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Radio Replies First Volume - Images
Celledoor.com ^
| 1938
| Fathers Rumble & Carty
Posted on 11/16/2009 9:04:12 PM PST by GonzoII
Images
1343. Why are Catholic Churches decorated with images and statues in direct violation of the second commandment?
The second commandment is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Protestants, of course, call that the third commandment. But they are wrong in doing so, having taken that part of the first commandment which refers to images as the second of God's commandments. But do those words forbid the making of images? They do not. God was forbidding idolatry, not the making of images. He said, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image of anything in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." God deliberately adds those last words, yet you ignore them. He forbids men to make images in order to adore them. But He does not forbid the making of images. You will find the commandments given in Ex 20. But in that same Book, Ex 25:18, you will find God ordering the Jews to make images of Angels! Would you accuse God of not knowing the sense of His own law? He says, "Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle." In other words, the Jews were to make images of things in the heaven above. And if your interpretation be true, why do you violate God's law by making images of things in the earth beneath? Why images of kings and politicians in our parks? Why photographs of friends and relatives? On your theory you could not even take a snapshot of a gum tree. You would be making an image of a thing in the earth beneath. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! This is the fruit of your private interpretation of Scripture. No. God does not forbid the making of images; He forbids the making of images in order to adore them.
1344. I have seen more idols in Catholic Churches than sincere Christians.
You have never seen an idol in a Catholic Church. An image is an idol only when it is the object of divine worship. You have seen images in Catholic Churches, but every Catholic knows that divine worship cannot be offered to such images. Would you call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol? As for your not seeing sincere Christians in a Catholic Church, you cannot expect to test the sincerity of a Christian by the color of his tie or the shape of his shoes.
1345. God forbade us to worship plaster statues as Catholics do; yet you send missionaries to convert heathens who do the same thing.
God absolutely forbids us to worship wooden and stone statues, and Catholics are not so foolish as to commit so serious a sin. But Catholics do honor representations of those who are in heaven, just as we all honor our dead soldiers by tributes of respect to the Cenotaph. If I lift my hat to the flag of my country as I pass the memorial to our dead soldiers, am I honoring the cloth or the stone, or what it stands for? If it be lawful in that case, it is certainly lawful to honor the memorials of the dead heroes of Christianity, the Saints. Our missionaries go to heathen tribes to save them from the idolatrous worship of man-made gods.
1346. I have seen Catholics on their knees adoring and praying to statues in their Churches.
You have not. You have seen Catholics kneeling at prayer, and perhaps kneeling before an image of Christ, or of Our Lady. But if you concluded that they were praying to the statues that was not the fault of the Catholics. It was your own fault in so far as you judged them according to your own preconceived ideas. Without bothering to ask for information, you guessed, and guessed wrongly. Before an image of Mary, Catholics may go on their knees and pray to God through the intercession of that Mother of Christ whom the statue represents. But you have no right to accuse them of praying to the statue. Were you to kneel down by your bedside at night for a last prayer, could you be regarded as adoring or praying to your mattress?
1347. But I have seen a Catholic kiss the feet of a statue of Christ.
If I kiss the photograph of my mother, am I honoring a piece of cardboard? Or is it a tribute of love and respect offered to my mother? A Catholic reverences images and statues only in so far as they remind him of God, of Christ, or of Our Lady and the Saints. Where a pagan adores and worships a thing of wood in itself, I kiss the cross not because it is a piece of wood, but because it stands for Christ and for His sufferings on my behalf. And I am sure that Our Lord looks down from heaven and says, "Bless the child; he at least appreciates my love for him." Your mistake is that you try to judge interior dispositions from exterior conduct — a dangerous policy always.
1348. Catholics raise their hats when passing a Church; why not when passing statues in a Catholic shop window?
The Catholic who raises his hat when passing a Catholic Church does so as an act of reverence for the Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. But Christ is not thus present in shops selling Catholic articles of devotion. But of course you missed the point, and took it for granted that Catholic men lift their hats because statues are present in the Church. Then you concluded that they ought to do so when they see statues in a shop window.
1349. If the use of statues is all right, why did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?
You are asking an impossible question. You might as well ask me, "Why has Australia declared war on Afghanistan?" No man could answer that question, because there is no answer to it. He could only reply, "Tell me first, are you under the impression that Australia has declared war on Afghanistan?" And if you replied in the affirmative, he would proceed to correct your notions. Had you but asked me, "Did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?" a reply could have been given at once. She certainly did not do so.
