Post by homeschooldad on Mar 14, 2023 6:12:34 GMT
Are Protestants Catholics?
By Very Rev. R. O. Kennedy
And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring; and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be made one fold and one shepherd. -- St. John. x, 16.
Are Protestants Catholics? Do we and can we pray for them while living; can we and do we pray for them while dead? To answer these three questions - and I purpose to do so as simply and as untechnically as I can, - it will be necessary to consider: I. What the kingdom of Jesus Christ is. II. What gives admission to it. III. What cuts off connection with it. IV. What about prayers for dead Protestants? It will be pardoned me if I say that my one and sole object is to obtain prayers for persons, nominally or otherwise, outside the Church.
Of all the things on this earth, nothing, assuredly, can be compared to the kingdom of' Jesus Christ. An angel ought to know it, and his declaration was: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy." And from this we have the word Gospel, - that is, good spell, or joy. It is, too, but what might be expected; for if Jesus Christ be the Divine Son of God, and be omnipotent, then He could do what He liked for His kingdom, and enrich it with whatsoever natural or supernatural graces He wished. It could be, I think, well imagined that a pagan or a person outside the Church, who knew nothing of the divine riches of it, might exclaim: "Man's eye never saw and man's ear never heard and man's heart never conceived such things."
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is full of spiritual goods, just as the ocean is full of water. Wherever a person belonging to it puts his hand, there he finds riches. And as the Old Testament was but a type of the New, so it might be said that wonderful and even beyond conception as are the riches of this temporal or militant kingdom of Jesus Christ, they are, in a sense, but little more than types of the wonderful kingdom, the triumphant one, that He has in store for us beyond the skies.
But we shall not belong to Him hereafter if we do not belong to Him here. We shall not enter into that heavenly kingdom of His unless we belong to the earthly one first. He has put us on earth before putting us in heaven; and the virgins that slept and did not accompany the bridegroom before he entered his palace, knocked at the door when he had entered, but heard from within: "Amen, I say to you, I know you not."
Now, the entrance to this land "flowing with milk and honey" is through the river Jordan, - that is, by baptism. "In the days of Noah, when the Ark was a-building, in which a few - that is, eight souls - were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also." Upon which St. Jerome observes: "The Ark of Noah was a type of the Church, as Peter the Apostle says: `In the days of Noah, when the Ark was a-building, in which a few - that is, eight souls - were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also.' As in it were species of all the animals, so in this are men of all nations and morals; and as there were in that the leopards and the goats, the wolf and the lamb, so in this the just and sinners alike.''
"Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he can not enter into the kingdom of God." By baptism, therefore, is entrance to be had to this kingdom. And as the Promised Land, with all its riches, was divided among the sons of Jacob, and each sat in peace and plenty beneath his own vine, so at the entrance into this kingdom each one receives spiritual gifts. First of all, the great and paramount virtues of faith, hope and charity are infused into the soul, together with the immediate indwelling of the Holy Ghost. At the same time there is given the right to receive, in due order, of all the riches of Jesus Christ in that kingdom of His.
"Theologians commonly distinguish two classes of spiritual goods - public and private. The former are those which come to the faithful through the action and intervention of the Church, such as the reception and administration of the sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, etc. The latter are those which come directly from God, as sanctifying grace, the theological and moral virtues; or those which come to individuals through the communion of saints."
It is a matter on which all are agreed that baptism, by whomsoever administered, if administered with the proper conditions, is valid; that is, in plain and simple language, if a person is baptized by a Jew, it is as good as if the person were baptized by a saint, provided the baptism is administered as a rite of the Church. Therefore a person, no matter by whom baptized, becomes a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ as soon as he is baptized. "For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free."
The Council of Florence says: "Holy baptism holds the first place among all the sacraments, since it is the gate of the spiritual life; for through it are we made members of Christ and of the body of the Church." The Council of Trent observes: "Into it [the Church] by the gate of baptism has each one entered."
Now, the Protestant baptism, when properly administered, is, as we have seen, just as good and as valid as the Catholic baptism; and, equally with it, leads into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. There is no question of that. Our Blessed Lord was so good as to ordain that baptism, no matter by whom given, admitted the baptized person into His kingdom. The little Protestant children, then, rightly baptized are in the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and if they happen to die go straightway to heaven; inasmuch as they belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ here on earth, and have of themselves done no sin to exclude them from the kingdom beyond the skies. But when these children grow up, how fares it with them? Now, God has not two scales: one for Catholics and the other for Protestants. God judges justly.
