"The only reason why government did not suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic system that then prevailed, was that most of the men who were efficient instruments of government were drawn from the Church--from that great religious body which was then the only Church, that body which is now distinguished from other religious bodies as the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was then, as it is now, a great democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become a Pope of Christendom; and every chancellery in Europe, every Court in Europe, was ruled by these learned, trained and accomplished men."

   Of course, a man-made church may be as democratic as a social club. It may not only select its own rabbis or ministers, and govern itself by the will of the majority, but it may also shape its principles by vote of its membership, as it often does. But right reasoning compels the conclusion that a God-made Church if such exists, must be governed by the will of God (as defined by its priestly authority) and not by the will of man in a democratic or an autocratic manner.
   There is but one Infinite God, hence there can be but one Church of God, especially when that Church is the Body of the Lord Jesus, as St. Paul declared the Church of Christ to be (Eph. 1:23). There was but one spiritual society of God's making before the thirty-third year of Christian reckoning, and that was the Church of the Jews. It ceased to be of God when it ceased to have a priesthood, sacrifices, and a Temple, though many Jews believed, and still sincerely believe, otherwise. Only one organic, visible, spiritual society of God's making has existed since then; that is the Catholic Church, the one and the only Christian Church that dates back historically to the first century of the Christian era. And the Catholic Church would cease to exist if the existence of her priesthood and sacrifice were no more, if that were possible.
   Members of such God-made spiritual societies know that true religion is of God. They are governed by divinely revealed principles which bind man to God; as from God man came, and his primary purpose in life is to attain to an eternity of happiness with God. Ancient Judaism, like the Catholic religion, held God to have willed that man be directed and served through His ordained priesthood. Its head in the Old Law was Moses who lived on through Aaron and his successors in the high priesthood. That is why Jesus, the Messiah, said to the crowd and the disciples,

"All things, therefore, that they (the Scribes and Pharisees) command you, observe and do--for they have sat on the Chair of Moses" (St. Matt. 23:I-3).

   The Jewish religious system, as I said, was hierarchical. It had its Sovereign Pontiffs, its High Priests. It had one visible head in the beginning, Moses, who anointed his brother Aaron as the first High Priest, followed by Aaron's son Eleazar, and in turn by successive first sons of the family of Aaron, who sat on the chair of Moses. Jesus, the Messiah, is the High Priest of the New Dispensation. He lives on through His bishops and priests, chief of whom are the occupants of the Chair of Peter, which was instituted by the Messiah. The Jewish priesthood ceased to speak with authority when the Veil in the Temple was rent, for shortly thereafter, on the First Pentecost Day, the Church of the New Dispensation began to function. Yet the Jewish priesthood continued to live a precarious existence, though without divine authority, until the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 A.D. Its "last High Priest," says the "Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge" (p. 428), "was chosen through political intrigue. He was not of the high-priestly (Aaronic) lineage, nor was he in any way worthy of the office."
   A Jewish religion without a divine priesthood, such as it had when the high priest functioned, as commanded in the Torah, is like a horse without a bridle, there is no telling into what doctrinal road it will run. It is lack of coherent, priestly authority in Jewry that accounts for its doctrinal intellectual chaos. It fails today to agree on the simple primary questions, "What is a Jew?" "What is Judaism?" My prayerful hope is that you will get a proper understanding of the faith of your fathers of old in Israel. Then will you realize that the Judaism which added glory to Israel; the Judaism of the priestly days of Israel, is no more, as it was divinely displaced by the priesthood and Church of the "New Covenant." Then will you understand that when a Jew enters the Catholic Church, he continues his religious life with the God of Israel, under the guidance of the priesthood of the Messiah.

Sincerely in the Messiah
D.... G........

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