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The Church’s liturgical calendar throws up some oddities sometimes. One set of Sundays, and other feasts and fasts, is fixed in relation to Easter, which moves around the spring. Another of feasts is fixed to Christmas, and a third is fixed to calendar dates. And so different occasions can coincide: a feast of the “sanctoral cycle” can fall on a Sunday, and all the feasts of the spring and early summer are vulnerable to being swallowed up by the events of Lent and Eastertide.
A feast day like Christmas will fall on a Sunday only approximately once every seven years. Even less frequent are the occasions when significant dates of the sanctoral and paschal cycles coincide. The most famous of these occasional coincidences is that between Good Friday and the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25. It last happened in 2016 and will not happen again until 2157.
This year, we have the coincidence of Ash Wednesday and the traditional date of the feast of the Roman martyr St. Valentine.
The tidy-minded modern mindset is inclined to see these clashes as inconvenient. Not only are there elaborate rules about which occasion takes precedence, but sometimes the celebration of one is moved by a day to avoid it. (March 25 this year is the Monday of Holy Week, which means that, like with Good Friday, the Annunciation will be moved to the Monday after the Octave of Easter, April 8.) Huge efforts were made over the course of the twentieth century to stop Lent being cluttered up with feasts of a non-Lenten character.
This was not the attitude of our predecessors in the Faith, who celebrated both coinciding events on the same day and looked for a symbolic significance in the coincidence. The feast of the Annunciation marks the day of the Incarnation, and tradition has it that Good Friday fell on the same day. The <a href="https://msf-america.org/blog/333-holy-thorn-relic">Holy Thorn of Andria</a> in Italy seems to agree: over the centuries, this relic of the Crown of Thorns has <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/33630/italys-bleeding-thorn-marks-the-coincidence-of-good-friday-annunciation">shed a few drops of blood</a> when Good Friday falls on 25th March. The same coincidence marked the day the English martyr St. Margaret Clitherow <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/extreme-catholic-heroism">suffered in 1586</a>. In a different way, the feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph, which always fall in Lent, give us something to look forward to.
St. Valentine and Ash Wednesday create a particular kind of clash because of the way they have become embedded in popular culture. St. Valentine was moved from February 14 in the liturgical reform of 1969, but he has remained there stubbornly in the popular imagination, as the patron of young couples. Ash Wednesday’s significance as the start of Lenten observance has been overwhelmed in some cultures by the celebration of &#8220;Carnival&#8221; or &#8220;Mardi Gras,&#8221; the &#8220;farewell to meat&#8221; that precedes it. This has taken on such a life of its own that it has spread over several days, swamping Ash Wednesday itself.
For this reason, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who oversaw the reform of the liturgy in the 1960s, expressed regret that he could not move Ash Wednesday to a Sunday. (See The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 307, n. 7.) He did manage to break the connection between the greeting-card industry and the liturgical feast of St. Valentine, sticking in St. Cyril and St. Methodius on February 14 instead. Despite this, even the Vatican Information Service called the 14th St. Valentine’s Day when Pope Francis, in 2014, thought it a good day to <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-invites-engaged-couples-to-spend-valentines-day-with-him/">bless engaged couples</a>. Bugnini’s fear of the secular significance of the day <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/halloween-and-the-triduum-of-death">overcoming its religious meaning</a> was itself overcome by the desire to make something of religious significance out of a day noticed by the secular world.
There are various theories as to why Valentine’s Day has become associated with romantic love, but the association has no obvious connection with his holy life and heroic death in the third century. It is an example of popular culture simply making use of the Church’s calendar, at a time when this was not just the &#8220;liturgical calendar,&#8221; but everyone’s calendar. In Britain, the Monday after the “twelfth day” of Christmas, <a href="https://nationaltoday.com/plough-monday/">Plough Monday</a>, was the day to return to work after the break, and rents were (and in some places still are) collected on &#8220;quarter days&#8221; fixed by the great feasts of Christmas (December 25); the Annunciation (March 25); the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24); and Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel (September 29). Phrases from the liturgy became associated with particular actions or attitudes: the word placebo <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/placebo">comes from</a> a psalm (114 in the Vulgate) commonly recited for the dead, including by those wishing to ingratiate themselves with the deceased’s family. This isn’t the secularization of the holy; it is the penetration of ordinary life by a ubiquitous devotional culture.
Placing romantic couples under the patronage of a celibate who was executed for his love of Christ in the distant past, for the sole reason that his feast falls in the early spring, seemed perfectly logical and appropriate to the pre-modern Catholic mind. Personally, I can’t see anything wrong with it, either. The couples certainly need his protection today, and, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux said in the context of her own eccentric devotions, &#8220;there is no jealousy in heaven.&#8221; Trying to turn the day into something not connected with the kind of love ordered to the goods of this world—marriage and children—is both quixotic and puritanical. These goods are good, and God made them. They have to be treated with care, and this is where the Church’s teaching can genuinely help out the world.
St. Valentine’s falling on Ash Wednesday this year is a reminder, like some of the more spectacular calendrical coincidences, that life is made up of both feasting and fasting. There must be no feasting without fasting, and no fasting without feasting, either.
Ash Wednesday is unusual as a day that is not a holy day of obligation but still widely observed as a devotional day, with people attending church to receive their ash. I would recommend this year that celebrations associated with St. Valentine take advantage of the proximity of Shrove Tuesday—“Fat Tuesday,” the feast before the fast of Lent—so that the importance of Ash Wednesday is not forgotten.

Valentines and Ashes!

Discover

Years ago, shortly after entering the Catholic Church, I had some conversations with Andy, a former Bible college classmate. One of those conversations, about the Holy Eucharist, remains clearly imprinted in my memory.
Andy believed that communion—bread and grape juice at his Evangelical church—was symbolic only, the same belief that I held before studying Church history and Catholic theology. I went over some of the history, explained pertinent points of Catholic doctrine, and noted how the two beliefs are quite different, even diametrically opposed.
Andy listened politely and closely to what I had to say, and then said, &#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t really think it&#8217;s a big deal. You believe it&#8217;s Jesus Christ, and I don&#8217;t. But I don&#8217;t see why it&#8217;s an issue.&#8221; I was stunned by his expression of indifference. I had expected him to argue for his position while rejecting the Catholic position. (I&#8217;ve had plenty of those conversations, but this wasn&#8217;t one of them.)
&#8220;But,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if you&#8217;re correct, then I am worshiping bread and wine, which is idolatrous. But if the Catholic Church is correct, why wouldn&#8217;t you want to receive Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist?&#8221;
Andy shrugged. &#8220;I don&#8217;t,&#8221; he repeated, &#8220;think it&#8217;s that big of deal.&#8221;
That conversation came back to me when I recently read an essay titled “<a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/11/07/giordano-eucharistic-sharing-ecumenicism-248942">A call for Catholics and Protestants to receive Communion—side by side</a>,” written by Meg Giordano, who teaches &#8220;philosophy at a Jesuit liberal arts college&#8221; and is &#8220;an ecumenical chaplain at that same Jesuit school&#8221;—Le Moyne College, in Syracuse, New York. That explains, perhaps, why her curious essay appears in America magazine, a Jesuit publication.
I say &#8220;curious&#8221; because Giordano—unlike certain Protestants and Catholics—does not argue for Protestants receiving Holy Communion. Rather, she writes,
<blockquote>What I have in mind is the idea of Catholics and Protestants sharing the experience of partaking in the Eucharist each according to their tradition—that is, side by side in a shared space with a Catholic priest serving the consecrated Eucharist to Catholic believers alongside a Protestant minister serving the Communion elements to Protestant believers. In all the places I’ve gone, all the shared spaces of ecumenical Christian experience, this one aspect of Christian identity—some might say the definitive aspect of Christian identity—remains a moment of division among us.</blockquote>
I don&#8217;t doubt Giordano&#8217;s sincerity, but I&#8217;m quite certain that she is “out-Jesuiting the Jesuits” with a combination of loaded sentiment, dismissal of doctrine, and rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Furthermore, despite her apparent protests to the contrary, she ends up in the clutches of indifference that my friend Andy refused to acknowledge and abandon.
Giordano&#8217;s approach involves the classic feint of giving lip service to &#8220;A&#8221; while promoting &#8220;Z,&#8221; which directly undermines &#8220;A.&#8221; So the &#8220;real presence of Christ in the Eucharist,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;is a profound and sacred mystery,&#8221; but her &#8220;experiences of fellowship, love and ecumenism&#8221; convince her that doctrinal differences, though important, must give way before a &#8220;shared Christian faith&#8221; that puts Christ before doctrine.
She appeals to a <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2022/documents/20220909-videomessaggio-comm-crossing.html">September 9, 2022 address</a> given (via video) by Pope Francis to an ecumenical gathering involving Catholics and Episcopalians. It doesn&#8217;t help, alas, that Pope Francis refers to both groups as &#8220;denominations,&#8221; but Giordano&#8217;s focus is on these statements:
<blockquote>Yes, we do not agree on everything. Yes, we have convictions that sometimes seem incompatible, or are incompatible. But that is precisely why we choose to love each other. Love is stronger than all disagreements and divisions. It brings peace, and peace does not seem possible.
That is why I want you to continue to work together on this to achieve unity. . . . Jesus Christ is a bond that is stronger and deeper than our cultures, our political options and even than our doctrines. The Lord! Jesus the Lord!</blockquote>
Giordano apparently takes this to mean that love for Christ can somehow trump or supersede doctrine, but this is a faulty reading. The pope&#8217;s point, I think, is that our shared love of Christ—who is always first and foremost—must inform how we approach and understand doctrine, as there is no conflict between the Incarnate Word (logos) and his words or his teaching (doctrina). If we love Christ, we must embrace and follow his teachings.
It’s notable, then, that Giordano makes vague references to the Last Supper and Christ’s high priestly prayer (John 17) but does not mention <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/why-catholics-arent-wrong-about-john-6">John 6</a> or <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/heres-why-you-can-be-absolutely-sure-that-paul-believed-in-the-eucharist">1 Corinthians 11</a>. But the cherry-picking, emphasizing unity, ignores the historical and, yes, doctrinal basis of unity: apostolic authority and succession, Catholic unity centered on episcopal and Petrine authority, and the reality of magisterial teaching guided and protected by the Holy Spirit. Of course Christ desires that “all of them may be one,” but that fact should raise questions (How so? In what way? By what means?) rather than promote a pick-and-choose approach to faith and doctrine.
The great British priest, author, and apologist Ronald Knox—a convert from the Anglican Communion—addressed this serious Protestant problem nearly a century ago in The Belief of Catholics, in discussing sola scriptura:
<blockquote>The Protestant had no conceivable right to base any arguments on the inspiration of the Bible, for the inspiration of the Bible was a doctrine which had been believed, before the Reformation, on the mere authority of the Church; it rested on exactly the same basis as the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Protestantism repudiated Transubstantiation, and in doing so repudiated the authority of the Church; and then, without a shred of logic, calmly went on believing in the inspiration of the Bible, as if nothing had happened! Did they suppose that biblical inspiration was a self-evident fact, like the axioms of Euclid? Or did they derive it from some words of our Lord? If so, what words? What authority have we, apart from that of the Church, to say that the epistles of Paul are inspired, and the epistle of Barnabas is not?</blockquote>
In similar fashion, Giordano wants to hold on to belief in Christ, love, unity, and fellowship—all of them good things—but avoid the real problem of authority. This should not be a surprise, as every form of Protestantism—however sophisticated or fundamentalist—eventually smashes headlong into the divinely instituted wall of ecclesial authority.
To circumvent this looming obstacle, Protestants can ignore it, deny it, or attack it.  Giordano chooses to ignore it, but she does so with clever appeals of sentiment while relying on an indifferentism that is, ironically, quite secular in nature. She would put Catholic and Protestant “side by side in a shared space,” thus implicitly indicating that the differences are inconvenient rather than consequential. Further, this would lead either to confusion and scandal or to further indifference. In both cases, any real unity would be eroded and diminished.
The obvious (to me) question from a Catholic is simple: why bother becoming Catholic when you can mimic Catholic praxis side-by-side and be &#8220;accompanied&#8221; by Catholics in the process? Well, perhaps that is a feature, not a bug. Could it be, in fact, that Giordano recognizes the real issue and is simply seeking to run around it?
Whatever her exact motives, it is troubling that a Catholic publication such as America magazine features an essay by a Protestant that undermines not only Catholic teaching, but basic theological thought. As any decently catechized Catholic knows, reception of Holy Communion indicates full and public communion with the Church, which is the household of God (1 Tim 3:15), headed on earth by the successor of St. Peter (cf. Matt 16:16-20), and which is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
And that really is a big deal.

