The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"CATHOLICITX. 53claim to this title, because they are confined withiothe Turkish and Russian dominions, and number notmore than sixty millions of souls.The Protestant churches, even taken collectively,(as separate communions they are a mere handful,)are too insignificant in point of numbers, and toocircumscribed in their territorial extent, to have anypretensions to the title of Catholic. All the Protestant denominations are estimated at sixty-five millions, or less than one-fifth of those who bear theChristian name. They repudiate, moreover, and protest against the name of Catholic, though they continue to say in the Apostles Creed, I believe inthe Holy Catholic Church."That the Roman Catholic Church alone deservesthe name of Catholic is so evident, that it is ridiculousto deny it. Ours is the only Church which adoptsthis name as her official title. We have possession,which is nine-tenths of the law. We have exclusively borne this glorious appellation in troubledtimes, when the assumption of this venerable titleexposed us to insult, persecution, and death; and toattempt to deprive us of it at this late hour, wouldbe as fruitless as the efforts of the French Revolutionists, who sought to uproot all traces of the old civilization by assigning new names to the days and seasonsof the year.Passion and prejudice and bad manners may aftixon us the epithets of Romish and Papist and Ultramontane, but the calm, dispassionate mind, of what-5*