The Faith of Our Fathers
Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the
Church Founded by Our Lord
Jesus Christ
By
James Cardinal Gibbons
Archbishop of Baltimore
Ninety-third Carefully Revised and Enlarged Edition
John Murphy Company
Publishers
Baltimore, MD. New York
R. & T. Washbourne, Ltd.
10 Paternoster Row, London, and at Manchester.
Birmingham and Glasgow
1917
CONTENTS
Preface To The Eleventh Edition.
Preface To The Forty-Seventh Edition.
Preface.
Preface To Eighty-Third Revised Edition.
Introduction.
Chapter I. The Blessed Trinity, The Incarnation, Etc.
Chapter II. The Unity Of The Church.
Chapter III. The Holiness Of The Church.
Chapter IV. Catholicity.
Chapter V. Apostolicity.
Chapter VI. Perpetuity Of The Church.
Chapter VII. Infallible Authority Of The Church.
Chapter VIII. The Church And The Bible.
Chapter IX. The Primacy Of Peter.
Chapter X. The Supremacy Of The Popes.
Chapter XI. Infallibility Of The Popes.
Chapter XII. Temporal Power Of The Popes.
I. How The Popes Acquired Temporal Power.
II. The Validity And Justice Of Their Title.
III. What The Popes Have Done For Rome.
Chapter XIII. The Invocation Of Saints.
Chapter XIV. The Blessed Virgin Mary.
I. Is It Lawful To Honor Her?
II. Is It Lawful To Invoke Her?
III. Is It Lawful To Imitate Her As A Model?
Chapter XV. Sacred Images.
Chapter XVI. Purgatory And Prayers For The Dead.
Chapter XVII. Civil And Religious Liberty.
Chapter XVIII. Charges of Religious Persecution.
I. The Spanish Inquisition.
II. What About The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew?
III. Mary, Queen of England.
Chapter XIX. Grace—The Sacraments—Original Sin—Baptism—Its Necessity—Its
Effects—Manner Of Baptizing.
Chapter XX. The Sacrament Of Confirmation.
Chapter XXI. The Holy Eucharist.
Chapter XXII. Communion Under One Kind.
Chapter XXIII. The Sacrifice Of The Mass.
Chapter XXIV. The Use Of Religious Ceremonies Dictated By Right Reason.
Chapter XXV. Ceremonials Of The Mass.
Chapter XXVI. The Sacrament Of Penance.
I. The Divine Institution Of The Sacrament Of Penance.
II. On The Relative Morality Of Catholic And Protestant Countries.
Chapter XXVII. Indulgences.
Chapter XXVIII. Extreme Unction.
Chapter XXIX. The Priesthood.
Chapter XXX. Celibacy Of The Clergy.
Chapter XXXI. Matrimony.
Index.
Footnotes
DEDICATION.
_Affectionately Dedicated_
To The
Clergy and Laity
Of The
Archdiocese And Province Of Baltimore.
PREFACE TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION.
The first edition of “The Faith of Our Fathers” was issued in December,
1876. From that time to the present fifty thousand copies of the work have
been disposed of in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland,
and in the British Colonies of Oceanica.
This gratifying result has surpassed the author’s most sanguine
expectations, and is a consoling evidence that the investigation of
religious truths is not wholly neglected even in this iron age, so
engrossed by material considerations.
Besides carefully revising the book, the author has profited by the kind
suggestion of some friends, and inserted a chapter on the prerogatives and
sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which, it is hoped, will be not less
acceptable to his readers than the other portions of the work.
He is also happy to announce that German editions have been published both
in this country and in Germany.
He takes this occasion to return his hearty thanks to the editors of the
Catholic periodicals, as well as of the secular press, for their favorable
notices, which have no doubt contributed much to the large circulation of
the book.
BALTIMORE,
_Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas_, 1879.
PREFACE TO THE FORTY-SEVENTH EDITION.
It is very gratifying to the author to note the large increase in the sale
of “The Faith of Our Fathers.” Apart from personal considerations, it is
pleasing to know that the popular interest in the Catholic Church and
whatever pertains to her doctrines and discipline, is growing more
widespread and earnest.