1350. The Protestant Bible gives the second commandment as referring to images. But the Catholic Catechism gives it as referring to taking the name of God in vain, omitting the references to images.
Even the Protestant Bible does not give the second commandment as referring to images, though Protestants are usually taught that those words in the first commandment which refer to images constitute a second commandment.
1351. The Roman Church omits the second commandment, and then breaks up the tenth into two, in order to avoid having only nine.
The reverse is the case. Protestants make the first commandment into two, and then, to escape having eleven, turn the ninth and tenth into one! The first commandment, as given in the Bible, is as follows: "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, no the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God, etc." Ex 20:1-6.
1352. You are deceiving us. That is not what Catholics are taught. I have a Catholic Catechism which gives the first commandment as, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me." You cut out the reference to images.
In the first place, if we wished to deceive our people, we would be very foolish to give them the full wording of the commandment in the Douay Version of the Bible, where they could detect the deliberate distortion! In the second place, in the Catechism we give the full substantial sense of the words I have quoted, but in a brief and summarized form which can be easily memorized.
1353. And you deny that you have changed the commandment?
I do. You notice words only, paying little or no attention to the legal substance of those words. To simplify the wording while retaining the full sense is certainly not to change the commandment. If you say, "He is under an obligation not to give expression to his thoughts at the present moment," I do not change the substance of what you say if I repeat to some small child, "He must not speak now." The first commandment contains within its involved Hebrew amplification two essential points: that we must acknowledge the true God, and that we must avoid false gods. Those two essential points are put briefly and simply in the Catechism for children who are more at home with short and easy sentences.
1354. The commandments do not require such alteration.
The commandments do not. But the hopeless tangle most Protestants get into where this first commandment is concerned shows clearly that it needs to be stated precisely, without any substantial alteration. It is not a question of words, but it is a question of law, and Catholic children at least know and can clearly state the law.
1355. You are violating the text of Scripture. The reference to images is a separate verse.
The numbering of the verses affords no argument. There was no numerical distinction of verses in the original Scriptures. Nor did God reveal such distinctions. All who are acquainted with the subject know that Scripture was divided into verses by men some centuries after Christ for greater convenience. The method of dividing the commandments, however, is not of very great importance. The complaints of Protestants against the Catholic division are rather like that of some modern daughter who would want to spell her name S-M-Y-T-H, and who complains that her mother spells it S-M-I-T-H. But the mother knows best how it should be written, and the mother Church knows best how the commandments should be numbered. Encoding copyright 2009 by Frederick Manligas Nacino. Some rights reserved.
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TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Worship
KEYWORDS: catholic; radiorepliesvolone
Historical Context of "Radio Replies"
By markomalley
If one recalls the time frame from which Radio Replies emerged, it can explain some of the frankness and lack of tact in the nature of the responses provided.
It was during this timeframe that a considerable amount of anti-Catholic rhetoric came to the forefront, particularly in this country. Much of this developed during the Presidential campaign of Al Smith in 1928, but had its roots in the publication of Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, originally published in book form in 1919 and also published in pamphlet form in 1853.
While in Britain (and consequently Australia), the other fellow would surely have experienced the effects of the Popery Act, the Act of Settlement, the Disenfranchising Act, the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and many others since the reformation (that basically boiled down to saying, "We won't kill you if you just be good, quiet little Catholics"). Even the so-called Catholic Relief Acts (1778, 1791, 1829, 1851, 1871) still had huge barriers placed in the way.
And of course, they'd both remember the American Protective Association, "Guy Fawkes Days" (which included burning the Pontiff in effigy), the positions of the Whigs and Ultra-Torries, and so on.
A strong degree of "in your face" from people in the position of authoritativeness was required back in the 1930s, as there was a large contingent of the populations of both the US and the British Empire who were not at all shy about being "in your face" toward Catholics in the first place (in other words, a particularly contentious day on Free Republic would be considered a mild day in some circles back then). Sure, in polite, educated circles, contention was avoided (thus the little ditty about it not being polite to discuss religion in public, along with sex and politics), but it would be naive to assume that we all got along, or anything resembling that, back in the day.
Having said all of the above, reading the articles from the modern mindset and without the historical context that I tried to briefly summarize above, they make challenging reading, due to their bluntness.
