Catholic Apologetics Online

Choose a topic from Vol 3:

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Religion

A Definite Christian Faith

The Problem of Reunion

The Truth of Catholicism

The Church and the Bible

The Dogmas of the Catholic Church

Moral Teachings of the Catholic Church

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

Indefectible Apostolicity

478. You Catholics have a strange confidence in the indefectibility of your Church.

It is not so strange for one who perceives all the facts. What would be strange would be the failure of a universal Church in which millions drawn from all nations are united in a doctrine, worship, and discipline of two thousand years' standing- in a Church ever accompanied by a most remarkable spiritual power and fruitfulness in works of charity. Writing in the 12th century, Richard of St. Victor rightly said that a Catholic could say to God at his judgment, "If I was wrong, thenO my God You Yourself are responsible. For my religion was accompanied by signs and characteristics which could only come from You." That judgment, written nearly 800 years ago, is valid today.

479. God was with the Jewish religion, but the Jews failed God; could not this happen in the Catholic Church?

The Jewish religion as a religion was quite all right, and so too is the Catholic Church as the Church of Christ. Not all the Jews rejected Christ, even though the majority did. But keep in mind that the Jewish religion as a religion did not fail. It was essentially a preparatory religion, meant of its very nature to merge into its perfect fulfilment when the Messiah should come. Christ was that Messiah, and He rightly said, "I have come, not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it." He gave us the perfect religion which the Jewish religion foreshadowed, and declared that His religion was not a preparation for a further and more perfect revelation, but that it would last, just as He had given it, till the end of the world. It has lasted in the Catholic Church which alone has existed all days since His time and which alone gives signs of perpetuity.

480. Perverse human nature has usually forsaken the way prepared by God.

It is true that perverse individuals have forsaken the ways of God. But if God wants to keep His religion in this world, it is absurd to say that He cannot manage to do so. Even if a man be evil, God can see to it that at least he teaches others the truth. False prophets wishing to curse have been constrained by Him to bless. And in the New Testament we find Christ defending the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees even whilst He condemned their personal conduct. In St. Matthew, XXIII., 2-3, Christ says, "The Scribes and Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do; but according to their works, do ye not; for they say and do not."

481. Is it not strange that your indefectible Church should have fallen away to become Babylon and the organ of Satan?

To say that is but to repeat the remnant of a Protestant tradition which was dying in mid-Victorian days, and is dead today amongst all thinking men. I will quote here only the "Cambridge Bible," with introduction and notes by the Rev. W. H. Simcox, M.A., an Anglican scholar. In the Introduction, p. 41, he says that the presumptuous confidence with which controversialists interpreted the Book of Revelations has now produced a reaction. On p. 57 he says, "It is most unjust and unreasonable, in fact hardly less than blasphemy, to treat the Papacy as the champion and representative of Antichrist. In fact the identification of the Papacy with Antichrist admits of direct refutation. 'He is Antichrist,' says St. John, 'who denieth the Father and the Son.' He defines the spirit of Antichrist as the 'spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' Now, whatever the errors of the Papacy and of the Roman Church, it is certain that no Pope has ever denied the truth of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation." That quotation from a Cambridge scholar who obviously has no leanings towards Rome, yet who rejects absolutely charges prompted by ignorance and prejudice should suffice for any thinking man.

482. Protestants are not blind, and must have grounds for their conviction that Rome has failed.

Protestants are rapidly forsaking that conviction. The attack on the Catholic Church is not now that she is false, but that she is not the "only" true Church. As an offset to the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney in 1928 the Rev. Dr. Burgess, a Presbyterian, published a book entitled "The Protestant Faith." In it he disputed the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church. On p. 149 he wrote, "The Church of Rome is not 'the' Catholic Church; it is only a branch of the Catholic Church. In the Creed the expression 'the Holy Catholic Church' is explained by the phrase 'the communion of saints.' " So, for him, the Roman Church is a branch of the communion of saints. He could scarcely admit her to be Antichrist after that! If the Roman branch of the Church be the "Beast," a Protestant saying "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church" would include in his profession of faith, "I believe in the Beast." And that would not do.

483. You refuse to grant that, even though Christ founded your Church, she could fail later on?

No man who believes that Christ founded the Catholic Church, and that Christ is God, could grant what you suggest. Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against His Church. If the Church He founded ever did become the organization of Satan, the forces of evil would have prevailed against her. In that case we would have to say that Christ could neither preserve His Church intact, nor could keep His promise to be with her all days till the end of the world. And that implies a complete denial of His divinity. If Christ could not do what He said He would do, He was not God at all. And if not God, then He was either an imposter or mad. We are forced either to be Catholics or else to give up professing to be Christians altogether. That is, if we are going to be logical. However, Christ did prove His claims to divinity; and the only conclusion that fits in with the facts is the admission that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, possessing the right to teach all nations, and the power to last till the end of time.

484. I have heard Catholics refer to the continued preservation of their Church in this world as a miracle.

One has to be blind not to see that it is a miracle. When we think of the frailty of human nature, the striking establishment of the Catholic Church, her expansion and preservation by such apparently useless means and despite such obstacles, her succession through the ages with such unity and fruitfulness, we see an incomparable argument in favor of her divine mission. No merely human society, under the same conditions, would last for 2000 years, and spread throughout the world with the same results.

485. History reveals natural causes behind every institution in this world; and Rome has not lacked natural geniuses and influence.

Natural causes have certainly contributed towards the welfare of the Catholic Church. But they do not account for the facts we perceive. History notes certain causes, but it cannot explain how the causes are ready to hand at the opportune moment-and always at hand when wanted, always successful in keeping the Church going where other institutions fail, always surviving the work of other causes which would tend to destroy the Church. You must not lose sight of the adverse causes-long and terrible persecutions, heresies, schisms, political opposition, the frailties and crimes of Catholics themselves, even of bishops and priests, barbarian invasions of Christendom, the Protestant Reformation, various revolutions and wars, suppression of Catholic countries, scientific and philosophical propaganda against her. These are only the principal headings. Yet the Catholic Church survives with extraordinary vitality, and the world cannot ignore her. How is it to be explained? You attempt a solution by saying that natural genius and power have been at her disposal. But natural genius and power have been available to other organizations. Why do they die whilst the Catholic Church still lives?

486. The very rigidity of Roman Catholicism accounts for her resistance to the causes of dissolution.

You have to account for the very rigidity and fidelity. But also note this. If the civil state wants to perish, it has only to decide to be rigid and immutable. If it wants to live, it has to be perpetually adjusting itself to changing conditions. Civil society preserves itself by constant yielding to necessity. But the Catholic Church lives inflexibly. She is certainly more than merely natural and human. She is a divine society.

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MORE FROM VOLUME 3

• About the Author
• Preface
  - Msgr Fulton J Sheen
• Author's Foreword
  - Dr Rumble, MSC

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