Since 1879, when the eleventh revised edition was given to the public,
there have been thirty-five editions, and the number of copies sold
reaches nearly a quarter of a million.
This desire to understand the teachings of the Church of our Fathers is
not confined to our own country. It is manifest in other lands, as shown
by the translations that have been made of this exposition of Catholic
belief into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish.
In the hope that they will add to the usefulness of the book, several
passages upon doctrinal subjects have been inserted.
With these few remarks, the forty-seventh edition of “The Faith of Our
Fathers” is presented to the sincere and earnest seeker after religious
truth by
THE AUTHOR
_Feast of St. Anselm_, 1895.
PREFACE.
The object of this little volume is to present in a plain and practical
form an exposition and vindication of the principal tenets of the Catholic
Church. It was thought sufficient to devote but a brief space to such
Catholic doctrines and practices as are happily admitted by Protestants,
while those that are controverted by them are more elaborately elucidated.
The work was compiled by the author during the uncertain hours which he
could spare from the more active duties of the ministry. It substantially
embodies the instructions and discourses delivered by him before mixed
congregations in Virginia and North Carolina.
He has often felt that the salutary influence of such instructions,
especially on the occasion of a mission in the rural districts, would be
much augmented if they were supplemented by books or tracts circulated
among the people, and which could be read and pondered at leisure.
As his chief aim has been to bring home the truths of the Catholic faith
to our separated brethren, who generally accept the Scripture as the only
source of authority in religious matters, he has endeavored to fortify his
statements by abundant reference to the sacred text. He has thought
proper, however, to add frequent quotations from the early Fathers, whose
testimony, at least as witnesses of the faith of their times, must be
accepted even by those who call in question their personal authority.
Though the writer has sought to be exact in all his assertions, an
occasional inaccuracy may have inadvertently crept in. Any emendations
which the venerated Prelates or Clergy may deign to propose will be
gratefully attended to in a subsequent edition.
RICHMOND, _November_ 21st, 1876.
PREFACE TO EIGHTY-THIRD REVISED EDITION.
The new edition of “The Faith of Our Fathers” has been carefully revised,
and enriched with several pages of important matter.
It is gratifying to note that since the first edition appeared, in 1876,
up to the present time, fourteen hundred thousand copies have been
published, and the circulation of the book is constantly increasing.
The work has also been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe.
BALTIMORE,
_May_ 1st, 1917.
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 assailed in romances of the stamp of Maria Monk, and in pictorial
papers. It is true that the falsehood of those illustrated periodicals has
been fully exposed. But the antidote often comes too late to counteract
the poison. I have seen a picture representing Columbus trying to
demonstrate the practicability of his design to discover a new Continent
before certain monks who are shaking their fists and gnashing their teeth
at him. It matters not to the artist that Columbus could probably never
have undertaken his voyage and discovery, as the explorer himself avows,
were it not for the benevolent zeal of the monks, Antonio de Marchena and
Juan Perez, and other ecclesiastics, as well as for the munificence of
Queen Isabella and the Spanish Court.
The Church is misrepresented in so-called Histories like Foxe’s Book of
Martyrs. It is true that he has been successfully refuted by Lingard and
Gairdner. But, how many have read the fictitious narratives of Foxe, who
have never perused a page of Lingard or Gairdner? 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.”(1)
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 offense 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 three hundred 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 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 today, 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 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.
There is no Freemasonry in the Catholic Church; she has no secrets to keep
back. She has not one set of doctrines for Bishops and Priests, and
another for the laity. She has not one creed for the initiated and another
for outsiders. Everything in the Catholic Church is open and above board.
She has the same doctrines for all—for the Pope and the peasant.
Should not I be better qualified to present to you the Church’s creed than
the unfriendly witnesses whom I have mentioned?
I have imbibed her doctrine with my mother’s milk. I have made her history
and theology the study of my life. What motive can I have in misleading
you? Not temporal reward, since I seek not your money, but your soul, for
which Jesus Christ died. I could not hope for an eternal reward by
deceiving you, for I would thereby purchase for myself eternal
condemnation by gaining proselytes at the expense of truth.
