CONTENTS. XI. Infallibility of the l'opes, XII. Temporal Power of the Popes-How they ac- quired Temporal Power-Validity and Justice of their Title-What the Popes XIV. Is it Lawful to Honor the Blessed Virgin Mary as a Saint; to Invoke her as an PAGE. INTRODUCTION. MY DEAR READER:-Perhaps this is the first time in your life that you have handled a book in which the doctrines of the Catholic Church are expounded by one of her own sons. You have, no doubt, heard and read many things regarding our Church; but has not your information come from teachers justly liable to suspicion? You asked for bread, and they gave you a stone. You asked for fish, and they reached you a serpent. Instead of the bread of truth, they extended to you the serpent of falsehood. Hence, without intending to be unjust, is not your mind biased against us because you listened to false witnesses? This, at least, is the case with thousands of my countrymen whom I have met in the brief course of my missionary career. The Catholic Church is persistently misrepresented by the most powerful vehicles of information. She is attacked in romances of the stamp of Maria Monk; in pictorials, in histories, so-called, like those of Peter Parley. In a large portion of the press, and in pamphlets, and especially in the pulpit, which should be consecrated to truth and charity, she is the victim of the foulest slanders. Upon her fair and heavenly brow her enemies put a hideous mask, and in that guise they exhibit her to the insults and mockery of the public; just as Jesus, her Spouse, was treated when, clothed with a scarlet cloak and crowned with thorns, He was mocked by a thoughtless rabble. They are afraid to tell the truth of her, for "Truth has such a face and such a mien, As to be loved needs only to be seen." I It is not uncommon for a dialogue like the following to take place between a Protestant Minister and a convert to the Catholic Church: MINISTER. You cannot deny that the Roman Catholic Church teaches gross errors,-the worship of images, for instance. CONVERT.-I admit no such charge, for I have been taught no such doctrines. MINISTER.-But the priest who instructed you, did not teach you all. He held back some points which he knew would be objectionable to you. CONVERT.-He withheld nothing; for I am in possession of books treating fully of all Catholic doctrines. MINISTER.-- Deluded soul! Don't you know that in Europe they are taught differently? CONVERT. That cannot be, for, the Church teaches the same creed all over the world, and most of the doctrinal books which I read, were originally published in Europe. Yet ministers who make these slanderous statements are surprised if we feel indignant, and accuse us of being too sensitive. We have been vilified so long, that they think we have no right to complain. We cannot exaggerate the offence of those who thus wilfully malign the Church. There is a commandment which says: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." If it is a sin to bear false testimony against one individual, how can we characterize the crime of those who calumniate two hundred and twenty-five millions of human beings, by attributing to them doctrines and practices which they repudiate and abhor. I do not wonder that the Church is hated by those who learn what she is, from her enemies. It is natural 1 Dryden, Hind and Panther. for an honest man to loathe an institution whose history he believes to be marked by bloodshed, crime, and fraud. Had I been educated as they were, and surrounded by an atmosphere hostile to the Church, perhaps I should be unfortunate enough to be breathing vengeance against her to-day, instead of consecrating my life to her defence. It is not of their hostility that I complain, but because the judgment they have formed of her is based upon the reckless assertions of her enemies, and not upon those of impartial witnesses. Suppose that I wanted to obtain a correct estimate of the Southern people, would it be fair in me to select, as my only sources of information, certain Northern and Eastern periodicals which, during our Civil War, were bitterly opposed to the race and institutions of the South? Those papers have represented you as men who always appeal to the sword and pistol, instead of the law, to vindicate your private grievances. They heaped accusations against you which I will not here repeat. Instead of taking these publications as the basis of an my information, it was my duty to come among you; to live with you; to read your life by studying your public and private character. This I have done, and I here cheerfully bear witness to your many excellent traits of mind and heart. Now I ask you to give to the Catholic Church the same measure of fairness which you reasonably demand! of me when judging of Southern character. Ask not her enemies what she is, for they are blinded by passion; ask not her ungrateful, renegade children, for you never heard a son speaking well of the mother whom he had abandoned and despised. Study her history in the pages of truth. Examine her creed. Read her authorized catechisms and doctrinal books. You will find them everywhere on the shelves of booksellers, in the libraries of her clergy, on the tables of Catholic families, |