-niTrt* n P l ® 
v r~ I he. -tTtrrh - s e e e e r 

A TRUTH-SEEKER 
And His Answer 

W H A T THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS 

Rev. A. P. Doyle, C.S.P. 

New York, N. Y. 
THE PAULIST PRESS 

401 Watt 59th Street 





A Truth-Seeker and His Answer 
By R E V . A . P . D O Y L E , - C . S . P . 

THE following letter has come to us, and because there breathes through it a spirit of earnestness it is very 
attractive. We believe the writer is a type of a large class 
of people who live in the rural districts of our country. In 
spite of the fact that Catholics number at least 21,000,000 
in the United States, and are more or less in evidence in 
the public press, there are many thousands of non-Catholics 
who know as little of the teachings of the Catholic Church 
and of the religious practices of Catholics as they do of the 
tenets of Buddhism. It may serve a good purpose to give 
the letter in full, and with it an exposition of the teachings 
of the Catholic Church which has satisfied many an honest 
desire for the truth. 
M R . SEARLE. 

DEAR SIR: Your book, Plain Facts for Fair Minds, accidentally 
came to my house. Being naturally of a fair mind, I suppose the 
book is for me. I have read it through carefully and have reread 
it. I am a Protestant. 

I did not know that Catholics had so many claims for existence 
or reasons for their faith. I took them to be blind, wholly blind and 
dead to all that is good and reasonable. I have often wished I 
could find some of their teachings. I have often wanted to go to 
their meetings, but I never felt that I was made welcome; but this 
book has some good things, at least from a human point of view. 

Of course it does not satisfy me. Haven't you a small book that 
treats of the deeper things of God and Salvation? I have read 
Fenelon, which is very good! also A Kempis. All that I hear of 
Catholics and their practices is below heathendom. 

I had intended to write an exposure of Catholicism, but before 
I do I ought to know all that Catholics believe. I do not judge 
their lives only by what I hear. It is hardly fair to judge the 
lives of the members of a Church if it be that the teaching is really 
sound and wholesome. 

Please send me your best modern works on the spiritual life in 
the soul—remember, modern works written by this generation, the 

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latest and the best; then I will let you know the result of my search. 
I send out thousands of my own books free. I print them at my 
own expense, though I am a retired merchant. I write little books 
for free distribution—all against the Protestant sects. I deemed the 
Catholics too far gone to have any hope of their salvation. So 
please send me what you think will give me the best statement of 
what constitutes a Catholic. I am an honest seeker for truth, bound 
to nothing but God. I want to do good at any cost, and I count 
nothing dear to save my soul and as many more as possible. 

Yours for the Truth, 
JAMES S , B , Mich. 

M Y DEAR T R U T H - S E E K E R : I forward to you the books 
that you request, and I am sure that the perusal of them 
with the same open mind which is manifested in your letter 
will show you that the old Church that has borne the spirit 
of Christ through the ages is still beautiful enough to 
attract the eyes of the sons of men. 

Every man is at bottom a religious being. He recog-
nizes the overshadowing sovereignty of God, and at times 
of need or in danger he calls out to his Maker for pro-
tection. Most men—the exceptions are the very few—look 
to Jesus Christ as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." No 
man cometh to the Father but through Him. In accepting 
Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we accept every truth that He 
has revealed to us, and we reject every teaching that He 
rejects. Every Catholic as well as non-Catholic recognizes 
his conscience as the guide which must be followed when 
it is a question of what he is to do or not to do. One's 
conscience is like the watch one carries in his pocket. For 
all practical purposes the watch is his guide. By. it he goes 
to his business, or catches his train, or meets his obligations. 
In the same way a man's conscience is his practical guide 
in all matters of right and wrong. But just here begins 
the difference between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. A 
Catholic has an external standard that is unerring, whereby 
he can set his conscience aright if it be wrong, in the same 
way as we all have an authoritative standard of time ac-
cording to which every one sets his watch. 

