Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion [1908]

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-FIRST OBJECTION. PROTESTANTS HAVE THE SAME GOSPEL THAT WE HAVE.

Answer. They have the letter; they have not the spirit.

"Now, the letter killeth," said the apostle St. Paul, "but the spirit giveth life." The letter of Holy Scripture kills the Protestants, as that of the prophecies killed the Jews; because, like the Jews, the Protestants reject the sacred teaching of those whom God sends to explain the letter. The Jews rejected the teaching of Jesus Christ and His apostles, and they are lost; Protestants reject the teaching of the lawful Pastors of the Church, and they are in the way to be lost.

The Church was before the Scripture. The Church is the divine institution founded by Jesus Christ, to preserve, explain, preach, defend, and practically apply Christian revelation, and, consequently, the Holy Scripture, the principal part of that revelation.

It is the Church, and the Church alone, that teaches us infallibly, in the name, and by the authority of Jesus Christ, the divine inspiration of the holy books. It is she alone that distinguishes them in a sovereign manner from the books which were not inspired.

It is she alone that decides the true meaning of obscure or contested passages, by the light of the same Spirit which inspired the books themselves. It is from her, indeed, that Protestants have received those books.

Without the Church, the Bible and the Gospels are nothing but a dead letter, nothing but words. Therefore, the great St. Augustine boldly said, to the heretics of the fourth century, who opposed to him texts of Scripture ill-understood: "I would not believe in the Gospels without the authority of the Catholic Church."*

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-SECOND OBJECTION. AN HONEST MAN OUGHT NOT TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION. WE OUGHT TO REMAIN IN THE RELIGION IN WHICH WE WERE BORN.

Answer. Yes, when we are born in the true religion, which is the Catholic religion.

But when we have not had the happiness of being born a Catholic, and we come to discover the true faith, not only is it permitted, but absolutely necessary, under pain of committing otherwise a great sin, to quit the Protestant sect (or other), in which we were brought up.

This is not apostasy. An apostate is one who abandons truth for error.

To abandon error to return to truth, is to accomplish the will of God; is to perform an act supremely reasonable, legitimate, loyal; is to act according to one's conscience, to fulfil the most sacred of duties.

It is, besides, to perform an act of heroic virtue. For the person who thus becomes converted has nearly always to brave a terrible storm, reproaches, contempt, insult, tears, the supplications of his family, of friends, of all the members of the religion he is about to renounce, and of its ministers above all, wounded by this desertion.

Then should he call to mind those great words of the Saviour: "I am not come to bring peace, but the sword! For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. . . . And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household.

• "He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me.
  
• "And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me.
  
• "And you shall be hated by all men for My name's sake; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved."
  

A celebrated Protestant, Madame de Staël, in a religious discussion, which she had herself provoked on the subject of a change of religion, had recourse to this very trite defence: "I wish to live and die in the religion of my fathers." "And I, Madam, in the religion of my grandfathers," replied her witty adversary. Because, as you know, previous to the sixteenth century, all Christians were Catholics.

All have heard the sensible reason which decided Henry IV., a Protestant, to become a Catholic. He was present at a conference between certain Catholic doctors and Protestant ministers. "Can I be saved in the Catholic Church?" he demanded of the Protestant ministers when the discussion was brought to a close. "Yes, Sire," they answered, "but you will be saved more easily by remaining in the reformed religion."

"And you, gentlemen," said the king to the Catholic doctors, "what is your opinion?" "We think, Sire, and we positively declare to you, that having once known which is the true Church, you are absolutely obliged to enter it, and that salvation is no longer possible for your soul in Protestantism."

"I go, then, for the most sure side," concluded the king, as he rose from his seat; "since all the world agrees that I can be saved as a Catholic, I shall become a Catholic."

And he abjured his errors.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-THIRD OBJECTION. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS HAD ITS DAY.

Answer. Behold nearly two thousand years that she has existed, and nearly as long a time that the same thing has been said of her.

Every age, every impious wretch, every inventor of a sect or heresy, thinks he is at last arrived at that famous day when the Catholic Church is to be buried never to rise again; each of them thinks he is destined to intone the "De Profundis" of the papacy, of the Catholic priesthood, of the mass, and of all the ancient articles of the Church's faith . . . and, nevertheless, the Day comes not.

