A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion/From the Rise of Protestantism in the Sixteenth Century to the Present Time

by Joseph Deharbe

From the Rise of Protestantism to the Present Time.

43. ^[1]Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and a professor in the University of Wittenberg, a man of an irritable and turbulent disposition, began in 1517 by exclaiming against the abuses which are said to have been practised in the publication of the Indulgences granted by Pope Leo X. to those who should contribute to the rebuilding of St. Peter's Church in Rome. But soon after he arbitrarily set himself up as a reformer of the Church, inveighed against the Ecclesiastical authorities, especially against the Pope, whose supreme power he denounced as usurpation and tyranny, and which he said he would bring to a miserable end. In pursuance of his wrong views, he rejected many articles of faith which the Church had received from Christ and His Apostles. He repudiated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Fasting, Confession, Prayers for the Dead, and many other pious practices; he declared good works to be useless, and taught that man is justified and saved by faith alone. Moreover, he threw open the monasteries and convents, and gave leave to the monks and nuns to marry; and he presumed to award to princes and sovereigns the right of confiscating the property of churches and convents, and of assigning it to any use they pleased. Finally, he broke the vow of chastity which he had solemnly made as a monk and as a priest, and committed the double sacrilege of taking a nun for his wife. Luther boasted that he took his doctrine from the Bible only; but being misled by the false rule of private judgment in its interpretation, he soon fell into the most palpable contradictions and errors. Thus he asserted that ' man has no free will, and consequently can neither keep the commandments nor avoid evil '; 'that sin does not condemn man, provided he firmly believe,' etc. Nevertheless, he soon obtained many followers; for the thoughtless multitude were very much pleased with such easy doctrine, which allowed them to lead a dissolute life, and covetous princes found nothing more conformable to their wishes than the suppression of churches and monasteries. Besides, Luther eagerly embraced any opportunity of increasing his party, and for this purpose he permitted the Landgrave of Hesse to contract a second marriage whilst his first wife was still living. The way of innovation and revolt being once opened by Luther, several others soon followed him, and they went even further than he did. Zwinglius, in Switzerland, denied the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Calvin, at Geneva, taught that 'God has predestined a part of mankind, without any fault of theirs, to eternal damnation, and that therefore He blinds and hardens the heart of sinners.' The Anabaptists proclaimed a kingdom of Christ on earth, in which there was to be no private property, no law, no magistrates. Zwinglius, Calvin, and other Sectarians totally demolished in the churches what had been spared by Luther. The images of the Crucified Redeemer and of the Saints, pictures as well as statues, and masterpieces of art, were hewn in pieces; the organs and altars were shattered; nay, even the graves were ransacked, and the bones of the Saints trampled upon and burnt to ashes. Although these pretended Reformers combated and anathematized one another, nevertheless their several doctrines spread most rapidly. United only in their hatred against the Catholics, they contrived all imaginable measures to gain the superiority over them. By thousands and thousands of pamphlets they disseminated their erroneous principles, and, at the same time, they most virulently attacked and calumniated the Pope and the Catholic Clergy. Moreover, in many places crying acts of violence were committed, and people were forced by all sorts of oppression and persecution to renounce the Holy Catholic Faith.

