Fr. H.G. Hughes - What Catholics are Free to Believe or Not

Rev. H. G. Hughes

What Catholics
Are Free to Believe
or Not

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS

Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2016 by John L. Barger

What Catholics Are Free to Believe or Not was originally published in 1906 by Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, under the title Essentials and Non-Essentials of the Catholic Religion . This 2016 edition by Sophia Institute Press includes minor editorial revisions.

Printed in the United States of America.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

On the cover: Crucifix (image ID:160671014) Eugenio Marongiu / Shutterstock.com; background texture (image ID:145526767) Yorkman / Shutterstock.com.

Scripture passages are taken from the Douay-Rheims edition of the Old and New Testaments. Where applicable, Scripture passages have been cross-referenced with the differing names and enumeration in the Revised Standard Version, using the following symbol: RSV =.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hughes, H. G. (Henry George), 1868- author.

Title: What Catholics are free to believe or not / Rev. H.G. Hughes.

Other titles: Essentials and non-essentials of the Catholic religion

Description: Manchester, New Hampshire : Sophia Institute Press, 2016. |

Originally published under title: Essentials and non-essentials of the

Catholic religion : Notre Dame, Indiana : Ave Maria Press, 1906. |

Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016015537 | ISBN 9781622823512 (pbk. : alk. paper)ePub ISBN 9781622823529

Subjects: LCSH: Catholic ChurchDoctrines.

Classification: LCC BX1753 .H76 2016 | DDC 282dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015537

Contents

Preface

The following chapters first appeared in the pages of The Ave Maria . Their object is to aid in the removal of a very common misconception among those not of the household of faith a misconception arising from a confusion of those things in belief and practice that are of obligation, and those things in regard to which Catholics are left free. Information on these points may also prove useful to some within the Church. The author of this little work unreservedly submits all that he has written to the judgment of ecclesiastical authority.

Rev. H. G. Hughes
Shefford, England
Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady, 1906

Faith and Practice

There can be no doubt that misapprehension of what the Holy Catholic Church demands of her children in regard to faith and practice keeps a large number of persons, who are really people of goodwill, outside the true Fold of Christ. They are attracted, and often strongly attracted, by all they know or see of our holy religion. The venerable history of the Church; her beautiful liturgy and ceremonial, so well adapted to express the sublime truths that she teaches and to impress them deeply upon the minds of all; the very authority with which she delivers her message to the world, without fear or favor; the evident holiness of so many of her children, and the entire self-devotion that she can at all times command from them in the exercise of works of charity, whether on foreign missions or among the poor, in the hospital or on the field of battle all these strongly attract to her many souls who remark that elsewhere such things are to be found either not at all or only in a very inferior degree.

Yet many remain where they are, outside the Ark of Salvation (at least as regards visible communion), because of some strange misunderstanding of what they would be expected to believe and to do if they submitted to the Churchs authority. It is in the hope of helping such souls that this book is written. Let me say at the outset that nothing is further from my mind than any desire to dilute or minimize in the slightest degree the obligations of Catholics in matters of faith or practice. To do so would be not only most disloyal to the divinely appointed authority of the Church but also a very foolish and shortsighted proceeding that could produce only disastrous results.

No greater mistake can be committed than to lead people into the Church by concealing from them the obligations that they will assume by becoming Catholics. The natural effect of the inevitable discovery that they have been misled would be an indignant repudiation of such obligations as they had not understood from the first to be binding upon them. Thus the so-called converts would go to swell the ranks of indifferent or bad Catholics. Every word that the Church as the teacher of truth speaks to us, every command that as the guide of our conduct she lays upon us, is the word and command of God, who has said to her pastors: He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me (Luke 10:16).

But there are false views among even the best educated of non-Catholics as to what the Church really does teach and command; and if these views can be rectified, the path to the Church will appear plainer to many. No better way, it seems to me, could be found to dissipate mistakes in this connection than a clear statement of the obligations of Catholics in matters of faith and practice. To give such a statement will be my endeavor in these chapters.

In discussing the essentials and nonessentials of the Catholic religion, I do not mean to imply that anything, whether connected with faith or practice, that has received the stamp of the Churchs authoritative approval, is to be regarded as superfluous, useless, or even unnecessary. Everything that has received such sanction is thereby declared to be useful, good, and salutary and, it may be, sometimes even necessary under certain circumstances. But that sanction is of different grades, ranging from precept down to the mere declaration that there is nothing contrary to faith or morals in the matter in question.

Not all that the Church approves does she thereby impose as essentially necessary for salvation. Some things she strongly recommends; others she commands; others she simply declares to be free from any danger to faith and morality, leaving it to the faithful to adopt them or not according to the spiritual needs and bent of each. By essentials, then, I mean those beliefs or practices that the Church demands from all as necessary for salvation; by nonessentials I mean, not anything that may be with impunity belittled, much less condemned, but simply points of belief and practice not made of strict obligation for all.

F AITH AND P RACTICE

This having been said to obviate misconception, it will be well to consider first what is meant by faith and by practice and what is the relation between the two.

By faith we may understand either: (1) the body of doctrines held and taught by the Church; (2) the mental act of the believer by which he gives assent to them; or (3) the virtue of faith , which is a gift of God and resides as a habitual disposition or quality in the soul. It is with the first of these meanings that we shall be chiefly concerned; so the term Catholic Faith is to be understood as the body of truths authoritatively taught by the Church and imposed upon her children as to be believed. In other words, it is the subject matter of that intellectual assent that we call the act of faith.

By Catholic practice we shall understand all those religious acts that, whether authoritatively commanded or simply approved or recommended, are found to be in habitual or frequent use wherever the Church has children faithful to her teachings.