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An Authoritative Standard 

This external standard is an unerring Church which 
Christ has established to represent Him in the world. 

The Church is "the pillar and ground of truth" ( 1 Tim. 
iii. 15). It is "without spot or wrinkle." "The gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xvi. 18). It is so 
constituted that the God-man could say of it, "He that 
heareth you heareth Me, he that despiseth you despiseth 
Me" (Luke x. 16) ; and again, "He that will not hear the 
Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican" 
(Matt, xviii. 17). The Catholic idea of a "church" is not 
a gathering of people who believe the same things or who 
interpret Scripture in the same way, but it is that of an 
existing corporate organization whose body consists of the 
faithful scattered throughout the world, of whatever tribe 
or people, who believe all the teachings of Christ, and who. 
live in obedience to the lawfully constituted bishops with 
the Pope at their head, and whose soul is the Spirit of God 
who descended on the Apostles at Pentecost. The Holy 
Ghost, the soul of the Church, animates the body and gives 
life to all the members, guiding the teaching authorities into 
the ways of truth and enabling all to grow into the fullest 
stature in Christ Jésus. 

Church an Organism 

. The Catholic Church is not so much an organization 
as it is an organism. When this distinction is fully appre-
ciated one can far more readily understand what the Church 
is and what she is destined to do for mankind. A number 
of men may come together and form an organization, and 
in their corporate capacity they will possess only the wis-
dom and authority that belongs to the individual men and 
not any more. A number of fallible men cannot ever attain 
unto infallibility. Apart from the individuals which make 
it up it possesses nothing of itself. The individuals may 
separate from the organization and they may go on their 
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way rejoicing. Such bodies are said to be "soulless corpora-
tions." Not so is it with an organism. A human being 
is an organism in which all the organs and members depend 
on their conjunction with the soul for their life. Cut off 
a hand or a leg, the life does not go with it. It decom-
poses in death; so, too, is it with the tree. A branch cut 
from the trunk withers away. In this sense the Church 
is not an organization that has its existence through a 
number of people who believe in interpreting Scripture in 
the same way and are ready to make public profession of 
their concurrent interpretation, but it is an organism, in 
which the Holy Ghost is the animating principle, and by 
establishing the proper relationship one may partake of that 
divine life which flows from the soul throughout the entire 
body. To be cut away from this body is spiritual death. 

Growth Necessitates Change 
It follows from this exposition of the "church idea" that 

the Catholic Church must of necessity be entirely different 
in appearance today from what she was a century or ten 
centuries ago, though in reality she is the same Church 
teaching the same truths. Growth and development neces-
sitate change. It follows also that, though she changes in 
appearance, yet because the active principle of the Church, 
the Holy Ghost, is the same God who founded her, she 
cannot depart from the truth that was enunciated amidst 
the Judean hills, and as Christ destined her to be the means 
of salvation for all the world, and through all time, she will 
never depart from that truth. There will be as time goes 
on a clearer enunciation of those truths, a practical exempli-
fication of them as it becomes necessary to apply them to 
the everchanging affairs of men, and a more accurate defi-
nition of great principles when they are assailed by mis-
guided antagonists, but in it all the teaching authority of 
the Church will be guided by the Spirit of Truth so that 
the world will not be led into error, and mankind will know 
where "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" exists. 

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Having premised these things, we are ready to come 
to the consideration of the distinctive teachings of the 
Catholic Church. 

The operation of the Holy Ghost is twofold — one 
through the corporate body, as is indicated by the words 
of Christ: "I will ask the Father and He shall give you 
another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever" 
(John xiv. 16); "He will teach you all things" (John xiv. 
26); and the other on the individual mind and heart, con-
vincing it of the truth and personally bringing it unto sanc-
tifkation. 

Church as an Authority 

It sometimes may happen that what an individual 
believes may be different from what the Church authori-
tatively teaches. It may become impossible for one to 
persuade himself that such and such teachings are true. 
But as we know truth is one amd the same, at all times and 
in all places, the same Spirit of Truth cannot teach the 
Church one thing and the individual the opposite thing. 