Let us take the case of a child born of Catholic parents. It grows up, acquires the use of reason, and then can, unfortunately, offend God; and, let us say, can or does commit grave sin. Does that person, therefore, cease to be a Catholic and to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ? No.
Let us now take the case of a child born of Protestant parents. The child has been baptized, comes to the use of reason, and sins; does that child cease to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ? Would the Catholic child? No; neither would the Protestant; for as yet there is no more reason for the Protestant than the Catholic child. God has only one standard.
It is interesting to see what, in the first place, comes to each of these children, without any labor or toil on the part of either, provided only that they are in the state of grace. (a) Every Mass that is said makes a memento, or remembrance, of them; and the priest at the Mass could not even exclude them from it. (b) They have a share in all the sacraments administered, in all the good works done by the Church, and in all the acts of worship, adoration, and prayers offered by the individual members, unless these acts of worship or prayers are definitely offered for an exclusive and special intention. (c) They have all the communications of grace that flow from the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost on the individual members of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, as well as the intercession of angels and saints and of suffering souls in purgatory. All along it is supposed that the Protestant person wishes truly to be a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth, and so to behave and demean himself. When mortal sin comes on the soul, all these are of use only to help the soul to regain the friendship of God.
When will the child, Protestant or Catholic, cease to belong to the Church, or kingdom of Jesus Christ?
Jesus Christ spoke a parable. I will put that parable before you, and you will then give the answer yourself. The parable is found in the tenth chapter of St. John. Our Lord there likens His kingdom, or Church, to a fold of sheep under one shepherd. And the porter opens the door to the shepherd; and when the shepherd has let out his sheep, the sheep follow him.
Now, that is the parable; it is one we all can picture to ourselves and understand. When would a sheep of that flock be said not to belong to it? We know it would not cease belonging to it even when it strayed away; for we remember that elsewhere Our Lord says that the shepherd left the ninety nine and went after the one that was lost, and brought it home on His shoulders. That sheep never ceased to belong to the flock.
But let us suppose, on the other hand, that when the shepherd went in search of the one that was lost, the lost sheep should refuse to return to the flock with him; or that it went willfully with the "thief or the robber, knowing that he was not the true shepherd"; or if it were for awhile with the thief or the robber, but believed all the time that it was with the true shepherd; and then when it knew it was not with the true shepherd, refused to return to the true shepherd; in all these cases the sheep most assuredly would cease to belong to the fold.
Thus, while a person thinks honestly that he is doing right, and believes with certainty that he is in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and is so settled in his mind that if he knew he did not belong to the true fold would at once try to find it out; so long the person is without sin or guile, and so long he is a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and anything else would be, if we might venture to say it, unfair on the part of God. "If you were blind [i.e., not seeing your error], you should not have sin," says our Blessed Lord. "But now you say: We see. Your sin remain-eth."
The sheep, then, manifestly ceases to belong to the flock when it refuses to hear the voice of the shepherd; and only when it refuses to do so. "And the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep by name. . . . And the sheep follow him, because they know his voice."
A baptized person ceases to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ as soon as he refuses to obey the voice of the Shepherd, at the same time knowing well that it is not the voice of the thief or the robber, but of the true Shepherd. This is what Our Lord says: "If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican."
In connection with this parable of the sheepfold we read a very interesting passage in the St. John's Gospel: "When, therefore, they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him: Feed My sheep."
This, too, is what the eminent convert, Cardinal Manning, has written: "In proportion as we possess sufficient evidence to know the truth, God will require of us to give an account of that truth at the last day. We must give an account both of what we have known and what we have not known, and the reason why we have not known that which we might have known."
Dr. Murray, the greatest writer perhaps on the Church, and most "touchy" where the interests or boundaries of Jesus Christ's kingdom are concerned, speaks as follows: "The opinion which is by far the commonest holds that occult heretics, and not alone internal but even external ones, are members of the Church, though dead members."
And then the Doctor asks a question which is plainly to our purpose: "Are the children of heretics, when validly baptized, members of the Church?" and answers it thus: "It is a certain dogma that these are united to the soul of the Church. And to me it is plain that they are united even to the body of the Church." He goes on to say that they become members of the Church by baptism, and continue to be members at least until they have received the use of reason. Now, I call attention to what follows:
"But after they have come to that age in which they are capable of committing the sin of heresy or schism, and that they are in invincible ignorance [i.e., as Our Lord put it, "if you were blind you should not have sin"], and continue in that ignorance, and therefore are but heretics or schismatics materially [i.e., without knowing it], it may be disputed whether they are to be counted among the members of the Church. For the negative side it may be said that there exists no bond of union between them and the Church; for the affirmative side, that, as they became true members of the Church by baptism, they can not be separated from it without a formal breach of the communion." And Dr. Murray adds: "I can not possibly see how they are not to be considered members of the Church."
I take this opinion to be the explanation of a fact told in the Life of Cardinal Manning: that he received numbers into the Church, and that hundreds of these were without grievous sin, - had, in other words, preserved their baptismal innocence. These must all along have been in what Dr. Murray calls invincible ignorance; for if they knew that they were not in the fold of Jesus Christ and did not immediately try to find it out, then they were guilty of sin; and if that knowledge or doubt was serious, and the inaction on their part to settle the doubt serious, then assuredly they could not be without serious sin.
Upon no other grounds that I can see could I explain the custom that I understand prevails in Germany. A person who was a Protestant but wishes now to become and live ever more a Catholic, walks straightway, like any ordinary Catholic, into the Catholic confessional, accuses himself of his sins, and receives absolution from the priest sitting there.
With us, in these countries, it is usual to through a formal reception of a person who was nominally not a Catholic, and obtain permission from the bishop to do so. A priest, on account of the order of his superiors, would not be free to neglect it; but an occasion of urgency might arise when he would not be bound to observe the formality. For instance, if a non Catholic fell suddenly ill and was in danger of death, I do not see how a priest could refuse to anoint that person. I should feel myself bound in charity to do everything for him in order to secure his salvation; and one of the things, unless he insisted it, would be to anoint him.
Then, if the life of any of these fatuous converts be read - the Life of Cardinal Manning, or the "Apologia" of Cardinal Newman, - it can be seen how invincibly ignorant these great and learned men were of the claims of the Church upon them until almost the hour of their conversion; and it is one of the elementary things in the doctrine of sin that sin to be sin must be willful; and nothing is willful, or desired by the will, which is not known beforehand.
So, until the voice of the shepherd is not listened to, and will not be listened to, the sheep is of the sheepfold. And to have this sin of revolt take place there must be a double, or twofold, transgression: 1. The voice must be heard and disobeyed. 2. The voice must be known to be the voice of the shepherd. And even then another condition is required: there must be a full knowledge that the shepherd has a right to obedience.
Thus, seriously and willfully revolting, and with the intention of never more obeying the voice; knowing well that it is the voice of the shepherd and not the voice of "the robber or the thief," and recognizing duly that the shepherd has a claim to be obeyed, - these are the elements of a sin of heresy; and these are the conditions that must precede a severance of communion between the Church and a baptized person, whether that person grow up in a Catholic or a non Catholic atmosphere.
At the same time, what a difference between the two while they are growing up! One is "filled with good things," the other hungering in the sight of these good things and "going away empty." It would take an entire dissertation on the sacraments left by our Lord Jesus Christ, on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and on all the religious practices and exercises of a devout Catholic, to point out the difference.
What about prayers for the dead?
Between these two the member who is known by all the world to belong to the Church, and the member who is known not to belong to her, the Church, or kingdom of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as it is a commonwealth that can be seen by all, makes a difference, and must make a difference, in its external relations toward them.
Many persons have read "Night and Morning," by Bulwer Lytton. They will remember that one of the two brothers married privately, and had children born to him; that his friends knew he had this wife (or "woman," as they called her) and had children, but would not recognize her or them. In chapter four the following dialogue occurs between the two brothers:
`You have seen Catherine,' said Philip; 'but you do not know half her good qualities. She would grace any station; and, besides, she nursed me so carefully last year when I broke my collar bone in that cursed steeple chase.'
`I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton's excellence, and I honor your motives. Still, when you talk of her gracing any station, you must not forget that she will be no more received as Mrs. Beaufort than she is now as Mrs. Morton.'
`I tell you, Robert, that I am really married to her already; that she would never have left her home but on that condition; that we were married the very day we met after her flight.'
"Robert's thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity."