A Eucharistic Potluck with Protestants

Two Christian holidays that never fail to get secular historians and anti-Catholic wannabe debunkers exercised are Christmas and Easter. In their fervor, these crusaders can&#8217;t help but create some myths of their own. Today, on the winter solstice, we&#8217;re preparing to celebrate Christmas at the end of the week—so let&#8217;s start by defending Easter, and then we&#8217;ll move on to the Nativity.
Every spring just before Easter, major news organizations run stories “debunking” one of the central tenets of the Christian faith: Jesus’ resurrection. Some take the form of an interview with a supposed biblical expert who puts forth reasons to doubt the Gospels’ veracity concerning the Resurrection; others breathlessly report some archaeological “discovery” that supposedly disproves the Resurrection, such as an ossuary that contains Jesus’ bones. Whatever form these attacks take, their objective is always the same: to sow doubt in the minds of believers and confirm those in the minds of unbelievers. 
One common myth about the Resurrection that even some Christians wrongly embrace, at least in part, concerns its celebration at Easter. The theory holds that Easter was a pagan festival that Christians “baptized.” This false narrative rests on the use of the word Easter itself to designate the Solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection. Skeptics note that the word is similar to the old English word Eostre, which was supposedly the name of an ancient Teutonic goddess of rising light and spring. For evidence of that, they point to a passage in On the Reckoning of Time by the English saint Bede (672-735), wherein he wrote, “April, Eosturmonath . . . has a name which is now translated ‘Paschal month’ and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month.”
But although Bede mentions the goddess’s name, he is the only author to have done so: there is no evidence outside his work for the existence of this goddess in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, or Germanic mythology. And note that this entire argument works only with the English language, since all other European languages derive their word for Easter (such as the French Pâques) from the Greek pascha, which in turn comes from the Hebrew word pesach, meaning Passover. 
When the history of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in England and of the Saxons in continental Europe is considered, it becomes clear there is no connection between Easter and pagan rites. The Anglo-Saxons were converted in the late sixth century by St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604), and Charlemagne (742-814) forcibly brought the continental Saxons to the Faith in the eighth century. These conversions occurred long after Christians first celebrated the feast of Easter, which was firmly entrenched in the Church’s liturgical calendar by the second century. The celebration of the Lord’s resurrection is also well documented in Scripture and in writings by and about the early Christians. There was even an early Church crisis over the dating of Easter, such that when the Eastern bishop St. Polycarp (69-155) visited Rome in 154, he discussed the dating of Easter with Pope St. Pius I (r. 140-155). Ultimately, the matter was settled at the Council of Nicaea in 325.
But it is the celebration of Christmas, not Easter, that draws the most comparisons to pagan rites, such as those commemorating the winter solstice, and specifically ancient Roman celebrations for the gods Saturn and Sol Invictus. These comparisons even influenced the Puritans, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/christmas-1644">who rejected the celebration of Christmas</a> as “Foolstide.” Puritan influence in the United States kept the nation from recognizing Christmas as a federal holiday until 1870.  
The feast of the Roman god of agriculture, Saturn, was a two-day celebration of the end of the planting season and was known as the Saturnalia. During the reign of Emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14) the festival would begin on December 17, but that date was later moved by Emperor Domitian (r. 51-96) to December 25. By the second century A.D., the celebration encompassed an entire week. 
The cult of Sol Invictus (the “Unconquered Sun”) was introduced in 274 by Emperor Aurelian (r. 270-275), but it was not associated with an annual event. Although the date for the celebration of Sol Invictus’s birthday was December 25—a date <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/was-jesus-born-december-25th">sometimes reckoned</a> as the winter solstice in the ancient world—the only documentary source for that date is a fourth-century illustrated calendar for a wealthy Christian known as the Chronography of 354.
It is easy for skeptics to claim that Christmas was borrowed from paganism, because Scripture does not provide a date or even a time of year for Christ’s birth. But the lack of calendar specificity in the Bible does not prove that the Church decided to “baptize” a pagan celebration with the Nativity of the Lord. There is no early Christian or pagan writing that indicates that December 25 was picked because of its correspondence with the Saturnalia or the birthday of Sol Invictus. In fact, early Christians went out of their way to demonstrate how different they were from the pagans. They recognized that the Nativity merited a place in the liturgical calendar, so by the third century, Christmas was celebrated on December 25 in the West and January 6 in the East.
The celebration of Easter is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and was a central focus of the early Christians. The Sabbath was changed by the early Jewish converts from Saturday to Sunday in recognition of the Resurrection and was not borrowed from pagan practice. 
Fixing the date for Christmas on December 25 had less to do with pagan custom, the winter solstice, or Sol Invictus and more to do with Jewish tradition than pagan custom. In Jewish tradition, March 25 was celebrated as the date of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, when the Lord promised to send a lamb to complete the sacrifice. It also marked the first day of the Creation, when God brought forth light. The early Christians easily recognized the connection between Christ the Lamb and the Light, and dated both his conception and death to March 25. If the Incarnation occurred on March 25, then it follows that the Nativity occurred nine months later on December 25. For the early Christians “the decisive factor was the connection of creation and cross, of creation and Christ’s conception,” not the desire to baptize pagan celebrations.

A Christmas Baptism of the Winter Solstice?

<div>How many of the twelve apostles died as martyrs?</div><div>
The <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/apostles-who-werent-part-of-the-twelve">twelve apostles </a>are Peter, Andrew, James (son of Zebedee), John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus, Simon (the Zealot), and Judas.
As you indicate, Judas took his own life (Matt. 27:1-5), and St. John, the son of Zebedee, was assigned by Jesus to take of his mother Mary (John 19:25-27), and a strong tradition holds that <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08492a.htm">he later died of natural causes at an old age in Ephesus</a>.
Scripture conveys that James (the Greater), the son of Zebedee, was martyred by King Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3), although the king himself <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/who-was-the-first-apostle-to-be-martyred">was struck dead by an angel not long afterward</a> (Acts 12:19-23). There is abundant testimony in the early Church that St. Peter, who was imprisoned on the occasion of James’s execution (Acts 12:3), <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11744a.htm">was martyred around twenty years later in Rome</a>, along with <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a>.
St. James (the Lesser), son of Alphaeus, is often identified with St. James, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/brethren-of-the-lord">“the brother,” i.e., relative, of Jesus</a>, the bishop of Jerusalem noted in Acts 15, was who martyred by stoning in Jerusalem in the A.D. 60s, as Eusebius testifies (<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm">Church II, 23</a>), and also <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08280a.htm">Josephus, the noted Jewish historian of antiquity</a>. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060628.html">has stated</a>, “Among experts, the question of the identity of these two figures with the same name, James son of Alphaeus and James ‘the brother of the Lord,’ is disputed.”
We also see that tradition holds that St. Thomas preached in India <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14658b.htm">and suffered martyrdom there</a>, as Pope St. John Paul II <a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1986/february/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19860205_s-tommaso-apostolo.html">affirmed in his 1986 apostolic visit</a>. In addition, tradition holds that St. Andrew <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01471a.htm">was martyred via a form of crucifixion around A.D.60</a>.
St. Bartholomew—also understood by many scholars as “Nathaniel”—is also believed to have been martyred, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02313c.htm">reportedly either by beheading or being flayed alive</a>.
St. Philip <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11799a.htm">may have been martyred in Hierapolis</a> (located within modern-day Turkey), although that may be the tomb of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm">St. Philip the deacon, noted in the Acts of the Apostles.</a>
St. Matthew, The Roman Martyrology conveys, was <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/st-mark-ji-tianxiang-addict-martyr-and-saint">martyred</a>, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10056b.htm">although the manner of his death is disputed</a>.
Finally, tradition also holds that St. Simon (the Zealot), the son of Clopas and who is also called Jude, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm">was martyred</a>, as was his apostolic companion, St. Jude (Thaddeus). They are both listed in the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/romanmartyrology00cathuoft/romanmartyrology00cathuoft_djvu.txt">Roman Martyrology</a> and the Roman canon (Eucharistic Prayer I).
For more, get your hands on a copy of <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/these-twelve-the-gospel-through-the-apostles-eyes/?searchid=10224667&amp;search_query=apostles">These Twelve </a>by Rod Bennett :The Gospel Through the Apostles&#8217; Eyes.
</div>

Who Are the Twelve Apostles, and What Happened to Them?

Joe Heschmeyer discusses the art of engaging with individuals who may hold differing views on the Catholic Church. He emphasizes the importance of understanding their motivations and addressing their concerns with empathy and respect. Drawing on biblical examples, Joe outlines strategies for navigating difficult conversations and discerning when to continue dialogue and when to gracefully disengage.
Transcript:
Hey, Joe, good afternoon. Like the previous callers, big fan of your work, the YouTube channel, the stuff that Catholic Answers puts out on social media.
And my question, sort of actually related to the previous question before the break is, as you have these engagements with folks that are not Catholic and are interested in the faith, or perhaps not, but they demonstrate an unwillingness to avail themselves fully of the historical record and maybe deny some of the very good points that you make in your books and in your presentations about how the early church was the Catholic church, at what point or what is your criteria for is it worth continuing that dialogue?
Yeah, that&#8217;s a really good question. So I&#8217;m a big believer of answering the person and not the argument as much as possible. And I know I&#8217;ve given this example on the show before, but I&#8217;m going to give it again. In John 11, at the death of Lazarus, when Jesus gets there, he waits a couple days.
And Martha sees him and says, &#8220;Lord, if you&#8217;d been here, my brother would not have died.&#8221; And she&#8217;s trying to grapple with some theological questions. And so Jesus talks to her about the resurrection and kind of leads her into faith in a deeper way in him.
Then when he gets to Mary, Mary&#8217;s weeping, and she says verbatim the same thing. &#8220;Lord, if you&#8217;d been here, my brother would not have died.&#8221; But she&#8217;s crying. And so Jesus doesn&#8217;t go on with theological excursions about the resurrection.
He cries with her and then goes with her to the tomb of her brother, and then eventually raises the brother from the dead. But he enters emotionally into a situation that isn&#8217;t primarily a theological problem. And so one of the trickiest things to do, both as an apologist and just interpersonally, is know when is this a problem that needs solving? When is this a theological nut that needs to be cracked at all? When is something else kind of going on? And so you can have people who raise any number of issues against the Catholic Church, that&#8217;s not really the issue they care about. So sometimes in one-on-one conversation, I know that&#8217;s not explicitly what you&#8217;re asking about, but in one-on-one conversation, Jay Butitshevsky has a good test that I will sometimes use, where I&#8217;ll ask something like, &#8220;Okay, well, if this thing you&#8217;re raising, it turned out that the Catholic Church was right and you were wrong,
would that make you more open to becoming Catholic?&#8221; And if they say no,
then it&#8217;s like, &#8220;Okay, well, let&#8217;s not waste our time with that. What are the actual barriers keeping you back? What are the actual issues? Not just the ones that sound good. What are the issues that are stopping you from being a Catholic right now?&#8221; Because that&#8217;s the stuff that matters. Let&#8217;s not waste our time.
And so that can be a good way of just streamlining the conversation away from the salacious and scandalous to the actual things that are holding people back, which sometimes it&#8217;s the salacious and scandalous stuff, but that&#8217;s rarely it, in my experience. It&#8217;s usually other things.
And so there are times where someone is just acting in bad faith. They&#8217;re just being a troll. And there&#8217;s nothing you can do there. In Mark 11, the scribes and Pharisees come up to Jesus and they ask, &#8220;By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you the authority to do them?&#8221; And they&#8217;re just trying to trap Jesus, but I get them to explicitly declare that He is the Messiah and explicitly declare Himself to have this divine authority so then they can arrest Him for blasphemy. They&#8217;re not asking a good faith question. They&#8217;re not trying to understand. They&#8217;re just trying to get Him to say something indicting or something that they can indict Him for.
And so Jesus doesn&#8217;t answer their question. He responds by asking them a question. He says, &#8220;I&#8217;ll ask you a question, answer me, and I will tell you about what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer me.&#8221; And they wouldn&#8217;t because they knew the political calculation. If they said that John&#8217;s baptism was from heaven, people would turn on them for saying, &#8220;Well, why didn&#8217;t you follow John?&#8221; But if they explicitly denied John&#8217;s baptism and said, &#8220;It&#8217;s manmade,&#8221; then they would say, &#8220;Well, you know, we like John.&#8221; So they&#8217;re going to risk alienating people politically either way. And fascinatingly, in this discussion, they don&#8217;t even speak a word of, &#8220;Well, what&#8217;s the actual right answer?&#8221; They don&#8217;t seem even at all interested in the truth. It&#8217;s just this kind of political question. And so when they reveal themselves, and Jesus gives them a chance to reveal themselves as being of good or bad faith, once they reveal themselves of bad faith, He&#8217;s done talking with them. And so I try to follow that same advice. There are times where someone reveals themselves to be of bad faith.
Now, I think when you&#8217;re talking to Protestants, you have to recognize that they often are not very deep in history, often have gotten a distorted version of history if they&#8217;ve gotten it at all, or they&#8217;ve gotten it mediated through Protestant sources, or it&#8217;s possible they just aren&#8217;t reading the things in the same way you&#8217;ve read them.
And so we want to make a lot of space for that without assuming bad faith. I try to keep that a very high bar. I&#8217;d rather at the end of my life know, or have it revealed to me by God, that I wasted my own time dealing with somebody who turned out to not have an open heart, than discover that I turned somebody away who was genuinely seeking the truth and genuinely trying to find out more about Christ and His Church.

