Paradoxes of Catholicism | Page 6

in uncongenial soil. The rocks that
impede the roots later become their support; the rich soil, waiting for an
occupant, has been drawn up into the life of the leaves; the very winds
that imperilled the young sapling have developed too its power of
resistance. Yet these things do not make the tree.
(ii) For her Humanity, though it is the body in which her Divinity
dwells, does not create that Divinity. Certainly human circumstances
have developed her, yet what but Divine Providence ordered and
developed those human circumstances? What but that same power,
which indwells in the Church, dwelt without her too and caused her to
take root at that time and in that place which most favored her growth?
Certainly she is Human. It may well be that her rulers have contradicted
one another in human matters--in science, in policy, and in discipline;
but how is it, then, that they have not contradicted one another in
matters that are Divine? Granted that one Pope has reversed the policy
of his predecessor, then what has saved him from reversing his
theology also? Certainly there have been appalling scandals, outrageous
sinners, blaspheming apostates--but what of her saints?
And, above all, she gives proof of her Divinity by that very sign to
which Christ Himself pointed as a proof of His own. Granted that she

_dies daily_--that her cause fails in this century and in that country; that
her science is discredited in this generation and her active morality in
that and her ideals in a third--how comes it that she also rises daily
from the dead; that her old symbols rise again from their ruins; that her
virtues are acclaimed by the children of the men who renounced her;
that her bells and her music sound again where once her churches and
houses were laid waste?
Here, then, is the Catholic answer and it is this alone that makes sense
of history, as it is Catholic doctrine which alone makes sense of the
Gospel record. The answer is identical in both cases alike, and it is
this--that the only explanation of the phenomena of the Gospels and of
Church history is that the Life which produces them is both Human and
Divine.

I
PEACE AND WAR
_Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of
God._--MATT. V. 9.
_Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace but the sword._--MATT. X. 34.
We have considered how the key to the Paradoxes of the Gospel and
the key to the Paradoxes of Catholicism is one and the same--that the
Life that produces them is at once Divine and Human. Let us go on to
consider how this resolves those of Catholicism, especially those
charged against us by our adversaries.
For we live in a day when Catholicism is no longer considered by
intelligent men to be too evidently absurd to be argued with. Definite
reasons are given by those who stand outside our borders for the
attitude they maintain; definite accusations are made which must either
be allowed or refuted.

Now those who stand without the walls of the City of Peace know
nothing, it is true, of the life that its citizens lead within, nothing of the
harmony and consolation that Catholicism alone can give. Yet of
certain points, it may be, in the large outlines of that city against the
sky, of the place it occupies in the world, of its wide effect upon human
life in general, it may very well be that these detached observers may
know more than the devout who dwell at peace within. Let us, then,
consider their reflections not necessarily as wholly false; it may be that
they have caught glimpses which we have missed and relations which
either we take too much for granted or have failed altogether to see. It
may be that these accusations will turn out to be our credentials in
disguise.
I. Every world-religion, we are told, worthy of the name has as its
principal object and its chief claim to consideration its establishing or
its fostering of peace among men. Supremely this was so in the first
days of Christianity. It was this that its great prophet predicted of its
work when its Divine Founder should come on earth. Nature shall
recover its lost harmony and the dissensions of men shall cease when
He, the Prince of Peace, shall approach. The very beasts shall lie down
together in amity, the lion and the lamb and the leopard and the kid.
Further, it was the Message of Peace that the angels proclaimed over
His cradle in Bethlehem; it was the Gift of Peace which He Himself
promised to His disciples; it was the Peace of God which