One True Religion

THERE CAN BE BUT ONE TRUE RELIGION

But why change one's religion? Why re-enter the Catholic Church? Isn't one religion as good as another? The plain answer to this important question is an emphatic, No. This saying for the most part is the work of those who in reality are indifferent to all religion, and make this an excuse for their indifference. A little reasoning should suffice to prove that one religion is not as good as another religion. If it were there would have been no need of Christianity in the first place.  For there were other religions existing upon earth at the time Christ established His Church. There were Confucianism and Buddhism and Judaism and Paganism. Were one religion as good as another, it would have been sufficient for God to have allowed these religions to function without establishing another. Christ, however, did establish another.

In His dealings with man, God has always been definite and exact. After the fall of Adam, God promised that in due time He would send a Redeemer to satisfy for man's sin. But in order to keep the knowledge of the one, true God among men until that time, God called Abraham to be the father of His chosen people.  Hence he established the Jews as the one true and divinely appointed guardian of His law until He should send the promised Messias. The Jewish Church, then, was the one, true religion up to the time of Christ. God Himself then gives the answer to the question, "Is not one religion as good as another?" He Himself established one religion as the true religion up to the coming of Christ. Christ in His turn established but one Church, and He proclaimed that that Church would last to the end of time.  "Thou art Peter," He says, "and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16, 18.) Christ said "Church" not "Churches", and He meant church, not churches. And again He says: "And there shall be one Fold and one Shepherd."

It is evident from many other considerations that there can be but one, true religion. As there is only one God, there can be but one, true worship of God. Truth itself is one, and it cannot be contradictory. At one and the same time, two and two cannot be four and six and nine. If it were, what confusion would result in the field of mathematics. In the field of morality, what terrible evils would result if it were equally good and true to murder one's parents and to protect their lives. Likewise were it equally true that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and not the Son of God, if it were equally true that Baptism is a Sacrament and absolutely necessary for salvation and neither a Sacrament nor necessary for salvation, what doubt, uncertainty and confusion would arise in the minds of Christians. The disastrous state of division and disunion that exists in the Christian sects outside the Catholic Church today is partly the result of following the theory that one religion is as good as another. Christ manifestly would not come upon earth to found fifty-seven different churches teaching different doctrines to confuse men's minds. He came upon earth to found the one true Church that would be the one sure and safe path to salvation. 

 

Photo: Morning Mass

Location: San Juan Capistrano Mission, San Antonio, Texas, 1945

Photographer:  Alfred Eisenstaedt

On The Way Back Home

ON THE WAY BACK HOME

Scripture tells us that the beauty of the king's daughter is within. It is hidden from the eyes of those who gaze upon it only from without. In like manner the beauty of Catholic worship, the truth of Catholic doctrine, the peace and security of Catholic life are beauty and peace and security and truth that are within. They cannot be rightly known or fully appreciated by anyone not a Catholic.

We live in a world today in which Christianity is a divided Christianity. A hundred and one, if not a thousand and one, different churches represent themselves as being christian. But this was not always so. Some four hundred years ago all the nations of the Western world presented a united front; all of the English people, all of the German people, the French, the Swedish, the Danish, all Europe in a word was staunchly Catholic. These were, in all likelihood, your own ancestors. They understood and appreciated the beauty and the truth of their Catholic faith. They had practiced this faith for centuries. Since that time, however, in what is known as the Protestant Reformation, great numbers fell away and great numbers were led away from the Catholic Church. Having withdrawn from the Church of their fathers, they have by now strayed so far from home that things, that once were so familiar that they loved so deeply, have now become utterly strange and badly misunderstood. But there should be nothing strange to a Protestant returning to the Catholic Church, just as there should be nothing strange to a Jew entering it.

I remember the case of a Jewish lady who had become a Catholic. Someone asked her how it felt to become a Catholic. It was at a festival breakfast just after her Baptism. She answered that in reality she didn't know.  She had always been a Catholic, she said, only at last she had found the Messias.  Everything else was what she had always wanted and, in a way, lived up to. For the Protestant it would not mean finding the Messias. It would mean simply finding one's way back home to the bosom of the Church the Messias founded. Hence I have entitled this little work, "Simple Chapters to be read on the Way Back Home. " Becoming a convert to a new religion could mean a turning to embrace something new. In this case, however, the something new is in reality something very old, something that all your forefathers believed in and prized before you. It means turning away from the uncertainty, the doubt, and the confusion in which men live today, back to the security and peace that exists in the Church Christ established.

The first Christians were all converts. Peter, upon whom Christ established His Church, was a convert, together with all the other Apostles. And they were so inflamed with zeal for the new religion Christ taught them, that they set out gladly over the whole world to give their lives to the task of converting the world to that to which Christ had converted them. Since that time many Jews have entered the Church, pagans in all parts of the world have entered the Church, and many Christians, who for one reason or another had lost the light of that faith, re-entered her Fold to place their feet once more on the true path to salvation.  This is the path Christ Himself pointed out, He who declared:  "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life."

