07-16-2026, 08:24 AM
XIII. The Difference between Conversion and Apostasy.
— Conversion is a duty, apostasy a crime. A Protestant entering the bosom of the Church becomes a convert. A Catholic deserting his Church to join a sect becomes an apostate. Why this difference?
Listen: The Catholic faith, as taught invariably for eighteen centuries, consists in a certain number of positive dogmas, such as the Unity of God, the Trinity, Incarnation, Real Presence, Papacy, etc., etc. To put it in round numbers, let us suppose these dogmas to amount to fifty. On this supposition, the Christians have, then, believed fifty dogmas to the beginning of the tenth century; up to which time there had been only one faith in Christendom. At that epoch, the Greeks denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, and the supremacy of the Holy See, and thus they have maintained only forty-eight out of the fifty dogmas of the Church. Hence it is evident that we Catholics have always believed all that the Greek Church believes, whilst she, on her part, denies two of these dogmas, which we do believe.
In the sixteenth century the Protestants pushed things a great deal farther, and denied still more dogmas. Some denied twenty of them, and some thirty; others admitted hardly any. But, however more or less they may retain, we own all they do own. The Catholic Church believes all that the Protestant Churches do believe. There is no controversy on this point.
But then, these sects, whatever name they go by, are not religious, because they have been formed only by denying this or that dogma. They are only negations; which means they are nothing in themselves, because from the moment they assert they become Catholic.
Hence follows a consequence, a striking evidence in itself, to wit: the Catholic who steps over to a Protestant sect does truly apostatize, inasmuch as he abandons a belief, and denies to-day what he believed yesterday. At the same time the Protestant, who enters the pale of the Catholic Church does not cast off dogma, he does not deny anything he believed before; on the contrary, he believes what he denied, which makes a great difference: which argument is borrowed from Count de Maistre.
In 1813, De Joux, a Protestant minister of Geneva, afterwards president of the reformed consistory of Nantes, uttered these words: "For my part, I should blame a Catholic who became Protestant, because it is not right that he who possesses the most should go in quest of the less. But I could not blame a Protestant who became Catholic, because it is fair that he who has the least should aspire after the most."
In 1825, De Joux became a Catholic.
— Conversion is a duty, apostasy a crime. A Protestant entering the bosom of the Church becomes a convert. A Catholic deserting his Church to join a sect becomes an apostate. Why this difference?
Listen: The Catholic faith, as taught invariably for eighteen centuries, consists in a certain number of positive dogmas, such as the Unity of God, the Trinity, Incarnation, Real Presence, Papacy, etc., etc. To put it in round numbers, let us suppose these dogmas to amount to fifty. On this supposition, the Christians have, then, believed fifty dogmas to the beginning of the tenth century; up to which time there had been only one faith in Christendom. At that epoch, the Greeks denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, and the supremacy of the Holy See, and thus they have maintained only forty-eight out of the fifty dogmas of the Church. Hence it is evident that we Catholics have always believed all that the Greek Church believes, whilst she, on her part, denies two of these dogmas, which we do believe.
In the sixteenth century the Protestants pushed things a great deal farther, and denied still more dogmas. Some denied twenty of them, and some thirty; others admitted hardly any. But, however more or less they may retain, we own all they do own. The Catholic Church believes all that the Protestant Churches do believe. There is no controversy on this point.
But then, these sects, whatever name they go by, are not religious, because they have been formed only by denying this or that dogma. They are only negations; which means they are nothing in themselves, because from the moment they assert they become Catholic.
Hence follows a consequence, a striking evidence in itself, to wit: the Catholic who steps over to a Protestant sect does truly apostatize, inasmuch as he abandons a belief, and denies to-day what he believed yesterday. At the same time the Protestant, who enters the pale of the Catholic Church does not cast off dogma, he does not deny anything he believed before; on the contrary, he believes what he denied, which makes a great difference: which argument is borrowed from Count de Maistre.
In 1813, De Joux, a Protestant minister of Geneva, afterwards president of the reformed consistory of Nantes, uttered these words: "For my part, I should blame a Catholic who became Protestant, because it is not right that he who possesses the most should go in quest of the less. But I could not blame a Protestant who became Catholic, because it is fair that he who has the least should aspire after the most."
In 1825, De Joux became a Catholic.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre