The following virtues are to be found in Cornelius:
1. He was religious, for he prayed continually, and honoured God, and according to his lights strove after religious truth.
2. He was conscientious, for, as far as his conscience taught him, he observed God’s commandments, obeyed the will of God, and kept himself from sin.
3. He was charitable and compassionate, working for the good of his neighbour. He practised not only the corporal but also the spiritual works of mercy, by inviting his friends to hear the words of Peter, and thus leading them to the true faith.
4. He was obedient to God’s command to send for Peter, and he thereby obtained salvation.
5. He was humble. If he had said to himself: “What can an uneducated fisherman like Peter do for me, a cultivated Roman?” he would not have obtained the gift of faith in Jesus Christ.
6. He believed the word of God, as it was announced to him by Peter, and therefore he received the gift of faith from the Holy Ghost, and the grace of Baptism.
Indifferentism in matters of faith. The sentence in Peter’s discourse: “In every nation he that feareth God and worketh justice is acceptable to Him”, has been interpreted by people either indifferent about, or weak in faith, to mean: “It is all the same what people believe, or what religious creed they profess, if only they live good lives.” Now is this principle, that religion and faith are matters of indifference, correct? No! it is utterly false and un-Christian, and that for these reasons: 1. Peter did not say: “Faith does not signify”; for he was, on the contrary, most anxious to convert Cornelius to the true faith; but his words meant rather that nationality does not signify — it does not matter what nation a man belongs to, for all nations are called to believe in Jesus Christ, and all persons, to whatever nation they may belong, are acceptable to Him, if, as Cornelius did, they keep the commandments and strive after a knowledge of the truth. Such men, being acceptable to God, are called by Him to believe the true faith, and thereby obtain salvation. 2. Peter, at the end of his discourse, expressly teaches that no one can obtain forgiveness of sins but through faith in Jesus (compare with this his words in chapter LXXXV: “There is no other Name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved”; Acts 4, 12). 3. If no account was to be made of holding the true faith, St. Peter need not have preached to Cornelius, and need not have baptized him. 4. If it be a matter of indifference what faith a man holds, then the whole revelation of God would have been unnecessary, and it would have been quite superfluous for our Lord Jesus Christ to have come into the world, to have taught the true faith, and founded His Church. 5. The principle that it does not signify what a man believes is in direct opposition to the teaching of the Gospels, in which we find our
