The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-03-15

supper within the universal church
would appear to be quite proof enough
! for devOut and unbiased Christian
mind. This doctrine was above and
! beyond reason. There was no ground
| for its denial. The world OF matter
was full of wonders. amidst which the
| mind of man would forever wander
| without ever reaching the infinite Sc
crets of Gods hidden paths. To the
| goddess man the universe was an enig-
ma. No wonder that one of the great
est of their goddess scientists should
! eXclaim-'The universe is realm
placed upon eternal silence and i'm
penetrable gloom
Yet these are the very men to whom
nothing is movable except what they
can touch, who furiously declare that
TO be false which they know not
whether it be true or false They pro-
claim freedom Of thought, but it is
only freedom for themselves. They had
founded the most grotesque of the
fashionable follieS of the nineteenth
century-the dogma tism of doubt. Each
day people admitted facts that were
only proven to them by testimony, and
they accepted strange marvels when
they were said to have the warrant of
natural science. Revelation was a lift
ing up of reason not, indeed. TO sight
but to share in that knowledge which
is divine. 1t was too great, too good
too noble, too beautiful to have come
from the dreams of men. 1t had trans
formed man; it was not, then, of mans
making. Revelation taught them that
the Blessed Eucharist was the real
body and the blood of Christ 1t was
no matter for controversy There was
no one qualified to question it. When
God speaks man must DE silent. Christ
is not dead but living, not dumb but
speaking. Christ lives in the actual
life of his church and speaks through
her. That living church was born on
Calvary, and at Pentecost received her
mission from the Holy Ghost That
church with a mission had not died
since then. Nearly 1000 years ago
Christ gave it life. Christ, as he had
promised guides it still. 1t, was too
late now for the devil to undo Gods
work or for man to mutilate it. If the
living church be not the very church
of Christ, there is no church, no Chris
tianity. If it be the very same church
of Christ, then it is no new church; it
is no new faith. 1t is the old church
that has an actual mission; it is the
old faith that is a living fact. Hence
they could listen to no new prophets.
and they would simply absolutely and
remorselessly brand as false any teach
ing that denied the old faith.
Referring to the so-called reforma
ton, Father Kane said it was a refor-
nation of divine authority to teach in
order to suit the whims of private
judgment or the insolence of free
thought: a reformation of spiritual au
thority in order to make parliament an
arbiter of divine dogma and to make
bishops the creatures of a king: a ref
ormation of sacred vows to God in or
der to let loose vicious monks and
nuns; reformation of holy marriage
in order to admit of adultery; a refOr-
nation of fasting in order 10 suit the
glutton: reformation of penanCe in
order to suit the profiigate; a reforma-
ton through which flowed the poison
and corruption that had been fostering
within the church; a reformation that
sought to justify it's existence by blot |
ting out more than hundred years |
Of Christian history; a reformation !
that ignored or laughed at Christ's I
promise to his apostles that to the end /
IF ages they should not err; a reforma- |
ton that snapped its fingers in the |
ACE of the living church. and told the |
millions of martyrs. virgins, confess
)rs. doctors, in whose lives since Cal
Sary the gospel light had shone amidst |
he darkness that they were swindlers.
u fools, or knaves. And why? Be
,ause an apostate who lived with j
runaway nun chose to be rebellious as
veil as bad; and because in England
| king. adulterer and murderer, want
ID to put away his wife and marry his
mistress. o. God forbid that with the
)ad men at the first reformation he
mould compare all classes of Protest
.nts.
The reformers in their fight from the
hurch of Christ took with them still
ONE shreds of Catholic truth. Under
he sanctity of that truth many Pro-
upon whom the full truth had
lever shone grew up in absolute good
aith and lived good lives. To outward
ppearances they were strangers; in
oul they were Catholics, children of
he one true church of Christ. Pro-
astantism was a practical Paganism.
logically It existed only as a denial of
atholic faith. The faith of Protes-
ants was new, and. therefore, false.
'hrfst's words This is my body"
,ere true; and for nigh 1000 years they
ave been believed by Christian souls
/ the one true, holy, Catholic and
postolic church, which never had need
, receive her mission from Martin
luther or to learn purity from Henry
ne Eighth.