Better than these suspicious relatives the Church acts. Outwardly, she will not recognize non-Catholics for her children, because non-Catholics will not recognize her for a mother. Outwardly, she will, as it were, have nothing to do with them; she will even prevent and forbid her ministers in their public and external offices to consider them as her children. But internally - oh, internally! - she calls out with her crucified Lord, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" She acknowledges them as her children and gives them the milk of her bosom. Thus does the Church act with the living; thus too does she act with the dead.
She knows well that if a person is baptized, that person at once and thereby becomes a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ here; and every member here is, ipso facto, a member of the kingdom of the next world, unless he does something meanwhile to put him out of the friendship of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign of that kingdom, - that is to say, unless he commits a grave sin. But if he should die while that breach of friendship exists - "where the tree falls, there it shall lie."
Again, God has not two sets of scales: one for the Catholic and one for the non-Catholic. At the end of the term it is the same for both. If grave sin, of whatsoever kind or against whatsoever virtue, is found on the soul, there has been a rupture of God's friendship; and the King of kings admits only His friends into His kingdom in the next life.
In her public ministrations here, the Church makes a distinction, and for the reason already stated. A non-Catholic goes out of the world and does not acknowledge the Catholic Church for his mother. In the eyes of the world, in her public offices, and in the order she conveys to her priests when administering the public and external duties and rites of her worship, she has to make no acknowledgment of that person as a child of hers. Privately, however, she not only allows but encourages every remembrance and word and work for this soul, that knew not what it did.
Let us hear Dr. Murray again. In the sixth chapter of the "Compendium" he has this proposition: "For persons willingly outside the Church when they depart this life, there is no salvation."
Here the great professor of Maynooth guards his thesis by the word willingly. That is a theological term, and bears more in its meaning than the ordinary reader may see. It might be permitted us to say that non-theological readers must be ever on their guard when they read theological works. Willingly here means more than with one's will or consent: it includes a knowledge of the Church, a knowledge of the person's obligation to belong to the Church, and (then comes the willingly) it acquiesces in its position of disobedience to the Church. That, as we have seen, amounts to a grave sin; and if a person dies in grave sin - that is, at enmity with God, -- "where the tree falls," etc.
So does Dr. Murray argue, farther on in the same section: "The force of the argument is completed by all those texts, wherein a grave obligation is disclosed of subjecting one's self to the Church as soon as the knowledge of the Church has been sufficiently proposed to him, and wherein also it is declared to be a grave sin not to obey it, - `He that receiveth you, receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.' `And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.' `He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me. And he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.' From these texts it is plain that it is a very grave sin to resist the Church and not to obey her."
Let us pray for one another. "This is My command," says our Blessed Lord, "that you love one another." "We are bound by the divine law of fraternal charity toward Protestants," again says Dr. Murray. "Most earnestly does the Church desire that we pray for them, that they may come to the knowledge of the truth and to eternal salvation; and, by enabling us frequently and piously to obtain almost innumerable indulgences, it manifests its anxiety to attract and entice us to this highest act of fraternal charity."
In the life of the great Jewish convert, Hermann Cohen, we read that his mother died a Jewess. "And the death of my poor mother leaves my heart one great wound," he wrote. "I remain in uncertainty; but she has been so prayed for we must hope that in those final hours there passed between God and her soul something of which we know not."
"Yes, you must hope!" exhorted the Venerable Curé of Ars shortly after, in speaking to him of his affliction. And, with the spirit of prophecy which often abode within his words, he added: "You will one day receive, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a letter which will give you great comfort."
Eight years later, December 8, 1861, there was remitted to Hermann a letter from an invalid nun, now deceased in the odor of sanctity, and author of many books noted for their exalted piety. In this letter she related how one morning, after communicating, it was miraculously revealed to her that, through the renewed supplications of His own Mother, Our Lord had illumined the departing soul of Hermann's mother with a ray of rehabilitating grace; and, animated with the desire for baptism, with contrition for past sins, and with the will to become a Catholic were life prolonged to her, she had murmured with her dying breath: "O Jesus, God of the Christians, Lord whom my son adores, I believe, I hope in Thee!"
The Ave Maria
A Magazine Devoted to the Honor of the Blessed Virgin
+ Henceforth All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed +
VOL. XLVIII. NOTRE DAME, INDIANA JANUARY 21, 1899 NO. 3
[Published every Saturday. Copyright: Rev. D.E. Hudson, C.S.C.]