If there be an opposition between the teaching Church 
and the believing individual, the Church must be right and 
the individual must be wrong. For on the teaching Church 
and not on any individual has Christ bestowed the gift of 
inerrancy. "The Church is the pillar and ground of truth" 
(1 Tim. iii. IS); "The gates of hell shall not prevail against 
her" (Matt. xvi. 18). It is, therefore, the duty of the 
individual to yield his own conviction to the infallible teach-
ing of the Church, and that not in any slavish submission 
or self-stultification but on the reasonable principle that 
the Church is an infallible guide and cannot err. "As My 
Father hath sent Me I also send you" (John xx. 21); "He 
that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you 
despiseth Me" (Luke x. 16); "He that believeth and is 
baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be 
condemned" (Mark xvi. 16). 

On this reasonable basis the Church secures a marvel-
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ous unity of belief. She is everywhere the same in her 
teaching, and one in the complete, whole-souled acceptance 
of her teaching by her children. 

She presents to the world a wonderful homogeneity, 
and in these days of free-thinking and independence of 
minds there is no more marvelous spectacle than the fact 
of two hundred and sixty millions of people, many of whom 
are of the highest intelligence and with the utmost freedom 
of will, accepting her teaching and bowing in submission 
to her voice as the voice of God. 

The Pope as Infallible 
In order that there may not be any doubt as to what the 

teaching of the Church is, Christ has constituted a living 
voice to speak for Him. In order to yield our conviction 
to the teaching of the Church, there must not be any danger 
of our misinterpreting or misunderstanding the sense of 
established formulas. Mere written statements in a book, 
no matter how accurately formulated, can never preclude 
the possibility of this danger. They cannot correct one 
if he does misunderstand or misinterpret the genuine sense. 
Hence a living voice is necessary, so that when one does 
misunderstand, he can be corrected; when he does drift 
away, he can be called back. He who speaks for an infalli-
ble Church must himself be infallible, if he would command 
the assent of the children of men. When he teaches the 
whole Church on questions of dogma and morals, he must 
be preserved from leading the Church astray. Hence the 
Catholic Church has always believed, from the very begin-
ning, through the nineteen hundred years of her life, that 
the Pope when teaching ex-cathedra cannot teach error. 
It was in the Vatican Council, after this traditional belief 
of the Church had been assailed, that it was clearly defined 
and incorporated into the formulas of the Church. I t was 
no new doctrine, but merely a new formulation of a doc-
trine as old as Christianity itself. "Simon, Simon, behold 
Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as 
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wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, 
and thou being once converted confirm thy brethren" 
(Luke xxii. 32). 

Words of the Vatican Council 
It may be useful to quote here the exact words of the 

decree of the Vatican Council: "Wherefore faithfully ad-
hering to the tradition received from the beginning of the 
Christian Faith, for the glory of God our Saviour, the 
exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of 
the Christian people, we, the Sacred Council approving, 
teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed, that 
the Roman Pontiff when, he speaks ex-cathedra—that is, 
when discharging the office of pastor and teacher of all 
Christians, by reason of his supreme Apostolic authority he 
defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by 
the whole Church—he, by the divine assistance promised 
to him in Blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with 
which the Blessed Redeemer willed that His Church should 
be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith and morals, 
and that therefore such definitions of the said Roman Pon-
tiff are of themselves unalterable and not from the consent 
of the Church" (4 Sess. chap. iv.). 

It is needless to explain that this doctrine of papal 
infallibility does not include papal impeccability, nor does 
it include papal inerrancy in politics, or in science, or in 
any matters save those of faith and morals. One can 
readily appreciate what a compactness this doctrine gives 
to the whole system of Christian teaching. It 4s not only 
the broad and solid and unshakable foundation, but it is 
the cement that gives the bond to the whole superstructure. 
Catholics do not waver in their faith, they are not tortured 
with doubts, their spiritual life is not blighted by the 
withering blasts of infidelity, and the appeals to them do 
not consist in exhortations "to have faith," since the faith 
is never shaken, but they are appeals for better living and 
for higher spirituality. 

