The Satisfaction for Sin

Seventeenth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

 by

 Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

The malice of sin is objectively infinite, illimitable; and as we advance with our studies, we realize in fuller measure what a fearful injury is done to God by every mortal offense. How appalling is the revelation that sin is without bounds, without limits, indeed infinite. The question then arises: How can the sinner ever obtain his forgiveness, how can he ever undo the evil he has wrought? When the angels committed their first sin, they were probably hurled at once into the abyss of hell without a moment's time for repentance. Man pollutes his soul with mortal sin, with many sins, sins that cry to heaven for vengeance, and he still lives, because God wishes to spare him and therefore gives him time for repentance. Here many questions present themselves for solution.

Why did not the Most High spare the angels? Why does He spare man? Could He have immediately abandoned the human race after the fall of Adam? Could He have eternally punished the race because of the guilt consequent upon the first sin? Could He forgive sin absolutely without demanding any reparation, and inflicting any punishment? Or could He forgive sin without requiring full satisfaction? For example, could He have pardoned the sinner after the sinner had cancelled only a part of the debt contracted? In other words, was it absolutely required that sin be fully atoned for, before God could pardon it?

These questions are deeply interesting, and, in all ages, have offered a broad field of inquiry to the Catholic philosopher and theologian. For our present purpose it is needless to discuss these points. The fact is that God did not abandon the human race, nor does He forgive sin without satisfaction, nay, He requires ample satisfaction. Saint Thomas explains why it is more becoming that God should not forgive sin without having received due satisfaction for it. It is evident that His infinite justice is manifested pre-eminently by demanding reparation and restitution. His infinite mercy is manifested more strikingly, because to pardon without reparation is not so honorable to the sinner as to pardon him after he has paid his debt. His infinite wisdom is also manifested, in a higher degree, because to pardon man only after fitting reparation has been made is more humiliating to Satan who first lured man into sin, and whose forfeited place man is to occupy. The divine justice, mercy and wisdom all render it more becoming that sin should not be pardoned, unless the malice of sin, the injury done to God by sin, is fully repaired.

But how is this to be accomplished? Can man ever undo an infinite injury? Man's life is like a flower that blooms for awhile, then withers and falls to the dust. He lives today, tomorrow he is seen no more. And his mind is so feeble, his will so fickle, his heart so frail, his powers so finite; can the finite ever propitiate the Infinite?

Evidently, man can never - singly or collectively - give adequate satisfaction for even one grievous sin. If man cannot, no creature as mere creature can, for every creature is finite. Consequently, only a being equal to God can repair completely the injury of sin. But on the one hand, God alone is infinite; He alone is equal to Himself. There is none like to Him: all things are before Him as if they were not, all things are absolutely His, there is nothing that was not made by Him. And on the other hand, God cannot apologize to Himself, He cannot suffer, He cannot change; as He was from eternity, so He always is; He cannot deny His own sovereign, infinite majesty, yet He is the one offended. Apparently, therefore, an adequate reparation for sin seems impossible. Yet God's justice, mercy and wisdom fitly require complete satisfaction for sin: moreover, He has signified that without this complete satisfaction He is unwilling to forgive.

There was only one thing possible in this overwhelming difficulty. If the offended God demanded full satisfaction, it was necessary that He Himself should become a creature, that He should remain God, and at the same time assume in His personality a created nature, that in His created nature He should render the Godhead honor, praise and obedience, and thus atone for His creature's guilt. And therefore "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." He was bruised for our sins and wounded for our iniquities; He was as a worm trodden under foot, the outcast of His own people, the lamb who opened not His mouth when He was led to the slaughter. By His wounds we are healed, by His bruises we are saved, by His blood we are ransomed from eternal perdition. And in heaven all the multitude which no man can number, the angels and the saints, the ancients and prophets, standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands, all cry aloud:

To Him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb, benediction and honor and glory and power forever and ever because Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Here again many questions might be raised and many difficulties proposed. One reason why the satisfaction of our Lord was so perfect is because it was so entirely free. All His sufferings were voluntarily borne, His death voluntarily embraced, because His whole human nature and all the laws that governed it were entirely under His command. It is true, the martyr's sufferings are also voluntary, but, as has been frequently stated, while the martyr is being tortured, he cannot help feeling the pain that fire and sword inflict upon him: the wounds are made, the members are cut, the nerves and bones laid bare. But at any moment our Lord could have suspended the pain, removed the nails from His hands and feet, and descended from the wood of the cross. Hence, as was said before, His sufferings and death were doubly meritorious because so absolutely free.

I lay down My life. No man taketh it away from Me: but I lay it down of Myself, and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter because He willed it. Yet that very freedom of His atonement offers a striking difficulty. The eternal Father commands His Son to suffer. Jesus Himself said: "This commandment I have received from My Father." It was necessary, then, for our Lord to obey: had He disobeyed the mandate, sin would have been committed. But an obedience which is necessary appears to lose much of meritoriousness; it can furnish satispassion, can it offer satisfaction? For satisfaction, an act must be free. Here is a difficulty. Thank God, as Cardinal Newman has so luminously remarked, difficulties and doubts are not correlative: a thousand difficulties do not authorize one doubt.

But the question before us does present a difficulty. How is it answered? Theologians offer various solutions, but the best answer is apparently this simple one. The will is not free because it has the power to commit sin. God is free, yet He can never be unholy; the Blessed in heaven are free, still they have not the power of again yielding to temptation, they are confirmed in their love of God. The possibility of doing wrong is, as philosophers express it, a defect of liberty, a defect which is essential to every free creature while in a probationary state. Our Lord assumed our human nature, but not this defect, since it is a blemish incompatible with His holiness as Man-God. He was free then, absolutely free, but His sanctity and His love of His Father would never permit Him to go counter to that will. Propterea exaltavit ilium Deus, "for this reason did God lift Him up," factus est, obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis, "because He was obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross."

