The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-05-31

consider, any such overtures, proceeding as
they do from the assumption of equal posi-
ton and authority; without disowning her
tself, without denying even those claims and
prerogatives, the existence of which alone
makes union with her desirable; If there is
no institution on earth which has q valid
title to he the continuous Church of Christ,
all efforts will be vain to supply the gap Of
centuries by an establishment now. A
union of churches willnot satisfy the design
or promise of our Lord, when he founded
the unity of His Church. If the Christian
Church has really been broken into pieces,
it will be in vain to gather up the fragments
for, on that superstition, the divine princi-
of hell have prevailed. Those men ofstrOng
Catholic predictions, who, nevertheless,
have chung to the theory that the Church of
Christ has been really broken, and must be
repaired by management, will yet thank
God from their Utmost souls for the inn
movable frmness with which that theory
has been denied at Rome.
The Catholic Church has never con-
demned heresy more false or destructive
than the proposition that she is herself but
one of the divisions of the Christian Church
having no authority to speak or to rule in
the name of her Lord. To deny that the
one Church of Christ is now existing, and
that she has existed for ages, is to deny not
merely fact in history, but it is to deny
the word of our Lord and to do that, is to
deny alike his holiness and his divinity.
How can the Catholic Church treat with
| those who wish to make terms before sub
hitting to her authority, on the basis of a
positive untruth Catiolicity is not an in
heritance, to be decided among many
claimants, no one of whom has any right to
be or to be regarded as the sole heir of the
homestead; but it is an estate left by the
divine Lord of the manor, in charge of the
Prince of the Apostles and his successors,
on the express injunction that it is to be
kept one and undivided, in trust for the
benefit of the faithful for all time, The
estate has been kept one and undivided,
according to the title-deed: the injunction
all defections from the household, the
homestead of the Christian world remains
in the hands of the same faithful success
sion to which it was committed by our
Lord himself. May God grant that all the
younger sons who have gone astray, may
return with penitential alacrity to their
Fathers house!
The Catholic Church will not stop in her
progress, until she has converted the world
to Christ; but she has not denied, and will
not deny, heps sacred trust and prerogative
of Catholicity for the sake even of adding
whole nations to her fold. Whoever enters
her fold must admit by that act her claim
to be the one, undivided, indivisible
Church of Christ. There can be no
branches of the Catholic Church" which
are not surecIly JOlneu 10 Une rOOt anu
trunk of Cathoiicity. A severed branch is
no branch
It is not the fault of the Catholic Church
that multitudes "who profess and call
themselves Christians" are not members of
her communion. She affords the very
action that can be yielded without deny
ing her faith or her commission. The
highest poetry and the severest logic may
kneel in brotherly harmony at her altar.
Gifts and talents the most diverse have
been consecrated to her service. The
Catholic Church, advancing, century after
century, under the banner of the cross and
dove, to the spiritual conquest of the
world how far more sublime a spectacle it
is than that of some parts of Christendom,
which are broken into little independent
bands of sectarian skirmishers, keeping up
kind of guerrilla warfare against " the
world, the flesh, and the DEVIL" and each
other.
There are inspiring tokens which show
the depth and breadth of the conviction,
that the great schism of three centuries
ago has proved terrible mistake. Multi
tudes outside of the Catholic Church are
inquiring with earnest soiicitude about the
meaning of Catholic unity. The main
course of intellectual inquiry is, in both
hemlspheres, respecting the claims of the |
Catholic Church. There are evident signs |
that the chaos of Professionalism is. about to
waste to bloom and glow with Catholic
beauty and order, God grant that it may
be so, and that not only thousands of indi-
vIduals may know how precious prize it
Is to kneel devoutly and sincerely before
the altar of God but that even mighty ma
tons may be convinced what priceless gifts
they have forfeited by three centuries of
separation from the source of all they have
that has been or is worth keeping.
In view of the fact that the revival of
Catholic feeling enkindles also the enmity
of those who sean it, the gathering Mt Rome
Is not only an assurance before the world
that the Catholic Church will continue to
be the guide of life and the empire of civil