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ADDRESS: BOX J633. G.P.O.
PUBLTHIliD WEEKLY.
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non of the tichdiixese of Perth. 14111111.111111011111r
A CATHOLIC WEEKLY CIRCULATING THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. PRICE THREEPENCE ESTABLISHED 1874, Registered at the G.P.O., Perth, for Transmission by F 3st as a Newspaper.
Vol. LX
PERTH, SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1934
No. 2,805
The Infallible Protestant Mr. Artold Lunn Explain His Conversion A few weeks after I became a Catholic, a learned society • which specialises in religious 'discussion invited me to explain my strange step. My defence took the form of a syllogism. Christ was infallible. The true Church will teach the inf.ti'oility of Christ. No Church but th Catholic Church teaches the infallibilit , of Christ. 'Certainly no Church .but Ilse Catholic Church w ould take di..4i.cplinary action against a communicant who asserted that Christ was mistaken in his belief in (a) e personal Tempter, (le) evil spirits, or i • ) hell. There is no form of defence of Catho. eciem which Protestants dislike more. It is, indeed ,difficult to keep them to this point, and to prevent them from wandering off on to their favourite battle gmtinds--Pettine , . texta,. inquisition and so forth. And for this very reason it is important to insist that the real issue which separates Catholics and, Protestants to-day is not the infallibility of the Pope but the infallibility of Christ. The lefallibility of Christ. It was interesting to see how my audience reacted to this argument. They began, as I fully expected, by a ttacking a literalistic interpretation of the ., 'riptures, but surely even those who would admit that the Evangelists did not report every incident with scientific accuracy, might well shrink from suggesting that the record of the Incarnation would be mirileading on questions which affect our eternal salvation. If Christ was true God and true man, how can we reject His explicit w arnings on the subject of eternal pun. ishment? A layman who was present, an AngloCatholic. maintained that though Christ was infallible, the Evangelists misunderstood and misreported him. The revelation was divine, but its interpretation war. defective and misleading. What, then, was the raison d'etre of the Incarnation? Why should God have become man if those doctrines which God became man to teach were given to the world in a misleading and inaccurate form? Unless we can trust the records of Christ's teaching, it is difficult to understand why Christ should have ta.ught. A divine revelation which is not protected against the changes and chances of human misrepresentation is of very little value. Even if we reject the infallibility of the Church, it is impossible to recesecile .a belief in the Incarnation with the rejection of the inspiration of the Scriptures. An extreme Modernist, a dignitary of the Church of England, took up the tale. Christ, he said, was infallible as God, but fallible as man. He w as true God and true man, and a true man must be a representative specimen of the genus man. Now it is in the nature of man to err, and (Thrist as man was therefore fallible.
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Christ, spoke as follaws. 'Mr. Lunn • does, with belief in the diety of Christ. says that the Church ,)f Rome has alone He replied, "I have no answer to that remained faithful to the teaching of difficulty." Jesus Christ. It may be true that the The first Protestants had at least the church of Rome teaches what Christ courage of their negative convictions. things taught, but it also teaches many When Christ first preached the Euwhich Christ did n teach. You will charistic doctrines, "He that eateth find nothing in the Gospels about the My flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelImmaculate Conception." leth in Me ,and I in him," we are told I asked my friend whether he ac- that many of His disciples were discepted -the doctriee of the two natures edified by this "hard saying." "Prom and the one pers in. "Of course I do," that time many of His disciples went he replied. back ,and walked no more with Him." "But your at•thority for that belief Modern Protestants are less logical. You reject the "This is a hard saying. We will walk is not the Bible. Chiliedi which teaches you that thr no more .with Him," is not practical Blessed Virgin was immaculately con- politics for a rising ecclesiastic. Uniceived. but yctl accept her teaching on tarianism does not appeal to the amthe person and nature of Christ as bitious. So our Modqrnists reply: formulated by the Council of Chalce- "This is a foolish saying. We will don." contnue to walk with Christ in order A heretic is, of course, by definition that we may protect ilhu from the a man whr) makes a selection from fooli<li disciples who encourage Him in he how critic t. Moderni. asked my contrived to pump up any enthusiasm the corpus of Catholic doctrine. Our such ,:elusions. elern Protestants not only consider for this remote Galilean, the record The Real Modernist, themselves free to accept the softer of Whose life end saying was vitiated The real Modernism of t.