8. Show how the Catholic Church is apostolic.

We answer : The Catholic Church is apostolic, because her chief pastor, the pope, is the lawful successor of St. Peter, and the bishops are the lawful successors of the other apostles,from whom they have their doctrine, their orders, and their mission, through an unbroken succession of bishops.

The Catholic Church can show precisely how she obtained possession of the divine authority of the apostles. The Roman Pontiff, Pius IX, can name the two hundred and fifty-three popes who, without a break, handed down the authority of St. Peter, the head of the apostles, even to himself. He can tell the day and hour of his election and consecration, which are consigned to imperishable monuments. Every bishop of the Catholic Church can also show the authentic titles which prove the transmission of the apostolic authority from the pontiff, who founded his Church, down to himself, the validity of his ordination, and the legitimate character of his mission. Every priest receives his authority from his bishop. Thus there is not a break in those glorious lines of bishops, which each episcopal see, and above all sees, that of Peter, can show alike to friend and foe. Here nothing is arbitrary, nothing uncertain. The apostolic ministry is perpetuated, under the presidency of the head of the apostles, with the perpetual presence and assistance of Him who promised to be with his own, even to the end of the world. Thus the authority of the minister of our altars does not depend on the power of any temporal monarch, nor on the people ; it depends solely on the head and chief pastor in the apostolical hierarchy. What noble independence this ! It is the security of the faithful, and constitutes both the greatness of the Church, and the dignity of her pastors.

In the beginning of the thirteenth century the pope sent ambassadors to the famous Tartar monarch, Gengis Khan. The Tartars asked the ambassadors, "Who is the pope ?  Is he not an old man at least five hundred years of age ?" They might have said twelve hundred, and they would have been right ; for, as Pius IX has said so truly, "Simon may die, but Peter lives forever" and Peter will live until time shall have ended its course. Pius IX is to us Peter,  for each pontiff, as he comes, reigns upon Peter's throne, speaks with his voice, binds and looses with his hands, opens and closes the kingdom with the keys which Peter once took from the pierced hands of his divine Master ; and he will hold those keys of life and death till the number of the elect is filled, and the last of the redeemed enters his Father's house.

The Church taught and governed in our days by the pope and bishops, differs not in its essential character from the Church taught and governed by Peter and the apostles. Let us see how Peter exercises the authority conferred on him, and, through him, upon all his successors, by Jesus Christ. After the resurrection of our Saviour, who appeared to Peter first of all the apostles, he is the first to proclaim that resurrection to all the people, and he confirms the truth of his testimony by a miracle. ( Acts ii, 14  and, iii, 15.) After the ascension of our Lord, Peter assembled the apostles and some disciples in the upper chamber, and addressed them thus, "The Scripture must needs be fulfilled" which foretells the defection of Judas, and his place being taken by another. We, therefore, must choose one from among us, who has been a witness to the miracles and resurrection of the Son of God, to take his place. (Acts i, 16.) Is the Gospel to be preached to the Gentiles ? It is Peter to whom the solution of the
difficulty is revealed it is he who decides, "all holding their peace, and giving glory to God." (Acts iii, 18.) Peter first received the Gentiles into the Church ( Acts x ), after having been the first to introduce the Jews into her sacred fold. At a later period the question of circumcision and the ceremonies of the law came up. Peter at once rose up, and explained the common faith. All listened in silence. A decree was made in which the faith on this point was determined forever. Peter visited the Christians of Joppe, Lydda, Galilee, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, etc. ( Acts ix.) Everywhere he founded new congregations of Christians, and visited them all in, his office of Supreme Pastor. From Jerusalem he went to Antioch, from Antioch to Rome, where he combated the heresy of Simon the Magician, and finally sealed his glorious apostleship by dying a martyr's death.

As the lawful successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the pope decides, without appeal, matters of faith and morals, convokes general councils, presides over and confirms them, founds churches, visits them in person, or by his delegates, appoints bishops, confirms them in the faith, and acts in all as the Supreme Head and Pastor of the Catholic Church. Peter took possession, for himself and his successors, of all the prerogatives and duties of the Sovereign Pontificate. Now let us see how the apostles exercise the authority conferred on them by Christ, From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that they teach and preach the Gospel, they baptize and impose hands, that is, give confirmation,- they found churches, and give them pastors ; they choose one to succeed Judas; in the Council of Jerusalem, they regulate whatever concerns faith and discipline, saying, "It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us" (Acts xv, 82) ; they resolve difficulties, and repress scandals that arise, and, if necessary, they excommunicate him who deserves to be cut off from the communion of the faithful, till he truly repents ; they command the Christians to avoid teachers who were not sent by Christ (Tit. iii, 10), and to receive their oral traditions as well as their written instructions (2 Thess. ii, 14); they clearly teach that the Church is founded upon the apostolic ministry (Eph. ii, 20) ; that Christ appointed apostles, pastors, doctors, in a word, a teaching and governing body, to accomplish the work of sanctifying the elect, that "we be not carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Eph. iv, 12-14); they also teach that the Holy Ghost has appointed bishops to rule the Church of God (Acts xx, 28) ; that the reading of holy Scripture "is profitable," to those especially who "teach and reprove others," yet that they contain difficult passages, "which the unlearned wrest" from their true meaning "to their own destruction." (2 Pet. iii, 16.) What is all this but precisely what the bishops of the Catholic Church practice today. They teach, decide on points of faith and morals, give confirmation, ordain priests; they govern, punish, excommunicate, grant indulgences, recommend the faithful not to become familiar with heretics; they assemble in council, to regulate in matters concerning faith, morals, and discipline ; and all this they do in the name of the Holy Ghost, who has promised them his assistance. They teach that the unwritten word of God is to be received with the same faith as the written ; and each bishop says, with the great apostle, that he is "appointed , by the Holy Spirit" to govern his Church.

Thus we see that the Church of Jesus Christ, as described by St. Luke, St. Paul, St. James, and the others, is precisely the same as the Church which is called one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

To be continued . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. By going to schools forbidden by the Church;
2. by the neglect of their religious duties;
3. by the reading of bad books;
4. by worldliness and a wicked life;
5. by intercourse with scoffers at religion;
6. by mixed marriages;
7. by becoming members of secret societies;
8. by pride and subtle reasoning on the mysteries of religion.

1. There are different causes which lead to apostasy from the faith—to infidelity. The most successful means ever employed by Satan to bring about gradually a universal falling-away from Christ and His religion, is the introduction of the present system of public, or state-school, education. This I have sufficiently shown in my book, “Public School Education.” In these schools no mention of God and religion is to be made. The best means to abolish religion is not to teach any. Children are to be brought up infidels. But there are some who assert that “there is no sectarian teaching in the public schools, and, consequently, a Catholic may send his children to them without exposing them to any danger.” Now, even supposing there really was no sectarian teaching in the common schools, even then a Catholic parent cannot send his children to such a school without exposing them to the greatest danger. Those who approve of the public school, because nothing sectarian is taught there, act like a certain husbandman who wished to transplant a fine young tree to a certain part of his garden. On examining the new place, however, he found that the ground was filled with poisonous ingredients, which would greatly endanger the life of the tree. He therefore transplanted the tree to a sandy hill, where there were, indeed, no poisonous ingredients, but where there was also no nourishment for the tree. Now, will anyone assert that the young tree was not in danger of perishing in this new place? And will anyone assert that the faith and soul of a child are not in danger of being ruined in those godless common schools? Even if Protestantism is not taught there, infidelity is taught and practiced there: and infidelity is even worse than Protestantism.

But is it really true that Protestantism is not taught in many of our public schools? This is unfortunately far from being the case. Napoleon I. introduced the public-school system into France, in order, as he honestly declared, “to possess the means of controlling political and moral opinions.” Puritans and Freemasons, in this country, have clearly the same end in view in upholding the present system of public schools.

In the early days of New England, and even of several of the other American States, the Puritans always used the public schools as a powerful means of spreading their peculiar doctrines. When they were stripped of this power by the liberal founders of American independence, they still struggled for many years to accomplish, by indirect means, the injustice which they dared not maintain openly. We all remember how the poor Catholic boys and girls of the public schools were harassed by colporteurs and proselytizers, who carried baskets filled, not with bread for the poor hungry children,–no, but with oily tracts, cunningly devised to weaken, or even destroy, the religious faith of those poor little ones. In some schools, even, Catholic children were urged and enticed to go to the sectarian Sunday schools; and pictures, cakes, and sweet meats were liberally promised, in order to induce them to go. Teachers were selected with special regard to their bitter hatred of the Catholic Church, and their zeal for “evangelical” propagandism. Some years ago, in New Orleans, when the school-board was composed of bigoted sectarians; many of them sectarian preachers, all the Catholic teachers, male and female, were turned out of the schools, merely because they were Catholics.

And even if Catholic children are not always expressly taught doctrines opposed to their religion, nevertheless the school-books which they use are, as I have said, frequently tainted with anti-Catholic prejudices and misrepresentations. Nothing can be more evident than the decidedly anti-Catholic spirit of English literature in all its departments. It has grown up, ever since England’s apostasy, in an anti-Catholic soil, in an anti-Catholic atmosphere, and from an anti-Catholic stem. It is essentially anti-Catholic, and tends, wherever it comes in contact with Catholic feelings and principles, to sully, infect, and utterly corrupt them. Sound knowledge, a sound head, strong faith, and great grace, all these combined may, indeed, preserve one whom the necessity of his position may lead into unCatholic schools; but no one will deny that this anti-Catholic literature must exercise a most baneful influence over all those who, without sufficient preparation from nature or grace, plunge into it, in the pursuit of amusement or knowledge. Protestant ideas will not make the Catholic turn Protestant, there is not much danger of that, but they will tend to make him an infidel; they will destroy his principles without putting others in their place; they will relax and deaden the whole spiritual man.

In these schools Catholic children are taught that the Catholic Church is the nursery of ignorance and vice; they are taught that all the knowledge, civilization, and virtue which the world now possesses, are the offspring of the so-called “Reformation.” They learn nothing of the true history of Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Ireland, Austria, and the other Catholic countries of Europe; they learn nothing of the true history of Mexico, and the various Catholic countries of North and South America. They never hear of the vast libraries of Catholic learning, the rich endowments of Catholic education, all over the world, for ages; they never hear of the countless universities, colleges, academies, and free schools established by the Catholic Church, and by Catholic governments, throughout Christendom. Where is the common-school book whose author has manly honesty enough to acknowledge that even the famous universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded by Catholics, and plundered from their lawful possessors by an apostate government?

Moreover, Catholic children are often singled out by their school-companions, and sometimes even by their teachers, as objects of ridicule. Now, what is the result of all this training? The consequence is, that either the Catholic children become ashamed of their holy religion, and despise their parents, or, if they have the courage to hold out, their tender minds are subject to numberless petty annoyances: they must endure a species of martyrdom. This is no exaggeration: I have it from good authority. Practically speaking, the present common-school system is but a gigantic scheme for proselytism and infidelity.

Now, we intend that our children shall be taught to love and revere their holy Church. We wish to teach them that that Church has been, for over eighteen hundred years, the faithful guardian of that very Bible of which Protestants prate so loudly, and which they dishonor so much. We wish our children to learn that the Catholic Church has been, in all ages, the friend and supporter of true liberty; i.e., liberty united to order and justice. We wish them to know that the Catholic Church has ever been the jealous guardian of the sanctity of marriage; that she has always defended it against brutal lust and heathen divorce courts. We wish our children, in fine, to regard the Church as the only hope of society, the only salvation of their country, the only means of preserving intact all the blessings of freedom.

The public schools are not only seminaries of infidelity, they are, moreover, in many cases, hotbeds of immorality. In these schools every child is received, no matter how vicious or corrupt he or his parents may be. “One mangy sheep,” as the homely proverb says, “infects the whole flock.” So one corrupt child in a school is capable of corrupting and ruining all the others. And, in fact, where have our young people learned the shameful habit of self-abuse, and many other foul, unnatural crimes, that are bringing so many thousands to an early grave? Ask those unhappy victims, ask our physicians throughout the country, and they will tell you that, in almost every instance, it was from the evil companions with whom they associated in the common schools. Ah! you will see, only on the day of judgment, how many unnatural crimes have been taught and propagated, from generation to generation, in these very hotbeds of iniquity.

A certain friend of mine a man of great learning and experience wrote to me, one day, that he himself had been, in his youth, subjected to college-training; that, be it by nature or by grace, or both combined, he resisted and escaped. “But,” he adds, “from my observation and experience, I would say it did require a miracle for Catholic youth to escape the damnable effects of a non-Catholic education.” I have had opportunities, in this line, that many a priest has never had. I assert that a Catholic boy of tender years, and perhaps careless training, can be preserved from moral contamination, in public and mixed schools, by nothing less than a miracle. I will not chop logic with any one about it. It is a matter of fact. I therefore assert it as of ascertained result, that in most cases especially in those cases where there are enough of Catholics together to have a school of their own their frequenting a school without religion will land most of them in utter carelessness of their religion.

