The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-11
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Replies to Three Letters

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 Very naturally read with much inter est the editorial in today's Age-H Herald entitled, Twill Stand For No Unfair ness'' and also the three letters to the editor. The first of these had seen the evening before, since the writer kindly sent me a copy, amplified by postscript, that. perhaps, had he read your editorial, he would have never penned or rather typed. Of course such a communication is beneath notice, and is only valuable as giving evidence of the deep-seated prejudice and the perfectly diabolcai rage that the word Catholic evokes in some who will not, as in all fairness they should, consider the Catholic view point on any subject, but who take for gospel truth the rabid rawlings of the Aurora gutter sheet and such like pre- cious publications.
 In the second letter the Rev. MT. Lewis courteously asks for my reasons for as- serting that the Catholic church of today is the apostolic church. He believes, l take it, that the Catholic church as it now exists with pope as supreASe head, holding jurisdiction over Catholics, came into existence about the fifth century At least that is what I gather from his com munication. I want of course, to be perfectly fair, and do not wish to misln- terpret him or to make him stand spon- TOT for opinions he does not hold, and in- cidentally spend time and labor contro- verting opinions and statements he never made hope I interpret his belief correct ly. If not will gladly make the ''amende honorable" and endeavor to answer his questions. It is pleasure to me, I am sure, to meet a scholarly gentleman on historical grounds
 We Catholics believe that St. Peter was bishop of Rome and suffered martyrdom there We can, to establish this. begin with the third century when reference to the fact became frequent and work back ward. In the middle of the third cen tury St. Cyprian expressly terms the holy rec the chair of St. Peter, saying that rCornelius had succeeded to the place of Fabian, which is the place of Peter. Ffrmilian of Caesarea notices that stephen claimed to decide the controversy xegarding baptism on the ground that ha held the succession from Peter. He does not deny this claim. Yet certainly had he been able he would have done so. Thus in 25O A. D. the Roman episcopate ef Peter was admitted by those best able fo know the truth not merely at Rome, Kut in the churches of Africa and Asia Minor.
 Tn the first quarter of the century (about 2aO) Tertullian mentions Callestus claims that Peter's power to forgive sins had descended in a special manner to him. 4ad the Roman church been merely fSlinded by Peter and had it not reck- 6ned him as it's first bishop, there could have been no ground for such conten- fSSn. Tertullian. like Firm;iian, had every motive to deny the claim. About the same lime Hippolytus reckons Peter in the lisl of Roman bishops. The poem, "Adversus Narcionem' of apparently about this pc Fiod tells us that Peter passed on tc Linus the chair on which he himself hae 1nt These witnesses bring us to the 6Sxinning of the third century.
 In the second century we cannot look for much evidence. With the exception oi Ixnatius, Polycarp and Clement of Alex x1dria. all writers whose works we pos 1oan, are apologists against either Jews &r Pagans In works of such charac-
 Sr there was no reason to refer to Peters k6u,nn episcopate. Irenaeus. however,
 V6a ,in an argument. In two passages oi