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RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-02-2026
PART SECOND.
IX. How the Teaching of the Church is the true Rule of Faith.
— By a Rule of Faith is understood that which determines what Christians have to believe, and what to reject.
Now, what is this rule to which we must conform ourselves in order to determine our belief? Where and which is the true Rule of Faith?
Here, as well as in everything else, Protestants are at variance with the Catholic Church. Fifteen hundred years after the preaching of the Apostles, Luther finds out that the whole world has been going astray. The true, the only rule of faith, quoth he, is the Bible. All Protestants admit this principle; but of it more anon.
For the present let us aver what the Christians have believed from the days of the Apostles to those of Luther, what we believe ourselves after the example of our fathers, and what the Christians who will come after us will believe to the world's end.
Our Lord appointed twelve among his disciples, and sent them forth to the world, to teach in his name and with his authority the Christian religion: —
All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach all nations whatever I have commanded you. Matt. xxviii.
Go ye unto the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark xvi.
He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me. Luke x.
Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. Matt. xxviii.
By these last words the Son of God makes it sure, that the spiritual power and the mission of the Apostles was to be a permanent ministry, even to the consummation of the world. Now, if there exists an irrefutable historical fact, it is that, from the Apostles to this day, the pastors of the Catholic Church, ascending through a legitimate and uninterrupted succession, to Saint Peter and the other Apostles, have exercised and do exercise this ministry.
And in what does this ministry consist? That power which is derived from Jesus Christ himself, and by which fallible men teach us infallibly, and infallibly lead us in the path of salvation? It is the authority of the Church, to wit, the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, successor of St. Peter, head of the Church, and the authority of the bishops, coadjutors to the Pope in the grand work of the salvation of men.
This divine authority, intrusted as it is to the hands of men, is the true, the only Rule of Faith. It has been thus believed in all Christian ages; it has been thus taught by all doctors and fathers of the Church. We have to believe only what the Pope and the Bishops teach. We have to reject only that which the Pope and the Bishops condemn and reject. Should a point of doctrine appear doubtful, we have only to address ourselves to the Pope and to the Bishops in order to know what to believe. Only from that tribunal, forever living and forever assisted by God, emanates the judgment on religious belief, and particularly on the true sense of the Scriptures.
Such is the Rule of Faith followed by all true Christians; it is a rule of divine institution, and no one can knowingly reject it without imperilling the salvation of his soul. He that despiseth you despiseth me! (Luke x.) Such is the immovable principle of unity and life in the Church.
It is owing to this that Catholics have ever believed the same one thing for eighteen hundred years.
The Protestants have not this divine rule, and hence as St. Paul has it, they are children tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine. — (Eph. iii. 14.) In spite of the Bible, which they hold up so sanctimoniously, they believe to-day what they rejected yesterday, to reject again to-morrow the belief of to-day, until, through a wonderful operation of believing and disbelieving, they will end in believing nothing.
Then, it becomes necessary summarily to examine this pretension of theirs, by which the invariable and ever-living authority of the Church is displaced for a book, undoubtedly divine, but lifeless and dumb as all books are, and which can do no good where it is read in a wrong sense.
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-03-2026
PART SECOND.
X. The Holy Bible is not, nor can it be, the Rule of Faith.
— The Bible is undoubtedly the word of God. We Catholics know it, even better than Protestants. The Bible contains naught but what is the teaching of God. And yet the Bible is not, the Bible cannot be, the Rule of our faith, in the Protestant sense.
Why?
First. The Bible cannot be the rule of our faith, because Jesus Christ has not said to his disciples "go and carry the Bible," but he said, Go and teach all nations — he that heareth you heareth me. Lessing, a Protestant, remarks that "Christianity had already been diffused before any of the evangelists undertook to write the life of Jesus. They repeated the Our Father before St. Matthew had written the words, for Jesus Christ himself had taught it to his disciples, who had transmitted it to the primitive Christians . . . Baptism was administered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, before St. Matthew had drawn up the formula of baptism in his Gospel, for Jesus Christ had verbally taught it to his disciples." — (Beitrage fur Geschichte und Litteratur, t. iv. p. 182.)
To this proof of fact we must add another, which Protestants can never answer with even the appearance of reasoning.