When to Walk Away from an Apologetic Dialogue

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Did Jesus ever turn bread and wine into His Body before the Last Supper?

Is annulment just Catholic divorce?

My Catholic friend buried a statue of St. Joseph upside down

Can two non-practicing baptized Catholics get married outside of the Catholic Church?

Can a Catholic watch K Pop Demon Hunters?

I recently saw in a church dia de los muerte images displayed next to Mary images.

&#8220;Is annulment just Catholic divorce?&#8221; This episode explores the nuances of annulment in the Catholic Church, addressing common misconceptions. Additionally, we tackle questions about the implications of not becoming Catholic, the significance of burying a St. Joseph statue, and the challenges of faith in the context of differing beliefs.
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Is Annulment Just Catholic Divorce? Marriage, Faith, and God

In the late 1260s, when St. Thomas Aquinas presented the strongest arguments against the existence of God in the first part of the Summa Theologiae, the first objection he offered was that if “God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.” This is what’s known as the “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-horrible-suffering-does-not-disprove-gods-existence">problem of evil</a>,” and variations of it date back to at least Epicurus (341 – 270 B.C.). In 2023, it remains one of the most common arguments against the existence of God. Some versions of the argument are stronger than others, though. Consider this meme:

At first glance, the argument might appear convincing: God sounds like the maniac from Philippa Foot’s famous “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem">trolley problem</a>,” who ties people to trolley tracks. But upon closer inspection, the argument is far from compelling—or even coherent.
Consider the second line: that as God, “you create some people, place them on a track and make a trolley hurtle towards them.” What does this represent, specifically?
On the one hand, you could interpret it to mean that God is evil for creating people in a world in which there’s physical pain and suffering (what’s sometimes called “natural evil”). But if that makes God “evil,”1 wouldn’t we also have to condemn all parents as evil, for bringing children into a world in which there’s pain and suffering? Even if you’re willing to take the argument <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/unless-youre-judas-anti-natalism-fails">to such an extreme</a>, the rest of the argument still makes no sense: it’s simply not true (at least in this life) that believing in God spares you from <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/job">pain and suffering</a>.
So perhaps we should understand it to mean spiritual evils: that God is evil for creating a world in which there’s sin and the possibility of hell. But if this is the interpretation, it’s simply untrue that we’re “tied to the track.” The whole point of sin and damnation is that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/isnt-hell-incompatible-with-a-loving-god">we choose it</a>. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God&#8217;s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (CCC 1033). So a better analogy would be that we have placed ourselves on the track, the trolley is coming, and God is offering to move us off of the track. So will we trust him?

Does the Trolley Problem Work Against God?

Defending God’s existence against Scientism

Evangelization, the Papacy, and My Journey of Faith (Interview)

I’m always surprised by the ignorance of most Christians when it comes to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/who-are-the-jehovahs-witnesses">Jehovah’s Witnesses</a>. For instance, my wife, who is a cradle Catholic, thought they were Protestants like any others, but ones that just happened to go door-to-door in their evangelization work. She was shocked to find out that they don’t believe in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/in-defense-of-the-trinity">the Trinity</a> or the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-do-we-refute-the-soul-sleep-argument">immortality of the soul</a>. And many people I speak to have no idea that Jehovah’s Witnesses practice a form of shunning against former members (called disfellowshipping). “Like the Amish?” they’ll say.
But the ignorance can go both ways. As a teenage Jehovah’s Witness, I’ll never forget the time in high school when I learned from a Baptist girl that she (and her church) believed in the Trinity. “You believe in that three-headed god?” I asked. “I thought only Catholics believed that!”
As a former Witness, I’d like to present a few of the more salient points you should be aware of when encountering a Witness. This will be a sort of “insider’s perspective” on Witness practice and belief, where I highlight some of the things people unfamiliar with the Witnesses miss when <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/evangelizing-jehovahs-witnesses">dialoguing with them</a>. It’s not exhaustive, but it is a place to start.
First of all, “the organization,” as it was colloquially referred to by the membership, is a bureaucratic entity that is constantly changing. For decades, the mainstay of JW life was the reporting of “time,” or the hours spent going door-to-door that every Witness in good standing was expected to complete—typically a minimum of eight hours per month. That requirement was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/timekeepers-no-rank-file-jehovahs-witnesses-say-goodbye-tracking-prose-rcna126582">done away with</a> recently—an astonishing development, because it was formerly understood to be a <a href="https://watchtowerwayback.org/jw-wb/English/Magazines/The%20Watchtower/1943%20The%20Watchtower.pdf">directive from Christ Himself</a> (203), with the Watchtower’s <a href="https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/201988328#h=5">detailed instructions</a> on how to properly do it being deeply embedded in Witness praxis.
The shunning practice has undergone a pretty significant modification as well. Among other things, Witnesses are now <a href="https://cne.news/article/4220-jehovahs-witnesses-ease-shunning-rules-after-blow-in-oslo-court">permitted to say a greeting</a> to the disfellowshipped person (the exception being those disfellowshipped for apostasy). Finally, one of their lingering failed prophecies has been <a href="https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/w20100615/United-in-Love-Annual-Meeting-Report/">further</a> “<a href="https://jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php#2010">adjusted</a>”—namely, that “the generation” that witnessed the events of 1914 would not die prior to the start of the Great Tribulation. It’s now been necessary to posit the existence of “overlapping generations” as a suitable interpretation of “this generation” (Matt. 24:34) to avert systemic doctrinal collapse <a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a>.
Nevertheless, there are a several constants when it comes to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Let’s discuss some common ground we have with Witnesses that you might not be aware of.
What do we have in common with the Witnesses, besides both being lumped into the general category of “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/they-told-me-jesus-isnt-god">Christians</a>”? Witnesses are generally considered “conservative,” and so there is a good deal of overlap regarding traditional morals, with the notable exceptions of our stances on remarriage and contraception. But the major (and perhaps surprising) area of convergence is the similar insistence on membership in a visible, earthly organization as being necessary for salvation. For the Witnesses, the Watchtower organization is God’s dispenser of truth on earth. God leads it into all truth through a gradual process of increasing “light” (Prov. 4:18). “Current understandings” that are suspected by a Witness to be wrong are therefore opportunities to suspend judgment and “wait on Jehovah” to correct matters.
It might be necessary to carefully distinguish this from Catholic teaching. Some Witnesses are aware of certain changes in tone in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council and will attempt to conflate the two phenomena. Catholics believe in one dogmatic gospel, delivered once and for all by Christ Jesus to his apostles. The understanding of this deposit can deepen, and we’re assured of the Holy Spirit’s guidance in this process, but it can never contradict what came before. And on certain prudential matters, the Church can change her stance as the needs of a particular age may require (on questions of social justice and relations with other faiths, for example). In contrast, Witness dogma can openly contradict what came before it, and Witnesses admit as much, based on their belief in progressive revelation. For example, at one time, Witnesses believed that all Christians would go to heaven upon their deaths. Later, in 1935, they received <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Conscience-struggle-between-religion/dp/0999499203">clarification</a> from God that only 144,000 would do so, and that the rest would live forever on a paradise earth (16).
Despite these crucial differences in our understanding of how revelation works, Catholics can still praise the Witnesses for seeing the need for a concrete, visible faith community with a clear authority structure. Sadly, though, many ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses have not considered the possibility of entering the Catholic Church precisely because they feel so burned by their experience with religious authority in the Witnesses. Presenting a compelling vision of our historic hierarchical structure and how it corrects the deficiencies in the Witness model is therefore something to approach sensitively when talking with ex-Witnesses.
Remember that if a Witness is willing to talk to you at any length about matters of faith, you’ve already made some progress. Being exposed to something different is all it takes to trigger curiosity many times, so just giving him a glimpse of the beauty and depth of Catholicism can often be the best strategy.

Jehovah’s Witnesses: An Insider Perspective

An early Lutheran theologian quotes Martin Luther as saying that “justification is the article by which the Church stands or falls.” The closest we find <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/luthers-saying/">in Luther’s own writings</a> is a slight variation: that “if this article [of justification] stands, the church stands; if this article collapses, the church collapses.” Luther’s fellow Reformer John Calvin agreed, <a href="https://www.monergism.com/john-calvins-letter-cardinal-sadoleto-1539">telling Cardinal Sadoleto</a> that it was “the first and keenest subject of controversy” between Catholics and Protestants, and that “wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.”
So according to the first Protestants, the doctrine of sola fide, that justification is by faith alone, isn’t just an important doctrine, it’s the make-or-break doctrine for Christianity (both in terms of individual salvation, and the survival of the Church). Given this, it’s surprising that the Protestant theologian and Church historian <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.xiv.xviii.html">Philip Schaff</a> should concede that anyone trying to find “the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone” being taught in the early Church “will be greatly disappointed.”
But if the early Christians weren’t the ones claiming that sola fide was “<a href="https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-every-generation-must-contend-for-justification-sola-fide/">the heart of the Gospel</a>,” where did this idea come from? The history is fascinating, and perhaps not what you might expect. For instance, did you know Martin Luther didn’t originally believe this doctrine, even in his first years as a Protestant? As <a href="https://journal.rts.edu/article/luther-in-1520-justification-by-faith-alone/">Howard Griffith</a> of Reformed Theological Seminary points out, “Luther’s doctrine of sola fide in 1520 is closer to ‘union with Christ by faith alone’ than to ‘justification by faith alone.’” So even when Luther used the expression “sola fide” (“faith alone”), he didn’t mean by it what later Protestants (including Luther himself) would mean.
<a href="https://journal.rts.edu/article/luther-in-1520-justification-by-faith-alone/">Zondervan Academic</a> (the Protestant publisher) explains that “in the early years of the Reformation (that is, before 1535), Luther did not make a sharp distinction between justification and sanctification,” believing (as Catholics do) that justification is “both an event and a process.” Further, Luther originally “did not necessarily characterize justification in forensic categories. His metaphors for justification tended to be of the marriage relationship or the medical process of healing.” In other words, Luther was initially very “Catholic” on the question of justification…even as a Protestant.
Only in the latter part of the 16th century do Protestants rally around sola fide in the sense that it is understood today. But even here, it wasn’t because this doctrine originally inspired the Reformers. In the words of Zondervan Academic, it’s because “this was the one thing all Protestants held in common and the thing that distinguished them from Rome.” That is, the reason sola fide became “the gospel” for Protestants wasn&#8217;t because the earliest Christians (including those who actually knew the Apostles) understood the gospel to mean that. They clearly didn’t. Instead, it was simply the only non-Catholic belief that Protestants could all agree on. It gave the Reformers something that both (a) rallied all Protestants together, and (b) allowed them to distinguish themselves from (and condemn) Catholics…even if it meant turning a novel doctrine into the “heart” of the gospel.

