The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1870-04-10
WHAT 1s IT TO HE CATHOLIC ,

We have all heard of men claiming to be
Catholics, but not Roman Catholics" The
absurdity of the position taken by such
persons is well set of in the annexed ex-
tract from q sermon preached in England
at o late day by the Rev. J. N. Sweeney, o.
8. b.:
An Ecumenical council, too, affords one
of the most palpable means of diRpelling
the vain and unmeaning pretsnc4to the
glorious name Of Catholic upon the part of
those who are out of union with the Holy
See of Rome. St. Augustine denied the
title logically and heartily to the Donatist
schismatics when they ventured to claim
it, and especially on the ground that their
fatal to their claim and in like manner 1t
is our duty to show our reverence for the
name which belongs exclusively to the one
church dispersed, and yet united, through
out the whole world by consistently With
holding it from those upon whom it always
| sits uneasily, even when they dare to usurp
| it. Like a garment which was made for
one person, it shows that it cannot fit
another whose form and dimensions are
completely different from those OF the
rightful and original owner. For how often
do we hear it said nowadays by persons
are Catholics, but you are Roman Catho-
lies I" Our answer is and ought to be:
Are you in communion with that centre
acknowledged by the universal, world Are
you in communion with that center ac-
knowledged by the universal world This
center rejects you, and You reject it, and in
the very fact of this rejection consists your
isolation, your nationalism, and your posi-
| ton, which is the very contradiction of
Catholic. If you are Catholic, why does an
Ecumenical council not recognize you, for
the terms Ecumenicai and Catholic are
! y,14 do in
tended not simply to hide our thoughts,
but to misrepresent the truth, there can be
no greater abuse of q term, or o more un-
true assertion, than that the name Catholic
belongs in any way to those whose position
is un Catholic and snti-Cathelic.
"f however, the name Catholic has q
meaning the very contradictory to that
which is attached to it in the creed of the
Apostles and Of Mecca; if it means being a
member of a church which is broken up
into innumerable divisions within itself,
and is in separation from every other
church; of which one-half teaches what the
other half Indignantly rejects and anthema-
tises; of which some members pretend to
admit seven Sacraments, and others, in con-
formity with their acknowledged form
ularies, maintain that there are but two;
whose constitution is essentially national
and which cannot embrace within its pale
men of all nations; whose bishops are not
Catholic, and are not accepted into loving
fraternity by the espiscopate of the whole
habitable globe; whose cathedrals have a
service and a mode of worship peculiar to
themselves, and unrecognized by any one
church in the universe to whose poor the
name of Catholic is never given, and which
has been painfully negative in it's influence
upon the poor; which, when all other ma
tions send gladly their bishops to an uni
, versal meeting Of the pastors of the churcl
of Christ, stands aloof, unknown, without
place, and is left solitary and shiverins
!, without; if by tbs is meant Catholic, ther
the church Of England is -eminently
Catholic, and mny claim the name. But
) then, words have changed their meaning
and Catholic is exactly the reverse OF what
: it has always meant, and implies quality
, which our Blessed Lord never intended His
church to possess.