Quick review

I should like to review, on this holy Sunday, for the benefit of those gentle readers who are Catholic, two reasons for not leaving the Church. These will not be, of course, the principal reasons, which may be found in the Gospels, the Bible more largely from Genesis to Apocalypse, the Tradition from our earliest times, the Holy Spirit in mysterious human action, the works of the Church Fathers, Doctors, and Saints, the integral beauty of Christian poetry, music, architecture, art, before their ruination, the Liturgy which arranged and harmonized these things in the True Presence and in the whisper of Our Lady. (Then look into the eyes of your children.) But these arguments require attentive patience, and that peace of mind and soul that may not be available in hot moments of controversy, when the wolves of Rome, Washington, Chicago, &c, are making free in our sheepfold, and no suitably armed shepherd seems to be in sight.

In such difficult circumstances, I implore my gentle reader to recall these two more immediate arguments:

1. “Don’t let the bastards drive you out of the Church.”

2. “Whatever they do in the Vatican, I’m staying Catholic.”