Those words of our Saviour at the last supper, This is my body, have received upwards of two hundred interpretations at the hand of Protestants!
Fourthly and lastly. The word of God in the Bible is not, nor can it be, a Rule of Faith for Christians; because, if it were, then the Christian religion would not have been established for the Poor and Little ones, — that is to say, for those whom Jesus has distinguished as the privileged children of his love.
However, this last point is worth the trouble of being treated apart.
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-04-2026
PART SECOND.
XI. Protestantism is not, nor can it be the Religion of the People.
— No; Protestantism is not made for the people. Jesus loves the poor and the humble. But Protestantism, in giving the reading of the Bible as the fundamental rule of Christian Faith, excludes the people from Christianity. In fact, many among the poor cannot read, and what is a book for those who cannot read?* Again; many among them have no leisure to read, their time being wholly taken up with manual labor, and what is a book to him who has no time to read it?
If Protestantism is in the right, if to attain one's salvation one needs read the Bible, then, in the words of the Lutheran Lessing, "Oh, how much do I feel for you, who are born in countries where the native language cannot render the language of the Bible!* you, who are born in these conditions of society wherefrom all knowledge is banished, and cannot therefore read the Bible! You believe yourselves Christians because you are baptized? Unhappy wretches! know, that in order to be saved, it is as much necessary for you to know how to read, as it is to have been baptized. And yet I fear you shall have to learn Hebrew that you may make your salvation perfectly sure."
And even when all the poor will have learned how to read, will they be much benefited by it? Will they not find themselves at a standstill at almost every verse of the Bible, as we have just said? Nor can you tell me that it will be enough for the people if their pastors will read them a lecture on the Holy Scriptures once a week! These explanations rest only on personal opinions, are not supported by any authority, and will vary according to every individual view. It is the word of God no more; it is the word of Mr. A, or of Mr. B, — quite a different affair.
Thus whether the people know how to read or not, it is absolutely impossible that the Bible should be the Rule of their Faith. Had God given the Bible for a Rule of Faith, he would have kept away from his Church and from eternal salvation almost all men; the which it is an impiety to assert, and none will ever believe it.
Then Protestantism, telling us, Take up and read the Bible; away with Church and priests; be satisfied with the word of God, as it is given in the Bible, — cannot be the religion of the people, and accordingly it cannot be, and is not the true Christianity, the religion of all.
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-05-2026
PART SECOND.
XII. How it is possible for a Protestant to know whether the Bible he reads be the Word of God.
— I defy all Protestants, past, present, and future, to prove, without doing violence to their principles, that the Bible is truly the word of God.
As for myself, being a Catholic, the question is easily solved. I know what the Holy Scriptures are. The Church of God, the living and infallible authority established by Jesus Christ on earth to teach me the knowledge and practice of true faith, lays open before me the holy books, and tells me in his name: These books are the writings of the Prophets and of the Apostles. They are authentic; which means, they are indeed written by those to whom they are attributed; and are, moreover, inspired, which means, they are written with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and they truly contain the word of God. I believe in the teaching of the Church, and, logical in my faith, I say and believe that the Bible is the word of God.
On the other hand, the Protestant, from the moment he rejects the authority of the Church, cannot reason as I do. With Bible in hand, he cannot tell you why he has faith in what it teaches.
1. Are the books of the Bible authentic? — I will ask a Protestant at once, — how do you know that they have been truly written by the Prophets and the Apostles?
Thus we are in a mesh of historical questions, some among them almost inexplicable. Schoerer, a Protestant doctor remarks: "Each individual is here called upon to give his opinion on matters about which doctors have doubts and disagree. The most simple among the faithful must, before he can trust his faith, resolve questions of authenticity, critic, and history. . . In sooth, it is a dish of very palatable food for the mind of the faithful! Behold a rule very accessible to the mass of the Christian people!" (La Critique et la Foi, par E. Schoerer, of Geneva.) But no danger for us Catholics of being in such mazes. The Church avers an authenticity, the certainty whereof she transmits to her children from age to age.
2. But let us, by an impossibility, grant that a Protestant can of a surety know that all the books of the Bible have been written by the holy authors whose names they bear, will he know as well that they are actually inspired, and that they are not above the level of common good books?