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Saints and Martyrs 

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church is not 
only the source of her doctrinal inerrancy, but it is the 
active principle of the holiness of the Church that is mani-
fested by the practice of heroic sanctity by many of her 
children, by the standards of morality which she sets up, 
and by the influence of her teaching in the social order. 
Whatever there is of Christian civilization is the work of 
the Roman Catholic Church. The long bead-roll of the 
saints, from the martyrs who died in the pagan Colosseum 
to the Father Damiens of today, who leave all that the 
world holds dear and sacrifice themselves in order to care 
for the sick and unfortunate, these are the fruits of the Holy 
Spirit, who is with her. 

Undoubtedly there are many sincere and even devout 
Christians outside the pale of her membership, and these 
too are stimulated to heroism by the same Holy Spirit; but 
the natural and ordinary channels of the grace of God 
are the sacramental channels of the Catholic Church, which 
Christ established. As it is through the teaching authority 
personified in the Holy Father that the pastures of truth 
are preserved from the contamination of the poisonous 
weeds of error, so it is through the sacramental system 
that the streams of divine grace are sent to impart fertility 
and virility to the practical living of Christian men. 

Grace may well be compared to that mysterious fluid 
which drives the trolley car. When the electricity is turned 
off the car is dark, and is stalled on the track; when it is 
turned on the car can move on its way and is brilliantly 
illuminated. So with the soul and divine grace. "Without 
Me ye can do nothing" (John xv. 5). There are seven 
different wires that carry each its own special grace to the 
soul. These are the Seven Sacraments. Each has a grace 
that does a special work. 

The grace of Baptism regenerates. By means of it the 
child is born again into the newness of the supernatural 
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life. There are established between the soul and God rela-
tions of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father. Con-
firmation is a strengthening grace imparting such vigor of 
spirituality that one is led to fight for, and if necessary 
die for, the Faith that is in him. Penance is the forgiving 
grace. When one going down from Jerusalem to Jericho 
falls amidst the robbers of temptation, who despoil him 
of the mantle of purity and leave him naked of God's 
friendship and cast him aside from the pathways of 
righteousness, Penance, like the Good Samaritan, comes 
along and picks him up, binds up the wounds sin has made, 
cares for him during the period of convalescence until he 
is finally restored to spiritual health. Holy Eucharist is 
the nourishing grace. It is the real Body and Blood of 
Christ, which unless we eat thereof we cannot have life. 

The Church's Care of Communicants 
"Amen, amen, I say unto you: Unless you eat the 

flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood you cannot 
have life in you, and he that eateth My flesh and drinketh 
My blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up 
at the last day" (John vi. 54). It is the manna which has 
come down from heaven to support us spiritually while we 
wander through the deserts of this life into the Promised 
Land. Extreme Unction is the sustaining grace in that last 
fierce conflict with the evil one. When the weakness of 
dissolution has come and the cold sweats of death are on 
our brow, and the enemy of our soul makes a last deter-
mined effort to seize us, the grace of Extreme Unction 
fortifies us against his attacks and guards the soul in its 
upward flight until it gains its home in heaven. Then for 
the special states in life there are assisting graces: Holy 
Orders, to enable the priesthood to guard the sanctities of 
their office; and matrimony, to help the married pair to 
consecrate the love they have for each other, and enable 
them to bring up their children in the fear of God. Like a 
good mother, the Catholic Church takes the child in in-

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fancy, watches over him as the years rbll by, strengthens 
him to meet life's conflict; if he falls picks him up again; 
ever places before him the ideals of perfection, consecrates 
the great love passion of his heart, follows him to the end, 
and when his eyes are closed in death she lays his body 
with her blessing in the grave to await the resurrection 
day; while by her prayers and her suffrages she follows the 
soul into its place of purgation and does not leave it till the 
last traces of sin are washed away, and it is prepared for 
admittance in the realms of the blest. The continual flow-
ing of these graces all through life from the cradle to the 
grave creates among Catholics types of sanctity that are 
known only to those whose eyes are so spiritualized that 
they can read the inner secret of hearts. 