44. ^[2]The Catholics, on their part, made several attempts to restore peace to the Church, by entering into amicable discussions with their opponents; but the hatred which Luther bore to the Pope, the Head of the Church, continued implacable. To check the progress of heresy and wickedness, the Emperor Charles V. assembled in 1529 a second Diet at Spires, where a decree was issued that, until the decision of a General Council, Lutheranism should be tolerated wherever it had already been established, but should not be spread any further; that no one should be hindered from saying or hearing Mass; and that all invectives against any religion should be prohibited. The Lutherans protested against this decree, and from this circumstance is derived their name of Protestants; which appellation has since been given also to the other Sects into which they have divided. At length the Holy Father convoked a General Council at Trent, in the Tyrol, in the year 1545. The doctrine of the innovators was examined and unanimously condemned; at the same time, many excellent decrees concerning Ecclesiastical institutions and the reformation of abuses were issued; in a word, the vigorous and decisive action of this Council gave fresh beauty and new life to the Catholic Church. The Protestants had been repeatedly invited to the Council, as they had in the beginning expressly wished for it in order to adjust their differences; but they refused to appear at Trent. Consequently, the unfortunate Schism continued, and brought unspeakable misery and endless calamities upon the greater part of Europe. Luther had preached liberty and reviled the Emperor, the princes, and bishops; the peasants lost no time in freeing themselves from their masters. They traversed the country in lawless bands, burnt down the castles and monasteries, and committed the most horrible cruelties against the nobility and clergy. More than one hundred thousand persons were slain during this frightful insurrection (a.d. 1525). Other religious wars ensued, and Germany, which once had been so flourishing, became at last the scene of the most frightful desolation and of the most horrible atrocities during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The other countries which had embraced the new doctrine were likewise devastated by religious and civil wars. In Switzerland, Zwinglius fell in a bloody battle which he fought against his own countrymen. In France, the Calvinists, called Huguenots, with a devastating army, kept the field for many years against the crown and the Church. In their blind fury, they massacred numbers of priests, monks, and nuns; they ravaged villages and towns, and burnt or pulled down many thousands of churches, some of which were magnificent monuments of Christian art. England also suffered severely for her apostasy, begun by King Henry VIII., who abandoned the Catholic Church because the Pope would not allow him to repudiate his lawful wife, Catharine, and marry Anne Boleyn. From that time, the country was drenched in human blood; even King Charles I., a successor of the tyrannical Henry, was beheaded by rebels who boasted of professing and practising the purest of all Christian Doctrines.

45. ^[3]The loss which the Church had suffered from the apostasy in Europe was to be compensated by the conversion of innumerable heathens in other parts of the globe. Missionaries went forth in every direction, and announced the salutary doctrines of the Gospel with wonderful success. It is truly astonishing what St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, who was so eminently favored by Heaven, alone accomplished. Glowing with zeal for the salvation of the pagans, he crossed the vast ocean, and landing at Goa, in the year 1542, he began his mission by walking through the streets with a bell in his hand, and calling the children to come and be instructed. They joyfully attended and listened to the holy man, who spoke to them so affectionately of their dear Redeemer. When they had returned home, they repeated what they had heard, and so induced the adult persons to come likewise and hear the holy preacher. God rewarded his zeal, and granted him, as He had done to the first Apostles, the power of healing the sick, of raising the dead to life, of commanding the storms; in short, the power of working the most stupendous miracles. With untiring energy he went from country to country, from island to island, through all India and Japan, and converted, in the short period of ten years, many tribes and kingdoms. He himself testifies in one of his letters that in one month he administered Holy Baptism to ten thousand heathens. After his death, other missionaries continued the pious work, and introduced the Religion of Jesus into China also, that immense, unknown, and till then inaccessible empire. That these heathens had been truly converted was proved in the most convincing manner when the persecution of the Christians broke out in Japan. About one million, one hundred thousand^[4] died for their faith, and the greater part of them were most horribly tortured. Even tender children, weak old men, and women of rank hastened with joy to martyrdom, dressed in their holiday attire, as if they were going to a wedding feast. So sincere and strong was their faith that even the survivors and their children have continued to preserve it under most adverse circumstances. Though shut out for over two hundred years from the Christian world, and without a priest, and subjected to tyranny and persecution, they taught the Catechism, recited the Catholic prayers they had learned, baptized their children, and strove to live piously. Ultimately the Japanese were forced to repeal their laws for the total exclusion of foreigners. Missionaries have again entered, and have found villages of these faithful Japanese Catholics. In America also, that newly-discovered world, the light of the Gospel spread, and overthrew the most abominable idolatry with all its horrors and vices. No people on earth offered up more human sacrifices than the natives of America. The Mexicans sacrificed about twenty thousand human victims every year, and when they had no captives for this purpose, they did not spare even their own children. It is impossible to describe what the heroic missionaries suffered, and what dangers they incurred among those bloodthirsty men. They had to struggle not only against the cruelties and vices of the natives, but also against the insatiable avarice of the European settlers. Yet their labors were crowned with success, and the Christian faith was firmly and permanently established on this Continent. The mission of Paraguay, in South America, especially flourished. The brutish natives, who lived among the wild beasts in the forests, who thought of nothing but plundering, murdering, and revenge, who delighted only in eating human flesh, in voluptuousness and drunkenness, were transformed by the indefatigable missionary priests into devout Christians. They became models of modesty and charity, of innocence and piety, and by their untiring industry and labor changed their wild country into a delicious paradise.