Thus, in the first century of Christianity, one of the proconsuls of the Emperor Trajan wrote to him, "Before long, thanks to persecution, this sect will be crushed, and we shall hear no more of this God crucified."

And Trajan is dead, and that God crucified reigns ever in the world!

In the same manner, three centuries later, Julian, the apostate, boasted of "preparing the grave of the Galilean," that is, of annihilating His religion and His Church . . .

And Julian is dead, and the Galilean and His Church live still!

So, in the sixteenth century, Luther, that revolutionary monk, who made a religion out of pride and revolt, spoke of the papacy as of a superannuated institution about to perish for ever: "Oh, Pope!" said he, "I was thy torment during my lifetime; after my death I shall prove thy destruction!" . . .

And Luther is dead, and his Protestantism is melting away on all sides! And the papacy remains more living, more flourishing, more venerated than ever!

In like manner, Voltaire, the enemy of Jesus Christ, who signed his letters, "Voltaire, the Christ-mocker," or, "Let us crash the wretch" (that is to say, Jesus Christ and His Church), wrote to one of his friends, "I am weary of hearing that twelve men were sufficient to found the Catholic religion; I want to show the world that one man was sufficient to destroy it." "Twenty years hence," he wrote to another, "the Galilean will have a fine game!"*

And twenty years later, to the very day, Voltaire died in a paroxysm of despair, calling for a priest, whom his friends, the philosophers, would not suffer to approach him.

And the Catholic Church lives still, traversing the ages, crushing in her peaceful passage all those who wish to crush her.

The same fate will attend our grand modern systems, philosophical and social, which modestly assume to be reformations of the religion of Jesus Christ, substitutes for the Catholic Church.

Less formidable than their predecessors, these poor people never suspect their weakness! They imagine they are producing something new, while they only hash up the old theme of the Voltaires, the Calvins, the Luthers, the Ariuses, etc., etc.

Have they forgotten the Saviour's words to the first Pope and to the first bishops: "Go, teach all nations, I will be with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."

Have they forgotten what He said to the chief of the apostles: "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it?"

What God has founded, can they hope to be able to destroy?

No, the Catholic Church has not "had her day;" her day will never come to an end, until the world shall have come to an end.

The Church fears nothing; she knows what is the divine principle of her strength, of her life. And she will consign her present adversaries to the tomb, more surely and speedily than she has done any of their predecessors.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-FOURTH OBJECTION. FOR MY PART, I WANT THE PURE GOSPEL — PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

Answer. And I, too, I wish that, and no other; and I possess it, if I am a good Catholic; and you, too, may possess it on the same conditions.

If you are a good Catholic, you practice the Gospel maxims in all their purity; you have the same Christianity, the same articles of belief, the same religion as the early Christians.

Time has only modified Christianity in some of its external forms; the substance is the same, absolutely the same from the time of its birth.

These modifications, or developments, which cause unreflecting people to believe that present Christianity is different from primitive Christianity, are a part of the very nature of things, and are visible in all the works of God.

For instance, is man a different being from himself at the ages of one year, ten years, thirty years? No; evidently it is the same individual, developing gradually, and acquiring the perfection of his being.

So it is with the works of God in the supernatural order.

The Catholic Church, in the time of the apostles, was in its germ; all her resources, her power, and vitality were not yet thoroughly manifested; but they existed, ready to be developed in ages to come.

The more we study Christian antiquity, the more do we recognize the truth of the above assertion. And it is this conscientious study which has been the means of bringing back to the Catholic religion a vast number of learned men, either Protestants or unbelievers, who found in the monuments of the first three centuries of the Church the striking vestiges, and the very principle of all our Catholic institutions; among others, the spiritual supremacy of the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter; his doctrinal authority, as well as that of the bishops, the apostles' successors; the pomp of divine worship; the sacrifice of the Mass, with all the ceremonies that we observe this day, and of which the greater part may be traced to the actual time of the apostles; the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God; the invocation of the saints, veneration shown to their relics and images; the seven sacraments, among them, auricular confession, etc., etc., etc.

In the catacombs of Rome, particularly in that of St. Agnes, which dates from the middle of the second century, there have been recently discovered whole chapels containing several altars in which the relics of martyrs reposed, with paintings, images of the Blessed Virgin, a pontifical chair, vessels for holy water, confessionals, etc.

The credulity of the world is then greatly imposed on, when it is asserted that true Christianity, that of the early ages, is to be found anywhere but in the belief, and practice of, the Catholic religion.

