The basic principle of civilization is the Socratic norm that it is never right to do wrong. The corollary of this principle is that nothing evil can happen to a good man. Death, then, is not the worst evil. Thus, if, even at the hands of the state, one dies upholding the good, he affirms the validity of the original principle. He does not deny it by affirming that what is evil is good.
In numerous ways, revelation simply reaffirms this Socratic principle now deepened in the death of Christ. To be a Catholic, one accepts both reason and revelation as directly related to each other in a non-contradictory manner. To distinguish what belongs to what is a function of the intellect as it seeks to know what is.
To be a Catholic includes the unique principles and promises that are found in revelation, in divine law. To keep these principles alive in ages after Christ, a Church, with a visible and on-going authority, was established.
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