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CHURCH OF THE
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
PARADISE.
FRANCISCAN MONASTERY
ABBOTSTOWN, PA.
A Summary of Catholic Belief
All Catholics believe:
1. That there is one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; that God, by His Word only, and out of nothing, created heaven and earth and all things; that angels and men are the chief creatures of God; that some of the angels sinned and were punished; that Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, disobeyed the command of God, and were punished by the loss of justice and incoence, and by sickness and death; that this deprivation of justice is original sin, and that all men are born with this defect or sin; that through the merits of her divine Son, and because she was to be His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved free from this original sin, which privilege is called her Immaculate Conception.
2. Catholics believe that God, the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, by the power of the Holy Ghost, assumed human nature of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is called the God-man, Jesus Christ; that for this reason the Blessed Virgin Mary, although a creature, is called the Mother of God, and is deserving of a very special, but not divine, honor—divine honor being paid to God alone.
3. Catholics believe that Jesus Christ, by His suffering and death, redeemed men and obtained for them grace, or supernatural health, whereby tacy may be saved; that the chief channels of grace are the seven sacraments, all of which were instituted by Christ, viz.: Baptism, in which original sin, and actual sins committed before it is received, are forgiven; Confirmation, which makes the baptized strong and perfect Christians; Holy Eucharist, which is the sacrament of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, really present under the appearances of bread and wine; Penance, in which sins are forgiven which are committed after Baptism; Extreme Unction, which is for the health and comfort of those in danger of death by sickness; Holy Orders, by which bishops, priests and other ministers of the Church are ordained and receive the power and grace to perform their sacred duties; Matrimony, which unites a Christian man and woman in lawful marriage, and gives them grace to live happily together.
4. Catholics likewise believe that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, instituted a Church or society, and that to certain ones, i. e., the priesthood, in this Church, He intrusted the administration of the sacraments and the teaching of His doctrine divinely revealed; that the divinely appointed visible head of the Church, the Pope of Rome, is by the aid of the Holy Ghost, and must be, infallible, i. e., he cannot err, when officially teaching the whole Church a doctrine regarding faith or morals. Thus their belief does not imply that the Pope cannot sin, or make a mistake in other matters, as some non-Catholics have been led to suppose.
5. Catholics also believe that it is the will of God that all should belong to the Church; and that he who knows where the
true Church is and willfully remains out of it, cannot be saved. Such a person willfully disobeys God and refuses, the divine assistance necessary for salvation. Reasons of convenience, of prejudice or of human respect God will not accept, nor will a sincere and intelligent man offer them. While believing this in regard to the Church they are not to be the judges of their fellow-men in regard to salvation, which finally depends upon interior dispositions known only to God.
6. Catholics also believe that, as Jesus Christ is God, He can do all things; and, particularly, that He can forgive sins, and that He can change the substance of bread and wine into the substance of His body and blood. They believe, moreover, that He can appoint men to do the same things in His name and by His power. They firmly believe that, as a matter of fact, He has given this power to certain men, viz.: to the priesthood of the Church; and they prove this from Scripture and Tradition.
7. Catholics believe that a man must be truly sorry for his sins, otherwise they will not be remitted, even though absolution be pronounced; and they repudiate as an insult the charge that money, or any consideration, is received by priests for the forgiveness of sins.
8. According to the Catholic doctrine, an Indulgence is a remission, in whole or in part, of the temporal punishment due to sin. It is not a pardon of sin, nor a license to commit sin; and one who is in mortal sin cannot gain an Indulgence.
9. Catholics believe that matrimony is a sacrament; and that it cannot be dissolved by any court, but only by the death of either husband or wife. The Church forbids the marriage of Catholics with persons who have a different religion or no religion at all because such marriages generally prove unhappy. They commonly lead to contention or to indifference; often to loss of faith, and the religious education of the children is almost sure to be neglected. The removal of this prohibition is called a Dispensation.
10. Catholics maintain that we are bound to believe the revelations of God and to keep His commandments. They believe in heaven, a state in which the good are rewarded eternally; they believe in hell, a state in which the wicked are condemned eternally; they believe in purgatory, a state in which those suffer for a time who die guilty of venial sins, or without having satisfied the temporal punishment due to their sins; they believe in a general resurrection of the dead, followed by a general judgment, after which purgatory will cease, and the souls of the just, reunited to their bodies, will be rewarded forever; the souls of the wicked, also reunited to their bodies, will be punished forever. They, therefore, believe that the salvation of their soul is the most important affair of life.
11. Catholics maintain that all the doctrines of the Church, of which the above is a synopsis, are contained in the revelation of God; that this revelation is found in both the unwritten and the written word of God, or in Traditions and Scripture; that
Tradition finds its infallible expression in the Teaching Church; that both parts of God's word are of equal value in so far as they transmit the divine revelation; Scripture, because it contains, and is, the word of God inspired by the Holy Ghost; Tradition, because it is preserved from error by the assistance of the Holy Ghost. While, therefore, the members of the Catholic Church revere and use the Bible, still they believe that the Scriptures alone do not contain the whole word of God. They maintain, moreover, that the proximate rule of faith given by God, and accessible to every one, is the teaching of the living Church; or the whole word of God, both written and unwritten, as taught and explained by this Church all along since the days of the Apostles.
12. As teaching and commanding by divine authority, the Catholic Church is opposed to those secret societies in which religion is travested and belief in its supernatural quality destroyed or endangered, or in which conspiracies against civil and ecclesiastical authority are conceived or assisted directly or indirectly. She forbids her members joining them.
13. The Church believes in the religious education of children; and hence, in the United States, because circumstances are such that religion is not taught in the public schools, she has private and parochial schools, where both secular and religious instruction are given. She does not oppose the public schools; but, on the contrary, willingly acknowledges their opportuneness for the instruction of children whose parents are not of the Catholic faith.
14. That temperance in all things is a cardinal virtue is a part of Catholic doctrine. H