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

I am going to write this little book for non-Catholics.  I intend it for those who, at some time or other, may have doubted that they were living their lives as God intended they should live them, or to whom the thought may have come that the Catholic Church is the One True Church Christ founded, and in which He intended all men to work out the salvation of their immortal souls.  I write it as one who is a member of that Church, who has experienced what it means to live within her bosom.  In a simple way I shall endeavor to state three things.  First, the awful responsibility every man has of saving his immortal soul, and in the way God intended.  Second, the solid, convincing reasons why the Catholic Church is the One True Church Christ Himself founded.  Third, the blessings a non-Catholic may expect to receive who enters her fold. 
                                               (Continue Reading)

Forward

FORWARD

"On the Way Back Home" is a simple road map to our true home - the Church. If it is true that "all roads lead to Rome" - It is equally true that Father Linden's map shows the simplest, most trouble-free route. Step by step, with simple, yet masterful logic, he shows the non-Catholic "home" not only by the light of Faith but by the light of Reason

Father Linden is a native of Milwaukee, and graduated from Marquette University, entering the Society of Jesus in California in 1914. From 1918 to 1921 he studied philosophy at Mount St. Michael's, Hillyard, Washington, taught at Loyola college in Los Angeles, and then went to Ore Place Hastings, England, to continue his theological training. He was ordained in Dublin in 1925.

Completing his theological studies at St. Louis University, he was assigned to Gonzaga University in Spokane, and has been a faculty member there since 1928. He has been regent of the university's school of law since 1932.

Father Linden's literary works include a text on fundamental religion, a biographical pamphlet entitled "God's Boy, Tommy," and another popular work in the LUMEN series of Catholic pocket books "Come With Me to Mass."

Lumen Books, 1947

Ave Maria 

Preface

Catholic Evidence Guild, Hyde Park, 1948

PREFACE

Today there are hundreds of thousands of men and women who, though they claim to be Christians, belong to no particular church. They are living in practical indifference to God and are risking the salvation of their immortal souls. They will have much to answer for when they stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty. For if Christ founded a Church upon earth, he meant that men should enter it. If He commanded that all men receive Baptism, He meant that they should become members of His Church. If He commanded that all men listen and accept the teaching of His Apostles, He meant that all men should be docile members of that Church He would build upon Peter, the head of the Apostles. To such men this little book makes its appeal. The invitation which God gives you now, you must not put off too lightly. As the Scripture warns us: "The night cometh when no man can work." And again: "Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation." The invitation, which God gives you now, may not be given again.


As you read these pages however, it may seem to you that what is written here is Catholic propaganda. As a matter of fact, in the good sense of the word, it is. Propaganda in it original sense means anything that is written or spoken or depicted in order to encourage and promote a movement, an idea, a faith. This is the honest and true type of propaganda the Church practices at the command of Christ Himself. Upon establishing His Church He gave the clear command to the Apostles: "Go forth and teach all nations."


In the sense in which the word propaganda is often used today, it signifies anything said, written or done in a partly false manner to influence people into accepting some belief or some idea not entirely true. The Catholic Church does not employ this false type of propaganda. It realized that no true conversion will ever be made by force, by deceit, or by trickery. It presents its claims honestly and openly to your reason and to your conscience. It invites your full investigation into its history, its dogmas and its practices. Only then when the truth prevails under the impulse of God's assistance can a true conversion be made.


If the Catholic Church fulfills the duty given it by Christ, she must never cease teaching the doctrines of Christ to all men. Catholic missionaries have in fact carried the message of Christ to all parts of the world. All parts of the world have responded to their appeal. On the other hand, there could be more effort made at times by the ordinary lay Catholic at home, and even by the priest at times, to restate Catholic doctrine to their Protestant brethren. Secure in his faith, content with his faith and not wishing to impose his faith upon the unwilling, the Catholic layman usually makes little effort to propagate it. The ordinary priest, moreover, is so immersed in the duties of taking care of his congregation that he has little energy and time left over for the work of reconverting those who have strayed. Christ Himself, however, gave us the injunction to work for the conversion of those not as yet in His fold. "Other sheep I have," He says, "that are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."


It is strange and yet it is true, that the Catholic Church, although two thousand years old, remains largely unknown to a large part of the modern world. A certain convert in Alaska once remarked: "What kind of a church do you people run? Is it a closed corporation? It seems as difficult to enter it as it is to pry open the door of a bank vault. I have been coming to your church now for the past six weeks, assisting at the services on Sundays, and I have not as yet met the priest in charge." In some cases then the approach to the Church is difficult. To make it less difficult, is the purpose for which this book is written.

Ave Maria