799–800, 2003–2004.

²⁶⁶ CCC 800, 951. See also CCC 2024.

²⁶⁷ CCC 91–92, 490, 694–701, 712.

²⁶⁸ CCC 737–741.

²⁶⁹ CCC 765, 768, 889-892, 2035.

²⁷⁰ CCC 750, 1586.

²⁷¹ CCC 828.

²⁷² CCC 696–697, 701.

²⁷³ CCC 751–752, 770–773, 776.

²⁷⁴ CCC 669, 732, 768.

²⁷⁵ CCC 167–169, 171, 181, 813.

²⁷⁶ CCC 783–786, 873, 1070.

²⁷⁷ CCC 436, 874, 1558, 1581.

²⁷⁸ CCC 669, 786, 792.

²⁷⁹ CCC 871–873, 891–913, 1547.

²⁸⁰ CCC 552–553, 765, 880–881, 1444.

²⁸¹ CCC 882, 936.

²⁸² CCC 883, 891–892, 1369.

²⁸³ CCC 882.

²⁸⁴ CCC 880–885, 937.

²⁸⁵ CCC 880, 1576, 1313, 1594, 2068.

²⁸⁶ CCC 886,

²⁸⁷ CCC 894–896, 1548–1551, 1555–1561, 1576.

²⁸⁸ CCC 895, 1594.

²⁸⁹ CCC 883.

²⁹⁰ CCC 887.

²⁹¹ CCC 886, 888, 1548–1551, 1562–1568.

²⁹² CCC 1567.

²⁹³ CCC 837–838, 1267–1271. For the Magisterium’s later reflection upon her relationship to those validly baptized in other Christian communities, see specifically CCC 838, 855, and 1271; and for the Church’s relationship to non-Christians, see CCC 839–848, and 856.

²⁹⁴ CCC 1389, 1816, 2042–2043, 2688.

²⁹⁵ CCC 1269, 2037, 2041–2046.

²⁹⁶ For the most current information regarding which offenses involve excommunication, please consult the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

²⁹⁷ CCC 1463, 2272, 2322.

²⁹⁸ CCC 551–553, 763–768.

²⁹⁹ CCC 1287.

³⁰⁰ CCC 849–852.

³⁰¹ CCC 861–862, 1087.

³⁰² CCC 834, 882.

³⁰³ CCC 816.

³⁰⁴ CCC 852.

³⁰⁵ CCC 853–854.

³⁰⁶ The Church’s relationship with Muslims is discussed in CCC 841.

³⁰⁷ The Church recognizes that the communion it shares with the Orthodox Churches, although imperfect, is nevertheless “so profound” that it “lacks little” to attain the unity necessary for a common celebration of the Eucharist (CCC 838).

³⁰⁸ As of 2018, the Church was estimated at 1.32 billion members.

³⁰⁹ CCC 77, 675–677, 834, 1108, 1536.

³¹⁰ CCC 243, 808, 891, 2034.

³¹¹ CCC 88, 891.

³¹² CCC 884, 891.

³¹³ CCC 892, 2035.

³¹⁴ The text of the solemn definition reads, “We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable”; https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/first-vatican-council-1505.

³¹⁵ CCC 891, 2032–2036

³¹⁶ CCC 828.

³¹⁷ CCC 1536, 1554, 1593.

³¹⁸ CCC 1555–1556, 1593.

³¹⁹ CCC 816, 870.

³²⁰ CCC 811–812.

³²¹ CCC 813–816.

³²² CCC 823–829.

³²³ CCC 830–835.

³²⁴ CCC 857–865.

³²⁵ CCC 816, 830.

³²⁶ The Church has subsequently made clear that those born into Christian communities separated from the Catholic Church cannot be charged with the “sin of separation” (CCC 818).

³²⁷ CCC 831, 836, 845.

³²⁸ CCC 846.

³²⁹ CCC 819, 838.