Another reason why the satisfaction made by our Lord was so perfect is found in the intense, universal and peculiar sufferings He endured. First, in the intensity of His sufferings. Saint Thomas gives four reasons for maintaining that the pains our Lord endured in body and soul were the most acute that man can suffer on earth. They can be summed up perhaps in this one reason as signed by St. Bonaventure, that our Lord's body and soul were divinely framed for suffering, and that He permitted each power to act and endure independent of every other; it was because of this, we know, that He refused to take the wine and gall offered Him on the cross: He wished to die naturally in the full consciousness of all His excruciating torments.

Secondly, His sufferings were quasi universal. Saint Thomas shows how our Lord suffered at the hands of prince and pauper, priest and Levite, Jew and Gentile, man and woman; how He suffered in all His members and in all His senses; how, finally, He died struck by His Father, by men spit upon, mocked, bereft of His very clothing: the outcast of His people, as a worm trodden under foot.

Thirdly, His death was peculiarly shameful and accursed. The Mosaic Scriptures even had said: "He is accursed of God that hangeth on a tree!" By the fruit of the tree sin had come into the world: He was to make restitution for sin, and therefore had Himself suspended to the tree of the cross, restoring what had been robbed; according to these words of the Psalmist, "Then did I pay that which I took not away."

Can we marvel that the saints call the crucifix the book which they never weary of studying and from which they learn all wisdom? Jesus dead upon the cross is the measure of the malice of sin, of our personal sin. That blood-shedding, that agony, that fearful death: all is truly, really our work. Oh, if His Passion had never been repeated since the consummatum est on Calvary's Mount! It is renewed each time a soul yields to mortal sin. Yet the arms of Jesus are ever open to embrace us, His head is ever inclined to give us the kiss of peace, His ear is ever ready to hearken to our woes. When we weep, His loving Heart becomes our blessed retreat, when we tell Him of our guilt, His gentle voice breathes in the calm, "Go, penitent hearts, and sin no more."

Ah, loving Saviour! How merciful is Thy heart for us. Standing beside Thy cross, we ask: What may we do to prove our love for Thee? Heart ever-tender and compassionate! Filled with infinite love, broken by our ingratitude and pierced by our sins, accept the full oblation that we now make to Thee. Take us, Lord, with all our hopes, our joys, our griefs; draw us ever nearer to Thy wounded side and teach us all Thy blessed ways.

The Burning of Rome and the Neronian Persecution

Reading N°22 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Nero watching the burning of Rome
Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)

On July 19, A. D. 64, a fire started in the shops surrounding the Circus Maximus and, fanned by a strong wind, destroyed, one after the other, the sections of the Palatine, the Forum, the Caelian hill, the Aventine, and the Esquiline. This conflagration lasted six days. More than half of old Rome was burned. The people for the most part were able to save their lives by fleeing to the Campus Martius, where they had temporary shelter; but they saw themselves reduced to utter destitution by this disaster. As usually happens in such cases, they at once asked who was the person responsible for the calamity. On every tongue was one name - that of the Emperor.^[1]

Not long before, Nero had revealed his cruel, vain, and whimsical nature. Three years earlier, to avenge the murder of Pedanius Secundus, prefect of Rome, he had ordered the victim's four hundred slaves put to death. Popular indignation expressed itself by an uprising, which the police had difficulty in curbing.^[2] Since then, the tyrant's crimes had increased. Burrus was dead, and public opinion accused Nero of putting him out of the way. Octavia, overwhelmed with shame, had likewise disappeared. Seneca, in retirement, was hourly expecting a decree of death or torture. The terrible Tigellinus ruled. The Emperor, elated by the base flattery of his courtiers, curiously mingled his bloody cruelties with visions of literary glory and, it was said, lulled his remorse (if the monster was capable of that feeling) by reciting poetry. Word spread that some one had seen Nero, in actor's costume, contemplating the conflagration from the top of a tower, while he sang the destruction of Troy.

An idea, possibly suggested by one of the many Jews at court,^[3] entered the despot's mind. To accuse the Christians of the outrage would deflect the unpleasant gossip from his own person and at the same time give occasion for those mass executions which his notion of beauty transformed into horrible festivity. But the investigation which was begun soon brought to light the existence of a "vast multitude"^[4] of Christians. To hold them all responsible for the fire would be too open a defiance of likelihood. A pretext was at hand for condemning them en masse: were they not, as a whole, "enemies of mankind," that is, of Roman civilization? Tacitus says they "were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of hating the human race."^[5] This same historian continues:

In their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs or nailed to crosses or set fire to and, when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that spectacle and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer.^[6]

Nero's Torches
Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902)

A passage in St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians adds a few details to Tacitus' account. It seems that Nero, whose depraved taste set all decency at nought, had introduced the custom of making those condemned to death impersonate certain characters of mythology. The people would be treated to the sight of Hercules painfully tearing from his body a burning garment made of pitch, or of Orpheus torn to pieces by a bear, or of Daedalus tumbling from the sky. Christian women were forced to impersonate the Danaides or Dirce. In the former case, before dying, they had to go through a series of tortures which we can only surmise; in the latter case they were fastened to the horns of wild bulls and dragged about the amphitheater.^[7] These horrible executions were the signal for a persecution that extended into the provinces and lasted at Rome until Nero's death in 68.^[8]

The most illustrious victims of this persecution were the Apostles Peter and Paul. Tradition fixes the year of their martyrdom as 67. In the first and second centuries, St. John, St. Clement of Rome, and St. Dionysius of Corinth speak of St. Peter's martyrdom without mentioning the manner of it; but in the next century, Origen says that the head of the Roman Church was crucified head downwards.^[9] Thus was fulfilled a prophecy spoken by the Savior when He said to Peter:

Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not.^[10]

The Martyrdom of St. Peter
Caravaggio (1571-1610)

St. Paul was beheaded. This was the form of execution reserved for Roman citizens.^[11]

The Beheading of St. Paul
Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654)

Footnotes

[1] Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44; cf. Annals, XV, 67; Suetonius, Nero, 38; Pliny, Natural History, XVII, I.

[2] Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 42 ff.