By Very Rev. R. O. Kennedy
And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring; and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be made one fold and one shepherd. -- St. John. x, 16.
Are Protestants Catholics? Do we and can we pray for them while living; can we and do we pray for them while dead? To answer these three questions - and I purpose to do so as simply and as untechnically as I can, - it will be necessary to consider: I. What the kingdom of Jesus Christ is. II. What gives admission to it. III. What cuts off connection with it. IV. What about prayers for dead Protestants? It will be pardoned me if I say that my one and sole object is to obtain prayers for persons, nominally or otherwise, outside the Church.
Of all the things on this earth, nothing, assuredly, can be compared to the kingdom of' Jesus Christ. An angel ought to know it, and his declaration was: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy." And from this we have the word Gospel, - that is, good spell, or joy. It is, too, but what might be expected; for if Jesus Christ be the Divine Son of God, and be omnipotent, then He could do what He liked for His kingdom, and enrich it with whatsoever natural or supernatural graces He wished. It could be, I think, well imagined that a pagan or a person outside the Church, who knew nothing of the divine riches of it, might exclaim: "Man's eye never saw and man's ear never heard and man's heart never conceived such things."
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is full of spiritual goods, just as the ocean is full of water. Wherever a person belonging to it puts his hand, there he finds riches. And as the Old Testament was but a type of the New, so it might be said that wonderful and even beyond conception as are the riches of this temporal or militant kingdom of Jesus Christ, they are, in a sense, but little more than types of the wonderful kingdom, the triumphant one, that He has in store for us beyond the skies.
But we shall not belong to Him hereafter if we do not belong to Him here. We shall not enter into that heavenly kingdom of His unless we belong to the earthly one first. He has put us on earth before putting us in heaven; and the virgins that slept and did not accompany the bridegroom before he entered his palace, knocked at the door when he had entered, but heard from within: "Amen, I say to you, I know you not."
Now, the entrance to this land "flowing with milk and honey" is through the river Jordan, - that is, by baptism. "In the days of Noah, when the Ark was a-building, in which a few - that is, eight souls - were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also." Upon which St. Jerome observes: "The Ark of Noah was a type of the Church, as Peter the Apostle says: `In the days of Noah, when the Ark was a-building, in which a few - that is, eight souls - were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also.' As in it were species of all the animals, so in this are men of all nations and morals; and as there were in that the leopards and the goats, the wolf and the lamb, so in this the just and sinners alike.''
"Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he can not enter into the kingdom of God." By baptism, therefore, is entrance to be had to this kingdom. And as the Promised Land, with all its riches, was divided among the sons of Jacob, and each sat in peace and plenty beneath his own vine, so at the entrance into this kingdom each one receives spiritual gifts. First of all, the great and paramount virtues of faith, hope and charity are infused into the soul, together with the immediate indwelling of the Holy Ghost. At the same time there is given the right to receive, in due order, of all the riches of Jesus Christ in that kingdom of His.
"Theologians commonly distinguish two classes of spiritual goods - public and private. The former are those which come to the faithful through the action and intervention of the Church, such as the reception and administration of the sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, etc. The latter are those which come directly from God, as sanctifying grace, the theological and moral virtues; or those which come to individuals through the communion of saints."
It is a matter on which all are agreed that baptism, by whomsoever administered, if administered with the proper conditions, is valid; that is, in plain and simple language, if a person is baptized by a Jew, it is as good as if the person were baptized by a saint, provided the baptism is administered as a rite of the Church. Therefore a person, no matter by whom baptized, becomes a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ as soon as he is baptized. "For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free."
The Council of Florence says: "Holy baptism holds the first place among all the sacraments, since it is the gate of the spiritual life; for through it are we made members of Christ and of the body of the Church." The Council of Trent observes: "Into it [the Church] by the gate of baptism has each one entered."
Now, the Protestant baptism, when properly administered, is, as we have seen, just as good and as valid as the Catholic baptism; and, equally with it, leads into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. There is no question of that. Our Blessed Lord was so good as to ordain that baptism, no matter by whom given, admitted the baptized person into His kingdom. The little Protestant children, then, rightly baptized are in the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and if they happen to die go straightway to heaven; inasmuch as they belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ here on earth, and have of themselves done no sin to exclude them from the kingdom beyond the skies. But when these children grow up, how fares it with them? Now, God has not two scales: one for Catholics and the other for Protestants. God judges justly.
