The Faith of Our Fathers

olic

tholic, or Universal, signifies that the true Church is not circumscribed in its extent, like human empires, nor confined to one race of people, like th

kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall have dominion over the nations."56 The Prophet Malachy saw in the distant future this world-wide Church, when he wrote: "From the rising of the sun, to the going d

each. Unlike the religion of the Jewish people, which was national, or that of the Mohammedans, which is local, the Catholic religion was to be cosmopolitan, embracing all nations and all countries. This is evident from the following passages

o meet with Christian civilization everywhere, and to see the nations of the world bound so closely together by social and commercial relations. But we must remember that when they

th and their words unto the ends of the whole world."61 Within thirty years after our Savior's Crucifixion the Apostle of the Gentiles was able to say to the Romans: "I give thanks

ist, that there was no race of men, whether Barbarians or Greeks, or any other

as uniform as if the Church consisted of one family, possessing one soul, one heart, and as if she had but one mouth. For, though the languages of the world are dissimilar, her doctrine is the same. The churches founded in Germany, in the Celtic nations, in the East i

illed your cities, towns, islands, your council halls and camps ..

osophy remained in Greece, but has been poured out over the whole world, persuading Greeks and Barbarians alike, race by

f Jesus Christ, though to adhere to that law is to incur the hatred of idolaters and the risk of death besides to have embraced that Word; and considering how, in so few years, in spite of the attack made on us, even to the loss of life or proper

found in any, or in all, of the combined commu

itle because they are confined within the Turkish and Russi

itorial extent, to have any pretensions to the title of Catholic. All the Protestant denominations are estimated at sixty-five million, or less than one-fifth of those who bear

nine-tenths of the law. We have exclusively borne this glorious appellation in troubled [pg 033] times, when the assumption of this venerable title exposed us to insult, persecution and death; and to attempt to dep

calm, dispassionate mind, of whatever faith, all the world, over, knows us only by the name of Catholic. There is

tant Episcopalians. If they think that they have any just claim to the name of Catholic, why not come out openly and write it on the title-pages of their Bibles and Prayer-Books? Afra

the Catholic Church they would instinctively

ies, as St. Augustine tells us, used to attem

o by all her enemies. [pg 034] Whether they will it or not the very heretics themselves and followers of schism, when they converse, not with their own but with outsiders, c

s to the title of Catholic. Take the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, opened in 1869 and presided over by Pope Pius IX. Of the thousand Bishops and upwards now comprising the hier

tic and the Pacific. They were gathered together from different parts of Africa and Oceanica. They went from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of the human race, and from the banks of the Jordan, the cradle of Christianit

color that distinguished the human family. They spoke every civilized language under the sun. Kneeling together in the same great Council-Hall, truly could those

century in the old world she has more than regained by the immense access

sent moment, when her children amount to about three hundred millions, or doub

every clime, and in every nation under the sun, are erected thousands of Catholi

wherever the British drum-beat sounds, aye, and wherever the English language is spoken, there you will find the English-s

sis in the desert. Once more they were at home. They found one familiar spot in a strange land. They stood in the church of their fathers, in the home of their childhood; and they seemed to say in their hearts, as a tear trickled down their sun-burnt cheeks, "How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God."69 They saw around them the paintings of familiar Saints

, form but a weak and counterfeit bond of union compared with the [p

of Catholic, because her children abound in every part of th

eir intrinsic worth. It is no credit to us to belong to the body of the Church Catholic if we are not united to the soul of the Church by a life of faith, hope and charity. It

Lord, is more precious in His sight than the mass of humanity tha

to Jehovah than all the inhabit

lmighty than the four hundred prophets

rusalem after our Lord's ascension, were more esteemed by Him than the g

e visible body of the Catholic Church, whose spiritual treasures are inexhausti

g