[3] St. Clement of Rome, alluding to the slaughter of Christians by Nero's orders, attributes it to jealousy (First Epistle, 5). Moreover, we know that Nero was surrounded by Jews (Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, XIX, XX). It is noteworthy that the Jews, ordinarily confused with the Christians in the legal measures of this period (Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44; History, V, 5), were clearly distinguished from them in Nero's persecutions. Carlo Pascal (L'Incendio di Roma e i primi cristiani) and Bouché-Leclercq (L'Intolérance religieuse et la politique) blame the burning of Rome upon the fanaticism of a few Christians, whose criminal exaltation was made use of by Nero and his court for the accomplishment of a hateful scheme. Di Crescenzo in his reply (Un difensore di Nerone) and Semeria (Il primo sangue cristiano) have little difficulty in refuting this thesis, so contradictory to the texts of Suetonius, Pliny, Tacitus, and Dio. Renan and Havet hardly ventured to insinuate a similar accusation. Renan, The Anti-Christ, chap. 13; Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines, IV, 228.

[4] "Multitudo ingens" (Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44).

[5] "Haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio generis humani convicti sunt" (Tacitus, loco cit.). Tertullian attributes to Nero a decree which may be summed up in these words: "Christiani non sint, Let there be no Christians." Tertullian (Apol., 5; To the Nations, I, 7) calls this decree "institutum neronianum." The word institutum in Roman law does not necessarily mean "edict" or "decree." In itself, Tertullian's expression might signify only that Nero inaugurated the period of cruelty against the Christians (Cezard, Histoire juridique des persécutions, p. 18); but a comparison of this text with that of Sulpicius Severus (II, 41) and the early Christian writers' general way of speaking leads us to suppose that Tertullian had in mind a special undertaking by Nero against the Christians as such.

[6] Tacitus, loco cit. According to the old Roman law, the punishment for the crime of arson was death by fire or in the games of the circus. See the law of the Twelve Tables; Gaius, in the Digest, XLVII, IX, 9; Callistratus, in the Digest, XLVIII, XIX, 28; Paul, Sent., V, 20. Cf. Cezard, op. cit., p. 13.

[7] Clement, First Epistle, 6. A Pompeian text and fresco seem to prove that this last named punishment was often inflicted on women who had been condemned to death.

[8] See the reasons advanced by Tillemont, Ruinart, and De Rossi. They may be found in Allard, Hist. des pers., I, 58-76.

[9] In Eusebius, III, I. This form of capital punishment was not unprecedented. See Seneca, Consolation to Marcia, 20.

[10] "This He said, signifying by what death he [Peter] should glorify God." (John 21:18 f.) 

[11] A tradition, recorded by St. Jerome, places St. Paul's martyrdom on the same day as that of St. Peter. Another tradition, represented by St. Augustine, places a year's interval between the two deaths. Dionysius of Cornith, Tertullian, and the priest Caius merely associate the two Apostles in their martyrdom. (See Eusebius, II, XXV.) The most reliable tradition places St. Peter's martyrdom on the Vatican hill; the tradition placing it on the Janiculum did not arise until the Middle Ages. (See Marucchi, Elements d'archéologie chrétienne, I, II.)

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How To Subvert A Nation: An Insider Explains

Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov
1939-1993

Below, I present a transcript of the first 10 minutes of a lecture delivered by one Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, also known as Tomas D. Schuman, a KGB-trained informant who defected to the West in 1970 and brought with him his detailed understanding of the system of socio-political manipulation employed by the U.S.S.R. known as subversion. The lecture was given sometime in the early 1980's in Los Angeles, but it has lost nothing of its actuality. In fact, many of the statements made by Mr. Bezmenov border on the prophetic in light of the sweeping changes currently taking place in western nations - especially in the United States.

I strongly recommend to all my readers that they watch the complete presentation. Twice, in fact, though perhaps not in one sitting. The first time you watch it, ask yourself how the tactics of subversion are being employed to shape politics and culture in both the secular and the religious sphere today. Useful reflections are to be had on, for example, the revelations of Bella Dodd, the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath, the 2015 Synod, and the recent Supreme Court ruling on sodomite "marriage", just to name a few issues of great interest to Catholics. The second time you watch it, ask yourself how we can effectively counteract these measures without breaking the law and without resorting to violence. The social conservatives of the world have been one step behind the ultra-progressives for the last 50 years because they have failed to understand the tactics of subversion, let alone to formulate effective responses. To react with hatred and/or violence, beyond being contrary to the Gospel, actually helps the opposition, as it enables them present themselves as the oppressed victims of unfair discrimination.

If you're feeling particularly plucky, share this information with your homosexual associates, should you have any. As Mr. Bezmenov explains, homosexuals, after being openly promoted during the subversion process, are often among the first victims once the new regime takes power. These are what subverters refer to as "useful idiots". To take a page from Soviet history: While homosexuality was legalized at the start of the Soviet Revolution under Lenin, it was re-criminalized under Stalin with severe penalties, which not infrequently ended in a Siberian gulag.

I don't normally ask my readers to share content, but I'm making an exception here. Please share this video with everyone you know. Start discussions on how to counteract the tactics of subversion peacefully and legally. Call out subverters by name. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by what are strategically superficial issues. Regardless of what you think the 'Errors of Russia' are in detail - Communism, Socialism, Materialism, Evolutionism, Atheism - the method of subversion discussed below is most certainly the delivery system.

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Subversion is a term - if you look in a dictionary or the criminal code, for that matter - usually explained as a part of an activity to destroy things like religion, a government system, the political or economical system of a country, and usually it's linked to espionage and such romantic things as blowing up bridges, derailing trains, cloak-and-dagger activity in Hollywood style. What I'm going to talk about now has absolutely nothing to do with the cliché of espionage, i.e. the KGB activity of collecting information.

Not subversion. Or is it? Discuss.