Standards of Holy Living 
The lives of the saints constitute a literature rarely 

known outside the Catholic Church, and one that is replete 
with multiplied marvels of heroism. The continual flowing 
of these graces uplifts the general average of holiness, so 
that in convent and in cloister, among all ranks of society, 
under the mantle of the king and the rags of the beggar, 
there flourish the most beautiful flpwers of sanctity. 

The Catholic Church maintains the standards of holy 
living for all, by placing as conditions for admittance to 
Holy Communion a profession of profound Sorrow for sin 
committed, joined with a determination never to sin again 
and a willingness to repair whatever injury has been done 
by sin. This is the very least that is exacted for full mem-
bership. Though if the sinner does not possess this he is 
not cast out. In the Church there are both good and bad. 
The cockle grows with the wheat; in the net there are 
both good and bad fishes. Like a good mother the Church 
is patient and loving with her disobedient children; though 
they do bring disgrace on her at times, still she claims them 
as her own and waits till the time oomes when they are 
ready to meet her standards of holy living before she admits 

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them to the sacred table. But beyond these simple condi-
tions of repentance there are no heights of sanctity and 
union with God to which she does not urge her children 
to aspire. 

Indissolubility of Marriage Tie 

Finally by the. influence of her teaching in the social 
order she is the very saviour of society. She guards and 
protects the family by affirming the indissolubility of the 
marriage tie. She sets herself with all her mighty influence 
against the divorce abomination which is prostituting do-
mestic virtue in our modern life. She interprets strictly the 
precept of Christ that "what God hath joined together let 
no man put asunder" (Matt. xix. 6). She has in this way 
saved the Christian home and all that it means of educa-
tion and preservation to the growing child. 

Moreover, she, has maintained the highest ideals of 
chastity by singing the praises of the state of virginity, by 
encouraging her priesthood and thousands of her cloistered 
men and women to the highest practice of it. Thus in a 
most forceful way she says to the world that men and 
women may live without yielding to sensuality. The prac-
tical effect of this is felt throughout the entire married state, 
where people are taught restraint of passion and that a 
life of continence is among the easy possibilities. 

. t Si „.v .! HB »a 1 i 
Key to Labor Problems 

She has in her hand the key to the labor problems which 
harass us. In this country particularly the scramble for 
wealth is going on with all its intensity. In the strife for 
pre-eminence many are thrown down and are trampled to 
the earth, others are cast by the wayside. The fierce striv-
ing for the biggest prize has made men disregard many 
human rights. Classes have been set over against the 
masses. Men have climbed to pre-eminence over the backs 
of their fellow men. The result of this social strife has 

[ i l l 



been the reducing of thousands to a slavery more galling 
than the Negro slavery of a century ago. Life is to many a 
child born into it but a damning fate. The segregation 
of wealth into the hands of the few has left the many 
in the grasp of a most distressful poverty, so that with all 
our wealth there is abroad the gaunt figure of want, and 
with our teeming markets the pitiful hand of beggary is 
stretched forth. There is only one remedy for these terrible 
social evils, and that is the religious one. The root of the 
social evil is in thé cruel spirit of greed and of grasping 
avarice. No law can legislate this out of existence. No 
policeman's club can subdue it. To conquer it there is 
needed a power which reaches the heart. It must be a 
force which can turn men's minds away from the pleasures 
of life and bid them fix the desires of their souls on the 
greater riches beyond the grave. It must be an agency that 
spans the gulf that avarice has created between the rich 
and the poor; that can teach both the great principle of 
the brotherhood of man, the trusteeship of wealth, the dig-
nity of labor, and the common destiny provided by a 
Heavenly Father for all. 