2. Many fall away from the faith because their parents neglected giving them any instruction in religion. There is a certain class of parents who have their children instructed in everything but their religion. There are other parents who allow their children to grow up in ignorance of everything except in the manner in which they may make some money. Now, when the time draws near for these children to make their first communion, their parents will take them to the priest to prepare them for this holy action in a week or two. Now, what can children learn in a couple of weeks? Certain it is that what they learn very seldom enters their hearts. Their hearts are not prepared for the Word of God; they are light-minded, and, in many cases, corrupted, and what they do learn is learned from constraint. No sooner are they free from constraint than they throw their religion overboard: they become the worst enemies of the Catholic Church. The young man who set fire to St. Augustine’s Church, in Philadelphia, Pa., was a Catholic, and he gloried in being able to burn his name out of the baptismal record. By a just punishment of God, these neglected Catholic children will become our persecutors. Thus is verified in these children what God says through the Prophet Isaias: “Therefore is my people led away captive because they had not knowledge.” (Isa. v, 13.)

There are others who do not wish to be instructed in their religious duties, in order that they may more easily dispense themselves from the obligation of complying with these duties. Now, it is this very class of men that easily give ear to the principles of infidelity, because these principles please their corrupt nature better than those of our holy religion. The class of these men is very numerous, and their number is on the increase every day. For, not having any religion themselves, nor wishing to have any, what wonder if their children follow their example? Such as the tree is, such also will be the fruit. A few weeks ago, a Catholic lady of New York asked a little child: “How many Gods are there, and who made you?” The child could not answer these questions. So the Catholic lady said to the child: “Say, ‘There is but one God;’ say, ‘God made me.'” When the mother of the child heard this she flew into a passion, and said: “My child shall never learn such a thing: God has nothing to do with my child.” Behold how infidel mothers bring up their children!

There are others who gradually fall away from the faith and become infidels, because they neglect a most essential Christian duty, that of prayer. “The impious,” says David, “are corrupt, and they become abominable in their ways . . . They are all gone aside; they are unprofitable together: there is none that does good, no, not one . . . Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways.” “Now, the cause of all this wickedness,” continues David, “is because they have not called upon the Lord.” God is the light of our understanding, the strength of our will, and the life of our heart. Now, the more we neglect to pray to God, the more we shall experience darkness in our understanding, weakness in our will, and deadly coldness in our heart. Our passions, the temptations of the devil, and the allurements of the world, will draw us headlong from one abyss of wickedness to another, until we fall into the deepest of all, into infidelity, and indifference to all religion.

3. There is another special cause of the loss of faith: it is the reading of bad books. Bad books are, 1. idle, useless books which do no good, but distract the mind from what is good. 2. Many novels and romances which do not appear to be so bad, but often are bad. 3. Books which treat professedly of bad subjects. 4. Bad newspapers, journals, miscellanies, sensational magazines, weeklies, illustrated papers, medical works. 5. Superstitious books, books of fate, etc. 6. Protestant and infidel books and tracts.

There are certain idle, useless books, which, though not bad in themselves, are pernicious, because they cause the reader to lose the time which he might and ought to spend in occupations more beneficial to his soul. He who has spent much time in reading such books, and then goes to prayer, to Mass, and to holy communion, instead of thinking of God and of making acts of love and confidence, will be constantly troubled with distractions; for the representations of all the vanities he has read will be constantly present to his mind.

The mill grinds the corn which it receives. If the wheat be bad, how can the mill turn out good flour? How is it possible to think often of God, and offer to him frequent acts of love, of oblation, of petition, and the like, if the mind is constantly filled with the trash read in idle, useless books? In a letter to his disciple Eustochium, St. Jerome stated for her instruction that, in his solitude at Bethlehem, he was attached to, and frequently read, the works of Cicero, and that he felt a certain disgust for pious books, because their style was not polished. Almighty God, foreseeing the harm of this profane reading, and that, without the aid of holy books, the saint would never reach that height of sanctity for which he was destined, administered a remedy, very harsh, no doubt, but well calculated to make him alive to his fault. He sent a grievous sickness on him, which soon brought the solitary to the brink of the grave. As he was lying at the point of death, God called him in spirit before his tribunal. The saint, being there, heard the Judge ask him who he was. He answered unhesitatingly: “I am a Christian; I hold no other faith than thine, my Lord, my Judge.” “Thou liest,” said the Judge; “thou art a Ciceronian, for, where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also.” He then ordered him to be severely scourged. The servant of God shrieked with pain as he felt the blows, and begged for mercy, repeating with a loud voice, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord! have mercy upon me.” Meanwhile, they who stood round the throne of that angry Judge, falling on their faces before him, began to plead in behalf of the culprit, implored mercy for him, and promised in his name that his fault should be corrected. Then St. Jerome, who, smarting with pain from the hard strokes he had received, would gladly have promised much greater things, began to promise and to swear, with all the ardor of his soul, that never again would he open profane or worldly works, but that he would read pious, edifying books. As he uttered these words he returned to his senses, to the amazement of the bystanders, who had believed him to be already dead.

St. Jerome concludes the narration of this sad history with these words: “Let no one fancy that it was an idle dream, like to those which come to deceive our minds in the dead of night. I call to witness the dread tribunal before which I lay prostrate, that it was no dream, but a true representation of a real occurrence; for, when I returned to myself, I found my eyes swimming with tears, and my shoulders livid and bruised with those cruel blows.” He tells us, finally, that, after this warning, he devoted himself to the reading of pious books, with the same diligence and zeal that he had before bestowed upon the works of profane writers. It was thus that Almighty God induced him to that study of divine things which was so essential to his own progress in perfection, and destined to do so much good to the whole Christian world.

It is true that, in works like those of Cicero, we sometimes find useful sentiments; but the same St. Jerome wisely said, in a letter to another disciple: “What need have you of seeking for a little gold in the midst of so much dross, when you can read pious books, in which you shall find all gold without any dross?” (Epis. ad Furian.) As to novels, they are, in general, pictures, and usually very highly wrought pictures, of human passions. Passion is represented as working out its end successfully, and attaining its objects, even by the sacrifice of duty. These books, as a class, present false views of life; and as it is the error of the young to mistake these for realities, they become the dupes of their own ardent and enthusiastic imaginations, which, instead of trying to control, they actually nourish with the poisonous food of phantoms and chimeras.

When the thirst for novel-reading has become insatiable,–as with indulgence it is sure to do,–they come at last to live in an unreal fairy-land, amidst absurd heroes and heroines of their own creation, thus unfitting themselves for the discharge of the common duties of this every-day world, and for association with every-day mortals. The more strongly works of fiction appeal to the imagination, and the wider the field they afford for its exercise, the greater in general are their perilous attractions; and it is but too true that they cast, at last, a sort of spell over the mind, so completely fascinating the attention, that duty is forgotten and positive obligation laid aside to gratify the desire of unravelling, to its last intricacy, the finely-spun web of some airy creation of fancy. Fictitious feelings are excited, unreal sympathies aroused, unmeaning sensibilities evoked. The mind is weakened; it has lost that laudable thirst after truth which God has imprinted on it; filled with a baneful love of trifles, vanity, and folly, it has no taste for serious reading and profitable occupations; all relish for prayer, for the Word of God, for the reception of the sacraments, is lost; and, at last, conscience and commonsense give place to the dominion of unchecked imagination. Such reading, instead of forming the heart, depraves it. It poisons the morals and excites the passions; it changes all the good inclinations a person has received from nature and a virtuous education ; it chills, by little and little, pious desires, and in a short time banishes out of the soul all that was there of solidity and virtue. By such reading, young girls on a sudden lose a habit of reservedness and modesty, take an air of vanity and frivolity, and make show of no other ardor than for those things which the world esteems, and which God abominates. They espouse the maxims, spirit, conduct, and language of the passions, which are there under various disguises artfully instilled into their minds j and, what is most dangerous, they cloak all this irregularity with the appearances of civility and an easy, complying, gay humor and disposition.

St. Teresa, who fell into this dangerous snare of reading idle books, writes thus of herself: “This fault failed not to cool my good desires, and was the cause of my falling insensibly into other defects. I was so enchanted with the extreme pleasure I took herein, that I thought I could not be content if I had not some new romance in my hands. I began to imitate the mode, to take delight in being well dressed, to take great care of my hands, to make use of perfumes, and to affect all the vain trimmings which my condition admitted. Indeed, my intention was not bad, for I would not for the world, in the immoderate passion which I had to be decent, give any one an occasion of offending God; but I now acknowledge how far these things, which for several years appeared to me innocent, are effectually and really criminal.”

Criminal and dangerous, therefore, is the disposition of those who fritter away their time in reading such books as fill the mind with a worldly spirit, with a love of vanity, pleasure, idleness, and trifling; which destroy and lay waste all the generous sentiments of virtue in the heart, and sow there the seeds of every vice. Who seeks nourishment from poisons! Our thoughts and reflections are to the mind what food is to the body; for, by them, the affections of the soul are nourished. The chameleon changes its color as it is affected by pain, anger, or pleasure, or by the color upon which it sits; and we see an insect borrow its lustre and hue from the plant or leaf upon which it feeds. In like manner, what our meditations and affections are, such will our souls become either holy and spiritual, or earthly and carnal.

In addition to their other dangers, many of these books unfortunately teem with maxims subversive of faith in the truths of religion. The current popular literature in our days is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily newspaper; and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or, on the other, empty and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver to caricature the institutions and offices of the Christian religion, and others, to exhibit the grossest forms of vice and the most distressing scenes of crime and suffering. The illustrated press has become to us what the amphitheatre was to the Romans, when men were slain, women were outraged, and Christians were given to the lions, to please a degenerate populace. “The slime of the serpent is over it all.” It instils the deadly poison of irreligion and immorality through every pore of the reader. The fatal miasma floats in the whole literary atmosphere, is drawn in with every literary breath, corrupting the very life-blood of religion in the mind and soul. Thus it frequently happens that the habitual perusal of such books soon banishes faith from the soul, and in its stead introduces infidelity. He who often reads bad books will soon be filled with the spirit of the author who wrote them. The first author of pious books is the Spirit of God; but the author of bad books is the devil, who artfully conceals from certain persons the poison which such works contain. Written, as they generally are, in a most attractive, flowery style, the reader becomes enchanted, as it were, by their perusal, not suspecting the poison that lies hidden under that beautiful style, and which he drinks as he reads on.

But it is objected the book is not so bad. Of what do bad books treat? What religion do they teach? Many of them teach either deism, atheism, or pantheism. Others ridicule our holy religion and everything that is sacred. What morals do these books teach? The most lewd! Vice and crime are deified; monsters of humanity are held out as true heroes. Some of these books speak openly and shamelessly of the most obscene things, whilst others do so secretly, hiding their poison under a flowery style. They are only the more dangerous, because their poisonous contents enter the heart unawares.

A person was very sorry to see that a certain bad book was doing so much harm. He thought he would read it, that he might be better able to speak against it. With this object in view, he read the book. The end of it was that, instead of helping others, he ruined himself.

Some say: “I read bad books on account of the style. I wish to improve my own style. I wish to learn something of the world. “This is no sufficient reason for reading such books. The good style of a book does not make its poisonous contents harmless. A fine dress may cover a deformed body, but it cannot take away its deformity. Poisonous serpents and flowers may be very beautiful, but, for all that, they are not the less poisonous. To say that such books are read purely because of their style is not true, because those who allege this as an excuse, sometimes read novels which are written in a bad style. There are plenty of good books, written in excellent style, which are sadly neglected by these lovers of pure English.

To consult those books for a knowledge of the world is another common excuse for their perusal. Well, where shall we find an example of one who became a deeper thinker, a more eloquent speaker, a more expert business man, by reading novels and bad books? They only teach how to sin, as Satan taught Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden tree, under the pretence of attaining real knowledge; and the result was, loss of innocence, peace, and paradise, and the punishment of the human race through all time.

Some profess to skip the bad portions and read only the good. But how are they to know which are the bad portions, unless they read them? The pretext is a false one. He only will leave the bad who hates it. But he who hates the bad things will not read the books at all, unless he be obliged to do so: and no one is obliged to read them, for there are plenty of good, profitable, and entertaining books which can be read without danger.

There is a class of readers who flatter themselves that bad books may hurt others, but not them; they make no impression on them. Happy and superior mortals! Are they gifted with hearts of stone, or of flesh and blood? Have they no passions? Why should these books hurt others and not them? Is it because they are more virtuous than others? Is it not true that the bad, obscene parts of the story remain more vividly and deeply impressed upon their minds than those which are more or less harmless? Did not the perusal of these books sometimes cause those imaginations and desires forbidden by Christian modesty? Did they not sometimes accuse themselves in confession of having read them? If not, they ought to have done so. Who would like to die with such a book in his hand?

Readers of bad books, who say such reading does not affect them, should examine themselves and see whether they are not blinded by their passions, or so far gone in crime that, like an addled egg, they cannot become more corrupt than they already are.

See that infamous young man, that corrupter of innocence! What is the first step often of a young reprobate who wishes to corrupt some poor, innocent girl? He first lends her a bad book. He believes that, if she reads that book, she is lost. A bad book, as he knows, is an agreeable corrupter; for it veils vice under a veil of flowers. It is a shameless corrupter. The most licentious would blush, would hesitate to speak the language that their eyes feed on. But a bad book does not blush, feels no shame, no hesitation. Itself unmoved and silent, it places before the heart and imagination the most shameful obscenities. A bad book is a corrupter to whom the reader listens without shame, because it can be read alone and taken up when one pleases!

Go to the hospitals and brothels: ask that young man who is dying of a shameful disease; ask that young woman who has lost her honor and her happiness; go to the dark grave of the suicide, ask them what was the first step in their downward career, and they will answer, the reading of bad books.