The greatest mistake, or misconception, I think, is that, whenever we are talking about the KGB, for some strange reason, starting from Hollywood movie makers to professors of political science and "experts" on Soviet Affairs - Kremlinologists, as they call themselves - they think that the most desirable thing for [Yuri] Andropov and the whole KGB is to steal the blueprint of some supersonic jet, bring it back to the Soviet Union and sell it to the Soviet Military Industrial Complex. This is only partly true.

If we take the whole time, money and manpower that the Soviet Union, and the KGB in particular, spends outside of the borders of the U.S.S.R., we will discover - of course, there are no official statistics, unlike with the CIA or FBI - that espionage as such occupies only 10-15% of the time, money and manpower. 15% of the activity of the KGB. The remaining 85% is always subversion. And unlike in dictionary - Oxford dictionary - English, subversion in Soviet terminology always means a destructive, aggressive activity aimed at destroying the nation, country or geographical area of your enemy. So, there's no romantics in there. Absolutely no blowing up bridges, no microfilm in Coca-Cola cans - nothing of that sort. No James Bond nonsense. Most of this activity is overt, legitimate and easily observable if you take the time and trouble to observe it. But, according to the law and law enforcement systems of the western civilizations, it's not a crime! Exactly because of misconceptions and the manipulation of terms. We think that a subverter is a person who is going to blow up our beautiful bridges. No! A subverter is an exchange student, a diplomat, an actor, an artist, a journalist like myself - as I was 10 years ago.

Now, subversion is an activity which requires two-way traffic. You cannot subvert an enemy which does not want to be subverted. If you know the history of Japan, for example, before the 20th century, Japan was a closed society. The moment a foreign boat came to the shores of Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army came to politely tell them to get lost. And if an American salesman came to the shores of Japan - say, 60 or 70 years ago - and said, "Oh, I have a very beautiful vacuum cleaner for you! And with good financing!" he was told, "Please leave, as we do not need your vacuum cleaner." If he didn't leave, they shot him, to preserve their culture, ideology, traditions and values intact. You were not able to subvert Japan.

You cannot subvert the Soviet Union, because the borders are closed, the media is censored by the government, the population is controlled by the KGB and internal police. With all the beautiful glossy pictures in Time magazine and the magazine America, which is published by the American Embassy in Moscow, you cannot subvert Soviet citizens because the magazine never reaches Soviet citizens; it's collected from the newsstands and thrown into the garbage can.

Subversion can only be successful when the initiator, the actor, the agent of subversion has a responsive target. It's two-way traffic. The United States is a receptive target of subversion. But there is no response similar to that one from the United States to the Soviet Union. It stops halfway somewhere; it never reaches its target.

Sun-Tzu
ca. 534-453 B.C.

The theory of subversion goes all the way back to 2,500 years ago. The first human being who formulated the tactics of subversion was a Chinese philosopher by the name of Sun-Tzu, ca. 500 B.C. He was an adviser to several imperial courts in ancient China. And he said, after long meditation, that, to implement state policy in a war-like manner, it's the most counterproductive, barbaric and inefficient to fight on a battlefield. You know that war is a continuation of state policy, right? So if you want to successfully implement your state policy, and you start fighting, this is the most idiotic way to do it. The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in the country of your enemy, until such time that the perception of reality by your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not perceive you as an enemy, and that your system, your civilization and your ambitions look, to your enemy, as an alternative - if not desirable, then, at least, feasible. "Better red than dead." That is the ultimate purpose, the final stage of subversion, after which you can simply take your enemy without a single shot being fired, if the subversion is successful. This is, basically, what subversion is. As you can see, not a single mention of blowing up bridges. Of course, Sun-Tzu didn't know about blowing up bridges; maybe there were not that many bridges at that time.

The basics of subversion are being taught to every student in KGB schools in the U.S.S.R. and to the officers of military academies. I'm not sure if the same author is included in the list of reading for American officers, to say nothing about ordinary students of political science. I had difficulty to find a translation of Sun-Tzu in the library of the University of Toronto and later on here, in Los Angeles. It's a book which is not available to, but rather forced on every student in the U.S.S.R. - every student who is taught to be looking further in his future career with foreigners. [...]

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For the entire presentation, which includes an incredible amount of useful information, such as a detailed explanation of the four classic stages of subversion, please watch the video below:

BONUS

After watching this video, you will never look at an image such as the following, which shows Russian President and former KGB officer Vladimir Putin engaged in a Judo throw, in the same way. Why are these events always so heavily publicized? Why Judo? Mr. Bezmenov explains it all, without even having lived long enough to see it himself, as he was killed in a mysterious car crash in 1993.

A clear signal to everyone who knows what it means.

How Faith May Be Lost

Eighteenth in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by

 Fr. John H. Stapleton

It is part of our belief that no man can lose his faith without mortal sin. The conscious rejection of all or any religious truth once embraced and forming a part of Christian belief, or the deliberate questioning of a single article thereof, is a sin, a sin against God's light and God's grace. It is a deliberate turning away from God. The moral culpability of such an act is great in the extreme, while its consequences cannot be weighed or measured by any human norm or rule.

No faith was ever wrecked in a day; it takes time to come to such a pass; it is by easy stages of infidelity, by a slow process of half-denials, a constant fostering of habits of ignorance, that one undermines, little by little, one's spiritual constitution. Taking advantage of this state of debility, the microbe of unbelief creeps in, eats its way to the soul and finally sucks out the very vitals of faith. Nor is this growth of evil an unconscious one; and there lies the malice and guilt. Ignorant pride, neglect of prayer and religious worship, disorders, etc. - these are evils the culprit knows of and wills. He cannot help feeling the ravages being wrought in his soul; he cannot help knowing that these are deadly perils to his treasure of faith. He complacently allows them to run their course; and he wakes up one fine morning to find his faith gone, lost, dead - and a chasm yawning between him and his God that only a miracle can bridge over.

We mentioned ignorance: this it is that attacks the underpinning of faith, its rational basis, by which it is made intelligent and reasonable, without which there can be no faith.

