The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1915-03-06

tain and unwayering and unalterable
in faith and morality is the Roman
Catholic Church. Only among Roman
Catholics can there be found absolute
certainty in religion, only among
Roman Catholics is there that sublime
assurance of faith, and absolute GER
tainty of doctrine, and in religious
matters error, anxiety, apprehension,
doubt, obscurity and perplexity are al
together foreign to them. Nay, more
than this. So evident is this fact that
no species of heresy and no form of
religion different from the Roman
Catholic Church has ever claimed to
be able to teach with certainty. This
is a ,prerogative of the Roman Catho-
lie Church alone, and the absence of
such claim on the part of any other
sect or denomination is conclusive-evi-
dence that such sect and such forms
of heresy have no divine origin, for a
religion from God, bearing the impress
of divinity, must from the very nature
of the case be free from the possible.
ity of teaching error. To talk about
change in religious truths is as ludi-
crous as to talk about change in math.
ematical truths. The eternal verities
of mathematics are no more necessary
than are the eternal verities of relig-
ion. You can no more change the doc.
trines of Christ than you can change
the laws of algebra. AS we'll talk of
the possibility of one day assuming
that twice two are five as to assume
that one age can believe more or less
of religious truth and still bear the
name of Christian. Christ is the
same yesterday, today and forever"
(Heb. Kill 81 His truths never
change; they are always clear and GER
tain, alone is there gertrude concern.
ing religious truth. And what heav-
emily doctrine this is! Seek the
truth, and the truth shall make you
free" (John viii, 32), says our Divine
Redeemer. The truth shall free us
from all anxiety, all apprehension, all
doubt, all hesitation, all misgiving, all
perplexity, all uncertainty. We shall
believe tomorrow the same unchang-
ing and Interchangeable doctrines that
the Catholics who accompanied Column
bus believed when they first set foot on
this American soil, and Columbus and
oh f0 to r1n
land the self-same faith that was be.
lieved by the earliest Christian COM
munity that the annals of history re-
cord.
Reasoning on purely priori
grounds, we are compelled by the ma
ture of the case to admit the presence
Of certainty somewhere in the world,
residing in living organism, accessl.
BILE to all the faithful. Otherwise the
early Christians who knew and lived
with Our Lord were far better stu
ated than we who do not know Him.
But this cannot be admitted, since
Christ Himself did not exaggerate
when He solemnly assured His Apos-
ties: ut is expedient for you that l
60; for if I go not, the Paraclete will
not come to you; but if I go, 1 will
send him to you" John xvi, ~
We cannot minimize Christian doc
trine. We cannot pursue an elective
course in religion. We cannot believe
what we choose, and reject all else,
and still call ourselves Christians. To
be a Christian means that we must
believe all that Christ taught, not
merely a portion of His teaching.
Christ tells us so Himself, for He sent
his Apostles Ito teach all things what
soever He had commanded" Matt.
xviii, 20) There is absolutely no
qualification here; no opportunity to
spurn, reject, despise, condone or
smooth over things that we do not
like. And in looking over the world
today, or any day during the last nine
teen centuries, We are forced to say
that the Roman Catholic Church is the
OAAJ AA0tAtuIAoA III OAAoIOASO tAdS
teaches in it's fulness and in it's COM
pleteness every single doctrine taught
by Christ. We have to but run up and
down the pages of history to obtain
confederation of this great fact. To be
deep in history is at once to embrace
the Catholic faith. No man can read his
tory thoroughly and remain outside
the Church of Rome. Not single one
of the multitudinous forms of religious
error existing today teaches the self
same doctrines taught by Our Divine
Saviour. All the numerous forms of
belief protested by non Catholics to.
day, taking in their totality, actually
amount to a denial of every funda.
mental dogma of Christianity. Every
great doctrine taught by Christ has
been repudiated, either in whole or in |
part, by non-Catholic denominations,
until it has come to pass in this Goth
century, as in every past century, that
a soul lost to the Catholic Church is |
a soul lost to Christianity. This is
substantially the verdict of no less an
authority than the great Protestant
Macauley. in his celebrated
essay on Won Ranke. Nom Catholic de.
taken in their entirety.