MCViewPoint

This is a recurring theme throughout the book. That is, the Catholic Church represents the true middle ground amidst various opposing (and equally incorrect) perspectives, be it on the individual, reality, reason, economics, or free will. This is because, far from being “right-wing” or subject to any transitory political label, Catholicism is the “absolute and immutable truth”; it has “the marks of truth… engraven upon it” (pages 270 and 96 of The Popes Against Modern Errors).

https://aussienationalistblog.com/2022/03/12/why-i-am-a-catholic/

Aussie Nationalist

Why I am a Catholic was written by Paul Van K. Thomson in 1959, a time at which the Catholic Church seriously challenged the liberal consensus. With the perspective of a former minister and convert from Anglicanism, Thomson outlines his case for Catholicism, relying on scriptural, historical, social, and subjective reasons in support.

Intellectual impoverishment in an age of information

In the words of Pope Pius XII, modern man is confronted with a “depressing contradiction.” On the one hand he has developed techniques which have led him to the attainment of knowledge so extensive and so various that no one man could, like St. Albert the Great, hope to be able to be the master of all that is known… On the other hand, however, modern man, in the midst of his technical capabilities and possessed of almost boundless information, finds himself gripped by fearful anxieties, confused as to his aims (my emphasis, page 16).

Those words were true in 1959; how truer are they today! Despite the scope of recent scientific, economic, and technological advances, for many people nowadays, the most fundamental questions remain unanswered: Why do things exist? Why is there order in the universe? What is the purpose of my life? What will happen when I die?

This is a sad yet dazzling phenomenon to reflect on: in our world, there are so many facts to be learned and truths discovered. But as regards the most fundamental questions on which all others rest, the average Australian of 2022 is unable to substantively respond beyond: “there are some things we cannot know”–in other words, a non-answer.

This intellectual impoverishment amply demonstrates, that in rejecting Christianity and its monotheistic God, our society rejected the unchanging Truth–there are no viable alternatives.

The early Church

On the old Damascus road, where he (St. Paul) had been journeying for the express purpose of persecuting the community of believers in Christ prior to his own conversion, he had heard the voice of the Risen Lord, saying “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 22:7). In just so many words had Christ identified the society of the faithful with Himself. The gloried Lord of Paul’s vision on the highway did not accuse him of persecuting individuals who, more or less like-minded, had formed an association of their own. He quite specifically said that the act of persecution was directed against Him. Since He was no longer on earth as He had been in the years before His Passion and death, it was evident that no other meaning could be attached to His words than that the community of the faithful was in some sense to be identified with the continuing presence of Christ in the world (my emphasis, page 49).

As the early Church was explicitly identified with the continuing presence of Christ in the world, the true Church must have existed from the very outset of Christianity, leaving only the Catholic Church. No other Church is acceptable because it is distinct from and therefore opposed to the Church our Lord identified Himself with. To oppose this original Church and its adherents, is the equivalent of opposing Jesus Christ Himself.

The material and spiritual aspects of reality

See the rest here

Be seeing you