It may, in very sooth, be, that Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint Matthew have written a number of letters, and even religious works, which were not at all inspired. Now, how can you tell, outside the infallible judgment of the Church, which one of the writings of those authors is, or is not inspired?
Will you say that the Holy Ghost, assisting as he does every Christian, will give you the means to ascertain which books are inspired? But, then, how is it that you are so little agreed with one another on this point, and Luther rejects what Calvin accepts, and Protestants to-day receive books which their fathers rejected; as for instance the Books of Daniel, Ruth, and Esther, St. James' Epistle, and that of St. Paul to the Hebrews, etc.? What more? Even on the four Gospels Protestants cannot agree, and this very day some pastors will admit only the gospel of St. Matthew, while others will receive none but that of St. John.
This question, a fundamental one if ever there was one, on the certainty of the inspiration of the holy books, must needs be a stumbling block to the Protestant from the moment he becomes earnest in his reasoning. In fact, it is a mortal difficulty for Protestantism.
Thus, many Protestants, wishing to reason on their faith, find that their religious edifice is based on a very dubious foundation, and thereby lose whatever remnant of belief they possessed, and fall into rationalism or indifference.
3. Let us make a third and last remark. — Suppose, then, a Protestant has obtained a certainty of the authenticity and inspiration of the Bible; how will he know that the version which he uses and distributes among his friends is perfectly reliable, and does not substitute, as it often happens, the erroneous interpretation of the translator for the true and not understood sense of the original?
Very few indeed know Hebrew well enough to make a good translation from it; and on the other hand we are not sure in what language some of our holy books have been originally written.
With us the authority of the Church supplies the deficiency of these impossible researches; whereas the poor Protestants, halting before these difficulties, which they cannot overcome, either give up everything, Bible, Faith, and Religion, — or their studies, pursued without direction, entangle them in the meshes of innumerable doubts, from which they escape only by falling into a negation of all truths; or, lastly, they preserve, without the aid of any reasoning, their faith in the Scriptures, do not trouble themselves with any examination of them, and on the guaranty of Catholic tradition, they believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, which Protestantism is unable to demonstrate to them. In this they are Catholics without knowing it, and happily there are many such.
Whenever a Protestant appeals to the authority of the Bible, he unwittingly invokes the authority of the Catholic Church, whose infallible testimony is indispensable in the demonstration of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. As early as the fourth century St. Augustine protested that "he would not believe the Gospels, were he not forced to it by the authority of the Catholic Church."
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-06-2026
PART SECOND.
XIII. How far One may be led by the Protestant Principle, that "the Bible is the Rule of Faith."
— Were the Bible, interpreted according to one's pretended inspiration, the Rule of Faith, then every reader is bound in conscience to believe and do whatever he finds in his Bible.
Now, on the supposition of this principle, which is undeniably the grand principle of Protestantism, Protestants must needs approve all the abominations and impure follies of all those sects, so-called evangelical, who, from the Anabaptists to the Mormons, have dared to sanction their infamy with misunderstood texts of the Scripture. Aye, more; they are bound to acknowledge as legitimate brothers, in sooth, as true and logical Protestants, all those Mormons and Anabaptists and vile Sectarians who are the shame of humanity.
What impurities have not been committed under the sanction of those words of the Lord "increase and multiply"! A host of sectarians, following in the wake of the Anabaptists of Munster, have on the authority of those words, dared to legitimate polygamy. On some such misapplication of a text from the Gospel, Luther, Bucerus, and Melancthon have permitted Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives.
In the name of the Bible, of the Word of God, Luther at first incited the German peasantry to revolt against their rulers, and then, frightened at his own work, he persuaded the princes to massacre the peasants. John of Leyden found in his studies of the Bible that he should marry eleven women at once. Hermann felt himself clearly designated in the Bible as the Envoy of the Lord. Nicholas learned from it that there was no necessity of anything connected with faith, and that we must live in sin in order that grace may abound. Sympson pretends to find in the Scriptures an ordination that men should walk in the streets stark naked, to teach the rich a lesson that they must divest themselves of everything. Richard Hill justified, with the Bible in hand, adultery and manslaughter as deeds never failing to work out some good purpose, especially when joined to incest, in which case more saints are added to the earth and more blessed to the heavens!
