Newspaper Page Text
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
5
Attending Protestant Services.
We do not attend any religious service except our
own. Why should we? We believe Christ founded
our Church, that our bishops are true successors to
the Apostles. In the case of other religions they were
started by men. We know the men who started them,
and the time and place where they began. Is it not
enough that we give them credit for good intentions,
for sincerity and honesty of purpose, that we must
also go to hear their teaching to see if it is better
for us than the teaching of our Lord? But, suppose
they, too, believe that Christ founded their Churches!
Very well, they should abide in them. They should
not attend Catholic worship because Catholics be
lieve in the Catholic Church, should they? What
ever Protestants believe, it is their belief and not the
belief of some one else, that they must be saved by.
And so Catholics must be saved by Catholic belief
and not some other kind. Why, then, if one is truly
and sincerely what he is in religion, believing that
it is the religion of Christ Himself, should he wish to
attend some other religious service than his own?
Let me put it this way: we all have a hesitancy in
singing German songs of late years, or in paying
tribute to the German flag, and so forth, but are we
any more certain of ourselves in this matter than in
matters of religion? Surely, we ought not to be.
We expect the Germans in their own country to
eschew American things in the same manner, and
have a little less respect for them if they do not stand
by their country as we stand by ours. The parallel
is not perfect, of course; none is; but does not this
suggest to you that it is a part of Christian loyalty
for one who believes he* belongs to the Church that
Christ founded, to stick to that Church and not be
joining promiscuously in all kinds of religious ser
vices? It is very plain to me, and to most Catholics,
and we do not altogether see how it can be objection
able to any one.
You say we cannot all be Catholics. However, we
were all Catholics at one time, that is, all who were
Christians were Catholics. But anyway, we can all
be what we are, without uncharity towards others
and without taking offense at their sincerity, and if
both Catholics and non-Catholics would try for a
while to live by this rule, we would all be happier,
and, I venture to think, a little better, too.
Preaching the Gospel.
Finally, you ask me why our priests do not go into
the highways, and by-ways and preach the Gospel,
like the Twelve. They do. In China, Africa and all
heathen lands, they are very Apostles, preaching the
Word of God to the natives, “teaching them to ob
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
There is not an unchristianized country in the world
where the Catholic Church has not her missionaries,
not housed in the cities with their families, but pene
trating the distant habitat of the unconverted and not
infrequently still savage tribes; lone men, sworn to
the undivided service of God; without family or wife
or companion; vowed to a life of poverty; they labor
there for five, ten, twenty years, and die, unheralded
and unsung, and others go to take their places. These
men, priests of the Catholic Church, have been the
forerunners of civilization in every land where civili
zation has been carried. They were here in America
before the trader or the gold-hunter even, and long,
long before the settler. They explored the Missis
sippi before the Colonist had reached the Allegheny
Mountain slope. They planted the cross on the
heights of Quebec long before Wolfe was born. They
Christianized the Iroquois, the Huron, the Abnecki,
settled the shores of the Floridas, penetrated the deltas
of the South and crossed the uplands to the pueblas
of the West and preached the Gospel to the Indians
across the Rockies a hundred years before the Pilgrim
Fathers landed on our shores. They had established
schools in Mexico a century and more before the
Latin school of Boston began. And in every country,
it is the same; among the first white men there, is the
Catholic priest; the first building to go up is a Cath
olic chapel; the first school is a school of Christian
doctrine; the first song to awaken the echoes of the
forest is the chant of the Holy Mass. And today;
every year they go out; from the seminaries of the
Jesuits, the Benedictines, the Franciscans and a score
of other religious communities, into distant lands, to
carry the Gospel and fulfill the command of their
Master to teach all nations and preach the Gospel to
every creature, which is the chart and the mission
of the Catholic Church and her ministers unto the end
of time.
Dives and Lazarus of Today.
Our priests do not go out into the by-ways in a
Christian country, it is true. They do not preach
from the street corners and hedge-rows in a civilized
land, because such a course is not considered edify
ing. There is such a thing, you know, as “casting
pearls before swine,” which our Lord commanded us
not to do. You will recall the parable of Lazarus
and Dives, and how Dives asked Abraham that some
one be sent to warn his five brothers what a terrible
place hell is, and Abraham answered: “They have
Moses and the Prophets.” When, therefore, the
Church has established her missions, erected her
houses of worship, her schools for education, her
hospitals for the sick, her asylums for the orphan,
has, in short, penetrated the life of a people so that
her presence must be known to all and her ministries
are available to all who desire them, she, too, can say
that they have Moses and the Prophets, or, better
still, Christ and the Gospel, and it is not for her, if that
parable has any lesson, to brow-beat men into accept
ing her good offices. The Catholic Church is not a
proselytizer. She would rather convert one heathen
who knows not Christ than to bring into her fold ten
thousand Protestants who already acknowledge and
believe in Him. I hope that these remarks fully an
swer your question on this score.
I trust, also, my answers to your other questions
prove satisfactory, but if they do not I shall be glad
to go into them further, if you will only be good
enough to indicate to me what you wish further ex
plained.