The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-01-16
(San Francisco Monitor.) }


We will readily grant that reformation III
The lives Of many unworthy churchmen OF the day
was imperatively needed, and that unless many
Catholics of the period had been living most cor
rllpt lives. they would never have abandoned the
Church of Jesus Christ. The Catholics loss OF
faith is ever traceable to the breaking OF the len
Commandments The Church felt this keenly her
SELF and reformed many abuses at the Council OF
Trent 1545-1563.
But once grant that the Church is divine in
stitution founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
to teach and save men for all time; once grant
that He promised to build it secure forever against
sii attacks of hell, and to guarantee its perpetty
ty His own abiding presence and that of the Holy
Spirit (Matt. xviii 19, 90; Matt. xvi, IS; John
XIV 15) and the right of separation can IN no way
be justified.
As long as our country remains country 1t will
ever have the power to reform by law the abuses
inevitable to any government among men. Ii, tor
example a city became full of corrupt officials we
would not be justified in trying to destroy it, but
would strive at the next election to put the proper
mon in power So the Church, In like manner, has
within herself the power to remedy any abuses that
may arise. You do not cure q man of cancer by
chopping off his head.
so-called reformation which denied the
stitution Of the Church, the doctrines of Christ,
and the manner of Christian worship-Holy Mass,
handed down from the beginning-was not of God.
st. Paul put it plainly: Though we, or an
which we have preached to you, let him be ana
thema." (Gal. l. 81
The very lives of the Reformers; the immoral,
destructive, unchristian doctrines they taught
G.. private Interpretation of the Scriptures, JUS
tifcation by faith alone, total depravty the slave
WILL God the author of evil the denial of the sac
ramental system-are proof positive that the Refor
nation was inevitably tendency toward utter
belief
Whence again, Catholics ask, the right of Lu-
i
dentials! "How shall they preach, unless they be
sent~ (Rom. X, 15)
No wonder, then, that the Reforners themselves
admitted that their Reformation did not reform
but, the contrary, led to intellectual, social,
moral and religious deterioration. This is amply
shown In work drawn exclusively from Protes-
tant sources The Reformation: Its Interior De-
veopment and Its Effects by Dolnger Ratisbon
1S46-S. (Cf. article in Dublin Review, September,
1S4S)
Why do uneducated people count beads?
Does not the counting prevent real prayer?
Why ten prayers to the Virgin and only to
why do you make the people repeat mechanical
Bible?
The Rosary is simple method of prayer, con-
sisting of the repetition of the Our Father and
ten Hail Marys, five fifteen times. 1t is not
for the uneducated alone, being used with profit
by all classes.
the Middle Ages, who, unable to read the Psalter
used to recite the Our Father and Hail Mary in
stead of each psalm, while the monks chanted the
divine Office IN choir. The same custom is also
recorded of St Paul, the first hermit in the fourth
century. 1t owes It's present form to the Domini-
of the thirteenth century, and is today one of
the chief devotions of Catholics
Its fifteen mysteries-the Annunciation the Wis
ltation, the Nativity the Presentation the Finding
IN the Temple, the Agony. the Scourging, the
Growing with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross,
the CruclhXlon, the Resurrection, the Ascension
the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption
and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgn-present
beautiful summary of the gospels to the devout
meditation Of loving souls.
1t IS natural that In a devotion especially hers
the major portion of the prayers should be ad-
dressed directly to the Blessed Virgin. Catholics
know full well that in honoring the Mother of God
they necessarily honor God, whose masterpiece
she is.
1t is absurd to imagine that in reciting the Ro-
sary are counting prayers Indeed the very
arrangement OF the beads prevents our counting
the number Of Aves we say. Instead of preventino
real prayer the Rosary, the contrary helps
greatly to concentrate attention, as even Pro-
testants (Episcopalians) who have practiced this
devotion for long time have acknowledged to me-
Many simple soul reciting the Rosary before the
altar of God viii put to blush many speech
prayer Of the proud pharisee. As for Bible war
rant, the Our Father and half of the Hail Mary
are taken from the Holy Scriptures Matt Vi. 913:
Luke !. 2S) while the repetition of these PRAYERS
so much objected to by non Catholics rests on the
word and example of the Savior Guke xix. SIS
xviii, $40; Matt. XVI, A; cf. Ps cxxxv: Matt,
Xxx 31)
why Catholics go to church every Sunday
under penalty of sin? Our churches are not so ex-
acting.
Because it is one of the laws of their Church
which as the divine infallibe teacher of the rere
Iation OF Jesus Christ alone dares command men
with authority to show at least this much homage
to Jesus Christ present her affairs at the sacri
flee of Calvary. l remember being asked once bv
Congregational minister IN Connecticut the Sc
cret of our large church attendance compared IN
the average small attendance in Protestant
churches throughout the country. "Jesus Christ
really present" my answer, with the conyic-
ton that the Church, His living divine voice. has
power to command as He, under penalty of
damnation." When men disclaim all notion of in
falibility for their church, and teach merely
views, opinions and speculations about the Cos
pei of Christ religious faith becomes daily more
and more vague and shadowy, and Its obligations
vanish entirely.
What prayers does the priest say at Mass?
The chief prayers of the Mass are: The Forty
second Psalm, Judge me, o Lord; the Confteor
or confession of SINS the Introit consistino ron,