³³⁰ Those termed “invisible members” by Fr. Spirago must, it would appear, be drawn from among those mentioned in his previous sentence. Instead of “invisible members,” the Church has come to speak of being “joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic Faith in its entirety” (CCC 838) and to be “related … in various ways” to those who have not yet received the Gospel. For a fuller discussion of these issues, please see CCC 836–848.

³³¹ CCC 837.

³³² CCC 1907, 2244–2246

³³³ CCC 1877–1927.

³³⁴ CCC 2500–2503, 2513.

³³⁵ CCC 159.

³³⁶ CCC 954, 959, 962.

³³⁷ CCC 947.

³³⁸ CCC 954–962, 970, 1475.

³³⁹ CCC 954–955, 1475–1479.

³⁴⁰ CCC 958, 1032, 1371, 1479.

³⁴¹ CCC 956-957, 1370.

³⁴² CCC 958.

³⁴³ CCC 997, 1005, 1016.

³⁴⁴ CCC 1007–1008, 1018.

³⁴⁵ CCC 1009–1012.

³⁴⁶ CCC 1014, 2677. See also CCC 336.

³⁴⁷ CCC 1021–1022.

³⁴⁸ CCC 1022.

³⁴⁹ CCC 1023–1029, 1053.

³⁵⁰ 956, 1024.

³⁵¹ CCC 1012.

³⁵² CCC 1045, 1460.

³⁵³ CCC 1508, 1521, 1657, 1723, 2015–2016.

³⁵⁴ CCC 260, 957, 1002–1004, 1090, 1265, 2794.

³⁵⁵ CCC 1033–1037, 1056–1057.

³⁵⁶ CCC 1038.

³⁵⁷ CCC 1034–1035.

³⁵⁸ CCC 1033, 1861.

³⁵⁹ Father Spirago makes clear that the souls of unbaptized children do not experience any type of punishment (suffering). Since the date of Fr. Spirago’s writing, the Church, recalling Jesus’s tenderness towards children and God’s great mercy, has expressed its hope that unbaptized children may also share in the salvation won by Christ (CCC 1261).

³⁶⁰ CCC 1033.

³⁶¹ CCC 1030–1032.

³⁶² CCC 958, 1032, 1371, 1472–1473, 1479.

³⁶³ CCC 1031–1032.

³⁶⁴ CCC 958, 1032, 1371, 1479.

³⁶⁵ CCC 2199.

³⁶⁶ CCC 958, 2447.

³⁶⁷ CCC 997–1001.

³⁶⁸ CCC 645, 999.

³⁶⁹ CCC 654–655, 1009–1012.

³⁷⁰ CCC 678–679, 1038–1040, 1470, 1059.

³⁷¹ CCC 1038.

³⁷² Matthew 24:30 does speak of “the sign of the Son of man” appearing in heaven. Father Spirago’s interpretation that this will be the sign of the Cross, although traditional, goes beyond what is explicitly stated in the inspired text.

³⁷³ CCC 679, 1040.

³⁷⁴ CCC 678, 682, 1039, 1059.

³⁷⁵ CCC 673–677, 1048.

³⁷⁶ CCC 675–676, 769.

³⁷⁷ CCC 674, 840.

³⁷⁸ CCC 675, 677.

³⁷⁹ CCC 1817–1821, 2090. See also CCC 489.

³⁸⁰ CCC 1820–1821, 2090, 2657.

³⁸¹ CCC 617, 1817, 1820.

³⁸² CCC 828, 2658.

³⁸³ CCC 1993.

³⁸⁴ CCC 1431–1433, 1863.

³⁸⁵ CCC 1820.

³⁸⁶ CCC 1266, 2090.

³⁸⁷ CCC 2854.

³⁸⁸ CCC 1819–1820.

³⁸⁹ CCC 1821, 2015–2016, 2657–2658.

³⁹⁰ CCC 2002, 2016.

³⁹¹ CCC 1821, 2090. See also CCC 1996.

³⁹² CCC 2091.

³⁹³ CCC 1864.

³⁹⁴ CCC 2090, 2092.

³⁹⁵ CCC 2118–2119.