The Heart of the Protestant Gospel

It’s that time of year again, when many Christians encounter claims that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/is-catholicism-pagan">pagan</a> deities predating <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/jesus-christ">Jesus Christ</a> were born on December 25. In popular films, internet videos, and other media, you can find long lists of gods who were supposedly born on the same day.
This idea is not limited to unbelievers. I have heard many Christians claim that the date of Christmas was intended to provide an alternative to pagan celebrations. In some ways, it has become a pious legend. On the other hand, some Fundamentalist denominations refuse to celebrate Christmas for this reason.
Of all the deities of whom people make this claim, only three can be found to come close: Saturn, Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/exposing-the-mithras-myth">Mithras</a>.
<h2>1. Saturnalia</h2>
Saturnalia was the feast dedicated to the Roman god Saturn. Established around 220 B.C., this feast was originally celebrated on December 17. Eventually, the feast was extended to last an entire week, ending on December 23. The supposed connection to Christmas is based on the proximity of the two festivals to each other.
This can be found repeatedly on the internet. In his article &#8220;<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120426224842/http://voices.yahoo.com/saturnalia-reason-we-celebrate-christmas-december-11973.html?cat=37" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Saturnalia: The Reason We Celebrate Christmas in December</a>&#8221; (also available <a href="https://www.stepbystep.com/Saturnalia-The-Reason-We-Celebrate-Christmas-in-December-135883/">here</a>), columnist Mark Whittington explains:
<blockquote>It has been suggested that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25th as Christ&#8217;s birthday (and hence Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. In this way the problem of eliminating an already popular holiday would be sidestepped, thus making the Christianizing of the population easier.</blockquote>
If the suggestion were correct, one would expect to find at least a single reference by early Christians to support it. Instead we find scores of quotations from Church Fathers indicating a desire to distance themselves from pagan religions.
<h2>2 (and 3). Sol Invictus and Mithras</h2>
The feast of Sol Invictus was the attempt by the Roman emperor Aurelian to reform the cult of Sol, the Roman sun god, and reintroduce it to his people, inaugurating Sol&#8217;s temple and holding games for the first time in 274. Not only was this festival not annual, but it also cannot be historically documented as having been established on December 25 by Aurelian (see Steven Hijmans, Sol Invictus, The Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas, Mouseion, Series III, vol. 3, 377-398).
According to inscriptions on candle votives and other ancient works of art, there is a link between <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/exposing-the-mithras-myth">Mithras</a> and Sol Invictus. In some cases, it appears the Mithraists believed that Mithras and Sol were two different manifestations of the same god. In others, they appear to be two gods united as one. These connections are difficult to understand, given our limited knowledge of the Mithraic belief system, but they are important because they help to explain why skeptics claim that the birthday of Mithras was celebrated on December 25.
A manuscript known as the <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_00_eintro.htm">Chronography of 354</a> shows the birth of Sol Invictus being celebrated on December 25. Given the fact that the Mithraists equated their god with Sol in one way or another, it is understandable that they may have appropriated the date as their own. The problem for the skeptic is that no evidence exists to suggest that Aurelian was a Mithraist, or that he even had Mithraism in mind when he instituted the feast of Sol Invictus. The connection of Mithra to December 25 is only coincidental.
The deathblow to both the Mithras and Sol Invictus parallels is that the Chronography of 354 is the earliest mention of any pagan god being celebrated on December 25. The celebration of the birth of Christ by Christians is also mentioned on the calendar as having been celebrated on that day, which diminishes the likelihood that the pagan feast came first. At the very least, it negates the claim that it can be proved from the historical record that any December 25 pagan festival predates the Christian tradition.
Although the date of Christ’s birth is not given to us in Scripture, there is documented evidence that December 25 was already of some significance to Christians prior to 354. One example can be found in the writings of Hippolytus of Rome, who explains in his Commentary on the book of Daniel (c. 204) that the Lord’s birth was believed to have occurred on that day:
<blockquote>For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty-third year, March 25th, Friday, the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, while Rufus and Roubellion were Consuls.</blockquote>
The reference to Adam can be understood in light of another of Hippolytus’s writings, the <a href="https://tcschmidtblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/schmidt-calculating-december-25-as-the-birth-of-jesus-in-hippolytus1.pdf">Chronicon</a>, where he explains that Jesus was born nine months after the anniversary of Creation. According to his calculations, the world was created on the vernal equinox, March 25, which would mean Jesus was born nine months later, on December 25.
Nineteenth-century liturgical scholar Louis Duchesne explains that “towards the end of the third century the custom of celebrating the birthday of Christ had spread throughout the whole Church, but . . . it was <a href="https://archive.org/details/christianworshi00mcclgoog/page/n4">not observed</a> everywhere on the same day” (Christian Worship, Its Origin and Evolution: A study of the Latin liturgy up to the time of Charlemagne, 260).
In the West, the birth of Christ was celebrated on December 25, and in the East on January 6.
Duchesne writes, “One is inclined to believe that the Roman Church made choice of the 25th of December in order to enter into rivalry with Mithraism. This reason, however, leaves unexplained the choice of the 6th of January” (id., 261). His solution, therefore, was that the date of Christ’s birth was decided by using as a starting point the day on which he was believed to have died. This would explain the discrepancies between the celebrations in the East and West.
Given the great aversion on the part of some Christians to anything pagan, the logical conclusion here is that one celebration has nothing to do with the other. In his book <a href="https://www.ignatius.com/The-Spirit-of-the-Liturgy-P2310.aspx">Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI</a> explains,
<blockquote>The claim used to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However, these old theories can no longer be sustained. The decisive factor was the connection of creation and Cross, of creation and Christ’s conception (105-107).</blockquote>
These explanations of how December 25 came to be the date of Christmas are all plausible. But we know one thing for sure: the evidence that this day held a special significance to Christians predates the proof of a supposed celebration of Sol Invictus or other pagan deities on that day.
Nor was the Christians&#8217; choice of a date so close to the winter solstice done to mimic pagan festivals. The various pagan religions all had festivals spanning the calendar. Whatever month the early Christians might have otherwise chosen would still place Christmas near some pagan celebration, and oppositional theorists would still be making the same claims.
The solstice was important to everyone for agricultural reasons in the same way water is important to the survival of human beings, and so we see rituals involving water showing up in various religions. That doesn&#8217;t prove that one borrowed the idea or theme from another.

Why is Christmas on December 25?

How do you deal with being the only Catholic in the family?

I’m 21 and the only Catholic in my family. How do I find a Catholic community?

I’m the only Catholic in my family. How do I keep cool when having a heated debate with my brother?

I’m converting and will be the only Catholic in my family. How do I break this news to my family without burning bridges?

&#8220;How do I deal with being the only Catholic?&#8221; This question resonates with many, especially those navigating family dynamics. The discussion also touches on finding a Catholic community as a young adult, managing heated debates with family members, and approaching the sensitive topic of conversion without causing conflict.
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How Do I Deal With Being the Only Catholic? Community Tips

<div>May "gay" men be ordained as priests?</div><div>Existing priests who may deal with homosexual tendencies yet are committed to a life of chastity and otherwise to the Church’s teachings can certainly continue in their priestly ministry.
Regarding candidates for the priesthood, in December 2016 the Congregation for the Clergy, with Pope Francis’s approval, reaffirmed that men who live a homosexual lifestyle, have “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” or support the “so-called ‘gay culture’” cannot be admitted to the ministerial priesthood:
<blockquote>In relation to persons with homosexual tendencies who seek admission to seminary, or discover such a situation in the course of formation, consistent with her own Magisterium, “the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’ Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies” (<a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11462">The Gift of Priestly Vocation</a> 199, footnotes omitted). </blockquote>
This document reaffirms that, contrary to some reports, the Church doesn&#8217;t view the term gay favorably, given its association with living and promoting a lifestyle that is irreconcilable with Jesus Christ and his teaching (see John 8:31-32).
Finally, for anyone dealing with same-sex attraction (SSA) and desiring to live a joyfully chaste life, we heartily recommend the work of the Catholic apostolate <a href="https://couragerc.org/">Courage</a>.
</div>

What About ‘Gay’ Priests?

How Does Islam and Christianity Differ on Jesus?

If God could have forgiven humanity without the cross, what makes the cross a more fitting means of salvation than simply forgiving sinners?

What do you think of the idea that Muhummad had the strength of 30 men?

Are there Messianic Muslims — Muslims who believe in Jesus?

It is in the Koran that Jesus said he was going to send a messenger.

Does Islam teach that Christians must be destroyed?

Isn’t it disingenuous to dismiss all of Islam culturally? It seems like people try to trash the whole religion when we could build bridges instead.

How do you explain the Catechism’s teaching that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, when Islam is so different than Christianity? Also, early church fathers used the quick spread of the faith around the world as an argument for its truth. But...

&#8220;How Does Islam and Christianity Differ on Jesus?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the distinct perspectives each faith holds about Christ. Additionally, the conversation touches on whether God could have forgiven humanity without the cross, the concept of Messianic Muslims, and the implications of the Koran&#8217;s teachings regarding Jesus and messengers.
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How Does Islam and Christianity Differ on Jesus? Salvation and God

<div>Is it true the Catholic Church once performed same-sex marriages?</div><div>This is a common misunderstanding based on the ancient practice, mostly in the Christian East but also in the West, of &#8220;brother making&#8221; (adelphopoesis in Greek). This was a rite of brotherhood performed by a priest for two men, or even, more rarely, two women, or even sometimes for a man and a woman. Fundamentally, it was a consecration of friendship that carried with it certain obligations similar to being a godfather or godmother. There was never any notion during the centuries it was practiced that this was a &#8220;marriage&#8221; that would permit a sexual relationship between the two men or women.
Quite the contrary. The custom arose in the context of monastic life, especially of hermits and small monasteries (another indication that this was not meant to be a carnal union), and it spread to layfolk in their relationship to these monks, after the manner of the Western third or lay orders, only on a more individual basis. It also became a practice in military contexts. This was especially true in the Western Church in the Middle Ages at the time of the Crusades. In modern times it was preserved for the longest time among the Serbs and the Croats, Orthodox and Catholic, respectively. It is no longer practiced, despite calls for its revival.
The dishonest insistence of certain academic activists that these brother-making relationships were formally sexual, or a form of the very badly named &#8220;gay marriage,&#8221; has been recently entirely discredited by a book, published by Oxford University Press, that documents the practice in the Christian East. Personally, I think it would be good to revive the practice in order to provide a counter witness to the sexualized gay marriage.
The Church surely blessed friendships between persons of the same sex, and Scripture and the lives of the Savior and his saints give us ample examples of this. Two men or two women are allowed practically every expression of mutual affection and devotion, except sexual intercourse, and we can teach this to counteract the notion that the Church cruelly rejects the emotional needs of same-sex friends.
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Was an Ancient Rite the Same as Same-Sex Marriage?