Religion alone can do this. But to do it effectually a 
religion must be strong, and thoroughly organized. It must 
be one that is down among the poor commanding the love 
of their hearts. It must be one whose precepts can be 
enforced by spiritual penalties, if need be, by the sick-bed 
or even by the open grave. The Catholic Church can do 
all this in a most effectual way. She therefore is able to 
give the social pax vobiscum to the age. The Encyclical 
of Leo XIII on The Condition of Labor has been pro-
nounced by noted publicists to be the Magna Charta of 
the rights and responsibilities of the wage-earners of the 
world. 

The Catholic Church, then, is the very salt of the earth, 
saving it from corruption by vice and preserving it sweet 
and pure from the degenerating and decomposing action 
of evil. 

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Unity in Belief 

The presence of the Holy Ghost with her makes her 
the world-wide religion—at home amidst every nation and 
tribe and people, no matter how much they differ in lan-
guage, manners, and genius. The Latin language gives her 
a universal means of interchange of thought. The spiritual 
authority she possesses enables her to bring all minds into 
a complete unity of belief, so that wherever one finds a 
Catholic he is the exact duplicate in doctrinal life of every 
other Catholic. Ask a child in the Philippines the ques-
tions in his catechism, and one will get exactly the same 
answers as one would if he had the patience to go through 
and ask every one of the two hundred million Catholics 
scattered throughout the earth. In these days of crumbling 
creeds and of drifting away from old-time dogmatic moor-
ings, the spectacle of a united Church homogeneous in its 
beliefs and uniform in its ethical exactions is something to 
charm the heart of man. Nothing but the compelling in-
fluence of the divine Presence can bring it about. 

As to Remission of Sin 

Not only is the Church everywhere the same, but it is 
perpetual in her life. She is today the only thing that 
goes back to classic civili2ation. She can affirm the in-
spiration of the Gospels, for she was present when they 
were written. She can assure us of the conversion of the 
European races, for she it was who brought it about. She 
can point to all the artistic treasures of the ages, to the 
great cathedrals of Europe, to the famous Madonnas of the 
art galleries, to the masterpieces of poetry and song, for 
it was she who inspired them all. 

She has borne through the ages the apostolic privileges 
of the remission of sin in God's name. "As the Father 
hath sent Me, I also send you. When He had said this He 
breathed on them; and He said to them: Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven 
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them; whose sins you shall retain they are retained" (John 
xx. 23), and that other apostolic privilege of consecrating 
the bréad and wine in the Sacrifice of the Mass and chang-
ing it into the Body and Blood of Christ (John vi. 52-56; 
Matt. xxvi. 28). 

These two essential practices in the life of a Catholic— 
auricular confession for the purpose of receiving the for-
giveness of sin, and sacramental Communion, in which not 
bread and wine but the real Body and Blood of Christ are 
received—are sustained by the exercise of the sacerdotal 
power which was given to the Apostles by Christ, and 
handed down in an unbroken succession through the gen-
erations of duly ordained bishops and priests unto their 
legitimate successors of the present day. The possession of 
these divine gifts establishes the identity between the 
Church of the first and the Church of the twentieth cen-
tury, and constitutes in the Catholic Church of today the 
apostolic succession. 

Common Beliefs of All Christians 

' I have endeavored in the foregoing to make a simple 
exposition of the constitution of the Catholic Church, and 
explain what her doctrines and practices are, as they arise 
out of her very nature as a world-wide and perpetual insti-
tution destined to carry the effects of the Redemption 
through all ages, even to the consummation of the world, 
and make them operative in the hearts of men. There are 
many other distinctive beliefs of Roman Catholics which 
it is only possible to hint at. The common beliefs of all 
Christians, the existence of one God in three divine persons, 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, the fall of man from the state 
of original justice, his redemption and.regeneration through 
the vicarious sacrifice of the God-man, the ultimate resur-
rection of man's body, the particular as well as the final 
judgment, and the various states of being in the world 
beyond the grave, are enshrined in the formulas which have 
been adopted by the Catholic Church. In Catholic theolo-

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gies all these truths are delineated with all the exactness 
of a scientific study; and the reasons from the authority of 
Sacred Scripture, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, 
as well as from reason, are given. But the few distinctive 
beliefs which I may touch on are the devotion to the 
Virgin Mary, the custom of praying for the dead, the belief 
in Purgatory, the Intercession of the Saints, and the cele-
bration of the divine mysteries. 