Even on the avowal of honest Protestants, no crime or abomination has ever failed to find its pretended justification in some scriptural text interpreted outside the authority of the Church.
What must we think of a principle leading to such consequences?
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-07-2026
PART SECOND.
XIV. Is it true that the Catholic Church forbids reading the Bible?
The Church has received the deposit of the holy Scriptures from God, and nothing has she more at heart than to see her children nourished with the Divine Word, and meditating its oracles. Yet she surrounds this excellent reading with certain precautions which her maternal prudence has learned from faith and experience.
She well knows how Satan employed the holy Scriptures to tempt the Christ in the desert, and how the Scribes and Pharisees always opposed Jesus in the name of God's word. She holds sacred and inviolable the teachings of her first Supreme Pontiff, the Prince of the Apostles, who, in reference to the holy Scriptures, warns the faithful that in "the Epistles of St. Paul are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Pet. iii. 16.) Hence it is by Holy Writ that the Church is directed to give her children this divine food with great prudence. But then experience also comes to the aid of faith, in a matter of so much importance, and, thus, the example of all heretics, and, above all, of modern heretics, shows most conclusively that this reading of the Bible may in some circumstances, and especially in vernacular translations, become a source of danger. Consequently, she has laid down some very simple and wise rules, not for the purpose of preventing this salutary reading, but to avert danger.
The first rule is, that we should receive both the text and the interpretation of the Scriptures from the legitimate pastors of the Church, and from them alone, "lest," as St. Peter adds, "being led away by the errors of the unwise, ye fall from your own steadfastness." (Loc. cit.)
Then the Church commands that only those translations shall be employed which have been carefully examined and approved by the ecclesiastical authorities. Thereby the faithful are taught that what they read is indeed the word of God, and not the human rendering of some ignorant or dishonest translator. She wishes, moreover, that this same authority be consulted as regards the proper dispositions of mind and heart which one must possess in order to derive profit from this holy reading.
The simple announcement of these practical rules will explain their profound wisdom. They are not only wise, but they are necessary.
The Church thereby shows a far more tender regard for the holy word of God than those rash innovators who, under pretence of placing it within reach of every one, have trailed it in the mud, and profaned it shamefully. Only the Catholic Church respects the Bible, because she alone comprehends its sanctity and proper usage.
And let us here add, what may be new to many, namely: the holy Scriptures are far more extensively read among Catholics than they are by Protestants. At mass, every day, selections from the Old Testament and from the Epistles are read together with prominent portions taken from the Holy Gospels.
Many Catholics carry about their persons the New Testament or at least the Four Gospels; which practice has become a rule with seminaries. Few indeed are to be found among the clergy who do not make the reading and meditation of the Scriptures a part of their daily studies. I cannot say how much the reverend pastors of Protestant Churches read the Bible; but I know their flocks do not read it much. In many a Protestant family, parents forbid the reading thereof, certainly with good reason, as there are many passages which it would not be prudent to allow a young man or woman to read. The Bible is preeminently the Book of the Priesthood. Besides the Eucharist, it is the most precious deposit entrusted to the hands of the priests who have been charged with the salvation of souls. By its proper use they enrich the souls of the people as well as their own souls. Theirs is the mission to make it beloved and respected by everybody, to impart it to all in portions as may be required, and thus preserve to the world of God its essential character — that of Light and Life.
The respect and love which holy priests and true Catholics have for the Bible is unsurpassable. St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, and the great reformer of the Italian clergy in the sixteenth century, always read the Bible on his knees, and with uncovered head: once four long hours was he absorbed in this occupation. St. Philip Neri bathed with his tears the pages he knew by heart; and so also did St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent de Paul. M. Olier, the reformer of the clergy in France, had a wonderful veneration for the book. He had it bound in covers of massive silver, and kept it in a special place, aloof from any other book; he never opened it but with his surplice on, and always on his knees, in spite of his acute infirmities. In these sentiments are French seminarians, for the most part under Sulpitian charge, trained for the sanctuary.
Jesus is the manna hidden in the Scriptures. Happy are those who search for it and find it! Happy the faithful soul who, by the light of the Holy Church and of true faith, and in a spirit of piety, love, and sanctification, searches the adorable Word of God, and from it, as well as from the sacrament of the altar, obtains substantial food of true and solid piety!