Let us take the case of a child born of Catholic parents. It grows up, acquires the use of reason, and then can, unfortunately, offend God; and, let us say, can or does commit grave sin. Does that person, therefore, cease to be a Catholic and to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ? No.
Let us now take the case of a child born of Protestant parents. The child has been baptized, comes to the use of reason, and sins; does that child cease to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ? Would the Catholic child? No; neither would the Protestant; for as yet there is no more reason for the Protestant than the Catholic child. God has only one standard.
It is interesting to see what, in the first place, comes to each of these children, without any labor or toil on the part of either, provided only that they are in the state of grace. (a) Every Mass that is said makes a memento, or remembrance, of them; and the priest at the Mass could not even exclude them from it. (b) They have a share in all the sacraments administered, in all the good works done by the Church, and in all the acts of worship, adoration, and prayers offered by the individual members, unless these acts of worship or prayers are definitely offered for an exclusive and special intention. (c) They have all the communications of grace that flow from the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost on the individual members of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, as well as the intercession of angels and saints and of suffering souls in purgatory. All along it is supposed that the Protestant person wishes truly to be a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth, and so to behave and demean himself. When mortal sin comes on the soul, all these are of use only to help the soul to regain the friendship of God.
When will the child, Protestant or Catholic, cease to belong to the Church, or kingdom of Jesus Christ?
Jesus Christ spoke a parable. I will put that parable before you, and you will then give the answer yourself. The parable is found in the tenth chapter of St. John. Our Lord there likens His kingdom, or Church, to a fold of sheep under one shepherd. And the porter opens the door to the shepherd; and when the shepherd has let out his sheep, the sheep follow him.
Now, that is the parable; it is one we all can picture to ourselves and understand. When would a sheep of that flock be said not to belong to it? We know it would not cease belonging to it even when it strayed away; for we remember that elsewhere Our Lord says that the shepherd left the ninety nine and went after the one that was lost, and brought it home on His shoulders. That sheep never ceased to belong to the flock.
But let us suppose, on the other hand, that when the shepherd went in search of the one that was lost, the lost sheep should refuse to return to the flock with him; or that it went willfully with the "thief or the robber, knowing that he was not the true shepherd"; or if it were for awhile with the thief or the robber, but believed all the time that it was with the true shepherd; and then when it knew it was not with the true shepherd, refused to return to the true shepherd; in all these cases the sheep most assuredly would cease to belong to the fold.
Thus, while a person thinks honestly that he is doing right, and believes with certainty that he is in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and is so settled in his mind that if he knew he did not belong to the true fold would at once try to find it out; so long the person is without sin or guile, and so long he is a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and anything else would be, if we might venture to say it, unfair on the part of God. "If you were blind [i.e., not seeing your error], you should not have sin," says our Blessed Lord. "But now you say: We see. Your sin remain-eth."
The sheep, then, manifestly ceases to belong to the flock when it refuses to hear the voice of the shepherd; and only when it refuses to do so. "And the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep by name. . . . And the sheep follow him, because they know his voice."
A baptized person ceases to belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ as soon as he refuses to obey the voice of the Shepherd, at the same time knowing well that it is not the voice of the thief or the robber, but of the true Shepherd. This is what Our Lord says: "If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican."
In connection with this parable of the sheepfold we read a very interesting passage in the St. John's Gospel: "When, therefore, they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him: Feed My sheep."
This, too, is what the eminent convert, Cardinal Manning, has written: "In proportion as we possess sufficient evidence to know the truth, God will require of us to give an account of that truth at the last day. We must give an account both of what we have known and what we have not known, and the reason why we have not known that which we might have known."
Dr. Murray, the greatest writer perhaps on the Church, and most "touchy" where the interests or boundaries of Jesus Christ's kingdom are concerned, speaks as follows: "The opinion which is by far the commonest holds that occult heretics, and not alone internal but even external ones, are members of the Church, though dead members."