This, friendly reader, is my only motive. I feel in the depth of my heart
that, in possessing Catholic faith, I hold a treasure compared with which
all things earthly are but dross. Instead of wishing to bury this treasure
in my breast, I long to share it with you, especially as I lose no part of
my spiritual riches by communicating them to others.
It is to me a duty and a labor of love to speak the truth concerning my
venerable Mother, so much maligned in our days. Were a tithe of the
accusations which are brought against her true, I would not be attached to
her ministry, nor even to her communion, for a single day. I know these
charges to be false. The longer I know her, the more I admire and venerate
her. Every day she develops before me new spiritual charms.
Ah! my dear friend, if you saw her as her children see her, she would no
longer appear to you as typified by the woman of Babylon. She would be
revealed to you, “Bright as the sun, fair as the moon;” with the beauty of
Heaven stamped upon her brow, glorious “as an army in battle array.” You
would love her, you would cling to her and embrace her. With her children,
you would rise up in reverence “and call her blessed.”
Consider what you lose and what you gain in embracing the Catholic
religion.
Your loss is nothing in comparison with your gain. You do not surrender
your manhood or your dignity or independence or reasoning powers. You give
up none of those revealed truths which you may possess already. The only
restraint imposed upon you is the restraint of the Gospel, and to this you
will not reasonably object.
You gain everything that is worth having. You acquire a full and connected
knowledge of God’s revelation. You get possession of the whole truth as it
is in Jesus. You no longer see it in fragments, but reflected before you
in all its beauty, as in a polished mirror. While others are outside
criticising the architecture of the temple, you are inside worshiping the
divine Architect and saying devoutly with the Psalmist: “I have loved O
Lord, the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”
While others from without find in the stained-glass windows only blurred
and confused figures without symmetry or attraction or meaning, you from
within, are gazing with silent rapture on God’s glorified saints, with
their outlines clearly defined on the windows, and all illuminated with
the sunlight of heaven. Your knowledge of the truth is not only complete
and harmonious, but it becomes fixed and steady. You exchange opinion for
certainty. You are no longer “tossed about by every wind of doctrine,” but
you are firmly grounded on the rock of truth. Then you enjoy that profound
peace which springs from the conscious possession of the truth.
In coming to the Church, you are not entering a strange place, but you are
returning to your Father’s home. The house and furniture may look odd to
you, but it is just the same as your forefathers left it three hundred
years ago. In coming back to the Church, you worship where your fathers
worshiped before you, you kneel before the altar at which they knelt, you
receive the Sacraments which they received, and respect the authority of
the clergy whom they venerated. You come back like the Prodigal Son to the
home of your father and mother. The garment of joy is placed upon you, the
banquet of love is set before you, and you receive the kiss of peace as a
pledge of your filiation and adoption. One hearty embrace of your tender
Mother will compensate you for all the sacrifices you may have made, and
you will exclaim with the penitent Augustine: “Too late have I known thee,
O Beauty, ever ancient and ever new, too late have I loved thee.” Should
the perusal of this book bring one soul to the knowledge of the Church, my
labor will be amply rewarded.
Remember that nothing is so essential as the salvation of your immortal
soul, “for what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”(2) Let
not, therefore, the fear of offending friends and relatives, the
persecution of men, the loss of earthly possessions, nor any other
temporal calamity, deter you from investigating and embracing the true
religion. “For our present tribulation, which is momentary and light,
worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”(3)
May God give you light to see the truth, and, having seen it, may He give
you courage and strength to follow it!
Chapter I.
THE BLESSED TRINITY, THE INCARNATION, ETC.
The Catholic Church teaches that there is but one God, who is infinite in
knowledge, in power, in goodness, and in every other perfection; who
created all things by His omnipotence, and governs them by His Providence.
In this one God there are three distinct Persons,—the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, who are perfectly equal to each other.