The reader should also keep in mind that the official teaching of the Church takes a completely different tone, best summed up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame."269 The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism270 - do not occur without human sin:
Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.271
818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers .... All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."272
819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."274 Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,275 and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."276
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."324
269 UR 3 § 1.
270 Cf. CIC, can. 751.
271 Origen, Hom. in Ezech. 9,1:PG 13,732.
272 UR 3 § 1.
273 LG 8 § 2.
274 UR 3 § 2; cf. LG 15.
275 Cf. UR 3.
276 Cf. LG 8.
322 LG 15.
323 UR 3.
324 Paul VI, Discourse, December 14, 1975; cf. UR 13-18.
Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble, M.S.C.
"I was brought up as a Protestant, probably with more inherited prejudices than most non-Catholics of these days. My parents were Anglican and taught me the Angelican faith. My 'broad-minded' protestant teachers taught me to dislike the Catholic Church intensely. I later tried Protestantism in various other forms, and it is some thirty years since, in God's providence, I became a Catholic. As for the 'open, free, sincere worship' of a Protestant Church, I tasted it, but for me it proved in the end to be not only open, but empty; it was altogether too free from God's prescriptions."
Eventually, Leslie became a priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
In 1928, Fr. Rumble began a one-hour 'Question Box' program on 2SM Sydney, N.S.W. radio on Sunday evenings that was heard all over Australia and New Zealand. For five years he answered questions on every subject imaginable that had been written to him from all over that part of the globe. His first show began with a classic introduction:
"Good evening, listeners all. For some time I have been promising to give a session dealing with questions of religion and morality, in which the listeners themselves should decide what is of interest to them. Such a session will commence next Sunday evening, and I invite you to send in any questions you wish on these subjects . . . So now I invite you, non-Catholics above all, to send in any questions you wish on religion, or morality, or the Catholic Church, and I shall explain exactly the Catholic position, and give the reasons for it. In fact I almost demand those questions. Many hard things have been said, and are still being said, about the Catholic Church, though no criminal, has been so abused, that she has a right to be heard. I do not ask that you give your name and address. A nom de plume will do. Call yourself Voltaire, Confucius, X.Y.Z., what you like, so long as you give indication enough to recognize your answer."
"By the summer of 1937, the first edition of Radio Replies was already in print in Australia, financed by Rt. Rev. Monsignor James Meany, P.P. - the director of Station 2SM of whom I am greatly indebted."
"I have often been mistaken, as most men at times. And it is precisely to make sure that I will not be mistaken in the supremely important matter of religion that I cling to a Church which cannot be mistaken, but must be right where I might be wrong. God knew that so many sincere men would make mistakes that He deliberately established an infallible Church to preserve them from error where it was most important that they should not go wrong."
Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty
I broadcast my radio program, the Catholic Radio Hour, from St. Paul, Minnesota.
I was also carrying on as a Catholic Campaigner for Christ, the Apostolate to the man in the street through the medium of my trailer and loud-speaking system. In the distribution of pamphlets and books on the Catholic Faith, Radio Replies proved the most talked of book carried in my trailer display of Catholic literature. As many of us street preachers have learned, it is not so much what you say over the microphone in answer to questions from open air listeners, but what you get into their hands to read. The questions Fr. Rumble had to answer on the other side of the planet are same the questions I had to answer before friendly and hostile audiences throughout my summer campaign."
I realized that this priest in Australia was doing exactly the same work I was doing here in St. Paul. Because of the success of his book, plus the delay in getting copies from Sydney and the prohibitive cost of the book on this side of the universe, I got in contact with him to publish a cheap American edition.
It doesn't take long for the imagination to start thinking about how much we could actually do. We began the Radio Replies Press Society Publishing Company, finished the American edition of what was to be the first volume of Radio Replies, recieved the necessary imprimatur, and Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen agreed to write a preface. About a year after the publication of the first edition in Australia, we had the American edition out and in people's hands.
The book turned into a phenomena. Letters began pouring into my office from every corner of the United States; Protestant Publishing Houses are requesting copies for distribution to Protestant Seminaries; a few Catholic Seminaries have adopted it as an official textbook - and I had still never met Dr. Rumble in person.
To keep a long story short, we finally got a chance to meet, published volumes two and three of Radio Replies, printed a set of ten booklets on subjects people most often asked about, and a few other pamphlets on subjects of interest to us.
Fr. Carty died on May 22, 1964 in Connecticut.
