For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, ...
Ecclesiastes 9:5
"When Monsignor Capel, the famous agent of the Roman Propaganda, and sometime chaplain to Pope Pius IX, was lecturing in California, he had something of a discussion with one G. P. Colby, a Spiritualist.
Colby set forth the beliefs of Spiritualism, and charged Capel with misrepresentation. The following is a part of the Chronicle’s account (Sept. 7, 1885) of the priest’s reply: —
“Monsignor Capel took up Mr. Colby’s chief statements seriatim.
He at first expressed surprise that the latter had not tried to ascertain what he in the first place had said before replying to it. Much that was attributed to him was the merest parody of his real words.
--He was a believer in immortality. If he were not, the Catholic Church would not tolerate him within her bosom for a moment.
--It was brought against the Catholics that they believed themselves in daily communication with the angels and saints. But the angels and saints were spirits. To Catholics the spirit world was as clear as the light of a gas jet. They walked the streets accompanied by guardian angels. The dead were in their eyes disembodied spirits who surrounded the throne of God.
--They prayed to them as well as to the saints and angels.
To say that they did not hold communication with the spirit world would be contrary to the whole evidence of the history of the church.
Monsignor Capel denied that he had expressed a disbelief in spiritism. He had simply left out of the category of possible supernatural manifestations all biological phenomena. Aside from these, Spiritualism was but a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, and it had been in the world from the beginning.”
Thus we find that, on the testimony of one of its foremost representatives, the Catholic Church is wholly Spiritualist."
E.J.Waggoner
Ecclesiastes 9:5
"When Monsignor Capel, the famous agent of the Roman Propaganda, and sometime chaplain to Pope Pius IX, was lecturing in California, he had something of a discussion with one G. P. Colby, a Spiritualist.
Colby set forth the beliefs of Spiritualism, and charged Capel with misrepresentation. The following is a part of the Chronicle’s account (Sept. 7, 1885) of the priest’s reply: —
“Monsignor Capel took up Mr. Colby’s chief statements seriatim.
He at first expressed surprise that the latter had not tried to ascertain what he in the first place had said before replying to it. Much that was attributed to him was the merest parody of his real words.
--He was a believer in immortality. If he were not, the Catholic Church would not tolerate him within her bosom for a moment.
--It was brought against the Catholics that they believed themselves in daily communication with the angels and saints. But the angels and saints were spirits. To Catholics the spirit world was as clear as the light of a gas jet. They walked the streets accompanied by guardian angels. The dead were in their eyes disembodied spirits who surrounded the throne of God.
--They prayed to them as well as to the saints and angels.
To say that they did not hold communication with the spirit world would be contrary to the whole evidence of the history of the church. Monsignor Capel denied that he had expressed a disbelief in spiritism. He had simply left out of the category of possible supernatural manifestations all biological phenomena. Aside from these, Spiritualism was but a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, and it had been in the world from the beginning.”
Thus we find that, on the testimony of one of its foremost representatives, the Catholic Church is wholly Spiritualist."
E.J.Waggoner