The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-01-27

Wdl, duLuOTlLdLlVS VOICE Oh universal
church, whose frontiers recognize no
limitation to it's race across the earth,
whose beginnings in time the story
only of nineteen centuries is able to
unfold. Either the message once
spoken by Jesus is that spoken today
by the Catholic Church, or the mes
sage, contrariwise to solemn promise.
was spoken to the passing winds of
Palestine.
Dosmatic Teaching, the Source and
+ Inspiration of Conduct.
The dogmatic, infexible teaching of
the Catholic Church encounters in
harsh battle the opposition of the
modern world. This opposition is the
recognition of conditions in the
church, without which it's claims to
teach as Jesus taught fall at once to
the ground.
Dogmatic teaching, it is proclaimed,
Is unimportant, an unnecessary burth-
en- upon the intellect, which men
should not be asked to bear. The need
of the hour is conduct. AS a rule Of
living, Christianity is acceptable: as
dogmatic religion it's days are over.
The days of a dogmatic religion are
not over: because the days of Jesus
are not over. Jesus taught a dogmatic
faith. He taught his personal rank
and dignity, his messiahship, his d.
vine sonship, his oneness with the
Father: he taught his right to revise
and interpret the mosaic law, his pow
er to forgive sins: he taught the
establishment of his Church, the CIV
ing of his flesh to eat and of his blood
to drink, the coming of the Holy
Ghost, the communication of his mis-
sion to the apostles. To those and
other preachings of Jesus there was
meaning: to the meaning as intended
by him he demanded intellectual as
sent: "He that heareth my words,
and believeth him that sent me hath
life everlasting, and cometh not into
judgment" Surely the early apostles
taught a dogmatic religion: the pages
of their letters glisten with dogmas,
and belief in those dogmas is i'm
periously called for, under penalty OF
severest anathema. Why does the
Catholic Church teach dogmas, and
insist on unequivocal belief in it's pro-
make denial of it's divine mission,
were it not to teach dogmas-the dog
mas which came down to it from the
lips of Jesus and from the early apos-
: ties of Jesus.
} Conduct, indeed, entered deeply into
, the plans of Jesus: He was the way"
and the "life," no less than the Eight"
} He came to the world, not only as the
teacher, but also as the Saviour and
Regeneration. His whole work, in the
. service of men, was to have it's COM
plement in the sanctifcation and the
salvation of souls. BE We therefore
} perfect" He said, "as also your
Heavenly Father is perfect" And as
with Jesus, so with Paul: "They that
are Christ's have crucified their flesh
with the vices and the concupiscence."
: But before summoning men to live
righteously, Jesus told them who he
: was and by what authority he spoke;
he laid down the principles and
truths, through which the heart and
: the will were to be moved into action:
he unravelled the motives, by which
. they were to be inspired and guided:
he gave exposition of the means
. through which sin was to be uprooted
, and reconquered guiltlessness was to
be conserved. Principles, doctrines,
: were to be first believed and after
wards acted upon. Any other course of
: evangelization were a lowering of
, human dignity, a treatment of men as
if man were merely creature Of
sense and emotion: and it were q
: mere beating of the air, necessarily
void of substantial and enduring eff
feet. In itself the will is blind: it re-
B quires illumination from the intellect.
A mere call to regeneration is the
. sterile beating of cymbals. There is
! no moral elevation not based on prin-
: ciples; there is no life-giving move
ment without it's fertilizing creed.
Moreover, Jesus did more than issue
; a call to the practice of natural
ethics: it was new life, a super
} natural life, to which men were to be
drawn-a life thrilling with inspira-
: tions from the skies to which hereto
fore their ears had never listened,
lifting them upwards to thoughts and
doings to which heretofore wisest
: PHILOSOPHERS had never tempted them.
Visions of new fields were then to be
opened to men: new principles were to
illumine their minds from which new
/ motive of action should spring.
Hence the revelation of divine truths,
SURPRISING the mere natural; hence
: dogma, the dogma of the supernatural
: Jesus was 'the life:" his preaching
, was the signal of new life in man
kind In the history of human con-
: duct the introduction of the Christian
religion marked a new epoch, to which
: no adequate human cause can be as
. signed. It was revolution, wrestling
suddenly humanity from nagan bases