And then the Doctor asks a question which is plainly to our purpose: "Are the children of heretics, when validly baptized, members of the Church?" and answers it thus: "It is a certain dogma that these are united to the soul of the Church. And to me it is plain that they are united even to the body of the Church." He goes on to say that they become members of the Church by baptism, and continue to be members at least until they have received the use of reason. Now, I call attention to what follows:
"But after they have come to that age in which they are capable of committing the sin of heresy or schism, and that they are in invincible ignorance [i.e., as Our Lord put it, "if you were blind you should not have sin"], and continue in that ignorance, and therefore are but heretics or schismatics materially [i.e., without knowing it], it may be disputed whether they are to be counted among the members of the Church. For the negative side it may be said that there exists no bond of union between them and the Church; for the affirmative side, that, as they became true members of the Church by baptism, they can not be separated from it without a formal breach of the communion." And Dr. Murray adds: "I can not possibly see how they are not to be considered members of the Church."
I take this opinion to be the explanation of a fact told in the Life of Cardinal Manning: that he received numbers into the Church, and that hundreds of these were without grievous sin, - had, in other words, preserved their baptismal innocence. These must all along have been in what Dr. Murray calls invincible ignorance; for if they knew that they were not in the fold of Jesus Christ and did not immediately try to find it out, then they were guilty of sin; and if that knowledge or doubt was serious, and the inaction on their part to settle the doubt serious, then assuredly they could not be without serious sin.
Upon no other grounds that I can see could I explain the custom that I understand prevails in Germany. A person who was a Protestant but wishes now to become and live ever more a Catholic, walks straightway, like any ordinary Catholic, into the Catholic confessional, accuses himself of his sins, and receives absolution from the priest sitting there.
With us, in these countries, it is usual to through a formal reception of a person who was nominally not a Catholic, and obtain permission from the bishop to do so. A priest, on account of the order of his superiors, would not be free to neglect it; but an occasion of urgency might arise when he would not be bound to observe the formality. For instance, if a non Catholic fell suddenly ill and was in danger of death, I do not see how a priest could refuse to anoint that person. I should feel myself bound in charity to do everything for him in order to secure his salvation; and one of the things, unless he insisted it, would be to anoint him.
Then, if the life of any of these fatuous converts be read - the Life of Cardinal Manning, or the "Apologia" of Cardinal Newman, - it can be seen how invincibly ignorant these great and learned men were of the claims of the Church upon them until almost the hour of their conversion; and it is one of the elementary things in the doctrine of sin that sin to be sin must be willful; and nothing is willful, or desired by the will, which is not known beforehand.
So, until the voice of the shepherd is not listened to, and will not be listened to, the sheep is of the sheepfold. And to have this sin of revolt take place there must be a double, or twofold, transgression: 1. The voice must be heard and disobeyed. 2. The voice must be known to be the voice of the shepherd. And even then another condition is required: there must be a full knowledge that the shepherd has a right to obedience.
Thus, seriously and willfully revolting, and with the intention of never more obeying the voice; knowing well that it is the voice of the shepherd and not the voice of "the robber or the thief," and recognizing duly that the shepherd has a claim to be obeyed, - these are the elements of a sin of heresy; and these are the conditions that must precede a severance of communion between the Church and a baptized person, whether that person grow up in a Catholic or a non Catholic atmosphere.
At the same time, what a difference between the two while they are growing up! One is "filled with good things," the other hungering in the sight of these good things and "going away empty." It would take an entire dissertation on the sacraments left by our Lord Jesus Christ, on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and on all the religious practices and exercises of a devout Catholic, to point out the difference.
What about prayers for the dead?
Between these two the member who is known by all the world to belong to the Church, and the member who is known not to belong to her, the Church, or kingdom of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as it is a commonwealth that can be seen by all, makes a difference, and must make a difference, in its external relations toward them.
Many persons have read "Night and Morning," by Bulwer Lytton. They will remember that one of the two brothers married privately, and had children born to him; that his friends knew he had this wife (or "woman," as they called her) and had children, but would not recognize her or them. In chapter four the following dialogue occurs between the two brothers:
`You have seen Catherine,' said Philip; 'but you do not know half her good qualities. She would grace any station; and, besides, she nursed me so carefully last year when I broke my collar bone in that cursed steeple chase.'
`I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton's excellence, and I honor your motives. Still, when you talk of her gracing any station, you must not forget that she will be no more received as Mrs. Beaufort than she is now as Mrs. Morton.'
`I tell you, Robert, that I am really married to her already; that she would never have left her home but on that condition; that we were married the very day we met after her flight.'
"Robert's thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity."