Ignorance is, of course, a relative term. There are different degrees and different kinds. An ignorant man is not an unlettered or uncultured one, but one who does not know what his religion means, what he believes or is supposed to believe, and has no reason to give for his belief. He may know a great many other things, may be chock full of worldly learning, but if he ignores these matters that pertain to the soul, we shall label him an ignoramus, for the elementary truths of human knowledge are, always have been, and always shall be, the solution of the problems of the why, the whence and the whither of life here below. Great learning frequently goes hand in hand with dense ignorance. The Sunday-school child knows better than the atheist philosopher the answer to these important questions. There is more wisdom in the first page of the Catechism than in all the learned books of skeptics and infidels.

Knowledge, of course, a thorough knowledge of all theological science, will not make faith any more than wheels will make a cart. But a certain knowledge is essential, and its absence is fatal to faith. There are the simple ignorant who have forgotten their Catechism and leave the church before the instruction, for fear they might learn something; who never read anything pertaining to religion, who would be ashamed to be detected with a religious book or paper in their hands. Then there are the learned ignorant, such as our public schools turn out in great numbers each year; who either are above mere religious knowledge-seeking and disdain all that smacks of church and faith; or, knowing little or nothing at all, imagine they possess a world of theological lore and know all that is knowable. These latter are the more to be pitied, their ignorance doubling back upon itself, as it were. When a man does not realize his own ignorance, his case is well nigh hopeless.

If learning cannot give faith, neither can it alone preserve it. Learned men, pillars of the Church, have fallen away. Pride, you will say. Yes, of course, pride is the cause of all evil. But we have all our share of it. If it works less havoc in some than in others, that is because pride is or is not kept within bounds. It is necessarily fatal to faith only when it is not controlled by prayer and the helps of practical religion. God alone can preserve our faith. He will do it only at our solicitation.

If, therefore, some have not succeeded in keeping the demon of pride under restraint, it is because they refused to consider their faith a pure gift of God that cannot be safely guarded without God's grace; or they forgot that God's grace is assured to no man who does not pray. The man who thinks he is all-sufficient unto himself in matters of religion, as in all other matters, is in danger of being brought to a sense of his own nothingness in a manner not calculated to be agreeable. No man who practiced humble prayer ever lost his faith, or ever can; for to him grace is assured.

And since faith is nothing if not practical, since it is a habit, it follows that irreligion, neglect to practice what we believe will destroy that habit. People who neglect their duty often complain that they have no taste for religion, cannot get interested, find no consolation therein. This justifies further neglect. They make a pretense to seek the cause. The cause is lack of faith; the fires of God's grace are burning low in their souls. They will soon go out unless they are furnished with fuel in the shape of good, solid, practical religion. That is their only salvation. Ignorance, supplemented by lack of prayer and practice, goes a long way in the destruction of faith in any soul, for two essentials are deficient.

Disorder, too, is responsible for the loss of much faith. Luther and Henry might have retained their faith in spite of their pride, but they were lewd and avaricious; and there is small indulgence for such within the Church. Not but that we are all human, and sinners are the objects of the Church's greatest solicitude; but within her pale no man, be he king or genius, can sit down and feast his passions and expect her to wink at it and call it by another name than its own. The law of God and of the Church is a thorn in the flesh of the vicious man. The authority of the Church is a sword of Damocles held perpetually over his head - until it is removed. Many a one denies God in a moment of sin in order to take the sting of remorse out of it. One gets tired of the importunities of religion that tell us not to sin, or to confess if we do sin.

When you meet a pervert who, with a glib tongue, protests that his conscience drove him from the Church, that his enslaved intelligence needed deliverance, search him and you will find a skeleton in his closet; and if you do not find it, it is there just the same. A renegade priest some years ago held forth before a gaping audience, at great length, on the reasons of his leaving the Church. A farmer sitting on the last bench listened patiently to his profound argumentation. When the lecturer was in the middle of his twelfth point, the other arose and shouted to him across the hall: "Cut it short, and say you wanted a wife." The heart has reasons which the reason does not understand.

Not always, but frequently, ignorance, neglect and vice come to this. The young, the weak and the proud have to guard themselves against these dangers, as they work slowly, imperceptibly, but surely. Two things increase the peril and tend to precipitate matters; reading and companionship. The ignorant are often anxious to know the other side, when they do not know their own. The consequence is that they will not understand fully the question; and if they do, will not be able to resolve the difficulty. They are handicapped by their ignorance and can only make a mess out of it. The result is that they are caught by sophistries like a fly in a web.

The company of those who believe differently, or not at all, is also pernicious to unenlightened and weak faith. The example in itself is potent for evil. The Catholic is usually not a persona grata as a Catholic but for some quality he possesses. Consequently, he must hide his religion under the bushel for fear of offending. Then a sneer, a gibe, a taunt are unpleasant things, and will be avoided even at the price of what at other times would look like being ashamed of one's faith. If ignorant, he will be silent; if he has not prayed, he will be weak; if vicious, he will be predisposed to fall.

If we would guard the precious deposit of faith secure against any possible emergency, we must enlighten it, we must strengthen it, we must live up to it.

The Malice of Sin

Sixteenth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

 by
 Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

In creating the world, God necessarily had an end in view. That end was His own glory. The Scriptures accordingly tell us that He made all things for Himself. He was free to create, but, having determined to create, He could not create but to manifest His glory. We exist ultimately for that. His majesty, His love, His wisdom, all require that we serve to that end, and that all our interests, spiritual and temporal, private and public, be subordinate to His honor and glory. His end as Creator is necessarily our end as creatures; hence, we are not to serve God solely with a view to our own salvation, but above all, to promote His interests, His glory. Yet, how it can be truly said that God created the world out of love, and that He made all things for man's sake, would involve long explanations and thus lead too far from our present subject. Only let it be well understood that the glory of God is the end of creation, and that all creatures exist for that end.