46. ^[5]The holy men who, with such indefatigable zeal, and often even to the shedding of their blood, devoted themselves to the conversion of the pagans, belonged for the most part to Religious Orders. St. Francis Xavier, and those others who planted the faith in China and Paraguay, were Jesuits — that is, members of the Society of Jesus. This order was founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius of Loyola, a man filled with the most ardent zeal for the honor of God. These religious exerted themselves especially in propagating the Catholic Faith, and defending it against the new-fangled doctrines; and consequently they drew upon themselves implacable hatred and grievous persecutions from the enemies of Religion. God raised also other orders, that might, in concert with the Secular Clergy, heal the wounds which Luther and other heretics had inflicted on the Church. The pious Capuchins, who sprang in 1528 from the Order of St. Francis of Assisium, labored especially for the salvation of souls, and distinguished themselves by their affectionate zeal and austere life. The Oratorians, or Fathers of the Oratory, which was founded in 1574 by St. Philip Neri, devoted themselves to prayer and the instruction of the people, to visiting the hospitals, to attending the poor and the sick, and to literary pursuits. The fathers of the Pious Schools occupied themselves with the instruction of youth, and other religious, again, with the nursing of the sick. There arose also communities of religious women for the training up of young girls to a pious and godly life; as the Orders of the Visitation, of the Ursulines, and of the Good Shepherd, and the Institute of English Ladies.^[6] Above all, this period was exceedingly rich in heroes of faith and virtue. St. Charles Borromeo, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan (d. 1584), set a bright example of true Christian charity during the plague, by visiting the sick in the most dangerous places, in lazarettos and hospitals, and by giving up all his property, even his bed, for the relief of the sufferers. St. Francis of Sales, Prince-Bishop of Geneva (d. 1622), converted, by the irresistible power of his meekness and humility, seventy-two thousand Savoyards from the errors of Calvin to the true Faith. St. Vincent of Paul (d. 1660) devoted his whole life to the poor and distressed; no misery, of whatever kind or form, escaped the ardor and abundance of his love. He founded orphanages and foundling hospitals; he established a Congregation of Missionary Priests (called Lazarists, from St. Lazarus College in Paris) for the instruction of ignorant country people; an association for the reforming of convicts, and also the admirable Institute of the Sisters of Charity for nursing the sick. In Germany, especially in Austria and Bavaria, and in Switzerland, the Venerable Peter Canisius opposed himself as a mighty barrier against Heresy; he combated it by his writings and incessant preaching, and founded schools and pious institutions for preserving and enlivening the true Faith established by Christ and His Apostles. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were also illustrated by St. John of God, St. John of the Cross, St. Thomas of Villanova, St. Cajetan, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Camillus of Lellis, St. Josepfi Calasanctius, St; Joseph of Cupertino, St. Francis Borgia, St. Pius V., St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Stanislas Kostka, and by many other men eminent for the sanctity of their lives; and among the female sex were especially distinguished St. Teresa, St. Rose of Lima, St. Angela of Brescia, St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, St. Catherine of Ricci, etc. In the eighteenth century there shone among others, as one of the brightest ornaments of the Catholic Church, St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, Bishop of St. Agatha, near Naples (d. 1787), who established the Congregation of the Redemptorists for the instruction of the people. All these Saints did great deeds and wrought innumerable miracles by their mighty intercession with God; and thus they irrefragably proved that the true spirit of Christianity, the spirit of charity, of humility, and self-denial, had not departed from the Church, as the blind adversaries of our faith unfortunately often assert.