Better than these suspicious relatives the Church acts. Outwardly, she will not recognize non-Catholics for her children, because non-Catholics will not recognize her for a mother. Outwardly, she will, as it were, have nothing to do with them; she will even prevent and forbid her ministers in their public and external offices to consider them as her children. But internally - oh, internally! - she calls out with her crucified Lord, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" She acknowledges them as her children and gives them the milk of her bosom. Thus does the Church act with the living; thus too does she act with the dead.
She knows well that if a person is baptized, that person at once and thereby becomes a member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ here; and every member here is, ipso facto, a member of the kingdom of the next world, unless he does something meanwhile to put him out of the friendship of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign of that kingdom, - that is to say, unless he commits a grave sin. But if he should die while that breach of friendship exists - "where the tree falls, there it shall lie."
Again, God has not two sets of scales: one for the Catholic and one for the non-Catholic. At the end of the term it is the same for both. If grave sin, of whatsoever kind or against whatsoever virtue, is found on the soul, there has been a rupture of God's friendship; and the King of kings admits only His friends into His kingdom in the next life.
In her public ministrations here, the Church makes a distinction, and for the reason already stated. A non-Catholic goes out of the world and does not acknowledge the Catholic Church for his mother. In the eyes of the world, in her public offices, and in the order she conveys to her priests when administering the public and external duties and rites of her worship, she has to make no acknowledgment of that person as a child of hers. Privately, however, she not only allows but encourages every remembrance and word and work for this soul, that knew not what it did.
Let us hear Dr. Murray again. In the sixth chapter of the "Compendium" he has this proposition: "For persons willingly outside the Church when they depart this life, there is no salvation."
Here the great professor of Maynooth guards his thesis by the word willingly. That is a theological term, and bears more in its meaning than the ordinary reader may see. It might be permitted us to say that non-theological readers must be ever on their guard when they read theological works. Willingly here means more than with one's will or consent: it includes a knowledge of the Church, a knowledge of the person's obligation to belong to the Church, and (then comes the willingly) it acquiesces in its position of disobedience to the Church. That, as we have seen, amounts to a grave sin; and if a person dies in grave sin - that is, at enmity with God, -- "where the tree falls," etc.
So does Dr. Murray argue, farther on in the same section: "The force of the argument is completed by all those texts, wherein a grave obligation is disclosed of subjecting one's self to the Church as soon as the knowledge of the Church has been sufficiently proposed to him, and wherein also it is declared to be a grave sin not to obey it, - `He that receiveth you, receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.' `And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.' `He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me. And he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.' From these texts it is plain that it is a very grave sin to resist the Church and not to obey her."
Let us pray for one another. "This is My command," says our Blessed Lord, "that you love one another." "We are bound by the divine law of fraternal charity toward Protestants," again says Dr. Murray. "Most earnestly does the Church desire that we pray for them, that they may come to the knowledge of the truth and to eternal salvation; and, by enabling us frequently and piously to obtain almost innumerable indulgences, it manifests its anxiety to attract and entice us to this highest act of fraternal charity."
In the life of the great Jewish convert, Hermann Cohen, we read that his mother died a Jewess. "And the death of my poor mother leaves my heart one great wound," he wrote. "I remain in uncertainty; but she has been so prayed for we must hope that in those final hours there passed between God and her soul something of which we know not."
"Yes, you must hope!" exhorted the Venerable Curé of Ars shortly after, in speaking to him of his affliction. And, with the spirit of prophecy which often abode within his words, he added: "You will one day receive, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a letter which will give you great comfort."
Eight years later, December 8, 1861, there was remitted to Hermann a letter from an invalid nun, now deceased in the odor of sanctity, and author of many books noted for their exalted piety. In this letter she related how one morning, after communicating, it was miraculously revealed to her that, through the renewed supplications of His own Mother, Our Lord had illumined the departing soul of Hermann's mother with a ray of rehabilitating grace; and, animated with the desire for baptism, with contrition for past sins, and with the will to become a Catholic were life prolonged to her, she had murmured with her dying breath: "O Jesus, God of the Christians, Lord whom my son adores, I believe, I hope in Thee!"
The Ave Maria
A Magazine Devoted to the Honor of the Blessed Virgin
+ Henceforth All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed +
VOL. XLVIII. NOTRE DAME, INDIANA JANUARY 21, 1899 NO. 3
[Published every Saturday. Copyright: Rev. D.E. Hudson, C.S.C.]