Now, what is sin? Sin is a violation of this supreme law of creation that all things must tend to God's greater glory. The sinner breaks through the order that divine wisdom has necessarily established; he virtually makes for himself another end; he relegates God, the supreme Good, to an inferior place, and practically substitutes for God a created thing, by living for it as his end. Sin is likewise an act of disobedience to the highest Lawgiver, an ingratitude to our greatest Benefactor, an impiety to our best Father, a folly because a surrendering of our true peace and happiness. But the quintessence of sin lies in the offense given to God, the wrong done to Him, by making a creature occupy the place that is and must be His. He must be the highest, the first and the last, He must be the end for which all creation exists, lives and moves. To deny it by substituting a creature in His place is a species of idolatry, it is casting Him from His throne, it is necessarily a wrong done Him, an insult offered Him. True, God cannot be deprived of His own infinite peace and happiness; and because supremely wise and powerful, He can draw good out of evil. He can, even in hell, force the sinner to acknowledge His justice and might and holiness. Yet it is also true that sin virtually desires the destruction, the annihilation of God. To reduce the Supreme Being to the order of a creature, to put Him after a creature, is to dethrone Him, to destroy, to annihilate Him. That is precisely what sin does. In effect - that is, in reality - it cannot destroy God, but in desire, as far as possible, it does destroy God. Here we have the very essence of sin.

At this point, the question arises: Is this offense, which constitutes every mortal sin, infinite? Every mortal sin is an insult offered to God, an injury inflicted upon Him. Is this insult, this injury, infinite? To answer this question correctly, we must carefully distinguish between what theologians now call active and passive injury.

Active injury is the act itself which inflicts injury. Sin, taken in this sense, is not infinite. Sin often requires but a moment for its commission, then it becomes a thing of the past. The act is transitory, the act of a creature, and limited and therefore finite. The so-called stain that sin leaves upon the soul is also finite, for that stain is nothing else than the deprivation of grace, and grace is something created, something finite. The turning to a creature as to its end is likewise finite, for that creature is finite. Hence, we say, the offense which constitutes mortal sin is finite in as far as it is an act.

But there is also a passive offense, a passive injury. Passive injury is the wrong which the person who is injured suffers. An illustration may reflect a stronger light upon the truth of this statement. I injure my neighbor by destroying his dwelling. My guilt may be increased or lessened by circumstances. It may have been carelessness on my part, or vindictiveness; the crime may have been committed consciously, with great deliberation, or in a fit of passion, etc., etc. Circumstances of time, place, manner, motive, all affect the measure of my active injury. But there is also the damage inflicted on my neighbor. That damage is independent of my guilt: it may be to the amount of one or five thousand dollars; its magnitude is not influenced by my personal culpability. He suffers an injury; that injury is called a passive injury.

Thus we see the offense of sin, as an act, is not infinite. But, we ask, is the offense, the wrong which God suffers from mortal sin infinite? Sound theology answers, yes. For the magnitude of an offense is measured, first, by the worth, the dignity, the greatness of the one offended. The more elevated the person offended, the greater the insult which is offered him. And since God's dignity and excellence are unlimited, since His rights to the creature's submission are boundless, since His sovereignty, His goodness, His perfections are simply infinite, the insult by which His majesty is outraged, and a creature substituted as last end, must consequently be infinite. Such is the argument of Saint Thomas: He who commits mortal sin loves the creature more than he loves God. Loving the creature more, he prefers it to God. But to prefer the less worthy to the more worthy is to offend the more worthy, and the offense is the greater, the greater the difference between the two. Consequently, mortal sin, in a sense, is an infinite offense because of the infinite majesty of God.

There is an objection urged against this conclusion, the refutation of which will throw light upon the utility of the distinction between active and passive injury. The matter may present some difficulties, but the attempt to solve them will without doubt enable us to understand a long series of practical truths. The objection is as follows: The injury inflicted grows indeed with the dignity of the person offended, but not in arithmetical proportion, that is to say, not altogether in the same degree. For otherwise we might also argue thus: the excellence of an act grows with the excellence of its object; the object of an act of divine love, God, is infinitely excellent; hence an act of divine love is an act of infinite excellence, which would be false. Therefore, it is said, the argument of Saint Thomas is illogical and false. The answer to this objection is plain. An act is not yet infinitely excellent, because its object is infinitely excellent; a great many factors may enter to make that act more or less perfect. If you say, for example, to the farmer: "The more corn you sow, the more you will reap", he will admit it. But say to him: "Sow double the amount of corn, and you will reap double the amount", he will laugh at you, for the success of his act of sowing will depend upon a great many contingent factors, on the quality of soil, weather, labor, etc. But the status of the question is different when you speak, not of an act, but the injury done by an act. When I do another an injury, that injury must not be measured by my personal culpability alone, but by the amount of damage that the other suffers. A man can throw a diamond into the ocean, or a child can do this, but in either case the diamond is lost, the loss inflicted upon the owner is equally great. In like manner, when Saint Thomas argues that the injury of sin is infinite, he speaks of passive injury, of the injury that God suffers, the wrong that is done Him, the insult that is offered Him. The sinner who commits mortal sin, may be more or less guilty. But in every case, the insult offered is infinite, because, to repeat once more, in desire at least, God is annihilated and a creature chosen as His substitute.

As by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin, death, so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

And we have our own personal sins; how many, God only knows! Who can pay our tremendous debt? What reparation is necessary? How can we make it? That, we shall study in our next conference. May God bless our efforts that the truth make us in more than one sense free!

St. Paul and St. Peter at Rome

Reading N°21 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Paul the Apostle
Rembrandt (1606-1669)

Four years after writing his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul entered Rome as a prisoner. He had been set upon in a tumult in Jerusalem, whither he had brought the offerings collected in Achaia for the brethren of Jerusalem, and had been arrested by the Roman police and haled before the governor of Judea. Before the tribune Claudius, he demanded his rights as a Roman citizen and uttered the solemn formula of appeal to Caesar. After an imprisonment at Caesarea, he was brought to Rome, reaching there in March, 62, just when Nero's personal reign was beginning. Burrus had just died and was replaced by the infamous Tigellinus, the companion of the Emperor's debauchery; Seneca had retired from public life, and, as has been said, "Nero now had only the Furies for his advisers."