To better understand purgatory, the question to ask is not, “Was Jesus’ one sacrifice sufficient to atone for our sins?” It was and is, specifically regarding the eternal punishment due our sins.
Rather, we should first ask, “In saving us, does Jesus require our cooperation, including our detaching from the bad habits associated with our already forgiven sins—unhealthy attachments to ourselves and other persons and things, whom and which we have valued more highly than God, so that we can be truly fit for eternal communion with the Lord?” (See Rev. 21:17.)
We should also ask whether Scripture supports such detachment from already forgiven sins—i.e., doing penance for those sins, and whether any such penance unresolved on earth must be completed after our lives here on earth.
<h2>Forgiveness vs. Penance/Detachment</h2>
When a person commits a crime on earth, he can sincerely repent and receive God’s forgiveness. But he’ll still have to do penance for his wrongdoing. We don’t just let a criminal go free, even if we’re convinced he’s truly contrite. A perpetrator of a heinous crime can sincerely repent and receive forgiveness from God, but society still requires him to do his penance (e.g., life in prison without parole), and the government wouldn’t think of requiring the victim’s loved ones to authorize the criminal’s complete exemption from serving time for his crime.
Penance is where we get the term “penitentiary,” or prison. It’s contrary to logic that we on earth would have a standard of justice higher than our Lord Jesus Christ—that we would require penance for and (implicitly) detachment from our already forgiven sins, yet God would not.
If we do have a standard of justice higher than Jesus’ standard, then “once saved, always saved” (AKA eternal security) is ironically the ultimate plenary indulgence, because one could sin gravely unto death, and not repent and become detached from his disordered love of his sins (including already forgiven sins), and yet the Lord would be on the eternal hook to let him into heaven, given his <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/assurance-of-salvation">one-time, allegedly irrevocable acceptance</a> of his gift of salvation.
Some might counter that a true Christian wouldn’t gravely sin unto death. We should not be so presumptuous upon God’s mercy (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c1a1.htm#I">CCC 2091-2092</a>), although the “once saved, always saved” doctrine would necessarily accommodate such presumption. More to the point, even if one has repented and received forgiveness, that doesn’t mean he is necessarily fully detached from the bad habits associated with his sins.
Don’t think so? Ask any wife whose husband has repented of his attachment to pornography yet still is prone to treating her like an object, given the lingering nature of his cultivated bad habit. Ditto for the wife who has been a compulsive liar, had a well-established anger problem, etc.
To reaffirm, viewing purgatory as a purification of our heart and character—a purification that extends beyond repentance for and forgiveness of our sins—makes the dogma a lot more understandable. Because everyone can see that detachment from bad habits and vices doesn’t necessarily accompany the repentance of and forgiveness for sins. Indeed, even if we’ve repented of all of our sins on earth, we can still have remaining attachments to our bad habits and related sins— persons and things of which we’ve made idols, including ourselves. Thus, further, the logic of purgatory.
<h2>Jesus on Purgatory</h2>
Jesus speaks of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-jesus-believe-in-purgatory">our need to do penance</a>, distinguishing that penance from receiving forgiveness (see Matt. 5:23-27). In addition, St. Paul speaks of a person who is saved or forgiven yet still needs to be purified after death:
<blockquote>According to the commission of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%203&amp;version=RSVCE">1 Cor. 3:10-15</a>).</blockquote>
The key verses are 12-15, and particularly 14-15 in light of the preceding. Paul clearly notes that some who are saved will receive a reward regarding their work and their choices on earth, a reward distinguished from their receiving the gift of eternal salvation. Paul also notes that although others will be saved, and for whom no reward is mentioned, they will still have to undergo purification, presumably because of their remaining attachment to or affection for their bad habits and vices. And it’s important to recognize that this purification takes place after “the Day”—i.e., after they’ve died and been judged by God.
The Church’s teaching on purgatory, and her related teaching of praying for the dead, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-roots-of-purgatory">has been consistent throughout Church history</a>.
If the Church were wrong on purgatory, to say nothing of even more fundamental teachings like <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/christ-in-the-eucharist">the Eucharist</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-the-mass-when-theres-no-need-for-sin-offering">the sacrifice of the Mass</a>, then it would indicate that the gates of hell have prevailed against Christ’s Church for some fifteen hundred years, contrary to what Jesus promised (Matt. 16:18-19), until Martin Luther, John Calvin, et al. came along. Even then, they and their successors couldn’t agree on key doctrines—e.g., how we’re saved—indicating a further defeat, to one extent or another, of Christ and his Church.
The Church’s teaching on purgatory is also consistent with our Lord’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: “You . . . must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (see Matt. 5:43-48).
<h2>True Love Is Reciprocal</h2>
Jesus’ plan of salvation requires that we be “all in”—that we personally account for the negative impact our actions have had in this world and on ourselves, for our unhealthy attachments to persons and things, and for which we have not done adequate penance.
This is the reality of bad habits. In purgatory, God mercifully purifies us of these unhealthy attachments so that we will be free to give every ounce of our love and devotion to the Lord.
In their zeal to emphasize God’s sovereignty (Calvin) and mercy (Luther), the early Protestant leaders forgot the basic reality that real love is a two-way street and thus calls for a response in kind—especially with Jesus, who will not simply <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-reformers-distorted-view-of-salvation">overwhelm us</a> with his grace, irrespective of a genuine free-will response (Calvin), or <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-reformers-distorted-view-of-salvation">look the other way</a> regarding our sins (Luther). No, Jesus wants to truly rehabilitate us by enabling us to love as he does—unconditionally and sacrificially. He does so through our self-denying and redemptive cooperation. As St. Augustine says so well, “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us” (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#I">CCC 1847</a>).
Purgatory can be an uncomfortable reminder that salvation is not a one-and-done event, but a lifelong process in which our everyday personal choices definitely have an impact. This process undoubtedly begins on earth, which is why Jesus emphasizes that each of us must bear his cross on our journey to heaven (Matt. 16:24-27).

On Purgatory, Go Deeper

On February 25th U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell <a href="https://time.com/6821425/israel-embassy-air-force-protest-fire-self-immolation-aaron-bushnell-latest-updates/">committed suicide</a> by lighting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. Bushnell died while shouting “Free Palestine” and intended his death to be a form of protest against the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
In an attempt to normalize suicide as “political protest,” <a href="https://time.com/6835364/self-immolation-history-israel-hamas-war/">Time Magazine described the history of self-immolation</a> and said, “Self-immolation was also seen as a sacrificial act committed by Christian devotees who chose to be burned alive when they were being persecuted for their religion by Roman emperor Diocletian ​​around 300 A.D.” Time cited <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-terrible-act-of-reason-when-did-self-immolation-become-the-paramount-form-of-protest">a 2012 article</a> from The New Yorker in defense of this claim which said that “around 300 A.D., Christians persecuted by Diocletian set fire to his palace in Nicodemia and then threw themselves onto it—presumably, to express their objections to Roman policy and not to the emperor’s architectural taste.”
But this is false.
The fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius describes the fire in Nicomedia (not “Nicodemia” as The New Yorker wrote) <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250108.htm">in book eight, chapters five and six</a>, of his work The Church History. He says of the fire&#8217;s cause that &#8220;a false suspicion was laid to our people,&#8221; i.e., Christians. He is not aware of Christians purposefully starting it. He then writes,
<blockquote>Entire families of the pious in that place were put to death in masses at the royal command, some by the sword, and others by fire. It is reported that with a certain divine and indescribable eagerness men and women rushed into the fire. And the executioners bound a large number of others and put them on boats and threw them into the depths of the sea.</blockquote>
This is not an example of suicide done to protest the Emperor’s actions. These Christians had been sentenced to death and some of them joyously accepted their impending <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/martyr">martyrdom</a> knowing they would receive the “martyr’s crown” in heaven as a reward (Rev. 2:10). Early Christian writers like Origen (Commentary on Matthew), Lactantius (Divine Institutes 3:18), and Augustine (City of God, 1.16-27) all condemned suicide as gravely sinful and made no exception for suicides done of out of protest towards unjust rulers.
The Church <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-the-church-really-teaches-about-suicide">teaches</a> that suicide is gravely evil but that “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (CCC 2282). This means we should pray that God has mercy upon anyone who commits suicide, including Airman Bushnell.

No, Christians Didn’t Light Themselves on Fire

The Book of Genesis teaches that the world of nature is to be honored and cultivated according to the divine wisdom who created it, and this respect should also transfer to the human body—created male and female with the God-given blessing of fertility.
Our modern world, however, treats fertility not as a blessing to be received and honored, but a problem to be solved. In order to get a hold on human fertility, something must be done to the human body—and thus, to the human person, you adopt the neo-gnostic view that says, “Sex organs do not make babies—persons do.” Embedded in this mentality is the idea that the human body—particularly human reproductive organs—are not constitutive of the person. Rather, they are extrinsic to authentic human nature and humanized only when they come under rational control. How contrary this is to the optimistic, joyful outlook of Genesis, which proclaims in a kind of celebration, “Male and female he created them . . . be fertile and multiply.”
At the heart of this conflict is the question of whether the ability to procreate is a true good of the person or just a physical function that may be turned on and off as needed. The latter view sees a baby conceived against the will of the couple as a kind of accident or, even worse, an inhuman intruder—unnatural to the couple’s love-making, somehow unrelated to the very act that by nature is ordered toward life! So the question ultimately involves a true appreciation for natural law. If human reproductive powers are God-designed, God-willed, what it means to be created male and female, when a couple deliberately impede fertility by recourse to contraception, they violate not a mere physical, mechanical process, but rather the integrity of the person. If human fertility is not a true human good or human end, the modern contraceptive/abortive mentality makes sense and logically follows.
But Genesis 1:26 destroys such neo-Gnosticism, affirming that the body and fertility are inherently linked to the creation of man as male and female and are constitutive of human gender. As with the rest of God’s creation, they are not accidents, but are imbued with meaning. They are not mere objects to be exploited, but gifts to be respected. Man’s dominion over them should be not a tyranny, but a cooperation with God’s sovereignty.
St. Paul teaches that even those who do not know the true God nonetheless honor him when they honor the natural law evident in his creation (see Rom. 1:18-20, 2:13-15). In this respect, those without God were tied to divine truths. Christ told the pagan Pilate, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Commitment to truth is preparation for the gospel. The Vatican II document Dei Verbum tells us that the first source of God’s revelation isn’t Sacred Scripture or even the initial calling of the Jews. Rather, it is the created order itself, as “God gives an enduring witness to himself in created realities” (II, 3).
Natural human ends are in no sense mere biology propelling the human being to a fate he cannot control. There is no gulf between the body, the intellect, and divine wisdom. Human “animal” nature is filled with divine—one might even say sacred and transcendent—meaning because “natural inclinations” have no other end than God himself. For us, corporeal nature has a spiritual meaning. We can’t know the truth about ourselves, or God, without it.
Immediately after teaching in Romans 1 that God can be known in the things he has made, Paul has harsh words for those who abandon knowledge of the true God in favor of idolatry. Because human beings can know the moral law of God as it is written in nature—true worship is connected to upright moral behavior. Conversely, false worship, the failure to honor the true God by idolatrous practices, leads to immoral behavior.
Interestingly, Paul calls out such people specifically for their immoral sexual behavior. False worship leads to false sexual practices—the “mutual degradation of their bodies”:
<blockquote>They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator. . . . Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. . . . Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper (Rom. 1:24–28).</blockquote>
According to Paul, sexual rebellion against nature is the consequence of spiritual rebellion against God (see the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 259).
Many authors interpret the Pauline passage on women exchanging “natural intercourse for unnatural” as a reference to lesbianism. This interpretation certainly makes sense, as it is immediately followed by Paul’s condemnation of males “burning with lust for one another.” However, Paul’s description of what women do when they fail to honor God isn’t exactly the same perversion of nature as what Paul says about men. Paul doesn’t say that females burn with lust for one another. Instead, he simply states that the females “exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural.” Indeed, the literal Greek renders the passage “for the females of them changed the natural use to the use against nature.”
It is quite possible that here Paul is talking about women who violated their God-given nature by rendering sterile the use of sexual intercourse—contradicting nature by deliberately acting against the good of fertility. Some might think that contraception wasn’t practiced in the ancient world, due to a lack of reliable scientific methods, but this is hardly the case. Besides coitus interruptus, the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians of New Testament times were known to practice several crude contraceptive methods. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul teaches that several sins proceed from the flesh, such as “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds,” etc. (5:19-20). The Greek word often translated “sorcery,” <a href="https://biblehub.com/greek/5331.htm">pharmakeia</a>, can refer to the use of drugs, and indeed drugs or potions were employed then in the practice of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. But as John F. Kippley, an expert on the subject of contraceptive use, <a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/02/07/pharmakeia-contraception-interior-life/">points out</a>, pharmakeia may also refer to artificial birth control:
<blockquote>Pharmakeia in general was the mixing of various potions for secret purposes, and it is known that potions were mixed in the first century A.D. to prevent or stop a pregnancy. The typical translation as “sorcery” may not reveal all of the specific practices condemned by the New Testament. In all three of the passages in which it appears, it is in a context condemning sexual immorality; two of the three passages also condemn murder (Gal. 5:19–26; Rev. 9:21, 21:8). Thus it is very possible that there are three New Testament passages condemning the use of the products of pharmakeia for birth control purposes.</blockquote>
Even if Paul used pharmakeia to refer not to contraceptive methods of the ancient world, but to actual occult arts, in a real sense, the condemnation still applies when we consider the underlying philosophy of contraceptive use. The goal of sorcery is to control the world, control the future, control the forces of nature—to cause those forces to comply with one’s personal wishes. Sorcery seeks to alter and manipulate the dispositions of reality. This is exactly the aim of the practice of contraception through modern pharmaceutical methods—a kind of modern “sorcery,” a contemporary “casting of spells,” by which the reality of the human body is altered, manipulated for personal ends.
We may further note that this interpretation gains strength in the fact that lesbianism does not involve sexual intercourse. It is the “use” of sexual intercourse that is rendered unnatural. In any case, homosexual sexual acts and contracepted sexual acts share one common element: they are inherently barren, contrary to the natural good and God’s first blessing in Genesis.