A certain young lady of the State of New York was sent to a convent school, where she received a brilliant education. She spoke seven languages. She wished to enter a convent, but was prevented by her parents. Her parents died, and after their death the young lady took to novel-reading. She soon wished to imitate what she had read: she wished to become a heroine. So she went upon the stage, and danced in the “Black Crook.” At last she fell one day on Second Avenue, in New York, and broke her leg in six places. She was taken to a hospital, where a good lady gave her a prayer-book. But she flung it away, and asked for a novel. She would not listen to the priest encouraging her to make her confession and be reconciled to God. She died impenitent, with a novel in her hand.

Assuredly, if we are bound by every principle of our religion to avoid bad company, we are equally bound to avoid bad books; for, of all evil, corrupting company, the worst is a bad book. There can be no doubt that the most pernicious influences at work in the world at this moment come from bad books and bad newspapers. The yellow-covered literature, as it is called, is a pestilence compared with which the yellow fever, and cholera, and small-pox are as nothing: and yet there is no quarantine against it. Never take a book into your hands which you would not be seen reading. Avoid not only notoriously immoral books and papers, but avoid also all those miserable sensational magazines and novels and illustrated papers which are profusely scattered around on every side. The demand which exists for such garbage, speaks badly for the moral sense and intellectual training of those who read them. If you wish to keep your mind pure and your soul in the grace of God, you must make it a firm and steady principle of conduct never to touch them.

Would you be willing to pay a man for poisoning your food? And why should you be fool enough to pay the authors and publishers of bad books, pamphlets, and magazines, and the editors of irreligious newspapers for poisoning your soul with their impious principles and their shameful stories and pictures.

Go, then, and burn all bad books in your possession, even if they do not belong to you, even if they are costly. Two boys in New York bought a bad picture with their pocket-money, and burned it. A young man in Augusta, Ga., spent twenty dollars in buying up bad books and papers, to burn them all. A modern traveller tells us that, when he came to Evora, he there on Sunday morning conversed with, a girl in the kitchen of the inn. He examined some of her books which she showed him, and told her that one of them was written by an infidel, whose sole aim was to bring all religion into contempt. She made no reply to this, but, going into another room, returned with her apron full of dry sticks, all of which she piled upon the fire and produced a blaze. She then took that bad book and placed it upon the flaming pile; then, sitting down, she took her rosary out of her pocket, and told her beads until the book was entirely burned up. (Compitum, book ii, p. 239.) In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that, when St. Paul preached at Ephesus, many of the Jews and Gentiles were converted to the faith: “And many of them that believed, came confessing and declaring their deeds. And many of those who had followed curious arts, brought together their books and burnt them before all. And counting the price of them, they found the money to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.” (Acts xix, 18, 19.)

A young nobleman, who was on a sea voyage, began to read an obscene book, in which he took much pleasure. A religious priest, on noticing it, said to him: “Are you disposed to make a present to our Blessed Lady? “The young man replied that he was. “Well,” said the priest, “I wish that, for the love of the most holy Virgin, you would give up that book and throw it into the sea.” “Here it is, father,” answered the young man. “No,” replied the priest, “you must yourself make this present to Mary.” He did so at once. Mary was not slow in rewarding the nobleman for the great promptness with which he cast the bad book into the sea; for, no sooner had he returned to Genoa, his native place, than the Mother of God so inflamed his heart with divine love, that he entered a religious order. (Nadasi, Ann. Mar. S. J., 1605.)

4. Another cause that leads to the loss of faith is the corruption of the heart, the slavery of the passions. You will find men who deny the immortality of the soul, who deny the eternity of hell, who deny the infallibility of the Church. You will find men who deny the divine origin of confession. But why, my brethren, why? It is because these wholesome truths put a check to their passions. They cannot believe these truths and, at the same time, gratify their criminal desires.

An honest, virtuous man would never think of doubting or contradicting these sacred truths. In spite of its innate pride, the mind is the slave of the heart. If the heart soars to heaven on the wings of divine love, the mind, too, rises with it. But if the heart is buried in the mire of filthy passions, it soon exhales dark, fetid vapors, which obscure the intellect. The infidel’s reason is the dupe of his heart.

There is a man who was once a good Catholic, who used formerly to go regularly to Mass and to confession. Now he goes no longer to confession, now he is an infidel. But why? Has he, perhaps, become more enlightened? Has he received some new knowledge? No; the only new knowledge he has received, is the sad knowledge of sin. He believed as long as he was virtuous. He began to doubt only when he began to be immoral; he became an infidel only when he became a libertine. The history of his life is soon told. Wishing to gratify his passions without restraint and without remorse, he tried to rid himself of a religion which would have troubled him in the midst of his unlawful pleasures. Religion appeared to him like the hand on the wall, writing his doom in the very midst of his senseless revelry. Human respect, and the gratification of his passions, are the only causes that induced him to become an infidel.

5. To frequent the society of the wicked, of scoffers at religion, is, for many, another cause of losing the faith. A scoffer at religion is a man without principle, a man sunk in the grossest ignorance of what religion is. He blasphemes what he does not understand. He rails at the doctrines of the Church, without really knowing what these doctrines are. He sneers at the doctrines and practices of religion, because he cannot refute them. He speaks with the utmost gravity of the fine arts, the fashions, and even matters the most trivial, and he turns into ridicule the most sacred subjects. In the midst of his own circle of fops and silly women, he utters his shallow conceits with all the pompous assurance of a pedant.

There is a young man. He was brought up a Catholic. He went every day to a Catholic school until he made his first communion. He learned his catechism well. But his parents complain that he no longer says any morning or night prayers, that he goes no longer to confession, to holy communion, and to Mass on Sundays. Why not? It is because he frequents the society of wicked companions, who ridicule religion and scoff at everything sacred. “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” In the company of such wicked young men he soon feels ashamed of his religion, becomes quite indifferent to it, gives up every practice of piety, and finally becomes an infidel, a scoffer at religion himself.

6. Experience has sufficiently shown that mixed marriages are also a cause why many have lost their faith. This is the reason why the Catholic Church has always opposed them. The Catholic party is generally exposed to the danger of losing the faith, or of becoming indifferent to it. The Catholic education of the children is also generally neglected, and often made impossible.

There is a congregation in one of the Middle States, which numbers about two hundred families. There are not fewer than fifty-seven mixed marriages in it. The number of converts is but six, and the number of those who gave up the Catholic religion is twenty-two. As to the children, there are at present found fifty-four who are being instructed in the rudiments of our religion, and it is hoped that they will adhere to the practice of her doctrines. But there are one hundred and thirty-seven who are receiving their religious training in some religious sect, or are left to grow up in utter ignorance. There are thirty-one more whose ultimate end is as yet doubtful. The number of perverted Catholics is nearly four to one in this congregation. There is no reason to believe that mixed marriages are less productive of evil in other congregations. We shall say more on this point in the explanation of the sacrament of matrimony.

7. The state of irreligion and infidelity into which millions of men who were Catholics are plunged at present, is the work of secret societies of Freemasonry. In the first volume of this work, Part I, I have clearly proved that the principal object of Freemasonry is to destroy all revealed religion, and to introduce heathenism in its place. To join any of the secret societies is to give up the Catholic religion; for the Catholic Church has excommunicated all those who have joined a secret society. Nevertheless there are thouands who join these satanic societies, and give up God and his holy religion for Satan and his work of impiety.

8. Pride, and subtle reasoning on the mysteries of faith, is another means which the devil uses to make people lose the faith. There are certain proud men who say that they cannot believe such an article or such a mystery of faith, because it is too obscure, too incomprehensible, and contrary to reason; they wish to believe no more of the truths of religion than they can understand. Hence they bring up ever so many objections to revealed truths, and thus exhibit a lamentable lack of reason. For, to be a man, it is necessary to have reason. Reason is the light of man. But reason tells us that it is necessary to believe what God has revealed, because God cannot reveal anything but truth, and that there is no sense in him who wishes to submit to his reason the very Author of his reason; and that to wish to understand what is above his intelligence, is to be without intelligence. There is a young man. He is a Catholic, who always believed what God teaches us through His Church. He frequently associates with one who, in a subtle manner, reasons on the mysteries of faith. He begins to listen to him with pleasure. The consequence is that he exposes himself to all kinds of temptations against faith. He begins himself to reason on its mysteries, then to doubt them, and at last to lose all faith in them. He dies an infidel.


Alas! how many are there who once were fervent children of the Catholic Church; they lived in the grace of God, in great happiness and peace, but, for the reason just given, are now leading the wicked lives of infidels! Their misfortune should be a warning for us all. Therefore, “Let him that thinketh himself to stand, take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. x, 12.

Source:  Apostles’ Creed by Father Muller ~ Imprimatur  1889

                   Saint Maria Goretti outfit for 18" dolls. 

Maria was the daughter of a poor Italian widow.  She was a very modest and pure young lady.  One day a young man named Alesandro tried to make her sin.  She resisted him as much as he could.  He stabbed Maria 14 times before running away.  She was taken to a hospital but died about 24 hours later.  In her last hours she forgave her murderer. 

On the day Maria Goretti was declared "Blessed" her own mother was there in Rome for the great celebration. When she was declared a saint more people gathered to honor her than had ever come for such a ceremony before.   She is called a "martyr of holy purity."

Her feast day is July 6th.  St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!

You can purchase this little outfit here.

-6. What does the word Catholic mean?
The word Catholic means Universal. Now it is easy to show how the Roman Church is Catholic, or Universal.

The Roman Church is Catholic ;
1. because she has existed in all ages ;
2. because she teaches all nations ; and,
3. because she maintains all truths.

1. The Roman Church is Catholic, because she has existed in all ages.
This Church is Catholic, or universal, in her duration. She goes back, without a break, through the apostles to Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ to the origin of the chosen people, and through Abraham and the patriarchs even to our first parents in paradise. The enemies of God hate his holy Church; they hate the pope, they hate the bishops and the priests ; they grind their teeth, they foam at the mouth, they tremble with rage, and seem as if they would tear into pieces all the popes, bishops and priests that have ever lived, from Peter to the present day. Why? Because Jesus Christ continues to live in Peter? and in his successors, he speaks to the world and teaches it, through them, like one having authority. It is for this very reason that the Church will remain forever ; for, truth and justice being in the end always victorious, the Church will not cease to bless and to triumph. All the works of the earth have perished, time has obliterated them. The Catholic Church remains : she will endure until she passes from her earthly exile to her country in heaven.

Human theories and systems have flitted across her path, like birds of night, but have vanished ; numberless sects have, like so many waves, dashed themselves to froth against this rock, or, recoiling, have been lost in the vast ocean of forgetfulness. Kingdoms and empires that once existed in inimitable worldly grandeur are no more, dynasties have died out, and have been replaced by others. Theories and sceptres and crowns have withstood the Church ; but, immutable, like God, who laid her foundation, she is the firm, unshaken centre, round which the weal and woe of nations move : weal to them if they adhere to her, woe to them if they separate from her. If the world takes from the Catholic Church the cross of gold, she will bless the world with one of wood. If necessary, her pastors and all her children can suffer and die for the faith, but the Catholic Church remains : she is immortal.

We cannot but smile when we hear men talk of the down fall of the Catholic Church. What could hell and its agents do more than they have already done for her destruction? They have employed tortures for the body, but they could not reach the spirit ; they have tried heresy, or the denial of revealed truth, to such an extent that we can see no room for any new heresy ; they have, by the hand of schism, torn, whole countries from the unity of the Church, but what she lost on one side of the globe, she gained tenfold on the other. All these assaults have ignominiously failed to verify the prophecies of hell, that "the Catholic Church shall fall." Look, for instance, at the tremendous effort of the so called Reformation, together with its twin sister, the unbelief of the nineteenth century ! Whole legions of Church reformers, together with armies of philosophers, armed with negation, and a thousand-and-one systems of paganism, furiously attacked the Chair of Peter, and swore that the Papacy should fall, and, with it, the whole Church. Three hundred years are over, and the Catholic Church is still alive, and more vigorous than ever. She is the glorious Church of all ages. And as Christ made her Catholic, or universal, as to time, so also he made her Catholic as to place.

2. She teaches all nations :
"Going therefore,"  said our Lord to his apostles, "teach ye all nations," and, "You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth."

More than fifteen hundred years ago there hung in the catacombs of Rome a lamp shaped in the form of a ship, at whose helm sat St. Peter, steering with one hand, and with the other giving his blessing. On one side of this miniature ship were engraved the words, "Peter dies not;" and on the other, the words of our Saviour "I have prayed for thee." (Luke xxii, 32.) There could not be a more beautiful symbol of the Catholic Church. She is the lamp which has dispelled the darkness of heathenism, and has furnished the nations with the brilliant light of truth; the Church is a ship, which has carried this light safely, through the storms of ages, to the ends of the earth, bringing with it blessings to the nations, and gathering into its apostolic net, as it sailed along, the perishing children of men. And at the helm sits the poor fisherman of Galilee, St. Peter, in the person of the pope, together with his assistants, the Catholic bishops and priests, directing the course of the vessel, now to this, now to that distressed country, now to this, now to that sorrowing people, to carry to them, not gold, not silver, but what is infinitely more precious, faith, and with faith, true civilization, based upon the unchangeable principles of supernatural morality, true prosperity, true happiness, and peace on earth and for eternity.