But the ruler no doubt paid little attention to this Jewish prisoner and to the religious quarrel in which he was said to be involved. Paul had to wait two years for that appearance before the Emperor which he had demanded as the right of a Roman citizen. During those two years, he lived in a condition of mitigated imprisonment in the custody of a pretorian, freely receiving those who came to visit him.

The Christian community at Rome had grown. One of the letters written by the Apostle during his imprisonment speaks of Christians belonging to Caesar's household.^[1] It would seem that his words brought about many conversions, even among the soldiers. In the same letter, he says that his chains have become a preaching of Christ in the whole pretorian camp near which he was lodged.^[2] There it was that he wrote several of his Epistles: probably the short note to Philemon, the letter to the Churches of Asia Minor known as the Epistle to the Ephesians, the exhortation to the brethren at Colossa, and certainly the letter to the Philippians.^[3]

These so-called Epistles of the Captivity are distinguished from the others by a tone of greater tenderness and a deeper mystical doctrine. The Apostle's first letters were merely an echo of his missionary preaching; the Epistle to the Romans condensed his fundamental dogmatic teaching. In his correspondence with the Churches of Asia in general, with the Christians of Colossa and of Philippi, his soul is poured forth in more touching accents. At the close of his letter to the Philippians, he writes these exquisitely delicate lines:

I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow laborer and fellow soldier. [...] He was sick nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him; and not only on him, but on me also.^[4]

To Philemon, he writes:

As Paul, an old man, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ, I beseech thee for my son, whom I have begotten in my bands.^[5]

In these Epistles of the Captivity are to be found lofty and enlightening views upon the interior life, upon Christ considered as the foundation of all things, upon the abasement of the Son of God, upon the struggle we have to engage in against the infernal powers, upon the old man and the new man, upon the union of Christ and His Church.

There is nothing equal to the touching words with which the Apostle, on his knees, begs the Christians to strengthen the inner man within themselves:

I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ [...] that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward man, that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; that, being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able [...] to know also the charity of Christ.^[6]

For Christ is the foundation of all:

God, according to His good pleasure, hath purposed in Him [...] to reestablish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth.^[7]

And it is this Christ who, out of love for us, so greatly humbled Himself:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. [...] He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.^[8]

But alas, although on one hand Christ draws us, on the other the powers of evil seek to seduce us:

Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places.^[9]

Of what, at bottom, does the whole Christian life consist?

To put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.^[10]

Paul's words are no less tender when he speaks of the Church than when he speaks of Christ and of God; for him, Christ is the living God, and the Church and Christ are one. The Church is the body of Christ; it is Christ continuing to live, through time and space, by His ministers and His Sacraments. If God, in His Church, has bestowed diverse ministries and graces, all this was done

[...] for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ, that, [...] doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in charity.^[11]

St. Paul's trial was finally ended. In 63, he appeared, if not before the Emperor, at least before the council having jurisdiction in the case of his appeal.^[12] The imperial tribunal, unconcerned with religious disputes, provided these did not disturb public tranquillity, may have regarded Paul's case as a mere conflict of Jewish sects, and acquitted the Apostle, who, as he himself expresses it, "was delivered out of the mouth of the lion."^[13]

When Paul was set at liberty, he probably went to Spain; the Christian beginnings of that country seem to be connected with his apostolate. He also revisited the Christian communities of the Aegean sea-coast. The so-called pastoral letters, written to Titus and to Timothy, give us a few details of this journey.

St. Paul's stay at Rome, though he was a prisoner, had been of advantage to the progress of the Church. The Christians, comforted by his presence and example, showed themselves more confident and courageous.

At the very time when Paul left the Eternal City, Peter reached there. There can be no doubt of this second journey of the chief of the Apostles to Rome. But the fact of Peter's residence at Rome has borne such consequences and aroused so great controversies, that it is worth while considering the evidence for it.

After the middle of the second century, a precise and universal tradition clearly existed as to St. Peter's visit to Rome. It is very remarkable that a position entailing consequences of such crucial importance never was questioned in any of the controversies between the East and Rome. But the evidence goes back farther than the end or even the middle of the second century. In his letter to the Romans,^[14] St. Ignatius of Antioch alludes to their Apostolic traditions. Without speaking of the allusions to it which it has been thought possible to trace in the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the last chapter of the Fourth Gospel contains an extremely clear allusion to the way in which St. Peter met his death.^[15] St. Clement, in the celebrated passage on Nero's persecution,^[16] connects the Apostles Peter and Paul with the Danaides, the Dirces, and other victims who suffered as a result of the burning of Rome. There is no one, even including St. Peter himself, but records his sojourn in Rome. His letter to the Christians in Asia Minor finishes with a greeting which he sends them in the name of the Church of Babylon, that is, the Church of Rome.^[17]

Though the reality of St. Peter's residence in Rome is historically established, we have only vague data about his labors there. In Trastevere, in the ghetto, on the Aventine, at St. Prisca; on the Viminal, at the spot marked by St. Pudentiana; on the Via Nomentana, at the Ostrian cemetery, at the place called Ad nymphas sancti Petri, or Ubi Petrus baptizabat; in the Vatican region, where he shed his blood: at these spots a few traditional souvenirs enable us vaguely to follow the Apostle by the half-effaced traces of his footsteps.^[18]

Footnotes

[1] Phil. 4:22.

[2] Phil. 1:13.

[3] Each of these letters alludes to an imprisonment of the Apostle. The Epistle to the Philippians certainly dates from the Roman imprisonment. It is possible that the other Epistles were written by St. Paul while he was in prison at Caesarea. Cf. Jacquier, Histoire des livres du Nouveau Testament, IV, 282.

[4] Phil. 2:25-27.

[5] Phil. 9 f.

[6] Ephes. 3:1, 14-19.

[7] Ephes. 1:9 f.

[8] Phil. 2: 6-8. Cf. Durand, "La Divinité de Jésus-Christ dans saint Paul," in the Revue biblique, 1903, pp. 550 ff.

[9] Ephes. 6:12.

[10] Ephes. 4:22-24.

