Roman Catholic Church

89:3.6It was only nat­u­ral that the cult of re­nun­ci­a­tion and hu­mil­i­a­tion should have paid at­ten­tion to sex­ual grat­i­fi­ca­tion. The con­ti­nence cult orig­i­nated as a rit­ual among sol­diers prior to en­gag­ing in bat­tle; in later days it be­came the prac­tice of “saints.” This cult tol­er­ated mar­riage only as an evil lesser than for­ni­ca­tion. Many of the world’s great re­li­gions have been ad­versely in­flu­enced by this an­cient cult, but none more markedly than Chris­tian­ity. The Apos­tle Paul was a devo­tee of this cult, and his per­sonal views are re­flected in the teach­ings which he fas­tened onto Chris­tian the­ol­ogy: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” “I would that all men were even as I my­self.” “I say, there­fore, to the un­mar­ried and wid­ows, it is good for them to abide even as I.” Paul well knew that such teach­ings were not a part of Je­sus’ gospel, and his ac­knowl­edg­ment of this is il­lus­trated by his state­ment, “I speak this by per­mis­sion and not by com­mand­ment.” But this cult led Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that his per­sonal opin­ions have long in­flu­enced the teach­ings of a great world re­li­gion. If the ad­vice of the tent­maker-teacher were to be lit­er­ally and uni­ver­sally obeyed, then would the hu­man race come to a sud­den and in­glo­ri­ous end. Fur­ther­more, the in­volve­ment of a re­li­gion with the an­cient con­ti­nence cult leads di­rectly to a war against mar­riage and the home, so­ci­ety’s ver­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion and the ba­sic in­sti­tu­tion of hu­man prog­ress. And it is not to be won­dered at that all such be­liefs fos­tered the for­ma­tion of celi­bate priest­hoods in the many re­li­gions of var­i­ous peo­ples.

140:2.2“My Fa­ther, I now bring to you these men, my mes­sen­gers. From among our chil­dren on earth I have cho­sen these twelve to go forth to rep­re­sent me as I came forth to rep­re­sent you. Love them and be with them as you have loved and been with me. And now, my Fa­ther, give these men wis­dom as I place all the af­fairs of the com­ing king­dom in their hands. And I would, if it is your will, tarry on earth a time to help them in their labors for the king­dom. And again, my Fa­ther, I thank you for these men, and I com­mit them to your keep­ing while I go on to fin­ish the work you have given me to do.”

140:2.3When Je­sus had fin­ished pray­ing, the apos­tles re­mained each man bowed in his place. And it was many min­utes be­fore even Pe­ter dared lift up his eyes to look upon the Mas­ter. One by one they em­braced Je­sus, but no man said aught. A great si­lence per­vaded the place while a host of ce­les­tial be­ings looked down upon this solemn and sa­cred scene—the Cre­ator of a uni­verse plac­ing the af­fairs of the di­vine broth­er­hood of man un­der the di­rec­tion of hu­man minds.

157:4.5Je­sus, still stand­ing, then said to the twelve: “You are my cho­sen am­bas­sadors, but I know that, in the cir­cum­stances, you could not en­ter­tain this be­lief as a re­sult of mere hu­man knowl­edge. This is a rev­e­la­tion of the spirit of my Fa­ther to your in­most souls. And when, there­fore, you make this con­fes­sion by the in­sight of the spirit of my Fa­ther which dwells within you, I am led to de­clare that upon this foun­da­tion will I build the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven. Upon this rock of spir­i­tual re­al­ity will I build the liv­ing tem­ple of spir­i­tual fel­low­ship in the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. All the forces of evil and the hosts of sin shall not pre­vail against this hu­man fra­ter­nity of the di­vine spirit. And while my Fa­ther’s spirit shall ever be the di­vine guide and men­tor of all who en­ter the bonds of this spirit fel­low­ship, to you and your suc­ces­sors I now de­liver the keys of the out­ward king­dom—the au­thor­ity over things tem­po­ral—the so­cial and eco­nomic fea­tures of this as­so­ci­a­tion of men and women as fel­lows of the king­dom.” And again he charged them, for the time be­ing, that they should tell no man that he was the Son of God.

157:4.6Je­sus was be­gin­ning to have faith in the loy­alty and in­tegrity of his apos­tles. The Mas­ter con­ceived that a faith which could stand what his cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives had re­cently passed through would un­doubt­edly en­dure the fiery tri­als which were just ahead and emerge from the ap­par­ent wreck­age of all their hopes into the new light of a new dis­pen­sa­tion and thereby be able to go forth to en­lighten a world sit­ting in dark­ness. On this day the Mas­ter be­gan to be­lieve in the faith of his apos­tles, save one.