It was not by the circulation of the Bible, by Bible societies or by money, but by the living voice of the Roman Church, it was through the popes, the Catholic bishops and priests, that Christianity, at the end of the third century, covered the whole then known world. The Capitoline temple, and with it the many shrines of idolatry, the golden house of Nero, and with it Roman excess and Roman cruelty, the throne of the Caesars, and with it Roman oppression and Roman injustice, had all passed away, and there stood the Rome of the Fathers of the Church, the Rome which has yet to do such wonders in the world. "And the light shone into the darkness." Pope after pope, the principal bearers of the light of the true faith, sent forth to the nations bishops and missionaries, full of the spirit of self-sacrifice, solely devoted to their great task, and by the inflamed zeal, the fervent piety, the earnest prayers and penances, the astounding miracles, the bright examples and spotless lives of these apostolic men, new tribes and new nations were gained for Christ, year after year. Thus, St. Austin carried the light of faith to England, St. Patrick to Ireland, St. Boniface to Germany.

The Frieslanders, the Moravians, the Prussians, the Swedes, the Picts, the Scots, the Franks, and hundreds of others, were brought to the bosom of the Church through the preaching and labors of the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church. Driven from one country, their influence was made to act on another. When Solisman, the Sultan, threatened to wipe out Christianity from Europe, Roman Catholic bishops and priests went to the East Indies, to China, and Japan. When Europe failed in its fidelity, and listened to the siren voice of heresy, Catholic bishops and priests were sent to the newly discovered continent of America, and to the West Indies. Gregory XVI devised plans for missions to the interior of Africa, missions which are yet working winders. This great work of enlightening the world with the true light of the Catholic religion, the Church accomplished, more particularly by those astonishing organizations called religious orders. Besides carrying the light of faith to all nations, those religious orders did another thing : they civilized the countries to which they had been sent.

In the pagan world, education was an edifice built up on the principles of slavery. The motto was: "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo" I hate and shun the common people. Education was the privilege of the aristocracy. The great mass of people was studiously kept in ignorance of the treasures of the mind. This state of things was done away with by the Roman Catholic Church, when she established the monastic institutions of the West. The whole of Europe was soon covered with schools, not only for the wealthy, but even for the poorest of the poor. Education was systematized, and an emulation was created for learning, such as the world had never seen before. Italy, Germany, France, England, and Spain, had their universities, but, side by side with these, their colleges, gymnasiums, parish and village schools, as numerous as the churches and monasteries which the efforts of the Holy See had scattered, with lavish hand, over the length and breadth of the land. And where was the source of all this light ? At Rome. For, when the barbarian hordes poured down upon Europe from the Caspian Mountains, it was the popes who saved civilization. They collected, in the Vatican, the manuscripts of the ancient authors, gathered from all parts of the earth at enormous expense. The barbarians, who destroyed everything by fire and sword, had already advanced as far as Rome. Attila, who called himself  "the Scourge of God,"  stood before its walls, there were no emperor, no pretorian guard, no legions present, to save the ancient capital of the world. But there was a pope : Leo I. And Leo went forth, and by entreaties, and threats of God's displeasure, induced the dreaded king of the Huns to retire. Scarcely had Attila retired, before Genseric, King of the Vandals, made his appearance, invited by Eudoxia, the empress, to the plunder of Rome. Leo met him, and obtained from him the lives and the honor of the Romans, and the sparing of the public monuments which adorned the city in such numbers. Thus Leo the Great saved Europe from barbarism. To the name of Leo might be added those of Gregory I, Sylvester II, Gregory XIII, Benedict XIV, Julius III, Paul III, Leo X, Clement VIII, John XX, and a host of others, who must be looked upon as the preservers of science and the arts, even amid the very fearful torrent of barbarism that was spreading itself, like an inundation, over the whole of Europe. The principle of the Catholic Church has ever been this : "By the knowledge of divine things, and the guidance of an infallible teacher, the human mind must gain certainty in regard to the sublimest problems, the great questions of life; by them the origin, the end, the aim and limit of man s activity, must be made known, for then only can he venture fearlessly upon the sphere of human efforts, and human developments, and human science. "And truly, never has science gained the ascendancy outside of the Church that it has always held in the Church. And what is true of science is true, also, of the arts. It is true of architecture, of sculpture, and of painting. We need only point to the Basilica of Peter, to the museums and libraries of Rome. It is to Rome the youthful artist always turns his steps, in Order to drink in, at the monuments of art and of science, the genius and inspiration he seeks for in vain in his own country. He feels, only too keenly, that railroads and telegraphs, steamships and power-looms, banking-houses and stock- companies, though good and useful institutions, are not the mothers of genius, nor the schools of inspiration; and therefore he leaves his country, and goes to Rome, and there feasts on the fruits gathered by the hands of St. Peter s successors, and returns home with a name which will live for ages in the memory of those who have learned to appreciate the true and the beautiful.

The depravity of man shows itself in the constant endeavor to shake off the restraint placed by law and duty upon his will : and to this we must ascribe the licentiousness which has at all times afflicted society. Passion acknowledges no law, and spares neither rights nor conventions, where it has the power, it exercises it to the advantage of self, and to the detriment of social order.

The Church is, by its very constitution, Catholic, and hence looks upon all men as brothers of the same family. She acknowledges not the natural right of one man over another, and hence her Catholicity lays a heavy restraint upon all the efforts of self-love, and curbs, with a mighty hand, the temerity of those who would destroy the harmony of life, implied in the idea of Catholicity.

One of the first principles of all social happiness is, that before the law of nature, and before the face of God, all men are equal. This principle is based on the unity of the human race, the origin of all men from one common father. If we study the history of paganism, we find that all heathen nations overturned this great principle, since we find among all heathen nations the evil of slavery. Prior to the coming of Christ, the great majority of men were looked upon as a higher development of the animal, as animated instruments, which might be bought and sold, given away and pawned, which might be tormented, maltreated, or murdered ; as beings, in a word, for whom the idea of right, duty, pity, mercy, and law, had no existence. Who can read, without a feeling of intense horror, the accounts left us of the treatment of their slaves by the Romans ? There was no law that could restrain in the least the wantonness, the cruelty, the licentious excess of the master, who, as master, possessed the absolute right to do with his slaves whatsoever he pleased. To remove this stain of slavery has ever been the aim of the Catholic Church. "Since the Saviour and Creator of the world," says Pope Gregory I, in his celebrated decree, "wished to become man, in order, by grace and liberty, to break the chains of our slavery, it is right and good to bestow again upon man, whom nature has permitted to be born free, but whom the law of nations has brought under the yoke of slavery, the blessing of his original liberty." Through all the middle ages, called by Protestants the dark ages of the world, the echo of these words of Gregory I is heard ; and, in the thirteenth century, Pope Pius II could say : "Thanks be to God and the Apostolic See, the yoke of slavery does no longer disgrace any European nation." Since then, slavery was again introduced into Africa and the newly-discovered regions of America, and again the popes raised their voices in the interests of liberty. Pius VII, even at the time when Napoleon had robbed him of his liberty, and held him captive in a foreign land, became the defender of the negro. Gregory XVI, on the 3rd of November, 1839, insisted, in a special Bull, on the abolition of the slave trade, and spoke in a strain as if he had lived and sat side by side with Gregory I, thirteen hundred years before. But here let us observe, that not only the vindication of liberty for all, not only the abolition of slavery, but the very mode of action followed in this, matter by the popes, has gained for the Church immortal honor, and the esteem of all good men. When the Church abolished slavery in any country where it existed, the popes did not compel masters, by harshness or threats, to manumit their slaves, they did not bring into action the base intrigues, the low chicanery, the canting hypocrisy, of modern statesmen ; they did not raise armies, and send them into the lands of their masters to burn and to pillage, to lay waste and to destroy; they did not slaughter, by their schemes, over a million of free men, and another million of slaves, they did not make widows and orphans without number, they did not impoverish the land, and lay upon their subjects burdens which would crush them into very dust. Nothing of all this. That is not the way in which the Church abolished slavery. The popes sent bishops and priests into those countries where slavery existed, to enlighten the minds of the masters, and convince them that slaves were men, and consequently had immortal souls like other people. The pastors of the Church infused into the hearts of masters a deep love for Jesus Christ, and consequently a deep love for souls. They taught masters to look upon slaves as created by the same God; redeemed by the same Jesus Christ, destined for the same glory. The consequence was, that the relations of slave and master became the relations of brother to brother; the master began to love his slave, and to ameliorate his condition, till at last, forced by his own acknowledged principles, he granted to him his liberty.

Thus it was that slavery was abolished by the preaching of the popes, bishops and priests. The great barrier to all the healthy, permanent, and free development of nations was thus broken down ; the blessings, the privileges of society, were made equally attainable by the masses, and ceased to be the special monopoly of a few, who, for the most part, had nothing to recommend them except their wealth. It is thus that the Catholic Church has accomplished the great work of enlightening society. She has shed the light of faith over the East and the West, over the North and the South, and with the faith she has established the principles of true science on their natural bases. She has imparted education to the masses, wherever she was left free to adopt her own, and untrammelled by civil interference. She has fostered and protected the arts and the sciences ; and today, if all the libraries, and all the museums, and all the galleries of art in the world were destroyed, Rome alone would possess quite enough to supply the want, as it did in former ages, when others supplied themselves by plundering Rome. She has abolished slavery, and established human freedom. She truly is what she is called : Catholic for all ages, Catholic for all nations, and

3. She is Catholic, because she maintains all truths.
The Roman Church is universal, or catholic, as to doctrine. Her doctrine is the same everywhere. What she teaches in one country, she also teaches in another. Her doctrine in one place is her doctrine in another. There can be in the Roman Church no new doctrine, no local belief, no creed in which the whole Church has not been united the Church uniting to condemn all variations from this belief. New discipline, new practices, new orders, new methods, may be adopted by the Church, according to the requirements of her work; but there
can be no doctrine which has not existed from the beginning, as it was received from Christ and the apostles.

A doctrine, to be truly Catholic, must have been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. By this test of catholicity, or universality, antiquity and consent, all questions of faith are tried and decided. Doctrines and articles of faith may be newly defined, as, for instance, that of the Immaculate Conception or of the Infallibility of the Pope, but there can be no new doctrine. Novelty is a quality of heresy ; for, though some errors may be very old, yet they are new as compared with the truth. In every case, the truth must first appear before its corresponding error. The denial of any truth supposes its previous assertion. Like the divine Founder of the Roman Catholic Church, her doctrine is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

"Some years ago," writes Mr. Marshal, a distinguished English convert, "I was present, officially, at the examination of an English primary school, in which the children displayed such unusual accuracy and intelligence, as long as the questions turned only upon secular subjects, that I was anxious to ascertain whether they could reason as well about the truths of the Catechism as they could about those of grammar and arithmetic. I communicated my desire to their clergyman, who kindly permitted me to have recourse to a test which I had employed on other occasions. I requested him to interrogate them on the Notes of the Church, and when they had explained in the usual manner the meaning of the word Catholic, I took up
the examination, with the consent of the priest, and addressed the following question to the class : You say the Church is Catholic because she is everywhere. Now, I have visited many countries, in all parts of the world, and I never came to one in which I did not find heresy.

If, then, the Church is Catholic because she is everywhere, why is not heresy Catholic, since heresy is everywhere, also "If you please, sir" answered a little girl, about twelve years of age, "the Church is everywhere, and everywhere the same ; heresy may be everywhere too, but it is everywhere different." The Church is unceasingly assailed by new errors, yet she always and everywhere is consistent with herself; she explains and develops her earlier definitions, without even the shadow of change appearing ; she has declared, hundreds of times, that she can introduce no innovations, that she has no power to originate anything in matters of faith and morals, but that it is her right and office to maintain the divine doctrine as contained in Scripture and tradition. She has convoked nineteen General Councils, and in each pronounced a solemn anathema on all who in the least deviated from the faith. In all ages she has undergone the most cruel persecutions, because she maintains all truths, and for this very reason she will be persecuted to the end of the world. But rather than yield one iota of her doctrine, she is willing to make every sacrifice: she permits whole countries to leave her, her pastors to be murdered, her children to be imprisoned and exiled, rather than permit one tittle of the law to be abolished. See, for instance, what she has done and suffered in upholding the dignity of the sacrament of marriage, the corner-stone of society !

See the workings of Catholic and Protestant doctrines of marriage in society! Take the common instance of a man in whose heart there is a fearful struggle between conscience on the one hand, and blind, brutish passion on the other ! His wife, that wife whom he once loved so dearly, has become hateful to him. Perhaps she has lost the charm of beauty which once fascinated his heart. Another stands before him she is young, she is beautiful. Protestantism, like the tempter of hell, whispers in his ear: "Sue for a divorce. The marriage bond can be broken. Youth and beauty may yet be yours." And the voice of conscience, the voice of God, is stifled. Brutish passion conquers. Divorce is sought and obtained, and the poor wife is cast away, and left heart-broken and companion-less. And the children of such a marriage, who shall care for them ? Who shall teach them the virtues of obedience and charity? How can they respect a divorced mother, an adulterous father ? No, these children become naturally the curse of society. They fill our prisons, our hospitals, the brothels.

