Chapter 30

ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS 
IN CATHOLICISM

The first and the greatest commandment of God is the command to love God with one's whole heart, one's whole soul and with all one's strength.  By this love we are united with God in this life, in a manner that bears a faint resemblance to the manner in which we shall be one day united with Him in heaven.  The Catholic Church promotes the love of God in every possible manner, and in every possible manner she keeps the love of God first in the lives of her children.

The second commandment of God is like unto the first.  It teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  God's love like the sun in the heavens reaches out to all human beings.  Not only does He Himself the infinite God love every human being and will their salvation but He commands every human being to love all other human beings.  You can show your love for Me, He says implicitly, if you love one another.  Nowhere is this union with God and one's fellowmen exemplified better than in the Catholic Church.  She was meant for all nations because men of all nations were meant to be children of hers, gathered in one Fold and under one Shepherd under Christ.

The Catholic Church teaches us that God is our Father.  All men were created by Him and in His image.  Moreover we all have the same end in life, to possess God eternally in heaven.  The Church teaches further that we are all descended from one human couple, the parents of the human race, Adam and Eve.  In reality then we are all blood brothers, though we may seem to be separated by color and language, by custom and tribe.  Furthermore we have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ, not Catholics alone but all men.  Christ's saving Blood was meant to redeem every child of the human race.  Not only were we all redeemed by Christ, but we are all brothers of Christ, and hence brothers of one another in Him.  Having taken upon Himself our flesh, He became a brother to us all.  Having given us all rebirth spiritually, he becomes the head from which we spring to spiritual life, just as Adam was the head from which we spring physically.  The Church Christ founded was meant to promote that brotherhood by gathering all mankind into the living union with Christ, making them members of His Mystical Body.  By the reception of His living Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist and by the grace that flows into the souls of men, we are united with Christ in a living manner so that as St. Peter tells us;  "we become partakers of the divine nature."  Amid all the turmoil of was today and plans for the reconstruction of the world, there is only one real salvation for the human race.  That salvation is to recognize again the living unity in which Christ mean't all nations and all men to live in His Church.  You will be realizing that unity yourself, once you embrace the Catholic faith.  Once again you will be a living member of Christ's Mystical Body.

There was a time when all Europe was united in the one Faith, when all the nations of Europe were united in one family of nations under God.  That unity is broken now and today Europe is in tears.  But the unity that binds all men together as sons of God and brothers of Christ was never mean't to be broken.  To the end of the world it shall be the endeavor of the Church of Christ to reunite all men into one grand human family linked with God.  This grand human family shall comprise all human beings who have lived in the past and died in the grace of God, all human beings who now live upon the face of the earth, and all human beings that will ever live in this world until time is no longer.  A league of nations is only a faint shadow of the living unity in which all Catholics live united to one another and in which all men should live. 

Photo: Hungarian schoolboys in white caps & uniforms parade past crowd gathered for the Budapest Roman Catholic Eucharistic Congress.

Location:	Budapest, Hungary
Date taken:	March 1938
Photographer:	Margaret Bourke-White