Contraception as Sorcery

<div>What biblical evidence can I give my Protestant family members for our Sunday obligation?</div><div>There is no biblical evidence that stipulates that we must attend Mass on Sunday, although such attendance is in keeping with biblical principles. 
Participating in Sunday Mass is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-sweetest-obligation-ever-imposed">an ecclesiastical law the Church imposes to assist the faithful in fulfilling the moral law to worship God</a>, and there is biblical evidence that the Church has the authority to do this. Consider Matthew 18:18: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 
Implicit in this command is the authority to govern the way God’s people worship him in the New Covenant, including designating the Lord’s Day (Sunday) as the fulfillment of the moral precept behind the third commandment. Just as the apostles and elders decreed to impose certain disciplinary precepts on the newly converted Gentiles (Acts 15, e.g., abstain from meats offered to idols, etc.), so too the Church imposes the disciplinary precept as to when we are to worship God. 
Therefore, it’s within the prerogative for the Church to stipulate the way we’re going to fulfill the moral obligation to worship God: participate in Mass on Sunday. 
The rationale behind this precept is first the moral law that we must carve out some time in our lives to worship God. Second, Christ revealed the Mass to be the way that he intends for us to worship God (“Do this in remembrance of me” [Luke 22:19]). And third, the early Christians gathered on the first day of the week to “break bread” (Acts 20:7), which was an idiom used by the early Christians to refer to the eucharistic celebration. 
Given these principles, the Church, over time, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/should-christians-keep-the-sabbath-or-celebrate-the-lords-day">chose Sunday</a>, in imitation of the early Christians, to be the day that we as Catholics would worship God the way that Christ intended us to and fulfill the moral law to carve out time to worship God. 
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Why Does the Church Impose a Sunday Mass Obligation?

<div>I’m married to an ex-Catholic, now a non-Christian. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t have children if my husband refuses to raise them Catholic. Is this true?
</div><div>No. The Church doesn’t expect you to close yourself to the possibility of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/i-was-astonished-to-find-this-in-the-catechism">children</a> because your husband has apostatized from Christianity. The Church expects you to welcome children and do the best you can to raise your children Catholic.
Marriage includes the responsibility of being open to new life and to building a family with your husband. You shouldn’t deny him the privilege of children based on what you think he might do should they come along. Instead, you should sit down with him, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/six-rules-for-dealing-with-non-catholic-family-and-friends">share your concerns,</a> and seek to work out with him an agreement on how your children will be raised. If need be, a marital counselor can facilitate the discussion.
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Having Kids in a Half-Catholic Household

Can you be too Catholic to be (Roman) Catholic?
Such a claim has been popularized in recent years by prominent Protestant thinkers, such as Gavin Ortlund, Peter Leithart, Kenneth Collins, Jerry Walls, and Kevin Vanhoozer. “Protestantism is the most catholic and the most biblical of all the major streams of Christianity,” asserts Ortlund in <a href="https://zondervanacademic.com/products/what-it-means-to-be-protestant">What It Means to Be Protestant</a>: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church. More than a decade ago, Leithart, a former Presbyterian pastor, in a piece entitled “<a href="https://www.leithart.com/2012/05/21/too-catholic-to-be-catholic/">Too Catholic to Be Catholic</a>,” argued much the same, claiming that to become Catholic would mean going to a “eucharistic table” where his Protestant friends are not “welcome” and to acknowledge that those Protestants are “living in a sub-Christian existence.”
What, precisely, does this charge mean, where does it come from, and what is the (Roman) Catholic response?
As Catholic theologian Matthew Levering explains in his new book <a href="https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/engaging-the-doctrine-of-the-church">Engaging the Doctrine of the Church</a>, “too Catholic to be Catholic” is not entirely new. Twentieth-century Lutheran scholars Friedrich Heiler and Wilhelm Stählin accused the Catholic Church of committing an anti-Catholic heresy by defining the particular as the universal. Rome, these German Lutherans declared, seeks to rule in the spirit of the ancient caesars rather than serve the church in the humble spirit of the gospel.
In Roman but Not Catholic, Collins’s and Wall’s expansive attack on the Church, Rome is not truly universal, because it excludes those Christians not in communion with the bishop of Rome. Such a position, they claim, is contradictory, self-serving, and divisive. The real catholic church, say Collins and Walls, is visible wherever there are Christians. Vanhoozer similarly argues that Protestantism is more catholic than Rome, because it is centered not on an imperial structure (namely, the Roman See), but on an “imperial gospel,” the domain of God’s word. Doctrines taught only by a part of the Christian world, says Vanhoozer, are not truly “catholic.”
The Catholic Church, these Protestants argue, demands that its adherents accept doctrines that they claim have little, if any, biblical support; it refuses to recognize Protestant ordinations as valid and prohibit Protestants from receiving the Eucharist. Protestantism, in contrast, is said to be more accepting of other ecclesial traditions and allows for a diversity of religious belief and practice. “Protestantism has a superior orientation toward catholicity than its rivals because it lacks their institutional exclusivism,” writes Ortlund. “Protestantism offers the most promising pathways by which to cultivate and pursue catholicity.”
All of these arguments are premised on a specific definition of “catholic” that presumes a kind of “mere Christianity” that supposedly all true Christians share. But who decides what is included or excluded from that “mere Christianity”? The one making the definition, naturally. Thus, for example, Vanhoozer and Daniel Treier define “catholicity” as what the entire Church believes “about the gospel of God and the God of the gospel,” united to “the consensus tradition passed down through the centuries.”
Self-described Christians whose beliefs lie outside such definitions—say, for example, Arians, Pelagians, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses—are by default excluded. As much as the Protestant may seek the title of “most catholic,” exclusivity is unavoidable, lest one’s position collapse into a “lowest common denominator” universalism that permits everything.
The question, then, is on what grounds the “little c” catholic excludes some Christians. The answer, given Protestantism’s foundational commitments to the individual conscience of the Christian, reduces to that individual Christian’s personal interpretation of Scripture, and what traditions and doctrines accord to that individual interpretation. This cannot be anything but ad hoc.
The “too catholic to be Catholic” thesis also relies on compelling Catholics to accept Protestant ecclesiology. “They are consigning those who do not agree with them to the status of those who distort true catholicity,” writes Levering. “Ironically, they offer a Protestant version of what they think (Roman) Catholics are doing, by insisting that only their own ecclesiology is compatible with true catholicity today.” In other words, for Catholics to be truly “catholic,” they have to forfeit much of their uniquely Catholic beliefs—such as about the sacraments, Mary and the saints, etc.—which isn’t a particularly “catholic” thing for Protestants to demand of Catholics.
Finally, the “too catholic to be Catholic” thesis is question-begging. If Christ established a visible, institutional Church to which Christians are expected to submit, and if the Catholic Church is that very institution, then a Christian is not being more universal by refusing to acknowledge it as such and submit to it. That self-identifying Christian is being a heretic or a schismatic.
Catholic theologians such as Avery Dulles, Aidan Nichols, and Levering argue that catholicity begins with Christ himself. Christ is catholic because he possesses the divine fullness as the incarnate Lord, and because he is the head of all Christians. The Church participates in the catholicity of Christ as his body, because Christ is present in his body. As Catholics, we believe that Christ is fully present in the sacraments, and pre-eminently in the Eucharist. In the celebration of the Eucharist, each local church participates in the catholicity of the whole.
In Catholic thinking, the Church is united via the leadership of the apostles and their successors, who possess the authority to continue administering the sacraments and proclaiming the Word. Catholics today participate in the fullness of Christ through their communion with the Church, led by the bishop of Rome. Although the pope of course cannot prevent all divisions, his leadership serves as a guard against fragmentation that is superior to Protestant ecclesial models or conciliarism. “Without the Petrine office (and the hierarchical constitution of the Church), which stands in service to Christ’s fullness, the diversity-in-unity that characterizes catholicity could not be maintained but would fragment,” explains Levering.
Protestants, in contrast, do not properly possess catholicity, both because they are not in communion with Rome, and because they lack certain doctrines, sacraments, and offices that Christ has established through the Holy Spirit to communicate His fullness to the Church. Such a position may be interpreted by Protestants as divisive, but truth typically is, as Jesus taught (Matt. 10: 16-24). It is, in fact, Protestant “catholicity” that is contradictory and self-defeating.

Too Catholic to Be Catholic

Episode 73: Year B &#8211; 3rd Sunday of Easter
There are four details that we focus on for this upcoming Sunday Mass Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Easter. The first two come from the first reading, taken from Acts 3:13-15, 17-19. The relevant topics that come to fore are the early Church’s belief about Christ’s divinity and the Church’s teaching on invincible ignorance when it comes to sin. Details three and four are in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 24:35-48. There are two apologetical topics that come into play: the bodily nature of Jesus’ resurrection and its significance for countering alternative explanations to Christ’s literal resurrection and the Catholic appeal to John 20:23 as biblical support for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
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The Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041424.cfm">Click Here</a>
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The Invincible Ignorance of Sin

Are we able to trace back what churches the other apostles established?

What did you see in the Catholic Church that made you open your eyes to converting?

Would it be possible for a year of divine judgment? If yes, then why doesn’t he?

Can the pope ever break from the seat of Peter?

What Catholic study bible do you recommend? And which translation?

How does the Pentecostal church compare to the Catholic Church?

Can God hear our mental prayer? Was Jesus a good boy as a kid?

How do we reconcile parts of the church that have been corrupt in the medieval ages and the infallibility of the church?

What is infallibility

&#8220;Can God hear our mental prayer?&#8221; This episode explores the nuances of prayer and divine communication, alongside intriguing questions about the establishment of early churches by the apostles, the concept of infallibility, and the comparison between the Catholic and Pentecostal churches. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these important topics.
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Can God Hear Our Mental Prayer, Infallibility, and Church History

What other Christians besides Catholics, if any, profess the Nicene Creed and why?

Where does the Catholic teaching of the Assumption come from?

Please explain the differences and history of the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed, and Athanasian Creed.

Is there any debate on the translation from the original Greek text of the Nicene Creed?

Is it okay for me to add words to the Nicene Creed in private?

The Creed

<div>Is genetic research ethical? I am a student working on my degree in biochemistry, and I want to work with finding hereditary diseases early on and to help with the gene therapy of the patients to lead a healthy life.</div><div>It can be ethical, provided it does not violate bioethical guidelines, e.g., avoiding research that involves human cloning or the creation and destruction of embryonic human beings via in vitro fertilization and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/video/embryonic-stem-cell-research">embryonic stem cell research</a>.
For more information, please see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html">Dignitatis Personae</a>, the Congregation for the Doctrine’s instruction on certain bioethical questions. See also the <a href="https://www.ncbcenter.org/store/newcharter">New Charter for Health Care Workers</a>, which the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance <a href="http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/vatican-releases-updated-guidelines-for-bioethical-questions.cfm">issued in 2017</a>, <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=30680">an update</a> of its <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_19950101_charter_en.html">1995 version</a>.
For further information, contact the <a href="https://www.ncbcenter.org/">National Catholics Bioethics Center</a>.
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Is Genetic Research Ethical?