On the contrary, if that man is a Catholic, the holy Church speaks to him in solemn warning : "See !" she says, "you took that wife in the day of her early joy and beauty. She gave you her young heart before the altar. You swore before God and his angels to be faithful to her until death. I declare to you, then, that, at the peril of your immortal soul, you must keep that union perpetual. That union shall end only when you have stood by her death-bed, when you have knelt at her grave." The Catholic Church has always regarded Christian marriage as the corner-stone of society ; and at that corner stone have the pastors of the Church stood guard for eighteen centuries, insisting that Christian marriage is one,  holy and indissoluble. Woman, weak and unprotected, has always found at Rome that guarantee which was refused her by him who had sworn at the altar of God to love her and to cherish her till death. Whilst in the nations which Protestantism tore from the bosom of the Church, the sacred laws of matrimony are trampled in the dust ; whilst the statistics of these nations hold up to the world the sad spectacle of divorces almost as numerous as marriages, of separations of husband from wife, and wife from husband, for the most trivial causes, thus granting to lust the widest margin of license, and legalizing concubinage and adultery, whilst the nineteenth century records in its annals the existence of a community of licentious polygamists within the borders of one of the most civilized countries of the earth, we have yet to see the decree emanating from Rome that would permit even a beggar to repudiate his lawful wife, in order to give his affections to an adulteress.

The female portion of our race would always have sunk back into a new slavery, had not the popes entered the breach for the protection of the unity, the sanctity, the indissolubility of matrimony. In the midst of the barbarous ages, during which the conqueror and -warrior swayed the sceptre of empire, and kings and petty tyrants acknowledged no other right but that of force, it was the pope that opposed their authority, like a wall of brass, to the sensuality and the passions of the mighty ones of the earth, and stood forth as the protectors of innocence and outraged virtue, as the champions of the rights of women, against the wanton excesses of tyrannical husbands, by enforcing, in their full severity, the laws of Christian marriage. If Christian Europe is not covered with harems, if polygamy has never gained a foothold in Europe ; if, with the indissolubility and sanctity of matrimony, the palladium of European civilization has been saved from destruction, it is all owing to the pastors of the Church. "If the popes," says the Protestant Yon Muller, "if the popes could hold up no other merit than that which they gained by protecting monogamy against the brutal lusts of those in power, notwithstanding bribes, threats, and persecutions, that fact alone would render them immortal for all future ages." And how had they to battle till they had gained this merit ? What sufferings had they to endure, what trials to undergo ? When King Lothair, in the ninth century, repudiated his lawful wife, in order to live with a concubine, Pope Nicholas I at once took upon himself the defence of the rights and of the honor of the unhappy wife. All the arts of an intriguing policy were plied, but Nicholas remained unshaken, threats were used, but Nicholas remained firm. At last the king's brother, Louis II, appears with an army before the walls of Rome, in order to compel the pope to yield. It is useless Nicholas swerves not from the line of duty. Rome is besieged, the priests and people are maltreated and plundered; sanctuaries are desecrated ; the cross is torn down and trampled under foot, and, in the midst of these scenes of blood and sacrilege, Nicholas flies to the Church of St.Peter. There he is besieged by the army of the emperor for two days and two nights ; left without food or drink, he is willing to die of starvation on the tomb of St. Peter, rather than yield to a brutal tyrant, and sacrifice the sanctity of Christian marriage, the law of life of Christian society. And the perseverance of Nicholas I was crowned with victory. He had to contend against a licentious king, who was tired of restraint, against an emperor, who, with an army at his heels, came to enforce his brother's unjust demands, against two councils of venal bishops : the one at Metz, the other at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had sanctioned the scandals of the adulterous monarch. Yet, with all this opposition, and the suffering it cost him, the pope succeeded in procuring the acknowledgment of the rights of an injured woman. And during succeeding ages we find Gregory V carrying on a similar combat against King Robert, and Urban II against King Philip of France. In the thirteenth century, Philip Augustus, mightier than his predecessors, set to work all the levers of power, in order to move the pope to divorce him from his wife, Ingelburgis. Hear the noble answer of the great Innocent III : "Since, by the grace of God, we have the firm and unshaken will never to separate ourselves from justice and truth, neither moved by petitions, nor bribed by presents, neither induced by love, nor intimidated by hate, we will continue to go on in the royal path, turning neither to the right nor to the left, and we judge without any respect to persons, since God himself does not respect persons." After the death of his first wife, Isabella, Philip Augustus wished to gain the favor of Denmark by marrying Ingelburgis. The union had hardly been solemnized, when he wished to be divorced from her. A council of venal bishops assembled at Compiegne, and annulled his lawful marriage. The queen, poor woman, was summoned before her judges, and the sentence was read and translated to her. She could not speak the language of France, so her only cry was, "Rome!" And Rome heard her cry of distress, and came to her rescue. Innocent III needed the alliance of France in the troubles in which he was engaged with Germany; Innocent III needed the assistance of France for the Crusade , yet Innocent III sent Peter of Capua as legate to France. A council is convoked by the legate of the Pope ; Philip refuses to appear, in spite of the summons, and his whole kingdom is placed under interdict. Philip's rage knows no bounds ; bishops are banished, his lawful wife is imprisoned, and the king vents his rage on the clergy of France. The barons, at last, appeal to the sword. The king complains to the pope of the harshness of the legate ; and when Innocent only confirms the sentence of the legate, the king
exclaims, a Happy Saladin ! he had no pope !?? Yet the king was forced to obey. When he asked the barons assembled in council, "What must I do ?" their answer was, "Obey the pope ; put away Agnes, and restore Ingelburgis." And, thanks to the severity of Innocent III, Philip repudiated the concubine, and restored Ingelburgis to her rights, as wife and queen. Hear what the Protestant Hurter says in his Life of Innocent: "If Christianity has not been thrown aside, as a worthless creed, into some isolated corner of the world, if it has not, like the sects of India, been reduced to a mere theory; if its European vitality has outlived the voluptuous effeminacy of the East, it is due to the watchful severity of the Roman Pontiffs to their increasing care to maintain the principles of authority in the Church." As often as we look toward England, we are reminded of the words of Innocent III to Philip Augustus. We see Clement using them as his principles in his conduct toward the royal brute, Henry VIII. Catharine of Aragon, the lawful wife of Henry, had been repudiated by her disgraceful husband, and it was again to Rome she appealed for protection. Clement remonstrated with Henry. The monarch calls the pope hard names. Clement repeats,"Thou shalt not commit adultery !" Henry threatens to tear England from the Church he does it; still Clement insists, "Thou shalt not commit adultery !" The blood of Fisher and Moore is shed at Tyburn ; still the pope repeats, "Thou shalt not commit adultery !" The firmness of the pope cost England's loss to the Church. It cost the pope bitter tears, and he prayed to heaven not to visit on the people of England the crimes of the despot, he prayed for the conversion of the nation, but to sacrifice the sanctity, the indissolubility of matrimony, that he could never do; to abandon helpless woman to the brutality of men who were tired of the restraints of morality, no, that the pope could never permit. If the court, if the palace, if the domestic hearth, refused a shelter, Rome was always open, a refuge to injured and down-trodden innocence. "One must obey God more than man." This has ever been the language of the Church, whenever there was question of defending the laws of God against the power of the earth ; and in thus defending the laws of God, she has always shown herself Catholic. Oh, how sad would be the state of society were the
popes, the bishops, and priests to be banished from the earth! The bonds that unite the husband and wife, the child and the parent, the friend and the friend, would be broken. Peace and justice would flee from the earth. Robbery, murder, hatred, lust, and all the other crimes condemned by the Gospel, would prevail. Faith would no longer elevate the souls of men to heaven. Hope, the sweet consoler of the afflicted, of the widow and the orphan, would flee away, and in her stead would reign black despair, terror, and suicide. Where would we find the sweet virtue of charity, if the popes, the bishops, and priests were to disappear forever ? Where would we find that charity which consoles the poor and forsaken, which lovingly dries the tears of the widow and the orphan, that charity which soothes the sick man in his sufferings, and binds up the wounds of the bleeding defender of his country! Where would we find that charity which casts a spark of divine fire into the hearts of so many religious, bidding them abandon home, friends, and everything that is near and dear to them in this world, to go among strangers, among savage tribes, and gain there, in return for their heroism, nothing but outrage, suffering, and death? Where, I ask, would we find this charity, if the popes, the bishops, and priests were to disappear forever? Let a parish be for many years without a priest, and the people thereof will become the blind victims of error, of superstition, and of all kinds of vices. Show me an age, a country, a nation, without priests, and I will show you an age, a country, a nation, without morals, without virtue. Yes, if  "religion and science, liberty and justice, principle and right," are not empty sounds if they have a meaning, they owe their energetic existence in the world to the "salt of the earth," to the popes, bishops, and priests of the Catholic Church. Finally, the Church, one, holy and Catholic, is also apostolic. 
To be continued . . . . . . . . . . . .

 This miracle took place in Cana of Galilee where Our Lord performed His first miracle of changing water into wine at the marriage-feast. There was there a local ruler who represented
Herod, the king, and held authority in a country where enemies were plenty. This ruler had a very sick son who was not expected to recover; the ruler heard of the coming of Our Lord to the place and he set out in his fatherly solicitude to beg of Him to come to his home and restore his child to health. This ruler knew, of course, that Jesus could do it, but by what power he did not know; he did not know that Jesus was God Himself. But he ascribed to Him a power which was beyond that of man. "You can do it easily, you have only to say a word, and there is nothing impossible to you." "Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not:" here Our Lord reproved the ruler with a want of sufficient faith; he believed a little, just enough to give him courage to come from his house, and look to Jesus for a cure. This same severe reproof might apply to many Christians; they believe only what suits them. Christianity is not so much a reality as it is a custom, a condition, in which they were born. Doubt is a want of faith. What doubtful propositions and systems do these Christians make for themselves! For instance, as to hell. Many people dispute as to what hell is; they do not know, but some make it a very hot place, while others come to the horrible conclusion that there is no hell; the latter do not want to be troubled by such frightful thoughts of a future life. With them one religion is as good as another; they think that all are in error, and that all try to do a little for man, but in different ways. Fly the company of such Christians, shake off the doubts you may have imbibed, study questions which relate to your religion. St. John the Evangelist once accidentally met Corinthus, the heretic. "Corinthus, the enemy of truth, is here; let us be gone," he said, "lest the house fall upon us." St. Polycarp met the heretic Marcion in Rome; as they came face to face, Polycarp turned away and looked in another direction. Marcion, with bold effrontery, asked, "Do you not know me?" "Yes," Polycarp answered, "I know you to be the
first-born of the devil."

It is not only necessary to avoid people who may make you lose your faith; you should not only love this precious gift and keep it safe in your heart, but you must also show it before the world. How can you do this? You can do it by performing many good works in the spirit of faith. We read that faith without works is dead, and works without faith have no spiritual value. Faith without works is like a body without life, and without breath. As a dead body is no longer a man, so a dead faith is no longer considered faith. A young man who knows that sin is the great evil of the world, and still continues to commit it, cannot be said to have faith. He cannot be said to have faith who knows that God punishes sin with eternal punishment, and yet still remains in sin, though he has the means to put himself in the grace of God. That youth has no faith who knows that God is everywhere, that He sees all things, even the most carefully concealed, and yet contaminates his heart by secret crimes. That young person cannot be supposed to have any faith who, knowing that Christ is ever present on our altars in church, yet behaves as if he were on the street, talking and laughing; not praying himself and disturbing others at their prayers. What is the good of believing in the Catholic Church, and living like a pagan? My good and faithful followers, "without faith it is impossible to please God," as St. Paul said to the Hebrews. Faith will give life to your souls and will nourish them. If
you have a well-grounded, lively faith you will come out victorious from every battle with your passions and sins. You will conquer yourself and your wicked nature.

During a persecution in Japan a young Japanese gave a good example of firm faith. He was advised by his own father to deny the faith, and, refusing, he was compelled to stand without any support, his hands and feet tied firmly. At length, after two days, the tender feeling of the father for his son induced him to loose the bonds. Straightway the youth went to the church of the Jesuits, and the first food he partook of was holy communion. Beg of God, my dear young friends, that you may have a like faith; nourish that faith by reading spiritual books; read lives of the saints and your catechism; but above all avoid wicked books, which are written to undermine the faith of the unwary.

The ruler mentioned in the Scripture did not heed the reprimand which Our Lord gave him, but continued to pray that Our Lord should hasten lest the ruler's son should die. Here we see the constancy of prayer. The father had a great desire to have his son healed, and while he knew Our Lord could do it, he believed that if he continued to ask his petition would be granted. Such also should be our prayers. Have a great desire to do something for the greater glory of God and for your own special benefit and then be constant in your petitions. How cold and careless our young people are at their prayers! They have no spiritual wants, and therefore they lack fervor; they realize their temporal wants more easily, and you will find they desire them more fervently. How few, therefore, are there who throw themselves before the altar of God and with sincerity and fervor say, "Lord, save my soul." How few are there, who, knowing that they are in sin, pray with fear and trembling: "Lord, my soul is dead in Thy sight; make me live again. Thou hast delivered me before from the hands of the devil; deliver me again.'* How few young people are there, who seeing the frequency with which they fall into sin, say fervently to God, "Lord, do Thou keep my mind, my tongue and my hands from falling into sin; give me the grace to avoid the occasions of it and of those companions whom I follow so implicitly." Very rarely are our young people in earnest in their prayers, and that is the reason that they find sin so agreeable, and follow it with such eagerness. At most they say a few  "Our Fathers " and " Hail Marys " with such a miserable disposition that you would be ashamed to call them prayers. They speak the words of the prayers with their lips, but not with the desire that what they ask for may be granted. Will such young people grow up to be good men and women? Will they continue free from sin? By no means. Without the grace of God, it is impossible to keep from sin.and yon will not receive this grace in answer to such, prayers. Let us then, young and old, with real fervor raise our hearts to God, and beg especially for grace to be freed from sin.

