James Cardinal Gibbons - The Faith of Our Fathers (with Supplemental Reading: A Brief Life of Christ) [Illustrated]

Originally published in 1876 by The John Murphy Company of Baltimore, Maryland, with new editions issued in 1879, 1895, 1904 and 1917. This printing is taken from the 110th printing, published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, New York.

Copyright 1876 by The John Murphy Company. Copyright 1980 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-89555-158-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

112th Printing

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
2011

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

TO THE

Clergy and Laity

OF THE

ARCHDIOCESE AND PROVINCE OF BALTIMORE

The first edition of The Faith of Our Fathers was issued in December, 1876. From that time to the present fifty thousand copies of the work have been disposed of in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland, and in the British Colonies of Oceanica.

This gratifying result has surpassed the authors most sanguine expectations, and is a consoling evidence that the investigation of religious truths is not wholly neglected even in this iron age, so engrossed by material considerations.

Besides carefully revising the book, the author has profited by the kind suggestion of some friends, and inserted a chapter on the prerogatives and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which, it is hoped, will be not less acceptable to his readers than the other portions of the work.

He is also happy to announce that German editions have been published both in this country and in Germany.

He takes this occasion to return his hearty thanks to the editors of the Catholic periodicals, as well as of the secular press, for their favorable notices, which have no doubt contributed much to the large circulation of the book.

B ALTIMORE ,

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, 1879 .

It is very gratifying to the author to note the large increase in the sale of The Faith of Our Fathers. Apart from personal considerations, it is pleasing to know that the popular interest in the Catholic Church and whatever pertains to her doctrines and discipline, is growing more widespread and earnest.

Since 1879, when the eleventh revised edition was given to the public, there have been thirty-five editions, and the number of copies sold reaches nearly a quarter of a million.

This desire to understand the teachings of the Church of our Fathers is not confined to our own country. It is manifest in other lands, as shown by the translations that have been made of this exposition of Catholic belief into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish.

In the hope that they will add to the usefulness of the book, several passages upon doctrinal subjects have been inserted.

With these few remarks, the forty-seventh edition of The Faith of Our Fathers is presented to the sincere and earnest seeker after religious truth by

T HE A UTHOR

Feast of St. Anselm, 1895 .

The object of this little volume is to present in a plain and practical form an exposition and vindication of the principal tenets of the Catholic Church. It was thought sufficient to devote but a brief space to such Catholic doctrines and practices as are happily admitted by Protestants, while those that are controverted by them are more elaborately elucidated.

The work was compiled by the author during the uncertain hours which he could spare from the more active duties of the ministry. It substantially embodies the instructions and discourses delivered by him before mixed congregations in Virginia and North Carolina.

He has often felt that the salutary influence of such instructions, especially on the occasion of a mission in the rural districts, would be much augmented if they were supplemented by books or tracts circulated among the people, and which could be read and pondered at leisure.

As his chief aim has been to bring home the truths of the Catholic Faith to our separated brethren, who generally accept the Scripture as the only source of authority in religious matters, he has endeavored to fortify his statements by abundant reference to the sacred text. He has thought proper, however, to add frequent quotations from the early Fathers, whose testimony, at least as witnesses of the Faith of their times, must be accepted even by those who call in question their personal authority.

Though the writer has sought to be exact in all his assertions, an occasional inaccuracy may have inadvertently crept in. Any emendations which the venerated Prelates or Clergy may deign to propose will be gratefully attended to in a subsequent edition.

R ICHMOND ,

November 21st, 1876 .

The new edition of The Faith of Our Fathers has been carefully revised, and enriched with several pages of important matter.

It is gratifying to note that since the first edition appeared, in 1876, up to the present time, fourteen hundred thousand copies have been published, and the circulation of the book is constantly increasing.

The work has also been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe.

B ALTIMORE ,

May 1st, 1917 .

MY DEAR READERPerhaps this is the first time in your life that you have handled a book in which the doctrines of the Catholic Church are expounded by one of her own sons. You have, no doubt, heard and read many things regarding our Church; but has not your information come from teachers justly liable to suspicion? You asked for bread, and they gave you a stone. You asked for fish, and they reached you a serpent. Instead of the bread of truth, they extended to you the serpent of falsehood. Hence, without intending to be unjust, is not your mind biased against us because you listened to false witnesses? This, at least, is the case with thousands of my countrymen whom I have met in the brief course of my missionary career. The Catholic Church is persistently misrepresented by the most powerful vehicles of information.

She is assailed in romances of the stamp of Maria Monk, and in pictorial papers. It is true that the falsehood of those illustrated periodicals has been fully exposed. But the antidote often comes too late to counteract the poison. I have seen a picture representing Columbus trying to demonstrate the practicability of his design to discover a new Continent before certain monks who are shaking their fists and gnashing their teeth at him. It matters not to the artist that Columbus could probably never have undertaken his voyage and discovery, as the explorer himself avows, were it not for the benevolent zeal of the monks, Antonio de Marchena and Juan Perez, and other ecclesiastics, as well as for the munificence of Queen Isabella and the Spanish Court.

The Church is misrepresented in so-called Histories like Foxes Book of Martyrs. It is true that he has been successfully refuted by Lingard and Gairdner. But, how many have read the fictitious narratives of Foxe, who have never perused a page of Lingard or Gairdner? In a large portion of the press, and in pamphlets, and especially in the pulpit, which should be consecrated to truth and charity, she is the victim of the foulest slanders. Upon her fair and heavenly brow her enemies put a hideous mask, and in that guise they exhibit her to the insults and mockery of the public; just as Jesus, her Spouse, was treated when, clothed with a scarlet cloak and crowned with thorns, He was mocked by a thoughtless rabble.