Did Vatican II introduce harmful changes to the Catholic Church, and does Catholic theology go too far in defining mysteries like the Eucharist? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers apologists respond to major Orthodox objections to Catholicism, covering theology, Church history, and doctrine. The discussion examines Catholic teaching on remarriage and original sin, the necessity of the Immaculate Conception, and the Christological differences between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Additional topics include whether transubstantiation “overdefines” the Eucharist, why Orthodox and Catholic biblical canons differ, and whether Catholic theology lacks the Orthodox essence–energies distinction. A thoughtful and charitable look at some of the deepest divisions between East and West.
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Objections Covered:
<ul>
<li>02:12 &#8211; Vatican II introduced harmful theological and liturgical changes. </li>
<li>05:51 &#8211; Catholic teaching on remarriage is too rigid. </li>
<li>13:36 &#8211; Catholic original sin wrongly teaches inherited guilt. </li>
<li>17:14 &#8211; The Immaculate Conception is unnecessary and unfounded. </li>
<li>28:52 &#8211; What does one say about the Christological differences between the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Catholic. They claim they hold to the early definitions of Ephesus that we have abandoned. </li>
<li>36:14 &#8211; Transubstantiation overdefines the Eucharistic mystery. </li>
<li>39:57 &#8211; Why do Orthodox Churches differ with us on the canon of Scriptura? </li>
<li>47:57 &#8211; Catholicism lacks the essence–energies distinction. </li>
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Every Orthodox Objection to Catholicism—Answered Part 2

<div>Why is there going to be a new heaven at the Second Coming, and why do we need a new earth? Shouldn’t we all be in heaven?</div><div>You’re referring to what is presented in Revelation 21:1-5. In short, the phrase “a new heaven and a new earth” refers to what heaven will be like for us as resurrected, glorified human persons. That is, a three-dimensional reality that thus accommodates aspects of our physical earthly experience, though in a glorified manner.
For more on this subject, please watch <a href="https://www.catholic.com/video/why-will-there-be-a-new-earth">this short video presentation</a> by Jimmy Akin.
For further insight on the Church’s teaching, please see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm#1042">CCC 1042–1050</a>.
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Why a ‘New Earth’ If We’re All Supposed to Be in Heaven?

<div>Matthew 6:7 States, “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions...” So why do you recite the Lord's Prayer and other written prayers?</div><div>The <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-lords-prayer">Our Father</a> was given to us by Jesus as the model of prayer (Matt. 6:9-15; Lk. 2:1-4) so it would be quite odd for a Christian not to use it as their most common prayer.
Jesus himself repeated prayers:
<blockquote>[Jesus] advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”
Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!” 
He left them and withdrew again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing again. (Matt. 26:39, 42, 44)</blockquote>
To claim that simply repeating the same prayer is a violation of Jesus&#8217; teaching would be to claim Jesus violated his own teaching!
Are the angels in heaven violating Jesus&#8217; teaching by praying the same prayer forever?
<blockquote>The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night they do not stop exclaiming: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.” (Rev. 4:8)</blockquote>
Jesus&#8217; point in Matthew 6:5-8 is about prayer without heart, prayer without soul, prayer without inner meaning. Jesus was condemning a transactional understanding of prayer.  Commonly repeated prayers like the Our Father are about mediation and worship of God, not finding the right formula to get what we want.
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If Jesus Condemned Repeated Prayers Why Do You Pray the Lord’s Prayer?

Hugh Hefner is the Devil
These words were reportedly scrawled on the wall by Playboy Playmate Paige Young in 1974 just before she took her own life with a .38 caliber pistol. According to the A&amp;E miniseries Secrets of Playboy, Ms. Young was <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2857873/Passed-Bill-Cosby-Hugh-Hefner-dozens-Hollywood-honchos-Playboy-Playmate-Month-felt-used-abused-powerful-leading-men-took-gun-shot-head.html">sexually abused at the Playboy Mansion</a> by Hugh Hefner, Bill Cosby, and dozens of other Hollywood elite.
The series is thirteen episodes long. Thirteen long and grueling episodes. I could only watch one or two at a time because they made my stomach turn. I have a wife, daughter, mom, and sister. If this had happened to one of them, I would have quit whatever I was doing and spent the rest of my days on this planet seeking justice for them.
I must be a glutton for punishment. Just a few weeks earlier, I watched <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/03/06/jared-subway-documentary-fogle-now-charges-sentence/11383494002/">another series about Jared Fogle</a>, the guy who landed a big sponsorship gig with Subway because he lost a million pounds eating their sandwiches exclusively. There are mountains of audio recordings of him admitting to his sexual depravity, and during all this, he explains that he prefers children from broken families.
I thought of those disturbing recordings while I watched the series on Hefner and the Playboy organization. In the first few episodes, some background is given on the female victims. Most of them were from broken families.
We parents need to be vigilant. These days it seems like the world is out to get our children. We need to do everything we can to foster healthy families, and to be on our knees as often as possible praying for grace from God to pull this off.
Hugh Hefner passed away at the age of 91 in 2017. I remember the day because I was dismayed at the number of positive posts in my social feeds proclaiming him a man of progress and sexual liberation. Perhaps there are many who simply don’t understand the kind of man that he was. If you are one of those people, I recommend you watch the Secrets of Playboy series to correct this falsehood. If you already know he was a disgusting human being, don’t bother watching. Just know that he was way worse than you thought.

“Hugh Hefner Is the Devil”

I will never forget, years ago, when I was asked this question on Catholic Answers Live by a nine-year-old boy: “If Mary had to be without sin in order for her to carry Jesus in her womb, how could Jesus have come into a world where there is so much sin?” That’s quite a question, coming from a nine-year-old!
Along these same lines, many will ask, “If Mary had to be without sin in order to carry God in her womb, wouldn’t Mary’s mother have to be without sin in order to carry a sin-free Mary in her womb . . . and wouldn’t the same be true for her mother . . . and her mother, etc.?”
This same question was asked in the twelfth century, by no less a luminary than St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Although he understood Mary to be completely free of all personal sins whatsoever, he had a problem with the idea of the Immaculate Conception. And at that time, the dogma had not been defined. I say that to point out that this question is not one to be scoffed at.
In answering these two questions, it is important for us to remember—and this is true of all the Marian dogmas—that we are not talking about strict necessity with any of them. In other words, Mary did not have to be immaculately conceived in order to give birth to the Messiah. Jesus could have been born of a sinful woman if God had so willed it. For that matter, God did not have to become incarnate in the world at all in order to save us. He could have saved us in any number of ways. He is all-powerful. The Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly uses the language of “fittingness” (722) when it speaks of the Immaculate Conception. And in Lumen Gentium, the fathers of Vatican II provide the following:
<blockquote>All the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it. In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ (60).</blockquote>
What does the Church mean by fitting, or from the divine good pleasure? Think of it this way: if the president of the United States came to your hometown, it would not be a matter of strict necessity that there be television cameras, a parade, dignitaries, Secret Service agents, etc. The president could simply come to your town without any of the normal accompaniments. He is fully capable of it. However, it would not be fitting (and it might be dangerous). When the president comes to a town on an official visit, we expect to see a big to-do. Why? Because of the dignity of his office.
So it is with Mary. Her vocation is immeasurably greater than that of any king, president, or prime minister. She is the Mother of God. Hence, it was fitting that she be immaculately conceived in order to bring to the world “the King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16).
But what about the claim that Mary’s mother—St. Anne—had to be sinless in order to bear a sinless Mary in her womb? Or what about the entire world needing to be untouched by sin in order for Jesus to live in it? There would obviously be no strict necessity in those cases, either. But there are two points to be made for clarity’s sake.
First, though there is no natural necessity here, we do clearly see in Scripture and Tradition, as understood by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, the fact that the divine disposition in this matter has been revealed. Mary was, in fact, immaculately conceived, so any argument attempted against this revealed truth, through either a misuse of Scripture or reason, can be shown to be deficient. And in this case, the deficiency is obvious, because we can argue that Jesus’ relationship with the world—by virtue of being in it—is far removed from the intimacy of his relationship with Mary, his mother.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> That intimacy increases the fittingness of Mary’s immaculate conception and sinlessness.
Moreover, there is an essential and infinite gap between Jesus and Mary that didn’t exist between Mary and her mother. Jesus was not just without sin; Jesus was God. Anne did not bear God in her womb, but Mary did; hence, Mary’s preparation by God was fittingly—and radically—different from Anne’s.
If, having dispelled the objections as given above, the apologist has more time to continue the discussion, I would recommend he become acquainted with what I presented in my book, <a href="CB378PB">Behold Your Mother</a>, as eight biblical reasons for Mary’s immaculate conception. And though it has always been hard for me to say which is the most compelling of the eight, number one is a strong contender. It’s also St. John Henry Cardinal Newman’s favorite: the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-new-adam-rebukes-the-new-eve">New Eve</a>.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in Against Heresies ca. A.D. 177, <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103322.htm">gives us a window</a> into the early Church’s understanding of this profound truth with what I would say is a deft usage of Luke 1:37-38:
<blockquote>Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless yet a virgin . . . having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, became the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. . . . And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the Virgin Mary set free through faith.</blockquote>
Irenaeus emphasizes the fundamental link between Mary as “the New Eve” and her central role in God’s plan of salvation. But if we consider what most scholars—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox—will agree upon, that Old Testament types are necessarily and always inferior to their New Testament fulfillments, it would certainly be fitting to say—indeed, I argue it follows necessarily according to the revelation we have been given—that the New Eve would be conceived without sin. If she were conceived in sin, Mary would be inferior to the first Eve, who was created without sin.
Moreover, a true understanding of the New Eve renders null and void any thought of Mary ever having committed actual sins. Just as Eve’s sinfulness led to the death of all her children, as Irenaeus said, it would be Mary’s obedience, or sinlessness, that would lead to life for all of her children.
Couldn’t Mary have sinned after having obeyed God and conceived Jesus? It doesn’t seem fitting that she would have. Just as the New Adam, Jesus, never fell into sin, as Adam did, it is fitting that Mary would likewise repair the old Eve’s sin with perfect obedience. Even a single sin from the Mother of God would represent a much greater fall than Eve’s, because she was given so much more grace. That would be unthinkable.
Also, when we consider the manifold gifts in Mary’s life that go beyond what I can include in this brief article, such as her being everything from the “Mother of God,” “full of grace,” and “Ark of the New Covenant” to the “beginning of the New Creation” and more we could consider, and now “the New Eve,” we can see how each reveals in its own way the Immaculate Conception, via the plenitude of grace in Mary’s life. St. Augustine’s famous words from On Nature and Grace <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1503.htm">come to mind</a>:
<blockquote>We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear him who undoubtedly had no sin.</blockquote>
And remember: it was not just Irenaeus who taught Mary to be the New Eve. The Fathers of the Church were unanimous on this point. That of itself is compelling. But when you look into the reasons for this belief among the Fathers, you quickly find its foundation deeply rooted in Scripture—and Scripture that goes far beyond Luke 1:37-38. Irenaeus quite deftly imvoked Luke 1:37-38 and the Incarnation to make his point, as we saw above, but the Scriptures are replete with examples. These go beyond what I can do here, but they end up providing <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/bible-mary-the-mother-of-jesus-in-the-word-of-god/">overwhelming evidence</a> for the Immaculate Conception.

It Makes Sense for Mary Not to Sin

<div>Does someone end up in hell because no one prayed for him? </div><div>It is true that God wills our prayers to be a cause of good, including the administration of grace. And such grace can help someone attain heaven.
But this doesn&#8217;t mean that if someone ends up in hell it&#8217;s simply because no one prayed for him. 
Anyone who ends up in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-hell-there-is">hell</a> will be there due to their rejection of God’s grace, which Paul says is sufficient for all to be saved (2 Cor. 12:9). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states, &#8220;God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end” (1037). 
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Could Someone Go to Hell Because No One Prayed for Him?