47. ^[7]Awful events, which make nature shudder, remain as yet to be related. We would fain pass them over in silence, if they were not most instructive for us. As with all human productions, so it fared with the doctrine of Luther; it became antiquated, it altered and entirely changed. Sects upon Sects arose: Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Quakers, Methodists, Moravians, etc. Each one of these Sects presumed, after the example of Luther, to reform the faith. At last impious Free-thinkers, first in England and afterwards in France, carried their presumption to the highest pitch, and contrived the infernal scheme totally to abolish Religion, and to exterminate for ever the Belief in Christ. Under the pretence of enlightening mankind, they deluged the world with writings in which they scoffed at all Holy things, grossly calumniated the Pope and the Clergy, and openly advocated the most shameful licentiousness. Their books, written in most attractive language, and sparkling with witticism and satire, found their way too readily among all classes of people, and at the same time the spirit of profligacy and impiety spread with surprising rapidity. At the same time the masses of the people were suffering from misgovernment, oppressive taxation and excessive privileges enjoyed, by the upper classes. These causes combined with the spread of infidel philosophy and the decay of religious faith brought about the French Revolution at the close of the eighteenth century. The Church was attacked, ecclesiastical property was confiscated; religious orders were suppressed by violence; monks and nuns were turned out of their peaceable abodes by force, and many religious houses were plundered and pulled down. Soon after, a sanguinary edict was issued against all priests who should continue faithful to the discharge of their duties. Was any one discovered refractory, he was cast into prison, or immediately hanged up to the nearest lamp-post. The Christian era was annulled, the celebration of the Sundays and Festivals "was abolished, the churches were profaned and devastated. Everything that reminded them of Christianity was destroyed. Finally, the madness of these men arrived at such a pitch, that they proclaimed Reason to be the Supreme Being, and conducted a vile woman as an emblem of the Deity, on a triumphal car, into the Cathedral of Paris, where they placed her on the high altar, in the place of the figure of our Crucified Redeemer, and sang hymns in her honor. Order, prosperity, and public safety disappeared together with Religion; even the throne was overturned and shattered to pieces. France was for two years the scene of such horrible atrocities as are unequalled in the annals of history. Human blood flowed in torrents. Neither age nor sex was safe from the fury of those monsters. The total number of the people slaughtered in this Reign of Terror was, according to some, two millions. And all this was done under the pretence of promoting the happiness of mankind. Enlightenment was their word when they abolished Religion; Liberty and Equality, when they murdered their fellow-men. At last, in order to stop the complete anarchy that prevailed, the leaders solemnly proclaimed that the nation should once more believe in God and the immortality of the soul. In the year 1799, Napoleon, in quality of First Consul, seized upon the sovereign power;, but he did not venture to govern a people without Religion. He therefore restored the Catholic Religion in France, and made a solemn Concordat with the Pope (a.d. 1801). However, the Church did not long enjoy this peace. Napoleon, blinded by fortune, attempted to extort from the Supreme Head of the Church certain concessions which he could not grant. The French troops invaded Rome, and carried away Pius VII. prisoner in 1809. But as God had visibly protected His Church ten years before, when Pope Pius VI. and died a captive, at Valence in France, so now He did not abandon her to her enemies. Napoleon was vanquished by the Confederate Powers of Europe, and dispossessed of his crown, and the Pope reentered triumphant into Rome (a.d. 1814).

48. ^[8]With the establishment of peace, after the Napoleonic wars, in 1815, a more favorable era opened for the Church. In France she recovered some of her old prosperity. What has been called the Catholic Revival, began, first in Germany, to the great progress of religion, and afterwards in England. In 1829 the disabilities under which Irish and British Catholics had so long labored were removed. A few years after, in England, the hierarchy, which had been suppressed at the time of the Reformation, was restored; numerous and notable conversions from Protestantism took place; and the number of Catholics and Catholic institutions has since grown very rapidly. The infidel doctrines, however, of the French philosophers and subsequent free-thinkers have continued to spread unbelief, so that the Church has to contend everywhere with a spirit of irreligion.

In 1848 Pius IX. was obliged to quit Rome through the machinations of Italian revolutionists. During his short exile he received the respectful sympathy of the Catholic world; and, in 1850, amid the rejoicings of the Eternal City, he returned to his See.

