What Can Unite Us Catholics? by Anthony Esolen

By Anthony Esolen, The Catholic Thing, July 21, 2019

1. All the tenets of the Nicene Creed are true, without reservation or equivocation. The Father is the Father, from whom all fatherhood derives as from its originating fountain. It is no mere customary name. Human fatherhood is merely analogical by comparison. The Son is the co-eternal Word “through whom all things were made.” The Holy Spirit proceeds co-eternally from the Father and the Son. The Word was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and made man, to suffer and die for us, and for our sins, and he rose again, as all flesh will rise again.

2. The words of Jesus are prescriptive forever. They are never to be made merely relative to his place and time. When it comes to God, faith, good and evil, and man and his destiny, we are never to suppose that we know better than the Lord. For He is Our Lord. He is not to be patronized or demoted to historical greatness. He alone has “the words of everlasting life.”

3. It is not impossible that Christ, who has flocks we may not know of, will save those who do not know they are being saved through the agency of His Church. It is not, however, to be presumed in the case of individuals or peoples. Evangelizing is imperative. “Go forth,” says the Lord, “and make disciples of all nations.”