[11] Ephes. 4: 11-16. We have purposely given as literal a translation as possible of this sentence, in which the most personal, the most grammatically involved, the densest and the most powerful traits of St. Paul's style are revealed.

[12] Willems, Le Droit public romain, p. 475.

[13] 2 Tim. 4:17.

[14] St. Ignatius, Romans, 4.

[15] John 21:18 f.

[16] First Epistle to the Corinthians, 5 f.

[17] Cf. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, I, 45; cf. Fouard, St. Peter, pp. 407 f.; Guiraud, Questions d'histoire et d'archéologie chrétienne, la venue de saint Pierre à Rome; De Smedt, Dissertationes selectae in primam aetatem Ecclesiae, pp. 12-22; Grisar, History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages, I, 284 ff. Guignebert, in a voluminous work, La Primauté de Pierre et la venue de Pierre à Rome, attempts to reopen the question and to revise the claims of the Christian tradition to historical certitude.

[18] Cf. Gondal, Au temps des apôtres, p. 239.

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The Consistent Believer

Seventeenth in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by

 Fr. John H. Stapleton

The intolerance of the Church towards error, the natural position of One who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude, makes her forbid her children to read, or listen to, heretical controversy, or to endeavor to discover religious truth by examining both sides of the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers. And whatever outsiders may think of the correctness of his belief and religious principles, they cannot have two opinions as to the logic and consistency of this stand he takes. They may hurl at him all the choice epithets they choose for being a slave to superstition and erroneous creeds; but they must give him credit for being consistent in his belief; and consistency in religious matters is too rare a commodity these days to be made light of.

The reason of this stand of his is that, for him, there can be no two sides to a question which for him is settled; for him, there is no seeking after the truth: he possesses it in its fullness, as far as God and religion are concerned. His Church gives him all there is to be had; all else is counterfeit. And if he believes, as he should and does believe, that revealed truth comes, and can come, only by way of external authority, and not by way of private judgment and investigation, he must refuse to be liberal in the sense of reading all sorts of Protestant controversial literature and listening to all kinds of heretical sermons. If he does not this, he is false to his principles; he contradicts himself by accepting and not accepting an infallible Church; he knocks his religious props from under himself and stands - nowhere. The attitude of the Catholic, therefore, is logical and necessary. Holding to Catholic principles how can he do otherwise? How can he consistently seek after truth when he is convinced that he holds it? Who else can teach him religious truth when he believes that an infallible Church gives him God's word and interprets it in the true and only sense?

A Protestant may not assume this attitude or impose it upon those under his charge. If he does so, he is out of harmony with his principles and denies the basic rule of his belief. A Protestant believes in no infallible authority; he is an authority unto himself, which authority he does not claim to be infallible, if he is sober and sane. He is after truth; and whatever he finds, and wherever he finds it, he subjects it to his own private judgment. He is free to accept or reject, as he pleases. He is not, cannot be, absolutely certain that what he holds is true; he thinks it is. He may discover to-day that yesterday's truths are not truths at all. We are not here examining the soundness of this doctrine; but it does follow therefrom, sound or unsound, that he may consistently go where he likes to hear religious doctrine exposed and explained, he may listen to whomever has religious information to impart. He not only may do it, but he is consistent only when he does. It is his duty to seek after truth, to read and listen to controversial books and sermons.

If therefore a non-Catholic sincerely believes in private judgment, how can he consistently act like a Catholic who stands on a platform diametrically opposed to his, against which platform it is the very essence of his religion to protest? How can he refuse to hear Catholic preaching and teaching, any more than Baptist, Methodist and Episcopalian doctrines? He has no right to do so, unless he knows all the Catholic Church teaches, which case may be safely put down as one in ten million. He may become a Catholic, or lose all the faith he has. That is one of the risks he has to take, being a Protestant.

If he is faithful to his own principles and understands the Catholic point of view, he must not be surprised if his Catholic friends do not imitate his so-called liberality; they have motives which he has not. If he is honest, he will not urge or even expect them to attend the services of his particular belief. And a Catholic who thinks that because a Protestant friend can accompany him to Catholic services, he too should return the compliment and accompany his friend to Protestant worship, has a faith that needs immediate toning up to the standard of Catholicity; he is in ignorance of the first principles of his religion and belief.

A Catholic philosopher resumes this whole matter briefly and clearly in two syllogisms, as follows:

I.

Major

He who believes in an infallible teacher of revelation cannot consistently listen to any fallible teacher with a view of getting more correct information than his infallible teacher gives him. To do so would be absurd, for it would be to believe and at the same time not believe in the infallible teacher.

Minor

The Catholic believes in an infallible teacher of revelation.

Conclusion

Therefore, the Catholic cannot listen to any fallible teacher with a view of getting more correct information about revealed truth than his Church gives him. To do so would be to stultify himself.

II.

Major

He who believes in a fallible teacher - private judgment or fallible church - is free, nay bound, to listen to any teacher who comes along professing to have information to impart, for at no time can he be certain that the findings of his own fallible judgment or church are correct. Each newcomer may be able to give him further light that may cause him to change his mind.

Minor

The Protestant believes in such fallible teacher - his private judgment or church.

Conclusion

Therefore, the Protestant is free to hear, and in perfect harmony with his principles, to accept the teaching of any one who approaches him for the purpose of instructing him. He is free to hear with a clear conscience, and let his children hear, Catholic teaching, for the Church claiming infallibility is at its worst as good as his private judgment is at best, namely, fallible.

Religious variations are so numerous nowadays that most people care little what another thinks or believes. All they ask is that they may be able to know at any time where he stands; and they insist, as right reason imperiously demands, that, in all things, he remain true to his principles, whatever they be. Honest men respect sincerity and consistency everywhere; they have nothing but contempt for those who stand, now on one foot, now on the other, who have one code for theory and another for practice, who shift their grounds as often as convenience suggests. The Catholic should bear this well in mind. There can be no compromise with principles of truth; to sacrifice them for the sake of convenience is as despicable before man as it is offensive to God.