When the ruler had again made his demand, Our Lord said, "It is not necessary that I should come down. Go thy way, thy son liveth." The ruler believed the words of Christ, and thanking Him with reverence and gratitude, returned to Capharnaum. On the way he met messengers who had been sent to tell him that his son lived. He asked them at what hour the child became better, and they told him at the seventh hour, the same hour at which Our Lord had said, "Go, thy son liveth." This miracle convinced the ruler that Jesus was the Son of God. When he arrived home he found every one rejoicing. He told them of his meeting with the Messias, and showed them clearly that the healing of the child was due to Him. All were convinced, and all believed.

Let me, my dear young people, make just one more remark: Why did this pagan ruler go to Our Lord? By what means were his eyes opened to the faith? It was certainly by his son's danger. It was the grief in which he found himself. This trial, which to all appearances made him unhappy, was the cause of his joy. Had it not been for the sickness of his son he would not have thought of going to Christ; he would have remained in his unbelief, and he would not have embraced the faith. This should teach us that the misfortunes of this life, the trials which we sometimes have to undergo, are often great graces which Our Lord offers us, for these trials detach our hearts from earth, raise them to heaven, and force us to throw ourselves on the mercy of God. St. Gregory tells us, " That the evils that oppress us force us to go to God.'' See that strong, healthy young man; he enjoys his youth without concern; he is off with his wicked companions, to lie about in idleness, to commit sin without remorse. God strikes him with sickness, and he is thrown on his bed, battling for his life. What a misfortune that a young man in the flower of his youth should be so stricken! Yes, it is a great misfortune in one way, but looked at in another light, it is a blessing. He sins no more; he has time to think that God has sent this affliction to make him better, and in this way he is put on the path to heaven. "A great sickness sobers the mind." The same may be said of all other trials that come to us. Great or small, they are all graces sent to wake us up to a new life. God sends us trials because we are dear to Him. " Whom the Lord loveth. He chastiseth."

St. Ignatius says, "If God makes you suffer much, it is a sign that He wants to make a great saint of you, and if you wish to become great saints, pray God that He may let you suffer much." If you find that God sends you these trials for your sins, repent of them, and bear the suffering with resignation. If you know that you are as good as you can be, and still you suffer, thank God for it. Remember that your crown will be more beautiful when the time of your reward has come. Do not forget that God is a good father, who will not try you beyond your strength, but that He, Himself, with His great consolations, will help you bear the burden.

Source: Sermons for Childrens Masses, Imprimatur 1900

You can find a variety of Guardian Angel coloring pictures in our download section under coloring pictures. 

I'm going to interrupt the progression of my posts about the Corporal Works of Mercy from Father Muller and share some information from his first book in the series called, "The Church and Her Enemies."  If anyone wishes to download Father Muller's ebooks you can find them here. The following post is a long one but well worth the read. 

       "Come Holy Ghost fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love."

                                                                                      CHAPTER IV
                                            THE NINTH ARTICLE OF THE APOSTLES CREED
                                                           "THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" *
FOR love of man, God created the boundless universe, with its stars and countless worlds, and he made the universe, the temple of his endless love. The stars of heaven, as they sweep along in silent harmony, are ever singing a wondrous song, and the sweet burden of their song is, "God is love and TRUTH." This world is the temple of God's love and truth. The green earth, with its flowers, is the carpeted floor. The clear sky above is the vaulted dome, its pillars are the mountains, white with eternal snow. The mists and vapor that are ever ascending, like the smoke of sacrifice, remind us of the thoughts of love and gratitude that should ever go up to heaven from our hearts. The whispering of the winds, the rush of the storm, the murmuring of the brook, and the roar of the cataract, are the music that raises our hearts to God. And when God had finished that wondrous temple of his love, "He saw that it was good." (Gen. i, 25.)

* Enough has been said to show that God teaches mankind through his Church. It would be proper now to explain what the Church teaches, beginning with the explanation of the Apostles Creed. But as many may wish to see in one volume the whole doctrine on the Church, it has been deemed advisable to place, in this volume, the  explanation of the Ninth Article of the Creed.

For love of man, God has raised a still more wondrous temple, the temple of his holy Church. Millions and millions of chosen souls have aided in building this wondrous temple. Its foundation was laid at the gates of paradise. The patriarchs and prophets have labored at it, through the long ages of hope and expectation. It was completed, in the fullness of time, by the Only-Begotten of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. This temple of love was consecrated by the Holy Ghost on that wonderful day of love, the Feast of Pentecost. The summit of this glorious temple of love now rises to the highest heavens, and to the throne of the living God himself. In its depth, it reaches to that region of suffering where those are detained who are to be cleansed from all stain, before entering into the joys of heaven. In its width, it extends over all the earth, and shuts out no one who is willing to enter its portals. In this new creation, far more than in the old, God looks on those things that he made, and sees that they are "very good" What God does, is done well is a perfect work. The establishment of the Catholic Church is the grand work of his power; it is the greatest fact in history, a fact so great, that there would be no history without it; a fact permanent, entering into the concerns of all nations on the face of the earth, appearing again and again on the records of time, and benefiting, perceived or unperceived, directly or indirectly, socially, morally, and supernaturally, every member of the human family.

From the beginning of the world God always had but one Church to teach his religion to men, and lead them to heaven; Satan, too, from the beginning, has tried to have a church and a worship of his own. He found followers among the angels to refuse submission to God's holy will. Need we wonder at seeing him find followers among men! As the faithful servants of God are known and distinguished by their ready obedience to the divine authority of the Catholic Church, so those who are deceived by Satan are known by their want of submission to the divine authority of the Church. They form churches of their own, in opposition to the true Church of God. (The Novus Ordo is one of these) In the ninth century, the Greeks separated from the Roman Catholic Church, and formed a church of their own, called the Greek Church. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Martin Luther, an apostate friar, preached a doctrine of his own ; he gained many followers in Germany, who left the Catholic Church, and formed what is called and known as the Lutheran, or Protestant, Church. In 1531, Henry VIII, King of England, fell away from the Catholic Church, and made himself the supreme head of the English, or Anglican, Church. These, and other churches, are the work of man. No doubt, every one who is acquainted with the life of our Lord and is asked:

1. How many churches did Christ establish ?
Will answer : Christ established but one church. Indeed, as there is but one Christ, so there is, and can be, but one Church of Christ. The Church is called the body of Christ. Now, as Christ has but one body, so he can have but one Church. Christ himself tells us plainly that he established but one Church. He did not say to St. Peter, upon thee I will build my churches : he said, "Upon thee I will build my Church." He never said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against my churches" he said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against my Church." In fact; that our Lord established but one Church, is self-evident; it needs no proof. We are as certain of it as we are that there is but one God. St. Paul asserts this in the clearest terms: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism;  "that is, as there is, and can be, but one Lord, so there is, and can be, but one faith, one religion, one Church. And as our Lord established but one Church, it follows, necessarily, that all other churches are not the work of Jesus Christ. They are the work of man; the Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, alone is the work of God. (It is therefore impossible that the Catholic Church can be united with all other faiths, as Jorge Bergoglio says,  he preaches heresy!) 
All the works of God have something divine and supernatural about them, something that at once proclaims their divine origin ; something that distinguishes them, in an unmistakable manner, from the works of man. As the Catholic Church is the work of God, she has something about her to show that she is from God,  she has marks graven on her which make it impossible for one to be mistaken about her being the true Church of Christ, she has the most incontestable proofs of her divine mission and authority, to convince all who wish to be convinced.

2. By what marks is the Church of Christ easily known ?
By these four : The Church of Christ is:
1. one;
2. She is holy ;
3. She is Catholic ; and,
4. She is apostolic,
Above all, perfect unity must be found in the Church of Christ; for Christ calls his Church a "building," a "kingdom," a "city," a "flock," a "house," a body." In order to establish, insure, and preserve unity, he made St. Peter the foundation of the building, the chief ruler of the kingdom, the key-holder of the city and house, the principal shepherd of the flock, the head of the body. And on the eve of his passion, Christ asked for a unity in His Church, like that which unites the three divine persons in one and the same nature : "Father," he prayed, "keep them whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one." (John xvii, 11.) Moreover, he prayed that this union might last forever, and that it should be the distinctive mark of his Church : "I pray, also," he says, "for all those who, through their word, shall believe in me, that they may all be one, as thou, Father, in me, arid I in thee, that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me." (John xx, 21.) The apostles express very clearly the necessity of unity, and show that it is a distinctive mark of the true Church: "Be careful," says St. Paul, "to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism." Unity, then, is a distinctive mark, and an essential condition of the Church of Christ. That Church which has no unity, cannot be the true Church, and that Church which has unity, must certainly be divine.

In the Church of Christ holiness also must be found, no less than unity. Christ shed his blood for no other purpose than to form for himself, says St. Paul, a pure Church, "without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; that it should be holy and without blemish." (Eph. v, 25.) (Another mark that seems to be missing in Jorge's Church.  I see no holiness, only rotten fruit) Our Lord said, "by their fruits you shall know them." (Matt. 7: 16)  See the Church's commentary on this verse below.
Moreover, as the Church of Christ teaches the true faith, holiness must be the result of this faith, since Christ says: "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit." (Matt. vii,18.) According to Christ's promise, miracles will be performed by the true believers of his Church, and bear "witness to her holiness." (Mark xvi, 17.)

The Church, however, is not composed of the elect alone, for Christ compares her to a net which draws out of the sea "good and bad fish" (Matt, xiii, 47); to a, field where the cockle grows together with the wheat, until the day of the harvest. (Matt, xiii, 30.)

Again, during his public life, Christ declared repeatedly that his unalterable purpose was to unite, in one religious society, all mankind, of every age and clime, and afford his followers the means to free themselves from sin, and become reconciled to God; to grow in purity and holiness of life, and thus enter into life everlasting. He spoke always and everywhere, in language most clear and explicit, of this note of universality, as one peculiar to his kingdom. (John x, 16; Matt, xxviii, 19.) All the prophecies relative to the Messiah spoke of the whole human race as the flock of Christ, whose kingdom was to extend its bounds "till it embraced all pagan nations." (Matt, xv, 24 ; Ps. cix, 2.) Christ's Church, therefore, must be Catholic, or universal.

Finally, Christ has most solemnly promised to be with his apostles to the end of the world, and he has made St. Peter the first Bishop of Rome, the foundation of the Church, and her supreme head. Christ's Church, therefore, must be apostolic. Holy Scripture itself gives us this full information about the marks of the true Church of Christ. And if it is asked :

3. Which Church is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic?
The answer is: The Roman Catholic Church alone is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

It is easy to
4. Show how the Catholic Church is one.
The Catholic Church is one, because all her members are united:
1. in one faith;
2. in one worship;
3. under one infallible head.

1. The Catholic Church is one, because all her members are united in one faith. Unity is especially divine. It exists in its perfection only in the adorable Trinity. Wherever we find unity in created things, we may be sure that it is an image and reflection of God. Now, in this world, there is one society, and only one, in which unity has always existed, and has never been broken. This society is the Catholic Church. This society is the most numerous, the first, and the most ancient of all the communities that call themselves Christian. The Catholic Church is found in all kingdoms and states, it reaches from pole to pole, from east to west ; embraces all ranks and classes of men. The members of the Catholic Church differ from one another in their character, in their education, in their modes of thought ~ they differ in their language, in their habits of life, in their sympathies and prejudices; in a word, they differ from one another in everything that distinguishes man from man. But in one thing they are all united : in religion. In religion, alone, they are all of one mind and one heart. In this wonderful society you will find the passionate Italian, with his glowing imagination ; you will find, also, the stolid and tenacious Englishman ; the lively and brilliant Frenchman ; and the quiet, thoughtful German. You will find there the stately Spaniard ; the witty, impulsive Irishman, and the acute and practical American. All these, and so many other races, though they contrast violently with one another in every natural gift and habit ; though they retain all their distinctive peculiarities as men and citizens, yet in religion they are all one absolutely one. Throughout the whole Catholic world, the myriads of every nation, climate, and language, nobles and peasants, monarchs and slaves, philosophers and little children, there exists a unity of faith and doctrine, so divine and absolute, so spontaneous and yet so perfect, so unshackled and yet so complete, that a cardinal in Rome or a neophyte in China, a mathematician in Holland or a wood-cutter in Syria, or a little child anywhere, would give, in substance, the same answer to any question upon any doctrine of the Church.

