Those attending the Protestant churches in our times are generally rich and refined people, but you must not think that the first Protestants of three hundred years ago were just like them.  No.  Many of them were from the lowest and worst—­I do not say poorest—­classes in society; and when they got an excuse, they went about destroying churches and institutions, burning beautiful statues, paintings, music, books, and works of art that the Church had collected and preserved for centuries.  This you may read in any of the histories of the Church and times.  The Protestants of the present day praise all these works of art now; but if their ancestors had had their way every beautiful work of art would have been destroyed.

Some persons say they would not be members of the Catholic Church because so many poor people attend it.  Then they do not want to belong to the Church of Our Lord, because His Church is the Church of both poor and rich.  When St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Our Lord if He were really the Messias, Our Lord did not say yes or no, but told them to relate to John what they had heard and seen (Matt. 11:5), namely, that He (Christ) cured the blind, the lame, and the deaf, and preached to the poor.  Therefore Our Lord gave preaching to the poor as a proof that He is the true Redeemer; and since Our Lord Himself had the poor in His congregation, the Church everywhere must have the poor among its members, for it must do what Our Lord did.  So if you see a church to which the poor people never go, in which they are not welcome, you have good reason to suspect it is not the Church of Our Lord—­not the true Church.  Again, poverty and riches belong only to this world and make a distinction only here.  The one who is poorest in this world’s goods may be richest in God’s grace.  Indeed, if most Protestants studied the early history of their religion they would not be proud, but ashamed of it.  How little they would think of their ancestors who gave up God for some worldly gain, while the Catholic martyrs gave up everything, even their lives, rather than forsake God and the true religion.

133 Q. In which church are these attributes and marks found?  A. These attributes and marks are found in the Holy Roman Catholic Church alone.

We have seen that some religions may seem to have one or two of the marks; but the Catholic Church alone has them all, and is consequently the only true Church of Christ.  The other religions are not one—­that is, united over the world; they give no proof of holiness, never having had any great saints whom God acknowledged as such by performing miracles for them.  They are not catholic, because they have not taught in all ages and nations.  They are not apostolic, because established hundreds of years after the Apostles.  They are not infallible, for they have now declared things to be false which they formerly declared to be true; they are not indefectible—­they are not as Our Lord founded them, for He never founded them; and they are constantly making changes in their beliefs and practices.