Is It Honest? [pp. 239-255]

Is it Honest?
as that nature was taken from her,
they must in some sense come
through her. They come through
her, because they come from God as
born of her. They also come through
her, because God, her divine Son,
who gives them, loves her as his mother, and delights to honor with the
highest honor a creature can receive;
he therefore confers the favors mortals pray for only through her intercession. But as all the special honor
done to her is done only in consequence of her relation as his mother,
the higher we carry that honor the
more clear, di,tinct, and energetic
our conviction of the fact of the incarnation, and the more impossible
it must be for us to put her in
the place of the Incarnate Word, or
to substitute her for her Son, who is
the one mediator of God and men,
the man Christ Jesus. To do so
would be not only to rob him of his
glory, but to deny her title to that
very honor given to her as the mother of God. Catholics are not capable of anything so illogical and
absurd.
The key to the other expressions
objected in St. Alphonsus is in this
same relation to the incarnation and
the confidence of the Saint in the
power and efficacy of Mary's prayers or'intercession for us with her
divine Son. He confides to Mary,
leaves in her hands the cause of his
eternal salvation, as the client confides his cause to his advocate or
counsel. "My soul," he says, "was
lost, but thou must save it"-by thy
intercession with thy Son, who will
deny thee nothing thou dost ask, because thou canst never ask but what
he inspires thee to ask, and what is
agreeable to his will, and he delights
to honor thee before heaven and
earth by granting thy requestS. In
the same way understand the expressions, "the advocate," "the media
trix of reconciliation;" and all the
rest. The term mediatrix is not the
best possible, because it is liable to
mislead not a Catholic, but a nonCatholic, who believes little in the
incarnation, and refuses to interpret
the language of Catholics by the official teaching of their church. The
Catholic always knows in what sense
it is said, and for him the explanations are never necessary; still less
are they necessary for Him who sees
and knows the thoughts and intents
of the heart before they are even
formed. It is the duty of non-Catholics to consult the standards of
the church and to explain what
seems to them difficult or inexact in
the warm and energetic expressions
of Catholic love and devotion by
them; and it is not honest to found
a charge against Catholics on such
expressions without having done so.
The preacher continues:
"' Is IT IIONFST to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed Virgin or the saints in the
place of God or of the l,ord Jesus Christ?
You have the answer. You know the place
which God claims for himself the'honor
which He will not give to another.' You
have heard from the very words of the Roman Catholics themselves the place to
which they exalt the spirits of departed
men and women."
Yes, you have the answer such as
your minister gives; and we have
shown that his answer misinterprets
facts which he does not understand;
that it refuses to interpret them by the
key furnished in the official teaching of the church; that it contradicts
itself, and proves, if anything, the falsity of the very charge it undertakes
to establish, and therefore clears neither him nor you, if you accept it,
from the charge of dishonestly bringing false accusations against the
church of God.
" Is IT HONEST to assert tzat the Cat/hoic
Church grants any indulgence or permission
to commitsin-when an' indulgence,' according to her universally received doctrine, was
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