In 1869 Pope Pius IX. convoked the General Council of the Vatican, which defined the dogma of the Pope's infallibility. Before the Council could finish its labors it was obliged to suspend its sittings because of the war which, in 1870, broke out between France and Germany. The Italian army took possession of Rome, and the Pope was unjustly deprived of the temporal power and sovereignty enjoyed by his predecessors for ages, and necessary to the complete independence of the Holy See. Pius IX. lived eight years longer, as a prisoner in the Vatican Palace, protesting against the iniquitous spoliation of the Church. The next pope, Leo XIII., passed his long pontificate in the same way. Yet from his prison walls his power reached to the ends of the earth. The enemies of the Church had predicted that the fall of the temporal power would prove the end of the Papacy. But never has the moral and spiritual authority of the Holy See been more powerful throughout the world than it is to-day. The German government, at the instigation of Bismarck, instituted a campaign of legislative persecution against the Church. But the fidelity of German Catholics proved victorious.

In 1903, Leo XIII. died and was succeeded by His Holiness, Pius X. His reign was marked in France by the culmination of a violent anti-Christian movement which began during the reign of his predecessor. Laws were enacted to suppress all religious orders. Catholic schools, and religious instruction in the government schools. The Concordat established with the Holy See was most unjustly abolished, and the Church was robbed of all her property throughout the country.

Shortly after the outbreak of the World War in 1914 Pius X. died and was followed by Benedict XV. whose heroic efforts to promote peace among the nations became fully known only after his death. The present Pontiff, His Holiness Pius XI., elected in the year 1922, is the two hundred and sixty-sixth Pope, including St. Peter. He is regarded as a highly gifted ruler, well informed on the problems of the day.

49. ^[9]The most wonderful and most consoling fact in recent history has been the Church's unexampled growth in the United States during the past century. From a mere handful a hundred years ago, her children have increased to fourteen millions or more. This growth, too, is as sound and vigorous as it is extensive. Among the external indications of its strength enumerated with admiration by Leo XIII. (Longinqua Oceani, Jan., 1895) are, our unnumbered religious and useful institutions, sacred edifices, schools for elementary instruction, colleges for the higher branches, homes for the poor, hospitals for the sick, convents and monasteries. Besides, as he observed, there are still surer signs of the faith of the people; for the numbers of the clergy are steadily increasing, pious sodalities and confraternities are held in esteem, schools for religious teaching are in a flourishing' condition; the strength of popular piety is further manifested by associations for mutual aid, for the relief of the indigent, and for the promotion of temperance. Truly the judgment of the secular historian was well grounded who said that the Church's gains in the New World have compensated her for what she has lost in the Old.