In all times, Christian and Catholic were synonymous words, and good Catholics of the present day only differ from those of the first centuries by their exterior costume; in faith, in heart, in the good works they perform, they are the same.

All heresies have had the same pretensions as the would-be reformers of society and religion in our days. They repeat what their ancestors, Luther and Calvin, said three and a half centuries ago: "We come to reform Christianity, by bringing it back to its primitive purity. You, the Catholic Church, and you Catholic priests, understand nothing of all this; you have corrupted the truth, the religion, the doctrine of Jesus Christ. We alone possess these things, and bring them before the world! Let all listen to us; then human miseries will be at an end; a new era is about to begin!!" . . .

Let us let them talk, and not believe the first word of what they say.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-FIFTH OBJECTION. I HAVE MY OWN RELIGION. EVERY ONE IS FREE TO PRACTICE HIS RELIGION AS HE UNDERSTANDS IT; IT IS A MATTER THAT CONCERNS ME ONLY, AND I SERVE GOD IN MY OWN WAY.

Answer. And your way, is not to serve God at all, perhaps! That is like persons who mean by "liberty of conscience," "liberty not to have a conscience."

However, every one is not free to serve God after his own fashion, he is obliged to serve God as God wills to be served, and not otherwise.

It "concerns you," undoubtedly, but it concerns some one else besides: and that is the Church, whom God has commanded to teach you how to serve Him. "Go," said He to the first bishops of His Church, "go and teach all nations; teach them to observe all my commandments. He who hears you, hears me, and he that despises you despises me; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."

The Christian religion (or the Catholic, it is the same thing) is the only true religion; we have already seen this;* it is, then, the only real and legitimate service of God.

Every man, therefore,

1. Who does not believe all the Christian truths which the Church teaches, which she has summed up in the Apostles' Creed, and explains in the Catholic catechisms;

2. Who does not fulfill to the best of his ability the ten commandments of God, and the precepts which the pastors of the Church inculcate;

3. Who does not practice the Christian virtues (chastity, humility, meekness, obedience, detachment from worldly things), etc., and shun the contrary vices;

4. And who does not employ the means of salvation which the Church holds out to her children, that is to say, prayer and the sacraments;

Every man, I repeat, who does not serve God thus, does not serve Him really. He offers to God a species of worship which God does not desire; he desires to arrive by a different road from the one he was directed to follow; he has the appearance of religion, but not its reality.

Therefore, you are not free to serve God after your own fashion; above all, you are not at liberty to abstain from serving Him at all.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-SIXTH OBJECTION. PRIESTS ARE MEN LIKE OTHERS; THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS ARE MEN; HOW CAN MEN BE INFALLIBLE? I AM WILLING TO OBEY GOD; BUT NOT MEN LIKE MYSELF.

Answer. That is as if a soldier were to say, "I am willing to obey the king; but I will not obey my general, nor my colonel, nor captain: for they are the king's subjects as much as I am."

Would you have much difficulty in answering him?

Nor have I any in answering you.

The Church, it is true, is composed of men; the Pope, the bishops, and priests are men.

But they are men whom Jesus Christ Himself has clothed with spiritual power and divine authority.

And on this account, they are not men like others.

The apostles, who were the first bishops of the Church, were sent to men by Our Lord Jesus Christ, to be like another Himself. To obey them, was not to obey men, but God, and Jesus Christ. To disobey them, and despise their teaching, was to disobey God, to despise Jesus Christ. "Whosoever despiseth you, despiseth me."

It is not to the man that I submit myself, it is to God, who exercises His authority over me through him.

The sole difference then between the commandments of God and the commandments of the Church, is that the first are directly addressed to us by God, the latter indirectly by His envoys; but it is always God who commands.

Neither is it, properly speaking, the man who is infallible in the Pope, it is Jesus Christ, it is God who clothes him with His truth, so that he may not be able to teach error to Christian nations.*

Therefore, in a matter of religious obedience, we must not take heed to the personal qualities of the Pope, the bishop, or the priest, who administers holy things to us, but only to his legitimate authority, to his character of pope, of bishop, or of priest.

This is why the defects, sometimes even the vices of priests (which, thank God, are rare), should not diminish in our minds the respect, faith, and love due to religion.

These weaknesses are attributable to the man, and not to the priest. They cannot attack the divine, sacerdotal character with which he is invested. Did the crime of Judas stain his ministry?