175:1.10“While you should honor your rulers and rev­er­ence your teach­ers, you should call no man Fa­ther in the spir­i­tual sense, for there is one who is your Fa­ther, even God. Nei­ther should you seek to lord it over your breth­ren in the king­dom. Re­mem­ber, I have taught you that he who would be great­est among you should be­come the server of all. If you pre­sume to ex­alt your­selves be­fore God, you will cer­tainly be hum­bled; but whoso truly hum­bles him­self will surely be ex­alted. Seek in your daily lives, not self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion, but the glory of God. In­tel­li­gently sub­or­di­nate your own wills to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

195:3.1Af­ter the con­sol­i­da­tion of Ro­man po­lit­i­cal rule and af­ter the dis­sem­i­na­tion of Chris­tian­ity, the Chris­tians found them­selves with one God, a great re­li­gious con­cept, but with­out em­pire. The Greco-Ro­mans found them­selves with a great em­pire but with­out a God to serve as the suit­able re­li­gious con­cept for em­pire wor­ship and spir­i­tual uni­fi­ca­tion. The Chris­tians ac­cepted the em­pire; the em­pire adopted Chris­tian­ity. The Ro­man pro­vided a unity of po­lit­i­cal rule; the Greek, a unity of cul­ture and learn­ing; Chris­tian­ity, a unity of re­li­gious thought and prac­tice.

195:3.2Rome over­came the tra­di­tion of na­tion­al­ism by im­pe­rial uni­ver­sal­ism and for the first time in his­tory made it pos­si­ble for dif­fer­ent races and na­tions at least nom­i­nally to ac­cept one re­li­gion.

195:3.3Chris­tian­ity came into fa­vor in Rome at a time when there was great con­tention be­tween the vig­or­ous teach­ings of the Sto­ics and the sal­va­tion promises of the mys­tery cults. Chris­tian­ity came with re­fresh­ing com­fort and lib­er­at­ing power to a spir­i­tu­ally hun­gry peo­ple whose lan­guage had no word for “un­selfish­ness.”

195:3.4That which gave great­est power to Chris­tian­ity was the way its be­liev­ers lived lives of ser­vice and even the way they died for their faith dur­ing the ear­lier times of dras­tic per­se­cu­tion.

195:3.5The teach­ing re­gard­ing Christ’s love for chil­dren soon put an end to the wide­spread prac­tice of ex­pos­ing chil­dren to death when they were not wanted, par­tic­u­larly girl ba­bies.

195:3.6The early plan of Chris­tian wor­ship was largely taken over from the Jew­ish syn­a­gogue, mod­i­fied by the Mith­raic rit­ual; later on, much pa­gan pageantry was added. The back­bone of the early Chris­tian church con­sisted of Chris­tian­ized Greek pros­e­lytes to Ju­daism.

195:3.7The sec­ond cen­tury af­ter Christ was the best time in all the world’s his­tory for a good re­li­gion to make prog­ress in the West­ern world. Dur­ing the first cen­tury Chris­tian­ity had pre­pared it­self, by strug­gle and com­pro­mise, to take root and rapidly spread. Chris­tian­ity adopted the em­peror; later, he adopted Chris­tian­ity. This was a great age for the spread of a new re­li­gion. There was re­li­gious lib­erty; travel was uni­ver­sal and thought was un­tram­meled.

195:3.8The spir­i­tual im­pe­tus of nom­i­nally ac­cept­ing Hel­le­nized Chris­tian­ity came to Rome too late to pre­vent the well-started moral de­cline or to com­pen­sate for the al­ready well-es­tab­lished and in­creas­ing racial de­te­ri­o­ra­tion. This new re­li­gion was a cul­tural ne­ces­sity for im­pe­rial Rome, and it is ex­ceed­ingly un­for­tu­nate that it did not be­come a means of spir­i­tual sal­va­tion in a larger sense.

195:3.9Even a good re­li­gion could not save a great em­pire from the sure re­sults of lack of in­di­vid­ual par­tic­i­pa­tion in the af­fairs of gov­ern­ment, from over­much pa­ter­nal­ism, over­tax­a­tion and gross col­lec­tion abuses, un­bal­anced trade with the Lev­ant which drained away the gold, amuse­ment mad­ness, Ro­man stan­dard­iza­tion, the degra­da­tion of woman, slav­ery and race deca­dence, phys­i­cal plagues, and a state church which be­came in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized nearly to the point of spir­i­tual bar­ren­ness.

195:3.10Con­di­tions, how­ever, were not so bad at Alexan­dria. The early schools con­tin­ued to hold much of Je­sus’ teach­ings free from com­pro­mise. Pan­taenus taught Clement and then went on to fol­low Na­than­iel in pro­claim­ing Christ in In­dia. While some of the ide­als of Je­sus were sac­ri­ficed in the build­ing of Chris­tian­ity, it should in all fair­ness be re­corded that, by the end of the sec­ond cen­tury, prac­ti­cally all the great minds of the Greco-Ro­man world had be­come Chris­tian. The tri­umph was ap­proach­ing com­ple­tion.

195:3.11And this Ro­man Em­pire lasted suf­fi­ciently long to in­sure the sur­vival of Chris­tian­ity even af­ter the em­pire col­lapsed. But we have of­ten con­jec­tured what would have hap­pened in Rome and in the world if it had been the gospel of the king­dom which had been ac­cepted in the place of Greek Chris­tian­ity.