2. When their children are born, all bring them to be regenerated in the same waters of baptism. When they become unfaithful to their baptismal vows, and sin against God's commandments, they all have recourse to the same tribunal of penance. They all seek strength at the same Eucharistic table, and, animated by the same faith, they receive truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. In sickness, when they are about to appear before their God, they all send for the priest of the Church, and receive the sacrament of Extreme Unction. They all are one, not only in faith, but also in worship. And what more natural than this oneness in worship, Christ, who taught us our religion, has also taught us how to worship his heavenly Father in a manner worthy of his divine majesty. He instituted the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in which he is at once the High-Priest and the Victim. Through the hands of his priests he offers himself for us to his heavenly Father as a sacrifice of adoration, of thanksgiving, of atonement, and of impetration. Since the institution of the Mass, paradise blooms again, the heavens are purple, the angels shine in white, and men are exhilarated. This sublime and profound mystery, which scandalizes obstinate unbelievers, and arouses the pride of Protestants, is nevertheless, that which renews the face of the earth, satisfies the justice of God redeems man unto salvation, opens heaven, sanctifies the world, and disarms hell. It is this mystery which has engendered a more holy religion, a more spiritual worship, and a purer virtue among men, because it is more interior from it spring the most efficacious sacrament, more abundant graces, more sublime ceremonies, more perfect laws ; it is that tender adoption of men, as children of God, substituted for the more ancient alliance between God and man, which was founded upon fear. This mystery is the striking manifestation of all truths, and the censure of all errors : all vices find their condemnation therein, all virtues their principle, all merits their recompense ; it is, in short, the foundation of faith, the support of hope, and the most powerful motive for the love of God.

The holy Mass is the sun of Christianity, and the summary of all that is grand, and magnificent, and most prodigious, both in the triumphant and in the militant Church of God. The angels almost envy us this divine sacrifice. Protestants and infidels may say, with a sneer, that it is the pomp and glitter of our ceremonies and altars that draw the faithful to the church. Not so. The fickle nature of man cannot be charmed long by such transitory things. Our altars, indeed, we adorn, we decorate our churches, we embellish the priestly vestments, we display the gorgeous ceremonies of the Church, but not to attract the people ; we do all this simply because our Lord Jesus Christ is present there, our Saviour and our God, surrounded by countless myriads of angels. This is the grand source of the magnificence of our architecture, the gorgeousness of our vestments, the diversity of our Ornaments, the sound of our organs, the religious harmony of our voices, and the grandeur and order of all our ceremonies, both in the consecration and dedication of our churches, and the solemn celebration of the Mass. This is the reason why we adorn ourselves with our gayest attire, why we rifle the gardens of their sweetest and choicest flowers to decorate our altars, and scatter them in lavish profusion before the feet of our sacramental King. This is the reason why our sacred altars glitter and sparkle with cheerful lights, while clouds of sweet-smelling incense float up and around the sacred Victim.

It is related of Frederick II, King of Prussia, that, after having assisted at a solemn high Mass, celebrated in the church of Breslau by Cardinal Tringendorf, he remarked : "The Calvinists treat God as an inferior, the Lutherans treat him as an equal, but the Catholics treat him as God." Yes, indeed ; it is only the Catholic Church that is the home for our dear Saviour. His presence fills her halls to over flowing with joy and gladness. Her propitiatory altars are the anchors of hope for the sinner,  her sanctuaries, the antechambers of heaven. Take away the Blessed Sacrament, and you take away her Saviour. Give her the Blessed Sacrament, and you give her a glory, an honor, a triumph, the greatest possible this side of paradise. Her altars are the altars of joy, because they are the altars of the saving Victim for the sins of the world ; for which reason the robed priest begins the tremendous sacrifice with the antiphon : "I will go unto the altar of God, to God who rejoiceth my youth."

This sacrifice of adoration, of thanksgiving, of atonement, and of impetration, is offered up daily, nay, hourly, all over the world. To it come the simple peasant from his woods; the shepherd from the mountains; the man of already the sweet spell upon him, and finds his heart beating in unison with the great heart of the Church, as if he had been suckled at her breast, and had lain in her bosom from infancy. In the whole history of the human race there is no record of any such miracle as this. Even were all the dead to rise from their graves, and to crowd our streets and thoroughfares, it would not be a greater miracle. Like the Jews of old, the men of the present generation "desire a sign," in order that they may believe; and now here is a sign, a standing miracle, more luminous, more dazzling, than the noonday sun. "Truly the finger of God is here."

One day a certain Protestant of Pennsylvania came to Archbishop Kenrick, of Baltimore, to tell him that he wished to become a Catholic. "What induced you," asked the archbishop, "to take this step ?" "The bugs, the bugs!" he replied. "What do you mean by that ?" "I have often noticed," said he, "how in nature animals follow their leader, and are kept united together by him. The same must be true in religion : only that one can be of divine origin which has a leader whom all are bound to follow. As I find this only in the Catholic Church, I feel convinced that she is the true Church, in which alone I can be saved." If St. Paul could say to the heathens, "You might have found out the true God by his works, if you had cared to do so," surely God may say, in the great day, to the children out of the Catholic Church : "You might have known the true Church by her unity, if you had not closed your eyes."

The next mark by which Christ wished his Church to be distinguished is that of holiness. But, in speaking of the holiness of the Catholic Church, we do not mean to say that every member of the Church is holy. The field of the Church is wide, and has weeds as well as wheat. In the very company chosen by our Lord Jesus Christ himself, there was a Peter who denied him, and a Judas who betrayed him. So it is at the present day, So it will be to the end of time. 

Commentary taken from the Douay Rheims version of the Bible ~ VERSE. 16.  As the true Church is known by the four marks of its being one, holy, catholic, and apostolical, so heretics and false teachers are known by certain vices, and the pernicious effects of their novelties in religion. As the true Church is one, by its members submitting with humility to the authority established by Christ, (he that will not hear the Church, let him be unto thee as the heathen and the publican. Mat. xviii. 17.) so are false teachers known by their separation from the ancient Church, and their divisions among themselves, the necessary consequences of rebelling against the authority established by Christ, and alone capable of determining controversies. The same pride and other secret vices which make them despise government, (2 Peter ii. 10.) make them also not afraid to bring in sects of perdition, blaspheming, and this in civil government as well as ecclesiastical. Those that called themselves Reformers, in the beginning of the 16th century, of all others were remarkable in this. What bloody tumults and wars were there not produced in Germany, by the first Reformers in that country! Calvin overturned the government of Geneva; and his followers, under the name Hugonots, filled France for a great length of time with slaughter and civil wars, frequently shaking the throne itself. In this country, the first cause of its separation from the universal Church, was the unbridled passion of a tyrant: the effects were adultery, and the murder of the successive queens that he had taken to his adulterous bed. In the reign of his successor, the insatiate avarice of a corrupt nobility, gratified with the sacrilegious plunder of the Church, established what is called the Reformation. The fear of being compelled to disgorge the fruits of their rapine, contributed much to the confirmation of that order of things in the reign of Elizabeth. She was inclined to it by the circumstances of her birth, which could not be legitimate, if her father's marriage with Catharine of Arragon was valid, as the first authority in the Catholic Church had declared. The natural spirit of this heresy, though checked a while and kept under by the despotical government of this queen, appeared in its own colours soon after, and produced its natural fruits in the turbulence of the times that succeeded, and the multiplicity of sects that are continually springing up to this very day.--As the true Church is holy, recommending various exercises of religion tending to purify human nature, and render men holy, as fasting, confession of sins, evangelical counsels,  so false teachers cast off all these, promising liberty, (2 Pet. ii. 16.) and giving full rein to the lustful passions, thus giving a liberty of living, as well as a liberty of believing.—Another fruit of false teachers is, separation from what was the Universal Church before their time, and which continues to be still the far greater part, not being confined to one state or country. If some modern principles, of not allowing any communion of religion out of each state, were admitted, as many religions should have been established by heaven as men think proper to establish different states; nor could Christ have given one for all mankind, under whatever state or form of government they might live.--

Finally, false teachers are to be known by their not being able to shew, that they have received their doctrine and mission from the apostles, in a regular succession from them. Some of our modern divines would spurn at the idea of their holding their doctrine and orders from the Catholic Church, such as it existed at the time of the Reformation, which is precisely such as it exists at the present moment.—In answer to this it has been retorted, that the fruits of the Catholic religion have been as bad, or worse; and the horrors of the French revolution are particularly mentioned, as a proof. . . . That great crimes have been committed by those who professed themselves Catholics, is not denied; but that they were prompted to them by the nature of their religion, is certainly not admitted. The revolution of France in particular, was the effect of the people falling off from their religion. As well may the Puritans, that brought Charles to the block, be said to be Catholics, because they or their parents once had been such: as well may the present bench of Protestant bishops be said to be Catholics, because the bishops of their sees once were so; or that Robespierre, Marat, and the Jacobins that persecuted catholicity in France, and brought its too indulgent sovereign to the guillotine, were Catholics, or directed in the least by Catholic principles.

5. Show how the Catholic Church is holy ?
We answer : The Catholic Church is holy :
1. in Jesus Christ, her Founder ;
2. in her doctrine, which is Christ s doctrine;
3. in her means of grace, the proper use of which makes us h6lyt;
4. in many of her members, whose holiness has been confirmed by miracles and extraordinary gifts.

1. The Catholic Church is holy in her Founder, who is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But what mind of man or angel can conceive the greatness of the holiness of Jesus Christ, which is, indeed, infinite ? To say that his holiness is greater than that of all the saints and angels united, is to fall infinitely below it. Jesus Christ, as God, is infinite holiness itself, and the sum of our conception of holiness is but the smallest atom of the holiness of God. David, contemplating the divine holiness, and seeing that he could not, and never would, be able to comprehend it, could only exclaim : "Lord ! who is like unto thee ?" (Ps. xxxiv, 10.) Lord! what holiness shall ever be found like to thine ? It is an utter impossibility for any human or angelic understanding to conceive an adequate idea of the holiness of Christ. All we can say is, that his holiness is infinite. The Catholic Church, then, is holy in her divine Founder.

2. The Catholic Church is also holy in her doctrine, which is the doctrine of Christ and his holy apostles, and his doctrine is the expression of the will of his heavenly Father : "My doctrine is not mine, but of him that sent me." (John vii, 16.) As the will of God is most holy, so also the doctrine expressing the holy will of God must be most holy. Hence, the book containing the word of God is called the holy Bible, or holy Scripture. Every action and every word of our Saviour breathes holiness, inspires holiness, and leads to holiness. Therefore he calls those blessed who learn his doctrine : "Blessed are your ears, because they hear. For, wnen I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to hear the things that you hear, and have not "You are a chosen generation a holy nation." says St. Peter of the Christians. (1 Pet. ii, 9.)

The very enemies of the Catholic Church bear witness to the holiness of her doctrine. Why have so many fallen away from her faith ? It is because they had not courage enough to live up to her holy precepts. Why is it that so many do not embrace the Catholic faith who know that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Christ? It is because they are afraid of her holy morals. Even the most wicked feel naturally convinced that the Catholic religion is holy: a fault in a Catholic is considered, and considered rightly, more grave than in one who is not a Catholic.

3. The Church is holy in her means of grace. It is her office to make men holy. She holds out to her children not only the holy example and doctrine of her divine Founder as the pathway to holiness, she also offers to them the means of grace, which enable them to live up to her holy doctrine. By his divine example and holy doctrine Christ showed us the narrow road that leads to heaven. But what would it avail us to know the road to heaven, if we had no strength to walk on that strait, and, to fallen humanity, hard road.  This strength we have not of ourselves. God is the greatest supernatural good. We can, then, acquire this good only by supernatural strength, that is, by the help of Almighty God. By his sufferings and death, Christ obtained for us all the graces necessary to live up to his holy doctrine, to overcome all the evil inclinations of fallen nature, all the temptations, all the trials and struggles of life. These graces he wished to be applied to our souls by means of the sacraments and prayer, and he appointed his Church to sanctify her children by these means of grace. The child is born in sin; the Church cleanses it in baptism, and makes it a child of God. The child is weak ; the Church strengthens it in confirmation, makes it a brave soldier, to battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. The child is wounded, falls into sin; the Church, like the good physician, probes the wounds, and pours into the bleeding heart the oil and wine of hope and consolation, in the sacrament of penance. The child is hungry and weary ; the Church feeds it with heavenly food, nourishes and refreshes it with the precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The heart of the young man feels the fire of that love which first came from God, and which has become unholy only by abuse, and the Church, like a fond mother, sanctifies and preserves this natural love of the bridegroom and the bride. In the holy sacrament of marriage she blesses this love before the altar of God, and declares its bonds perpetual. And should the heart of the young man aspire to a higher and holier destiny ; should he desire, in his inmost soul, to soar high above the weakening tenderness of mere human love, should he desire to become the saviour of his fellow-men, the cooperator with God himself in the great work of redemption, the holy Church leads him by the hand, she "blesses, sanctifies, and consecrates" him before the altar of God ; she makes him a priest forever, a priest of the Most High God. At last, when her child is dying, the holy Catholic Church comes to his bedside with sanctifying oil and the prayer of faith; she administers to him the sacrament of Extreme Unction, to strengthen and console him in his fearful death-struggle. But her love does not end at the bed of death. She opens wide the doors of her temple ; she offers an asylum even to the dead body of her child. She blesses that body which was once the temple of the living God, and she even consecrates the very ground in which that body is laid to rest. The love of the Church for her children does not pause even at the grave. Day after day she offers up her prayers ; day after day she offers up the holy sacrifice of the altar for the souls of her children departed. The husband may forget the wife of his bosom, the mother may forget the child of her heart, but the holy Church does not forget her children, not even in death : her love is divine, it is eternal. And in this love the Church is impartial : she is just to all. As the holy spouse of Christ, she loves justice and hates iniquity. She has spurned the anointed king from the temple of God, until he repented of his crime ; and on the head of the lowly monk, who spent his days in labor and prayer, she has placed the triple crown. At one moment she bathes with baptismal dew the peasant's child; and at another, she boldly confronts the imperial might that dares assail her holy altar. Now the Church is accused of despotism, because she upholds the rights of lawful authority ; and again, she is accused of arrogance, because she dares to protect the poor, the down trodden, and the friendless. She blesses all things that are good in this world, she protects and encourages the fine arts. Truth is the essence of order, the essence of beauty. Religious truth is heavenly order, is supernatural beauty. The Church is the living spouse of heavenly truth ; she must, therefore, be the friend, the protector, of all beauty and order, and so she has proved to be for over eighteen hundred years.

