Page images
PDF
EPUB

FOUNDATIONS OF CATHOLIC BELIEF

An Introductory Study

by

BROTHER BERNARD ALFRED, F. S. C.

and

Brother Adjutor Denis, F. S.C. Brother Conrad Gabriel, F.S.C.
Brother Cyprian James, F.S.C.


LA SALLE BUREAU

122 West 77th Street

New York, NY.

1943

[blocks in formation]

7-24-44

FOREWORD

[ocr errors]

The difficulties in shaping up a course in religion for college students form a basis of endless discussion among college administrators and professors of religion. Their divergent views are well reflected in the innumerable variations in religious curricula among the colleges. It is refreshing and reassuring to have appear occasionally out of the flux of hard experience, some definite and satisfying treatment of a college course in religion. Such, we think, is presented in these pages under the title "Foundations of Catholic Belief. Here the student will find an excellent presentation of an array of fundamental truths arrived at through the processes of right reason and divine revelation, the natural in coordination with the supernatural. The matter is readily readable, nicely divided and sufficiently comprehensive for its purposes. The volume well serves practical, pedagogical and religious purposes, and will go far in placing the course of which it is the text on the high plane such courses warrant.

Brother A. Victor, F. S. C. President, Manhattan College

[ocr errors]

PREFACE

"Faith through habit lasts only up to the day when, in the face of more serious difficulties, doubt arises; and in the struggle of a mind accustomed to the problems imposed by a superior culture, the child in matters of faith has at hand only arms of inferior value--reasons and explanations insufficient to respond to and to defeat the assaults of temptation and to tranquilize the intellect." (Pius XII)

Catholic college men and women are educated Catholics. They receive during their college careers a training which may be said to give them a superior culture. Certainly they are well educated in the arts and sciences; in the literary classics, ancient and modern; in the sciences of physics, chemistry, biology and in mathematics and their allied fields. They receive sound training in scholastic and Thomistic philosophy. Considering these things, every one will admit that their courses in religion should, at least, keep pace with those in profane subjects. The purpose of this text is to give them a college course in the Foundations of Catholic Belief. It was written by men who are professional educators and who pride themselves on being "Apostles of the Catechism." It was written to equip their students to explain and defend their religion. More important still, it was written to emphasize the importance to them of practicing their religion and of saving their souls.

The instructor must never forget that the principal thing he must succeed in doing is to lead his pupils along the road to heaven. Nothing else matters for him or for them. Throughout this text that thought is constantly kept before the minds of the students. However, we are firmly convinced that the classroom is the place to learn many things; that it is the duty of the instructor to impart knowledge

« PreviousContinue »