A Tribute to the Catholic Church

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 18, 7 May 1908, Page 12

A Tribute to the Catholic Church

Rev. Thomas Barney Thompson, speaking recently in the Plymouth Congregational Church, Chicago, referred to ttue Catholic Church as ' the most splendM institution the world has ever seen.' ' Governments,' he continued, in a tribute to the Church, ' have arisen and gone toi the graive of the nations since her advent. Peoples of every tongue have worshipped at her altars. ' The Catholic Church has stood solid x for law and order. When she speaks legislators, statesmen, politicians, and governments stop to listen, often to obey. the realm of worship her ministry has been of the highest. In employing beads, statues, pictures, and music she has made a wise and intelligent use of symbolism. Her use of the best in. music and painting has been the greatest single inspiration to those arts, and her ca/thedrals are the shrines of all pilgrims. " The love and veneration of the Virgin Mary plays an important part in the ritual of the Church. I find no difficulty fin appreciating the attitude of the Catholic worshipper toward the Mother of Jesus. Jesus is the love <n God made manifest. But Christ Himself has often been made so austere and so unapproachable that a mediator between Him and man has become an insistent necessity. " What is " more natural than to worship Him through the gracious influence of" the Mother ? & '/Aside from thfis, ome cajnnot 'foelp b|ut feel that the enthronement of the Virgin Mary has softened the heart of the world toward womanhood ; that if has done much to give woman the "-place of honor she ' occupies to-day ; that it has put the whole Catholic ->. •*Whiurch behind the sanctity of the home. In the respect given to Mary the Roman Church has paid the world's finest and most delicate compliment to the grace, sweetness, and beauty of motherhood. 1 Nor do I discover any difficulty in understanding the basis of the confessional. The confessional ♦ appears in life. The erring child confesses to hts mother ; the patient confesses to his physician ; the accused confesses to his lawyer ; the penitent confesses to his priest. It is most natural for the penitent, burdened, doubting soul, to confide"% his spiritual leader. • Protestan-tism has wasted much of its force in, a -forced revivalism, which would have been unnecessary had we paUd wise attention to religious education. We may rail against the parochial school system as being un-American-. But the Roman Church existed centuries before there was a United States, and for >many of these centuries she was the great agency of enligihtennrienii, education, and culture. The .parochial school is the most serious and successful attempt to

hold people for the religious life. ' Our country has a magnificent system, of public schools. She will teach the children history, science, art, languages ; but they will not let . the world's greatest literature be taught under their- guidance, nor will they help to develop the noblest capacity of the hurflan soul, the capacity for God. This task is assigned to the Church. -So be it, and let the Church choosey that method! which in her wisdom seems the best. .' And so we stand in the presence of her history, her majestic worship, her . universal ministry, and we confess that God must- have moved mightily in all thas. We. think of her Loyolas, her Xaviexs, her Femielons, and her Marquettes ; we look at her hospitals, orphanages, schools, colleges, monasteries,, missions, and we see a Church ministering to the body, mind,. and soul of humanity. Her weakness is the common lot -of every human organisation ;, her strength is of God.'