Distinctive Teachings 
In the devotion to the Virgin Mary we honor her only 

with the honor due to a creature, we believe that her in-
fluence with her divine Son is still powerful and may be 
exercised in our behalf. 

She is the Mother of the Man-God. She conceived 
through the overshadowing influence of the Holy Ghost. 
She was always a virgin, and in view of the aforeseen 
merits of her divine Son she herself was preserved from 
all stain of original sin, which is the common heritage of 
all the children of Adam. By this latter privilege we un-
derstand the Immaculate Conception. 

Purgatory is a place where they go who die with some 
lesser stain of sin on their souls, and where by suffering 
it is purged away, preparatory to admission into heaven. 
The Church teaches concerning Purgatory two points: first, 
that there is a Purgatory, and second, that souls detained 
there are helped by our prayers. Hell is a state of eternal 
separation from God. There are no definitions of the 
Church concerning the character of the punishment there. 
It is of Catholic Faith, however, that hell is eternal. The 
saints are they who have fought the good fight and are 
now reigning with God. Owing to their intimacy with God 
on the one hand and their sympathy with us on the other, 
they become powerful pleaders' with the divine Majesty. 
There is, however, but one mediator between the soul and 
God, and He is Christ Jesus. Nothing is farther from the 
Catholic mind than to supplant Him by any one else. The 

[IS ] 



Mass is the clean oblation foretold by the prophet Malachias, 
that would be offered up from the rising of the sun to the 
going down of the same (Mai. i. 11). It is the sacrifice of 
the Cross offered through the ages as a constant propitia-
tion for sin, in which Christ is immolated again, though in 
an unbloody manner, and by means of which the justice of 
God is condoned and the sins of men are satisfied for. 

All these various dogmas are parts of, yet essential to 
the complete system of Catholic teaching, and they are the 
framework of that beautiful organism which derives its 
life from the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost, and 
has been the ark of salvation to myriads of the children of 
men. 

He said to them: "Go ye into the whole world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall 
be condemned" (Matt. xvi. 15). 

"Now when they had heard these things, they had 
compunction in their heart, and said to Peter- and the 
rest of the Apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? 
But Peter said to them: Do penance and be baptized, every 
one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission 
of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost" (Acts ii. 14-41). 

The same conditions of salvation prevail today. 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED I N THE U. S. A. 
BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N , Y. 

C 16] 



qA Prayer Book for You 

Over QA 

&Million 

Sold! 

Order a copy now! It will give you a better under-
standing and greater appreciation of the Mass 

Contents: 
Explanations of the Principal Doctrines of the Church 
Significance of Every Step of the Holy Sacrifice 
Prayers for Use in the Reception of the Sacraments 
Mass—Daily and General Prayers 

Price: 
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A truly accurate life of Christ 

THE SAVIOUR'S LIFE 
In the Exact Words of the Four Gospels 

With Discussion Club Outlines by 
REV. GERALD C. TREACY, S.J. 

Many lives of Christ have been written but 
this book is the first volume in which the four 
gospels have been arranged so as to tell a 
continuous story of the years the Saviour 
spent on earth. 
For use as a text in classrooms and discussion 
clubs it is excellent, for each chapter is fol-
lowed by a summary in narrative form and 
then by questions on the chapter. This out-
line by Father Treacy, an interpretation of 
the scriptural passages, will be of great value 
to the reader in understanding the gospels 
themselves. 

Paper binding, 50 cents Cloth binding, $1.00 

THE PAULIST PRESS 
401 W u t 59th Strut . . . N«w York, N. Y. 

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