No lecturer can be expected to deal with the claims of the Church, in the way that he would wish, by means of a few offhand words in reply to a question. Suppose, for example, that I submit a statement like the following: “I am convinced that the Catholic Church was made by God for all men, on account, among other things, of that eminent holiness so characteristic of her.”
This statement is, in fact, a true one, but it calls for detailed study and examination; otherwise, no one could be expected to see from these words that they contain the seeds, not only of truth, but of convincing truth. As a beginning, I think we shall agree, without difficulty, in regard to the meaning of the term “holiness” itself. It may be defined as an application of all that a man is, and all that concerns him, to God. Anything less than this would clearly have to be called by some less striking name, whilst nothing greater is conceivable. . . .
Now by the very nature of the case, the unique holiness of Catholic doctrine must be the first consideration in a study of this kind. It is vitally necessary for man’s moral progress that definite stars should be set above and before him in order that he may guide his course through life. But in order that those stars should remain fixed and unalterable, a Divine Law of Authority is no less essential.
Father Vernon Johnson, the well known convert clergyman, tells us what happened to him when he first read The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. He says that he was thoroughly absorbed by the work and impressed beyond measure. But this was not all, for it set up in his mind a very deep and growing concern. What he had read was not just the memoirs of a saintly girl, but a real epic of an heroic struggle along an uphill road towards sanctity. He believed that he had found an order of holiness far higher than anything to be met with outside the bounds of the Catholic Church, and he was very anxious to know the reason why. As a result of prolonged thought he decided that what really made the difference was this same question of Authority. And it is a fact that doubt and indecision hold up a man’s spiritual progress like great snowdrifts burying the roads. If there is no certainty in his mind in regard to faith and morals, then there is either indifference or a state of civil war within him. If, on the other hand, a strong and accepted voice of authority has enabled him to “settle down” within himself, then he is in a far happier position to wage war against his spiritual opponents. . . .
Now, having glanced at the high moral significance of the doctrines of the Church, and at the means whereby they are leavened into the affairs of men, it remains to consider the results in the lives of individuals. No doubt all my readers have heard something of the process of the canonization of a saint. They have perhaps noticed the rising enthusiasm all over the Catholic world, the generous publicity in the Catholic press, and perhaps even the excitement among the advocates of the cause, when some man or woman of the past has been “raised to the altar.” It is certainly an unusual sort of thing, as publicity, generally speaking, springs from very different causes. We are familiar with the unstinted glory surrounding the inventor, the explorer, and the sportsman. We also know the less healthy notoriety surging around the film star’s divorce, and the universal attention given to murder and crime generally. But here we have a worldwide stir and acclamation brought about by an official declaration to the effect that some individual of a past generation displayed, during his lifetime, real heroism in the cause of sanctity, and the shouting and the tumult is no less. . . .
There are two main objections, however, to the theme we have followed so far, and these we might now consider. The first is, briefly: good people outside the Church; and the second: bad people inside it. There are comparatively few arguments against the Catholic case which do not fall under one of these heads.
Now the existence of great and good lives beyond the Catholic border is a fact which no one on the inside would wish to dispute. This being so, how can we claim holiness as an exclusive mark of the Catholic Church?
The reply is that the comparison between the exceptionally good lives of non-Catholics and Catholics is like the relationship between isolated trickling streams and the main broad flow of the river: a river as long as the Christian era and nearly as broad as the world. There can be no attempt to do justice to it here, for it is the study of a lifetime. But any man settling down to the detailed consideration of that gloriously mixed yet thoroughly united procession, winding its vast and shining way in and out of age after age, cannot but appreciate the unique nature of the Catholic position in this regard.
Further, it is undoubtedly true that the Church has made the profoundest impression upon individual lives outside her own fold, her doctrines having spread far wider than her visible unity. She has flung down upon the table of the world the treasures of the faith, and many a bright gem has rolled away to illumine some dark corner that has never known her authority. In other words, many a man has become her heir who would never acknowledge himself as her son.
The second objection for consideration is the fact that the lives of us Catholics as a whole fall sadly short of the doctrines we hold, and in some cases, even among the highly-placed and in the Chair of Peter itself, sometimes quite scandalously short. And these blots upon the altar-cloth appear to some to be quite destructive of the Catholic claim.
And yet I suggest that the objection does not, in reality, touch the argument. It is a fact that the Church can raise man to a state of holiness. But she does not raise him in the same way as a crane lifts a load of timber bodily into the air. By means of her doctrine and divine grace, communicated through her sacraments and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, she supports and strengthens him so that he can climb upon his own two feet to heights that he would otherwise find inaccessible. And when a man does not climb far, or when he falls right back, it is not the fault of the Church.
Why? Because, in all the range of Catholic doctrine and practice, there is not the remotest encouragement to sin of any kind. I find that the weird impression still persists among non-Catholics that a Catholic can, by confession, get his sins forgiven in advance, thus providing him with a sort of talisman by means of which he can embrace the powers of hell without harm; this notion, however, is entirely foreign to Catholics themselves, save as a source of amusement. Where a Catholic fails it is due to his lack of cooperation, in a greater or lesser degree, with the means offered to him. Cooperation is essential to the case, because, as we have seen, individuals can only be raised like living men by the Church, and not swung into the air like merchandise. And that great ocean of saints which has flooded twenty centuries of history shows unmistakably what this cooperation can bring about.
I think we may now sum up as follows: Catholic doctrine gives a higher encouragement and a warmer welcome to holiness of life than is possible to any other system of thought. The discipline and guidance of that Church are backed by the wisdom of the ages and the experience of a world-embracing society. The results include a great concourse of people in succeeding generations whose lives have startled the world with the heroism of their sanctity.