"Firstly, since God is the Author of all truth, nothing that is definitely true can every really contradict anything else that is definitely true. Secondly, the Catholic Church is definitely true. It therefore follows that no objection or difficulty, whether drawn from history, Scripture, science, or philosophy, can provide a valid argument against the truth of the Catholic religion."
Biographies compiled from the introductions to Radio Replies, volumes 1, 2 and 3.
Source: www.catholicauthors.com
1
posted on
11/16/2009 9:04:13 PM PST
by
GonzoII
To: fidelis; Atomic Vomit; MI; Sir_Humphrey; dsc; annalex; Citizen Soldier; bdeaner; CatQuilt; ...
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2
posted on
11/16/2009 9:04:55 PM PST
by
GonzoII
("That they may be one...Father")
To: All
3
posted on
11/16/2009 9:06:30 PM PST
by
GonzoII
("That they may be one...Father")
Comment #4 Removed by Moderator
To: T Minus Four
5
posted on
11/16/2009 11:42:45 PM PST
by
annalex
(http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
To: GonzoII
Interesting. I never knew there had been a question about the numbering of the Commandments.
6
posted on
11/17/2009 12:01:46 AM PST
by
SuziQ
To: FrPR
7
posted on
11/17/2009 7:26:29 AM PST
by
GonzoII
("That they may be one...Father")
To: GonzoII
Would you call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol? In fact, I have heard some fundamentalist protestants do exactly that ... I don't agree with them, but I admire their consistency.
8
posted on
11/17/2009 7:29:21 AM PST
by
ArrogantBustard
(Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
To: GonzoII; FrPR
9
posted on
11/17/2009 8:35:53 AM PST
by
GonzoII
("That they may be one...Father")
To: GonzoII
“Would you call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol?”
I don’t bow before the Statue of Liberty. I don’t ask the Statue of Liberty to protect my liberty. I don’t believe that having the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, or having a picture of it in my dining room or a replica of it on a pedestal on my lawn will protect me from socialist Democrats who want to reduce my liberty.
I fully understand that the Roman Catholic Church does not teach and has never officially taught its members to pray to or worship images and statues. However, the popular piety exhibited by many of its members says otherwise- particularly prior to the Reformation. In an effort to correct such misdirected popular piety, Anglican and Protestant leaders removed the images, statues and relics from their the churches.
10
posted on
11/17/2009 9:16:29 AM PST
by
bobjam
To: bobjam
"I fully understand that the Roman Catholic Church does not teach and has never officially taught its members to pray to or worship images and statues. However, the popular piety exhibited by many of its members says otherwise- particularly prior to the Reformation. In an effort to correct such misdirected popular piety, Anglican and Protestant leaders removed the images, statues and relics from their the churches." Thanks for your input. Regarding the removal of statues by Protestant leaders I'm not sure that was a universal practice; having been in a few very old Lutheran churches and Cathedrals in Germany. I can say that they look like Religious Goods Stores with all the statues and paintings (beautiful ones I might add) lol. The St. Sebaldus Church in Nürnberg (formerly Catholic) has the relics (bones) of St. Sebaldus enshrined in it.
Regarding public acts of piety by certain Catholic individuals, I'll admit that some are untactful. I don't like it any more than I do the uncouth public behavior of some couples. I do not consider walking on one's knees wrong, which we see at some shrines, because it can be done as an act of penance.
11
posted on
11/17/2009 10:09:52 AM PST
by
GonzoII
("That they may be one...Father")
To: SuziQ
Interesting. I never knew there had been a question about the numbering of the Commandments.Neither had I until about 2 years ago. What makes the "issue" most laughable in my mind is that, depending on how one counts the commandments in Exodus 20, there are actually between 12 and (arguably) up to 16 "commandments" there. In fact the reason we speak of "10 Commandments" is because it was a Traditional desire, in the very Church such critics attack with this baseless charge, that the commandments in Exodus be condensed to 10.
Such critics should at least be consistent in such an attack and not charge the Church with "changing the order of the 10 Commandments" because without the Church there wouldn't even be "10" Commandments. (there would probably be an equally petty argument about how many commandments there are)
To: GonzoII
Lutherans and Anglicans were less thorough than Anabaptists and Puritans in regards to removing images in statues. Stained glass windows, for example, remain.
In all fairness, it must be pointed out that Protestants and Evangelicals are not immune to the dangers of popular piety run amok. In those churches, the dangers manifest themselves in other ways.
13
posted on
11/17/2009 7:37:00 PM PST
by
bobjam
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