It is also the reason why the Mass, or the absolution, of a bad priest, are as valid as the Mass, the absolution, of a faithful priest. The consecration takes place by the words of one as much as the other; sins are remitted by both equally, because these actions belong to the priest, not to the man, and the sins of a priest do not take from him the indelible character of the priesthood.

The bad priest is highly culpable; but his sacerdotal character remains always the same; it is, indeed, that of Jesus Christ, which nothing can ever alter or destroy.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-SEVENTH OBJECTION. OUT OF THE PALE OF THE CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION! WHAT INTOLERANCE! I CANNOT ADMIT ANY THING SO CRUEL.

Answer. See what it is that you cannot admit in the sense in which you understand it, namely, Whoever is not a Catholic is damned.

And see, too, how people criticise religion because they do not understand it, and how they make it utter things which are quite contrary to its spirit.

This saying, indeed, understood as the Church teaches, is the most simple of truths, and the most rational. "Out of the pale of the Church there is no salvation;" in other words, out of light there is darkness; out of good there is evil; out of truth there is error; out of life there is death, etc.

Where is, then, the mystery of all this? Where is the difficulty?

"Out of the pale of the Church there is no salvation," simply means, "that we are obliged, under pain of incurring mortal sin, to believe and practice the true religion (which is the Catholic religion), when once it is in our power to do so." That means, that we sin, and consequently lose our souls, if we voluntarily reject truth, when it is shown to us. Is there any thing very extraordinary in this? Any thing to justify the epithets, intolerant, cruel?

A Protestant, or a schismatic person, is not damned simply because he is a Protestant, or because he is schismatic. If he is in good faith in his error, that is, if he has never had the opportunity, from one reason or another, of knowing and embracing the Catholic faith, he is considered by the Church as being one of her children; and if he has lived according to what he has believed to be the true law of God, if he has kept the commandments, he will have the same claim to the joys of heaven as if he were a Catholic.

In other words, the Catholic Church teaches that, whilst no one will be saved on account of Protestantism, it is quite possible for one to be saved in spite of Protestantism.

There are, thank God, a great number of Protestants who have this good faith, and even among their ministers such are to be found. M. de Cheverus, the Bishop of Boston, converted two of these, most learned and pious men; and after their return to the Catholic Church, they declared to the good bishop, that until the moment of their acquaintance with him, they had never entertained any doubts as to the truth of their religion.

Let us not, however, disturb our minds with such questions as the judgment of God on Protestants and infidels. On the one hand, we know that God is good, and He desires the salvation of all, and on the other hand, that He is justice itself. Let us serve Him in the best way we can, and not disquiet ourselves about others.

People usually confound two essentially distinct things; intolerance as regards doctrine, and intolerance as regards persons; and after having confused things together, they affect great indignation, and cry out against the harshness and barbarity of the Church!

If the Church were to teach what people pretend that she teaches, she would, indeed, be harsh and cruel, and it would be no easy matter to cause people to believe in her.

But the case is widely different. The Church is not intolerant, except in a just, true, necessary degree. Full of mercy for individuals, she is only intolerant to doctrines. She imitates God, who detests sin in us, and yet shows mercy to sinners.

Doctrinal intolerance is the essential character of the true religion. The truth, indeed, which it is commissioned to teach, is absolute, is immutable. All must conform to it, it must bend to none. Whoever does not possess it, is deceived. There is no compromise possible with it; you must have it entirely or not at all. Away from it there is nothing but error.

The Catholic Church alone has always preserved this inflexibility in her teaching. It is, perhaps, the most striking proof of her truth, and of the divine mission of her Pastors.

Indulgent toward weakness, she has never been and never will be indulgent toward error. "If any one does not believe what I teach," she says in the rules of faith drawn up by her councils, "let him be anathematized!" that is to say, cut off from the Christian community.

Truth alone speaks with this authority.

Those who accuse the Church of cruelty, with regard to the intolerance they lay to her charge, have, perhaps, never read in Rousseau's "Social Contract" (he was the great apostle of tolerance), this astonishing maxim: "The sovereign may banish from his states all who do not believe the articles of faith of the religion of the country. If any one, after having publicly acknowledged these same dogmas, conducts himself as if he did not believe them, let him be punished with death!" (Book iv. C 8.)

What tolerance!!!

It must be confessed that the Church understands it better than those who accuse her of being wanting in it.