In the Church, all that is good and beautiful in art or nature has been purified as in a heavenly crucible, and consecrated to the service of religion. The poet seeks to please the imaginations of men, and the Church unfolds before him the annals of Christianity. She tells him of the august sacrifice of infinite love, which is her soul and life, and she tells him of her heroic sufferings, of her martyr faith ; and the poet draws holy inspiration from these touching records, and incites men to a higher, to a holier life.

The painter and the sculptor seek to place before our eyes the happiest, the most sublime of conceptions, and the Church bids them look into her treasure-house, where they find the most perfect models of every virtue, models of pure, of noble, of heroic self-sacrifice.

The architect seeks to build up a monument of strength, and intellect, and beauty; and the Church unlocks for him the sublime, mysterious meanings of her ceremonies and symbols. Guided by her inspiration, he teaches the lifeless stone, he teaches the spreading arch, the pointed spire,to speak to men of faith, of hope, of love; he teaches them to speak of prayer, of sacrifice, of heaven.

The orator strives to nerve men for the solemn duties, the grand conflicts of life; the Church of Christ, touches his lips with living fire from the altar, and his eloquence flows on in an impetuous stream of  "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

The musician seeks to weave his entrancing spells around ear, and heart, and soul; and the Church breathes into his soul the glorious, wondrous melodies which she has borrowed from the angels of heaven, and her music seems like beatific worship, and the worship on earth like beatific music.

4. The Church is holy in many of her members. What is more natural than this ? A mother that teaches her children so holy a doctrine, sets before them constantly the example of her divine Founder, that they may live and die as he did. A mother that has such powerful means to sanctify her children, cannot but be holy in the fruits of sanctity, in the saints, and in the sacred institutions which she has produced.

To be convinced of the personal sanctity of millions of her children, we have but to "pen the annals of Church history. " There we read of thousands of men and women who fulfilled the saying of Christ : "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel, shall save it." (Mark
viii, 35.) Such was the havoc made during the early persecutions of the Church, that her martyrs alone amount to thirty thousand for every day in the year. How many thousands of the children of the Church followed that saying of the Lord : "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me!" (Matt, xix, 21.) And, "Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name s sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting. (Matt, xix, 29.) Astonishing, indeed, is the number of those who have followed this saying of our Lord, by embracing the religious life.

St. Athanasius writes that in his time there were monasteries like tabernacles, full of heavenly choirs of people, who spent their time in singing psalms, in reading and praying that they occupied a large extent of land, and made, as it were, a town among themselves. Such immense numbers resorted to the religious life in Palestine, that Isidore was the superior of one thousand monks, and his successor, Apollonius, of five thousand in the same monastery. In the cloistered community of Orynchus there were ten thousand monks. Upon a hill in Nitria, about twenty miles from Alexandria, there were five hundred monasteries under one superior. Palladius relates that he saw a city in which there were more monasteries than houses of seculars,"so that, every street and corner ringing with the divine praises, the whole city seemed a church." He also testifies to having seen multitudes of monks in Memphis and Babylon, and that not far from. These he met with a Father of three thousand monks.

St. Pachomius, who lived about three hundred years after Christ, had seven thousand disciples, besides one thousand in his own house, and Serapion had ten thousand monks under his jurisdiction.

Theodoret records that there were also multitudes of religious women throughout the East, in Palestine, Egypt, Asia, Pontus, Cilfcia, Syria, and also in Europe : "Since our Saviour," he says, "was born of a Virgin Mother, the fields of holy virgins are everywhere multiplied." Nor was the great increase of religious houses confined to the early ages of the Church, for Trithemius, who died about the year 1516, says that, in his time, the province of Ments alone contained one hundred and twenty-four abbeys ; and that there was a time when they had fifteen thousand abbeys, besides priories and other small monasteries, belonging to his order.

St. Bernard, in his Life of St. Malachy, records that, in Ireland, there was a monastery out of which many thousands of monks had come forth : "A holy place indeed," he says, "and fruitful in saints, bringing forth abundant fruit to God, insomuch that one man alone of that holy congregation, whose name was Luanus, is reported to have been the founder of one hundred monasteries. And these swarms of saints have not only spread themselves in Ireland and Scotland, but have also gone into foreign parts ; for St. Columba, coming from thence into France, built the monastery of Luxovium, and raised there a great people, their number being so great that the divine praises were sung by them day and night without intermission. St. Columba founded one hundred monasteries, of which thirty-seven were in Ireland, a country which was, for centuries, known all over Europe as the Island of "Saints and of Doctors."  According to Archdall, there were in Ireland seven hundred and forty-two religious houses.

St. Bernard, in the space of thirtv years that he was abbot, founded one hundred and sixty monasteries. So rapid was the progress of his order that, in the space of fifty years from its establishment, it had acquired five hundred abbeys,  and at one time no fewer than eight hundred were dependent on Clairvaux.

The Franciscans seem to have been particularly blessed in the speedy and extensive propagation of their order for, about the year 1600, one branch of this order, called the Observantines, is said to have numbered one hundred thousand members. This order reckons at present two hundred thousand men and three hundred thousand sisters, including the tertiaries. It possesses two hundred and fifty-two provinces and twenty-six thousand convents, of which five are in Palestine, and over thirty in Turkey. More than eighty-nine emperors, kings and queens have been admitted into the order, which has, moreover, the glory of having furnished three thousand saints, or beatified persons, of whom seventeen hundred are martyrs.

Nor is the Church less holy in many of her members, in our day. Who really takes Christian care of the poor, the sick, and the friendless, but the Catholic Church ? She has founded such orders as the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and so many others, in order to administer to their wants. Where can you find, outside of the Catholic Church, that young and beautiful virgin, who lays at the foot of the cross her youth, her wealth, and her beauty ; who sacrifices all earthly hope and love, to spend her days in a loathsome hospital, and to watch, during the long, dull night, by the bedside of the sick and dying ? The charitable, heroic deeds of these holy virgins have already brought conviction to the minds and hearts of many non-Catholics.

St. John the Evangelist tells us that our Saviour cured one day a young man who had been born blind. The Pharisees heard of this, and were filled with rage and envy. They took the young man aside, and said to him: "Give glory to God, that man that cured you is a sinner. "Well," said the young man, "whether he be a sinner or not, I cannot say. But one thing I do know, and that is, that he has cured me. God does not hear sinners. If this man were not from God, he could not do such things." (John ix.) This was the argument of the young man in the Gospel; this, too, is the simple argument of every honest non-Catholic. The bigots and Protestant preachers say to the returned soldier, to the young man who has just come forth from the hospital where he suffered during a long and painful illness: "The Catholic Church is
sinful and corrupt." "Well" the young man answers, "whether she is corrupt or not, I do not know, but one thing I do know, and that is, that I was at the point of death, and now I am well : and I owe it, after God, to the good Sisters of the Catholic Church. They waited on me in the hospital, in the battle-field, they nursed me as tenderly as a mother or a sister could have done : and they did it without pay? without any human motive or reward. Now, a bad tree cannot bring forth such good fruit. If the Catholic Church were as sinful and corrupt as you say, God would not give her children such heroic devotedness."

Behold, again, the holy charity of the Catholic Church toward the very outcasts of society, those poor, fallen creatures, that have become the dishonor of their sex ! See how closely she imitates her divine spouse, our Lord Jesus Christ ! Jesus is present at a great feast. A poor, sinful woman, notorious on account of her wicked life, falls prostrate at his feet. She washes his feet with her tears, and wipes them with her hair. The Pharisees are shocked and scandalized. They say in their hearts: "This man is no prophet ; if he were a prophet, he would know what kind of a woman that is who kneels at his feet; he would spurn her from him." But Jesus knows well the sinful life of Magdalen, and yet he does not reject her. On the contrary, he defends her before them all, and says to her: "My child, go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee !" Ah, how full of mercy and compassion is the heart of Jesus Christ ! Now look upon his spouse, the holy Catholic Church, and see if she is not worthy of her heavenly Bridegroom ! The unfortunate woman whom many have helped to drag into destruction, has not now a hand stretched out to save her. The world that allured and ruined her despises her, and laughs her to scorn. The proud, self-righteous Pharisee turns away from her in horror and disgust. The grace of God at last touches her heart. She sees herself abandoned by all, she turns her despairing eyes to God. Friendless, homeless, and alone, she wanders through the dark by-ways of this valley of tears till at last she stands at the ever-open portals of the holy Catholic Church. She enters, she falls at the feet of the priest of Jesus Christ. She weeps, she repents, she is forgiven.

See those pure virgin nuns, who are justly called the Daughters of the Good Shepherd ! They have sworn, before the altar of God, to devote their whole life to the reformation of these poor outcasts of society, these unhappy victims of a heartless world. See how gently they receive the fallen one, how kindly they treat her ! See how she enters the convent chapel, and at the very feet of Jesus, in the blessed sacrament, she pours out her prayers, and sighs, and tears ! She experiences at last that there is rest for the weary, that there is hope for the sinner; that there is, indeed, a heaven on earth, in the holy Catholic Church.

In every age, and in every country through which the Catholic religion has spread, there have been many Catholics who showed, in their daily conduct, that they complied with the words of St. Paul : "This is the will of God, your sanctification." (I Thess. iv, 3.) They were scrupulous keepers of the commandments of God, fulfilling the whole law and the prophets. How could it be otherwise ? Jesus Christ, in the blessed sacrament, this divine food, the source of all sanctity, never ceases to bring forth holy bishops, like St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus Liguori, holy priests, like St. Vincent de Paul, St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver; holy virgins, like St. Teresa, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Zita, St. Rose of Lima ; holy widows, like St. Frances de Chantal ; holy martyrs, like Borie, Gagelin, and so many others.

That God confirmed the holiness of his servants by many miracles and extraordinary gifts, may be read in the Lives of the Saints, or in any Church history. "Amen, amen, I say to you," said Christ, "he that believeth in me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do" (John xiv, 12) ; and, "These signs shall follow them that believe : In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover." (Mark xvi, 17, 18.) Accordingly, we read that SS. Paphnutius, Remigius, Otto, Robert, Dominic, and many others, cast out the devil from possessed persons. When St. Bernardine of Sienna, St. Anthony of Padua, St Francis Xavier, and others, preached to an audience composed of people from different countries, every one believed he heard his own tongue spoken. St. Hilary, St. Magnus, St. Patrick, and others, banished snakes and other reptiles. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus moved a mountain, to obtain a site for a Church. St. Patrick, St. Martin, St. Benedict, St. Dominic, St. Anthony, St. Francis of Paula, and many others, raised dead persons to life. St. Francis Xavier raised twenty-five, and St. John Capistran, thirty dead persons to life. St. Stanislas the Martyr restored a man to life who had died three years before, and presented him before the court to testify that he had bought from him a certain piece of ground for his church, and that he had paid him in full.

The Catholic Church, then, is holy in her doctrine and means of grace ; she is holy in all those of her members who live up to her holy doctrine. She is holy in the strenuous efforts which she has always made to put down errors, correct abuses, destroy sin, and cure all kinds of evils. Any one who reads, for instance, the acts of the Council of Trent, cannot fail to notice that one-half of its chapters treat of the great work of reformation. In this council the Church proscribes duels, reduces liturgies to unity, banishes profane airs and secular music from her
temples, institutes seminaries for the education of the clergy, establishes, at cathedrals, free-schools and lectures on holy Scripture, for the instruction of the people , she reminds her pastors that they are bound to continence, to residence, to frequent and diligent preaching ; she interdicts all appearance of simony and venality in the distribution of ecclesiastical offices, in preaching indulgences, and in administering the sacraments. Thus the tree is pruned, but not uprooted, the pastors, those heavenly physicians, cure their patients, but do not kill them ; the clergy and the religious orders are reformed, but the priesthood and the religious state are not abolished, incontinence is suppressed, though universal marriage is not preached, the weeds in the field of the Lord are plucked up? but the good seed is preserved. This is a reformation, not of the Church, but by the Church, a reformation to bring about which, she was established by Christ ; a reformation which she accomplishes by her general councils, by her zealous bishops and holy priests, by her fervent religious orders and congregations of both sexes, and by so many pious confraternities. But the Church herself, her doctrine, her means of grace, her order of government, are all divine and holy, and therefore can never be reformed: it would be a monstrous impiety to say that she could be reformed.  

What a glorious Church is ours ! What power but that of God could make her so divinely one in her faith, in her morality, in her worship, in her government ? What holiness but that of the Lord could make her so holy in. her Founder, in her doctrine, in her sacraments, in her members ? What more natural than that the Lord of all power and of all holiness should make this Church Catholic, as to time, place, and doctrine ?

Do you see holiness when looking at the Church that is in the Vatican now?  I certainly don't.

To be continued . . . . . . . . . .