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-08-2026
PART SECOND.
XV. Why does the Church condemn Bible Societies?
— A very pious Catholic, who, in the meditation of the Scriptures found the strongest food to support him in his religious life, asked me once "whether the Bible societies did not after all do some good, by spreading the Book by the million: why? they came to the aid of the Catholic Church! How could then Pope Gregory XVI. condemn them, and call them a plague?"
Doctor Leo, a German Protestant of elevated mind, says: "The Pope has qualified the Bible Societies a plague. Were I an Italian and a Pope I would do the same. Let us, for once, be fair enough to examine the doings of these emissaries of Anglican Societies in Catholic countries. Acting as they do without common decency, and with a shamelessness beyond endurance, — every means is available for the purpose of spreading the Bible; — they thrust it into the hands of all, even of those who are the least apt to value the gift; they spread doctrines, which only beget confusion in the minds of the people; wound morality, shake social authority and ecclesiastic order, and will only engender revolutionary movements. Biblical Societies have, in our time, been a powerful engine in the hands of those who have set Italy topsy-turvy. The Protestant zeal of England paves the road to English politics and success, Bible in hand. Verily, the Bible is the sheep's skin under which the wolf hides himself."
There you have the question solved by a Protestant. The Protestant Bible is only a false skin, in which infidelity and revolution wrap themselves.
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-09-2026
PART SECOND.
XVI. "The Bible, the Whole Bible, Nothing but the Bible."
— Such is the incessant cry of Protestants, small and big, against Catholics. The Bible is the whole religion! Read the Bible and you are sure to find faith and salvation! The Bible will rid you of all Romish superstitions! Do you pant after a religion easy, free of all superfluous baggage? Have a Bible! Do you aspire to be one of God's elect? Accept of this Bible, my dear sir!
False and impossible as the principle is, which makes a book, interpreted in many and opposite ways, the Rule of Faith, one may be tempted to think that Protestants accept it with reverence and reflect on its behests. Nothing of the kind; and we have only to open the Bible to see at once the glaring contrast between the Sacred Text and Protestant doctrines on some of the most important questions.
PROTESTANT BELIEF AND PROTESTANT PRACTICE. / SACRED TEXT.
The ministers say: "The Bible is the only authority in religion. Whatever man teaches, unless it is the text of the Bible, is an usurpation and a falsehood."
Jesus Christ says to his Apostles: "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you." (John xx. 21.) "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, . . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matthew, xxviii. 18.) "He that heareth you, heareth me: and he that despiseth you, despiseth me." (Luke x. 16.)
The ministers say: "In fact of religion, we must believe no person but the Bible, the pure word of God."
And St. Paul says: "Obey your prelates and be subject to them, for they watch as beings to render an account of your souls." (Heb. xiii. 17.)
The ministers say: "Bishops claim too much; their ministry is an usurped one."
And St. Paul says to the Bishops: "The Holy Ghost has placed you Bishops to rule the Church of God." (Acts xx. 28.)
The ministers say: "The Bible's meaning can be easily caught, and the very reading of it shelters us from all errors."
But St. Peter thus speaketh of St. Paul's Letters: "In all his Epistles are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.)
We know that the Saviour wrote nothing. He never told his Apostles to write; he left not a word enjoining upon the Christians to read what the Apostles might write. Hence we see that in the primitive Church they prayed, they fasted, were baptized, received holy communion, followed all the practices of religion most faithfully, and secured the salvation of their souls without reading the Gospel, which had not as yet been written. This very little remark, which we have already previously made, and upon which we lay a particular stress, blights, to a very considerable extent, the grand Protestant dogma that we must needs read the Scriptures in order to know religion and be saved. Well, then, what has Jesus Christ done to establish and to preserve religion? He has commanded his Apostles to preach: that's all. The Apostles thought fit to put in writing some of the teaching they had received, and some of the most striking facts in the life of their Divine Master, — that is the whole of the Gospels. The balance of those teachings and of those facts they have only delivered by word of mouth. They wrote them not on paper: they are the Tradition. Hence Tradition has in itself as much authority as the Gospel. Let us now take up the text, and examine whether the saying of ministers is in accordance with the saying of the Scriptures: —
The ministers say: "We'll have none of traditions."