--day is a by so many miraculous happenings sayings of Christ and to reject the which he rejected. To ti s he replied, hard, but also to compile their own an- movement which. in St. Augustine's "Because Christianity giv me a uni- thologies of coneelar decrees. I have great. phrase, is tainquam antiqua, never yet discovered any attempt to tamquam nova, a rnoverre nt ef return quely satisfying experience Much of the Same, defenr I pointed provide an objective criterion for such to Christ.. And those wh, I have been our, is often advanced for kiultery by a selection. Indeed, the logical conse- swept by this modern movement into quence of this process is to transfer the Church have rejected the spurious earnest disciples of the prop. ts of the infallibility from Christ and His Modernism because they suspect a reNew Morality. Church to the individual. Protestant. ligion which accepts the easy and "How can you." .1 continu • 'begin Each Protestant must decide by his which rejects the hard sayings of Christ. , of their to convert them from the own infallible inner light whether Such eclectic creeds bear the imprint of exways, excepting by appealing le an views were right or wrong on a their all too human manufacture. Alone Christ's ternal, objective moral code, wbose ex- partieular point. among the rival Christianities, the true istence must be proved, not by the Christianity remains true to the -min. appeal to a uniquely satisfying eeperi"Hard Sayings" Up To pate. of Christ. Alone among the C. -hut-et ence, but by the appeal to reascn" the Catholic Church iusi,:ts that tilt A s we left the meeting I asked my friend ,a very devout Christian, how he hard sayings are an integral part of The Infallible Protestant. A )_:reat friend of ti ine who wa:, pre- coAd possibly reconcile the fact that Christ's message. Catholics .are often puzzled by th. sent. a firm believer in the deify of he rejects eternal punishment, as he inability of Protestants to follow thi simple argument. But no man can t f orced to follow where he is disinrli .ed to go. Certainly I have never be' more impressed by the rapidity wi. which Protestants banish inconveni( arguments from their minds than the occasion of this particular deb: Marist Brothers' Superior General Gets High Dignity My Protestant friend who dec!a that he was unable to reconcile his post. his quitted had who one of place Marist the of The Superior-General lief in the deity of Christ with hi' Brothers has had conferred on him just lie was many times threatened with jection of the doctrine 9f hell. calm remained ,but shooting by death recently by the French Government the me up two 'days later. high dignity of Chevalier -of the Legion and undisturbed, preserving a proud "I'm going to preach on the a' of Honour. The official statement ha3 and fearless attitude in the face of the tion of Rome." be said. it that the award, is made "in recogni. enemy." , "What. precisely do You hold • tion of more than 50 years of devotedThe news of this fresh honour con- this Roman attraction-?" I ate ness and self-abnegation." ferred on our beloved Superior-General "Oh. authority and uniformit, By this award the French Govern- has naturally given great joy and deep great traditions." tnent has completed the act of public satisfaction to the Brothers: and at "Yes, Yes, but surely you're recognition already made some years the 'mother house at Grugliasco, near say something about the ua Z ago, when in its 'Journal Officiel" it Turk. where he resides, he has been tion of Rome, the fact AS:, Pthe recipient of innumerable messages, tholic Church alone Imo rental published the following passage: IT ,and telegrams, and congratula- to the mind of Christ." lette the draw te desires Government "The all parts of the world. trom tions "Oh. I know your line on th TYthe attention of the French nation to tion." my friend replied imply splendid conduct of Brother Diogene, We also that the inhabitants of "but realty you can't expect rt ef the Order of the Marist Brothers at Beatichamps (Department du Nord). Beauca ps have determined once again into all that." T di I fear not. Or Brother Diogene has merited the high- to testi - by public action their grateest admiration of all for his intrepid ful app -iation of the noble and intre- pect my friend isr any °there firmness towards the Gerrnat*.at Beale pid 13r° or, who rendered them such ant to "go into that" an& Pretest/mt. camps, where he acted as Mayor in signal set-ices in their time of need.
The Modernist Reply. I invited isny Modernist friend tee suggest a criterion for discrimleating between the truths which Che t revealed as Gtei, and the eriors Vv.hich he propagated as man. 1 gaeeiered from his reply that Christ woke as God when he agreed with eeishop Barnes, and as man who he. agreed with the Pope. Modernism derives what little vitality it possesses( from the dogmas which it rejects. .No Modeinist could possibly focus.. his religious life on tne :nemory eff a Jew, who performed no miracle's, who never rose from the dead, who gave no evidence whatever for Ilis divine claim ,and who was wrong on many important points, had not the predecessors of those Modernists believed the Jew in question to be God.
Honoured by French Government
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