We believe that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is
perfect God and perfect Man. He is God, for He “is over all things, God
blessed forever.”(4) “He is God of the substance of the Father, begotten
before time; and He is Man of the substance of His Mother, born in
time.”(5) Out of love for us, and in order to rescue us from the miseries
entailed upon us by the disobedience of our first parents, the Divine Word
descended from heaven, and became Man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, by
the operation of the Holy Ghost. He was born on Christmas day, in a stable
at Bethlehem.
After having led a life of obscurity for about thirty years, chiefly at
Nazareth, He commenced His public career. He associated with Him a number
of men who are named Apostles, whom He instructed in the doctrines of the
religion which He established.
For three years He went about doing good, giving sight to the blind,
hearing to the deaf, healing all kinds of diseases, raising the dead to
life, and preaching throughout Judea the new Gospel of peace.(6)
On Good Friday He was crucified on Mount Calvary, and thus purchased for
us redemption by His death. Hence Jesus exclusively bears the titles of
_Savior_ and _Redeemer_, because “there is no other name under heaven
given to men whereby we must be saved.”(7) “He was wounded for our
iniquities; He was bruised for our sins, ... and by His bruises we are
healed.”(8)
We are commanded by Jesus, suffering and dying for us, to imitate Him by
the crucifixion of our flesh, and by acts of daily mortification. “If
anyone,” He says, “will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross daily and follow Me.”(9)
Hence we abstain from the use of flesh meat on Friday—the day consecrated
to our Savior’s sufferings—not because the eating of flesh meat is sinful
in itself, but as an act of salutary mortification. Loving children would
be prompted by filial tenderness to commemorate the anniversary of their
father’s death rather by prayer and fasting than by feasting. Even so we
abstain on Fridays from flesh meat that we may in a small measure testify
our practical sympathy for our dear Lord by the mortification of our body,
endeavoring, like St. Paul, “to bear about in our body the mortification
of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our
bodies.”(10)
The Cross is held in the highest reverence by Catholics, because it was
the instrument of our Savior’s crucifixion. It surmounts our churches and
adorns our sanctuaries. We venerate it as the emblem of our salvation.
“Far be it from me,” says the Apostle, “to glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ.”(11) We do not, of course, attach any intrinsic virtue
to the Cross; this would be sinful and idolatrous. Our veneration is
referred to Him who died upon it.
It is also a very ancient and pious practice for the faithful to make on
their person the sign of the Cross, saying at the same time: “In the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Tertullian, who
lived in the second century of the Christian era, says: “In all our
actions, when we come in or go out, when we dress, when we wash, at our
meals, before retiring to sleep, ... we form on our foreheads the sign of
the cross. These practices are not commanded by a formal law of Scripture;
but tradition teaches them, custom confirms them, faith observes
them.”(12) By the sign of the cross we make a profession of our faith in
the Trinity and the Incarnation, and perform a most salutary act of
religion.
We believe that on Easter Sunday Jesus Christ manifested His divine power
by raising Himself to life, and that having spent forty days on earth,
after His resurrection, instructing His disciples, He ascended to heaven
from the Mount of Olives.
On the Feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, ten days after His Ascension,
our Savior sent, as He had promised, His Holy Spirit to His disciples,
while they were assembled together in prayer. The Holy Ghost purified
their hearts from sin, and imparted to them a full knowledge of those
doctrines of salvation which they were instructed to preach. On the same
Feast of Pentecost the Apostles commenced their sublime mission, from
which day, accordingly, we date the active life of the Catholic Church.
Our Redeemer gave the most ample authority to the Apostles to teach in His
name; commanding them to “preach the Gospel to every creature,”(13) and
directing all, under the most severe penalties, to hear and obey them: “He
that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me. And
He that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.”(14)
And lest we should be mistaken in distinguishing between the true Church
and false sects, which our Lord predicted would arise, He was pleased to
stamp upon His Church certain shining marks, by which every sincere
inquirer could easily recognize her as His only Spouse. The principal
marks or characteristics of the true Church are, her Unity, Sanctity,
Catholicity, and Apostolicity,(15) to which may be added the Infallibility
of her teaching and the Perpetuity of her existence.
I shall treat successively of these marks.