St. Paul says: "Brethren, . . . hold the Traditions, which you have learned, whether by word, or by our Epistle." (2 Thess. ii. 14.)
The ministers say: "All that Jesus has done or said is found in the Gospel."
St. John says at the close of his Gospel: "There are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written." (xxi. 25.)
The ministers say: "There is no more of the Apostles' doctrine than what they have written."
St. Paul says to the Bishop Timothy: "The things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) And St. John: "I had many things to write unto thee; but I could not by ink and pen write to thee. But I hope speedily to see thee, and we will speak mouth to mouth." (2. i. 14.)
The ministers say: "Justification and salvation are to be obtained only by faith. Works are useless and without any efficacy."
St. James says: "What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him? . . . So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself . . . Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works, offering up his son upon the altar? . . . Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only?" (2. ii. 14, and seq.)
In the days of the Reformation, an engraver represented the institution of the Eucharist. [A copy of it can be seen in the Library of Georgetown College.] There is our Divine Lord distributing the Holy Sacrament to the Apostles, and by his sacred lips are uttered these words: "This is my body." On the right Luther offers the holy communion, and says: "In this is contained my body." At the left, Calvin does the same, and declares: "This is the figure of my body." At the bottom of the picture the engraver wrote in prominent letters, Whom shall we believe? There is a great truth, expressed with impressive eloquence, in those words.
The ministers say: "The Saviour never meant to give his own flesh for our food. It is an error forged by the Romish church."
Our Lord said: "I am the bread of life . . . the bread that cometh down from heaven: that if any man eateth of it, he may not die . . . If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give himself to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you; except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you . . . for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." (John vi. 36, et seq.)
The ministers say: "God alone forgives sins. He has given no power to men to forgive them."
Jesus Christ says to his messengers: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." — (John xx. 22.) And: "Amen, I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven." (Matt. xviii. 18.)
Nothing easier than to continue this parallel. It sets forth the great opposition between the teaching of the ministers and that Word of God which said ministers vaunt so much to follow as the only Rule of Faith. In the face of such incontrovertible truths, what becomes of the great Protestant principle, — the Bible, the whole Bible?
No wonder that Protestants, startled by such incongruities, end by rejecting the Bible altogether, inasmuch as they cannot base their belief on it any more. Many parsons look upon the Bible as man's work. "We cannot deny," says M. Coquerel, "that the holy books contain contradictions, and errors in point of fact." (Lien, May 6th, 1852.) The Mayor of Berlin, addressing the king in behalf of the Protestantism of the city, said: "As for the majority of Protestants, the Bible and the symbolic books only bear witness to the labors in establishing Christianity; they are works purely human; they contain not what may be called an absolute truth." (Memoire sur l'Instruction publique en Allemagne, par E. Rendu.) To finish this picture, Professor Schoerer of Geneva, calls the holy Scriptures, a ventriloquism cabalistic. (La Critique et la Foi, pp. 20, 22.)
There! you have what Protestants have made of the Bible.
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-10-2026
PART SECOND.
XVII. The Catholic Priest, and the Protestant Ministers.
— People, especially in Europe, have a very erroneous idea of Protestant ministers. They look upon them as a sort of priests, endowed with a special and sacred character, which distinguishes them from all other persons and gives them authority in matters of religion. Hence many offset Protestantism and its parsons against the Church and her priests. It is a preposterous idea; yet it is worth its while to dwell a little upon it.
What is a priest? He is a man consecrated exclusively to God, by the sacrament of order, which he receives by the imposition of the hands of the Bishop, and gives him, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, a character holy and indelible, the power and charge of teaching religion to men, celebrating the holy Sacrifice, pardoning sins, and sanctifying the faithful. By the sacrament of order, the priest receives a participation of the very power of Jesus Christ over souls. He is made priest forever, and will remain priest forever, even in spite of himself; so much so that his power and the sanctity of his ministry are absolutely independent of his personal qualities.
Let us turn the other way, and see what a Protestant minister is. A difficult question, this; for, like Protestantism, the Protestant minister is a veritable Proteus, slipping from your grasp when you feel sure of having a good hold of him. It is not the same minister in Paris as it is in New York. The definition that fits him in London will not suit the latitude of Berlin.