1. Who was the author of Protestantism? What sort of a man was he? When and how did he begin his conflict with the Church? Did he stop there? How did he behave towards the Pope? What innovations did he introduce? What did he do with regard to monasteries, monks, and nuns? What pretended right did he give to princes and sovereigns? Was his conduct edifying? Whence did he pretend to take his doctrine? How did he interpret the Bible? Did he teach the pure Word of God? Can you name any of his errors? How was his doctrine received by the people, and how by some Princes? "What did he do to gain the favor of the Landgrave of Hesse? Did any imitate Luther's example? Where and what did Zwinglius teach? Where and what did Calvin teach? What did the Anabaptists proclaim? What havoc did the Zwinglians and the Calvinists make? Did the different Sects agree among themselves? Did their disagreement prevent the spread of their doctrines? In what were they united? What measures did they contrive to propagate their principles? What means did they use in many places to make the Catholics renounce their faith?
2. What did the Catholics do for the restoration of peace, and what was the result? in what year, and by whom, was the Diet of Spires assembled? What famous decree was issued there? How did the name of Protestants originate? Are only the Lutherans now called Protestants? What measures did the Holy Father at last take? In what year was the Council of Trent convoked, and what was done by it? What did the Church gain by this Council? Did the Protestants come to it? What was the effect of Luther's preaching liberty? What took place during the war of the peasantry? Were there any other wars in Germany, and how long did the great religious war last in that country? What was the consequence of this war? Were any other countries involved in war. and which? Where and how did Zwinglius end his life? What are the French Protestants called, and what atrocities did they commit? Who introduced Protestantism into England, and for what reason? Did England gain anything by the change? What do you know of Charles I.?
3. How was the Church compensated for her loss in Europe? How was this effected? What is the name of the Apostle of the Indies? Where did he land, and in what year? How did he begin his mission? What did the children do? How did God reward and assist his zeal? In what countries did he work, and how long? What was the result of his labors? How many heathens did he christen or baptize in one month? Was Christianity also introduced into China? How was the sincerity of the new Christians, especially in Japan, proved? How many were martyred in Japan? Does the hatred against the Christians still continue there? What can you relate of America in general, and of Mexico in particular? Was the work of the missionaries easy there? What particular obstacles did they encounter? Did they succeed the less for all that? How did the savages of Paraguay live? What did they become after their conversion to Christianity?
4. Some authors reckon 1,200,000.
5. To what class of men did most of the missionaries belong? Of what order were the Apostles of the Indies, and the first planters of Christianity in China and Paraguay? When, and by whom, was this order established? In what did these religious especially exert themselves? How were they requited for their labor by the enemies of Religion? Did God raise any other orders at that time, and for what purpose? When and how did the Order of Capuchins originate, and by what were they particularly conspicuous? When and by whom was the Oratory founded, and to what does it devote itself? What was the object of the fathers of the Pious Schools, and of other orders? What communities of religious women arose at that time? What do they devote themselves to? What is the origin of the Institute of English Ladies? In what was this epoch especially rich? Can you tell me anything remarkable of St. Charles Borromeo? What do you know of St. Francis of Sales? What did St. Vincent of Paul in general do for the temporal and eternal welfare of his fellow-men? What charitable institutions did he found in particular? Who especially labored in the sixteenth century in Germany and Switzerland for the preservation of the true Faith? Were there any other principal Saints who shone in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and who were they? By what Saints was the female sex distinguished at that time? What Saint did particularly illustrate the eighteenth century? What Religious Order did he found? What did all these Saints especially do, and what did they prove by their works and miracles?
6. This Institute was established in the Netherlands for English ladies who were persecuted under Queen Elizabeth for their attachment to the Catholic Faith, and soon spread over Germany, where it is still flourishing under the above name, though its members have long ceased to be English.
7. What became, in process of time, of the doctrine of Luther? What was the final result of its alterations and changes? What did the Sectarianism lead to? What did the Free-thinkers contrive to do? What principal means did they make use of? Why were their books well received by the people? Whom did the infidels first attack? What became of the ecclesiastical property, the monks and nuns, and the religious houses? What edict was issued against the priests? What did the infidels do to destroy the very name of Christianity? With what particular infamy did they brand themselves in their madness? Why did prosperity and public safety disappear? What became then of France? How many people are said to have been slaughtered during the Reign of Terror? Under what pretence were all these horrible crimes committed? What did the impious wretches finally do in the utmost necessity? By whom, when, and why was the Catholic Religion restored in France? Did Napoleon act as a faithful son of the Church? How did he treat Pius VII? Did God ever withdraw His hand from the Church? What became of Napoleon, and what of the Pope? In what year did Pius VII return to Rome?
8. When did a more favorable era open for the Church! When did the Catholic Revival occur? What changes took place in Ireland and England? Relate the flight of Pius IX. from Rome, and his return. Give an account of the Council of the Vatican. When and by whom "was the Pope unjustly despoiled of his temporal power? Did this change ruin the Church? What happened during the reign of Leo XIII.? When did he die and by whom was he succeeded? What has happened DD France since the opening of the reign of Pius X.?
9. What is the most consoling fact in the recent history of the Church? What are the external signs of this growth? Are there other signs indicating the strength of the people's faith?What have we now surveyed? What have we chiefly considered in the history or our Religion? 1. Whence does our Religion come? By whom has God revealed it to us? How did Jesus Christ confirm His Divine Doctrine? Is it indifferent which religion we profess?