92:5.157. The fif­teenth cen­tury af­ter Christ. This pe­riod wit­nessed two re­li­gious move­ments: the dis­rup­tion of the unity of Chris­tian­ity in the Oc­ci­dent and the syn­the­sis of a new re­li­gion in the Ori­ent. In Eu­rope in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized Chris­tian­ity had at­tained that de­gree of in­elas­tic­ity which ren­dered fur­ther growth in­com­pat­i­ble with unity. In the Ori­ent the com­bined teach­ings of Is­lam, Hin­duism, and Bud­dhism were syn­the­sized by Nanak and his fol­low­ers into Sikhism, one of the most ad­vanced re­li­gions of Asia.

98:3.5This for­mal and un­emo­tional form of pseu­dore­li­gious pa­tri­o­tism was doomed to col­lapse, even as the highly in­tel­lec­tual and artis­tic wor­ship of the Greeks had gone down be­fore the fer­vid and deeply emo­tional wor­ship of the mys­tery cults. The great­est of these dev­as­tat­ing cults was the mys­tery re­li­gion of the Mother of God sect, which had its head­quar­ters, in those days, on the ex­act site of the pres­ent church of St. Pe­ter’s in Rome.

134:4.3If dif­fer­ent re­li­gions rec­og­nize the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, then will all such re­li­gions re­main at peace. Only when one re­li­gion as­sumes that it is in some way su­pe­rior to all oth­ers, and that it pos­sesses ex­clu­sive au­thor­ity over other re­li­gions, will such a re­li­gion pre­sume to be in­tol­er­ant of other re­li­gions or dare to per­se­cute other re­li­gious be­liev­ers.

134:4.4Re­li­gious peace—broth­er­hood—can never ex­ist un­less all re­li­gions are will­ing to com­pletely di­vest them­selves of all ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity and fully sur­ren­der all con­cept of spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty. God alone is spirit sov­er­eign.

134:4.5You can­not have equal­ity among re­li­gions (re­li­gious lib­erty) with­out hav­ing re­li­gious wars un­less all re­li­gions con­sent to the trans­fer of all re­li­gious sov­er­eignty to some super­hu­man level, to God him­self.

195:4.2Dur­ing these dark and de­spair­ing cen­turies, re­li­gion be­came vir­tu­ally sec­ond­handed again. The in­di­vid­ual was al­most lost be­fore the over­shad­ow­ing au­thor­ity, tra­di­tion, and dic­ta­tion of the church. A new spir­i­tual men­ace arose in the cre­ation of a galaxy of “saints” who were as­sumed to have spe­cial in­flu­ence at the di­vine courts, and who, there­fore, if ef­fec­tively ap­pealed to, would be able to in­ter­cede in man’s be­half be­fore the Gods.

195:8.2Mod­ern sec­u­lar­ism has been fos­tered by two world-wide in­flu­ences. The fa­ther of sec­u­lar­ism was the nar­row-minded and god­less at­ti­tude of nine­teenth- and twen­ti­eth-cen­tury so-called sci­ence—athe­is­tic sci­ence. The mother of mod­ern sec­u­lar­ism was the to­tal­i­tar­ian me­dieval Chris­tian church. Sec­u­lar­ism had its in­cep­tion as a ris­ing protest against the al­most com­plete dom­i­na­tion of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion by the in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized Chris­tian church.

195:8.3At the time of this rev­e­la­tion, the pre­vail­ing in­tel­lec­tual and phil­o­soph­i­cal cli­mate of both Eu­ro­pean and Amer­i­can life is de­cid­edly sec­u­lar—hu­man­is­tic. For three hun­dred years West­ern think­ing has been pro­gres­sively sec­u­lar­ized. Re­li­gion has be­come more and more a nom­i­nal in­flu­ence, largely a rit­u­al­is­tic ex­er­cise. The ma­jor­ity of pro­fessed Chris­tians of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion are un­wit­tingly ac­tual sec­u­lar­ists.

195:8.4It re­quired a great power, a mighty in­flu­ence, to free the think­ing and liv­ing of the West­ern peo­ples from the with­er­ing grasp of a to­tal­i­tar­ian ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal dom­i­na­tion. Sec­u­lar­ism did break the bonds of church con­trol, and now in turn it threat­ens to es­tab­lish a new and god­less type of mas­tery over the hearts and minds of mod­ern man. The tyran­ni­cal and dic­ta­to­rial po­lit­i­cal state is the di­rect off­spring of sci­en­tific ma­te­ri­al­ism and philo­sophic sec­u­lar­ism. Sec­u­lar­ism no sooner frees man from the dom­i­na­tion of the in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized church than it sells him into slav­ish bond­age to the to­tal­i­tar­ian state. Sec­u­lar­ism frees man from ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal slav­ery only to be­tray him into the tyranny of po­lit­i­cal and eco­nomic slav­ery.