Yet, amidst this prodigious variety of the species, the genus remains, and in its general outlines it has been thus defined by Count de Maistre: "A Protestant minister is a gentleman dressed in black, who, on a Sunday, delivers from a pulpit some fine talk."
For my part, I would say with more severity, that "A heretical minister is a man who takes upon himself the sinful charge of attacking, in the name of the Gospel, the Church of Jesus Christ, and of spreading or maintaining error in the midst of men."
I say "they take upon themselves," because God has not commissioned them. God has sent to men the pastors of his Church, and he has promised to be with them, even to the consummation of the world. Such is the divine mission, the only true pastoral and evangelical mission. The hand of fellowship, nominations by consistories, salaries by government, cannot confer a religious character, cannot give a divine mission. Nothing can take the place of the Holy Ghost, or of the sacrament of Order.
I say, moreover, that the heretical minister is culpable, indeed; very much so. For he attacks the work of Jesus Christ, he attacks the true faith, and falls under the anathema pronounced by St. Paul against all men who preach doctrines at variance with those of the Church. Nill-he-will-he, be he in good faith or bad faith, the Protestant minister does a very bad work, robbing the Christian of that faith, which is the foundation of salvation.
Protestant pastors may have virtues, but that does not alter the question. It is their ministry which is perverse, not their persons. To what rare qualities and talents they may possess, we will grant our personal esteem, by all means. Yet their anti-Catholic work is none the less detestably impious, and worthy the condemnation of every Christian soul. Superficial minds get generally puzzled by these two things: the form makes them forget the substance; and in the man they ignore the heretic.
Will you know what, in fact, gives power to Protestant ministers? It is not their words, nor their doctrines, nor their virtues, but the Catholic instinct, deeply true, and, surviving in the heart of Protestants, unknown to themselves, for an authority visible, living, and teaching in matters of religion. In this, as in everything else, Protestantism subsists only in what it has received from Catholicity. It is heart-rending, however, to see poor souls, often true and honest, at the mercy of men without fixed religious principles, tossed by every wind, and very often without even a belief in our Lord Jesus Christ.
It would be an insult to the Catholic clergy to compare with them the pastors of Protestant sects. As Protestantism is no religion, whatever they may say to the contrary, so its ministers have not the authority of the priesthood, no matter how hard they may try to have its appearance.
[I deem it useless to institute here a comparison between our missionaries and those who are called Protestant missionaries. It is well known (especially since Mr. Marshall's work on the Missions has been published) how null and futile those pretended missions have been, and how its agents have been more interested in cotton and opium than in promoting the glory of God. Besides their own welfare, those agents of Foreign Missions work only to put every obstacle in the way of success for our martyr-apostles.]
RE: Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868] - Stone - 08-11-2026
PART SECOND.
XVIII. How the Priest is the Mediator between God and Men.
— Often have Protestant ministers, in the footsteps of Rousseau and Voltaire, taunted the Catholic priests for stepping between God and man, and intercepting the communications between the Creator and the creature. The reproach would have some foundation had the priest assumed so much without a mission, as, in fact, ministers do. The priest does not usurp, but he fulfils a duty and asserts a right, in obedience to Him who has sent them forth to preach the true religion, to fight error, to sanctify and save souls, to reconcile the sinner, to dispense among the faithful the mysteries of God.
Again: the priests, the ministers of the Church, do not intercept communications between Jesus Christ and the Christian souls, no more than He intercepted, in his lifetime, communications between the Divinity and the world. On the contrary, God spoke to men through the Humanity of Christ, and taught them and blessed them; and that humanity was the means divinely instituted to establish religion. That is the bond that unites man to God.
Now, the mystery of the Church on earth being the continuation and extension of the mystery of the incarnation, it is no wonder if Jesus Christ, having ascended to heaven, and being invisible in his glory, still employs "humanity" to finish his work.
He exerts his power through his apostles; he is everything in his priests, who are nothing without him. Through the Pope he governs and infallibly teaches his Church; through the bishops and priests he is the pastor of souls; and when Protestants charge the Church with an usurpation of God's rights, they only exhibit a total ignorance of the mystery of salvation.