Catholics are against divorce in theory, but not in practice. That sad truth has led to countless Catholic marriages and families shattered, causing a ripple effect of destruction through generations. Perhaps we find ourselves in this unhappy reality because we have not heard the following six things from the pulpit or the Catholic community for many long decades. Do you know these truths?
<h2>1. Divorce itself is a sin.</h2>
That&#8217;s right: divorce is a sin all on its own, whether or not an illicit &#8220;remarriage&#8221; follows. There has never been a time in Church history when divorce—defined as a spouse&#8217;s willing and express attempt to &#8220;break&#8221; the marital contract (CCC 3284)—has been morally permissible. Jesus himself forbids divorce when he responds to the Pharisees who test him on the issue:
<blockquote>Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (Matt 19:4-6).</blockquote>
The words of St. Paul confirm the truth of Christ:
<blockquote>To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Cor. 7:10-11).</blockquote>
And we have solid confirmation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states, &#8220;Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law&#8221; (2384).
Consider those words carefully. The &#8220;natural law&#8221; is another name for God&#8217;s moral law, and a &#8220;grave offense&#8221; is one that is serious and deadly. So divorce is a sin of grave matter (not venial!), one that the Catechism tells us is &#8220;truly a plague&#8221; and that &#8220;divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and society&#8221; and &#8220;brings grave harm to the deserted spouse [and] to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them&#8221; (2385).
Remember, all these ominous passages and descriptions are speaking of divorce alone. But as grave as it is, the sin of divorce can be compounded.
<h2>2. Remarriage after divorce adds to the sin.</h2>
&#8220;Remarriage&#8221; after divorce (without annulment) is where most Catholics generally believe that the sin comes in. But, in fact, the civil remarriage after the sin of divorce is an additional sin: the deadly sin of adultery.
Jesus is crystal clear: “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18).
Paul comes in with the back-up: &#8220;[A] married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. . . . Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive&#8221; (Rom. 7:2-3).
The Catechism again confirms it for us:
<blockquote>Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery (2384, emphasis mine).</blockquote>
So divorce is the first sin, and &#8220;remarriage&#8221; (that is, adultery) is the second, exacerbating sin.
But wait—doesn&#8217;t the Church allow some divorce?
<h2>3. Civil divorce may be &#8220;tolerated&#8221; by the Church in rare cases, but never for the intent to end the marriage.</h2>
Most Catholics, ordained and lay, don&#8217;t realize that the Church allows civil divorce only if an innocent spouse needs legal protections that quite literally cannot be obtained by any other means. The Catechism puts it this way:
<blockquote>If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense (2383).</blockquote>
Why is it not a sin? Because in accessing the legal help according to the strict limits above, the spouse is not presuming or intending to break the marital contract (an impossibility anyway).
<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-does-the-church-tolerate-divorce">As I have written elsewhere</a>, it&#8217;s a shame we can&#8217;t call this protective legal maneuver something other than &#8220;divorce&#8221; so that we don&#8217;t become confused. Thankfully, most states still offer legal separation instead of civil divorce, which provides the necessary legal protections while also affirming that the estranged husband and wife are still married—and cannot remarry. In those rare and difficult situations, Catholics should be recommending separation rather than civil divorce if possible.
Although the word &#8220;divorce&#8221; in the secular realm may be confusing or misleading, it&#8217;s simple to remember that no one may use the civil or family courts with the intent or belief that he is ending his marriage (he is not) and is now free to move on to the next romance (he is not).
What about &#8220;moving on&#8221; by getting an annulment, as everyone seems to do? Although it&#8217;s true that we have sadly cultivated a culture of reflexive annulment-seeking, you may be surprised by the following truth:
<h2>4. Physical separation is allowed for certain grave reasons, but in all cases, the hopeful expectation is for reconciliation.</h2>
The Church teaches that in cases of unrepentant adultery or “grave mental or physical danger,” physical separation of spouses is allowed with the bishop’s permission, but always with the hope of reconciliation. In fact, here is canon law, which is binding on the faithful: “In all cases, when the cause for the separation ceases, conjugal living must be restored” (1153, §§1-2).
This is not new, but universal, reaching back centuries. In 1880, Pope Leo XIII summarized the mind of the Church beautifully:
<blockquote>When, indeed, matters have come to such a pitch that it seems impossible for [spouses] to live together any longer, then the Church allows them to live apart, and strives at the same time to soften the evils of this separation by such remedies and helps as are suited to their condition; yet she never ceases to endeavor to bring about a reconciliation, and never despairs of doing so (Arcanum Divinae 41).</blockquote>
&#8220;Never&#8221; is a strong word, admitting no exceptions. Unlike the world, we Catholics are against divorce, and for marriage. Period.
So although physical separation is permitted for extreme cases, we should support spouses in their fidelity to their vow and pray for the day of reconciliation. If we Christians do not believe in redemption and miracles, then who are we?
This leads us to an unknown obligation&#8230;.
<h2>5. Abandoned spouses are witnesses to marriage fidelity and must be supported by the Church.</h2>
A &#8220;stander&#8221; is a spouse who stays faithful to his vows, even after <a href="https://www.leilamiller.net/blog/2024/7/18/heart-of-the-abandoned-spouse-a-remedy-against-reflexive-annulment">abandonment</a>, separation, or civil divorce (and even if the stander is the one who had to physically separate due to dangerous circumstances).
St. John Paul II states in <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.html">Familiaris Consortio</a> that standers are witnesses for the Church. He states that too many of us today are “caught up in a culture that rejects the indissolubility of marriage and openly mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity” and reminds us that it is &#8220;proper to recognize the value of the witness of those spouses who, even when abandoned by their partner, with the strength of faith and of Christian hope have not entered a new union: these spouses too give an authentic witness to fidelity, of which the world today has a great need. For this reason they must be encouraged and helped by the pastors and the faithful of the Church&#8221; (20).
Section 83 of Familiaris Consortio speaks of the “loneliness and difficulties” of standers and the need for the Church to give “much respect, solidarity, understanding and practical help, so that they can preserve their fidelity even in their difficult situation.” The pope goes on to laud &#8220;their example of fidelity and Christian consistency,” which “takes on particular value as a witness before the world and the Church.”
Let&#8217;s be honest: Do we Catholics encourage the abandoned husband or wife in this heroic stand? Or do we instead encourage the stander to &#8220;get an annulment&#8221; and find a shiny new romance, where he or she can be &#8220;happy&#8221;? Worse, do we—<a href="https://www.leilamiller.net/blog/2020/7/12/how-church-officials-abandon-the-abandoned-spouses">even the ordained</a> and agents of the Church!—condescend to or shame those <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-hidden-martyrs-for-marriage">hidden martyrs for marriage</a> when they don&#8217;t &#8220;move on,&#8221; as is expected today?
There are many saints and blesseds <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-st-helena-handled-a-difficult-marriage">who stood for their difficult, and even disastrous, marriages</a>. Holy ones like St. Rita, St. Monica, St. Helena, St. Catherine of Genoa, Bl. Elizabeth Canori Mora, St. Marie Marguerite d&#8217;Youville, St. Elizabeth of Portugal and many more gave the very witness that John Paul II talks about in his apostolic exhortation. Such a witness is not passé or old-fashioned; it is timeless, virtuous, and Catholic—the stuff that makes saints in every age. We must encourage <a href="https://www.leilamiller.net/blog/2019/3/27/husband-wife-and-other-woman-with-whom-will-you-stand">those who take a lonely, Christ-like stand for marriage</a>, not crush them in their efforts.
And by the way . . .
<h2>6. Wedding guests and official witnesses are to affirm the marriage, especially when trouble arises.</h2>
Were you ever taught that part of your obligation as a bridesmaid, groomsman, or guest to a wedding is to be a witness to the marriage for life, and specifically when things go wrong later on?
You were there when the couple made their sacred promises before God Almighty and the community of believers, so why are you helping them divorce and annul now? When trouble hits, or when divorce happens, your job is not to take sides in the battle to destroy that fragile family, but rather to stand for the marriage you witnessed, celebrated, and prayed for.
Canon law (1060) requires us to presume the validity of the marriage, and yet too often, when great suffering comes to our loved ones, our misguided sympathy or loyalty leads us to say, &#8220;Your marriage probably isn&#8217;t valid anyway. Why not go get your annulment?&#8221; But that is not our place to advise or adjudicate!
To pivot to &#8220;invalidity&#8221; when the cross comes, to advise your loved one to throw off that cross (while putting it on the backs of the vulnerable children), to tempt a suffering spouse toward divorce and annulment, and to aid the family in its disintegration is to have borne false witness on the couple&#8217;s wedding day, which is a violation of the Eighth Commandment. Help and support the parties involved, yes —especially the one abandoned or in danger—but do so while simultaneously standing for the marriage&#8217;s redemption, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/be-a-divorce-first-responder">not its destruction</a>.
In summary, we&#8217;ve had a few decades of amnesia when it comes to our obligations to defend marriage and family, but the grace of God can awaken us again. By learning, embracing, and passing on these six truths about divorce and troubled marriages, we Catholics can reorient the conversation, and ourselves, back to the mind and heart of the Church on marriage. If you need courage or motivation, simply remember <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/34155/fatima-visionary-predicted-final-battle-would-be-over-marriage-family">the words of Sister Lucia of Fatima</a>:
<blockquote>The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Don&#8217;t be afraid . . . because whoever works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. . . . Nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head.</blockquote>

6 Uncomfortable Facts About Divorce

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<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/5:17">ACTS 5:17-26</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
The high priest rose up and all his companions,
that is, the party of the Sadducees, 
and, filled with jealousy, 
laid hands upon the Apostles and put them in the public jail. 
But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, 
led them out, and said, 
“Go and take your place in the temple area, 
and tell the people everything about this life.” 
When they heard this, 
they went to the temple early in the morning and taught. 
When the high priest and his companions arrived, 
they convened the Sanhedrin, 
the full senate of the children of Israel, 
and sent to the jail to have them brought in. 
But the court officers who went did not find them in the prison, 
so they came back and reported, 
“We found the jail securely locked 
and the guards stationed outside the doors, 
but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” 
When the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard this report, 
they were at a loss about them, 
as to what this would come to. 
Then someone came in and reported to them, 
“The men whom you put in prison are in the temple area 
and are teaching the people.” 
Then the captain and the court officers went and brought them, 
but without force, 
because they were afraid of being stoned by the people.
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/34:2">34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R.    (7a) The Lord hears the cry of the poor. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
I will bless the LORD at all times; 
his praise shall be ever in my mouth. 
Let my soul glory in the LORD; 
the lowly will hear me and be glad. 
R.    The Lord hears the cry of the poor. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
Glorify the LORD with me, 
let us together extol his name. 
I sought the LORD, and he answered me 
and delivered me from all my fears. 
R.    The Lord hears the cry of the poor. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, 
and your faces may not blush with shame. 
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard, 
and from all his distress he saved him. 
R.    The Lord hears the cry of the poor. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
The angel of the LORD encamps 
around those who fear him, and delivers them. 
Taste and see how good the LORD is; 
blessed the man who takes refuge in him. 
R.    The Lord hears the cry of the poor. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
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<h4>Alleluia    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/3:16">JN 3:16</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, 
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/3:16">JN 3:16-21</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, 
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish 
but might have eternal life. 
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but that the world might be saved through him. 
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, 
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, 
because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. 
And this is the verdict, 
that the light came into the world, 
but people preferred darkness to light, 
because their works were evil. 
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light 
and does not come toward the light, 
so that his works might not be exposed. 
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, 
so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: April 22, 2020

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<h3>Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Lectionary: 281</h3>
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&nbsp;
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<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/12:24">ACTS 12:24—13:5A</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
The word of God continued to spread and grow.
After Barnabas and Saul completed their relief mission, 
they returned to Jerusalem, 
taking with them John, who is called Mark.
Now there were in the Church at Antioch prophets and teachers: 
Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, 
Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 
“Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul 
for the work to which I have called them.” 
Then, completing their fasting and prayer, 
they laid hands on them and sent them off.
So they, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, 
went down to Seleucia 
and from there sailed to Cyprus. 
When they arrived in Salamis, 
they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/67:2">67:2-3, 5, 6 AND 8</a></h4>
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R.    (4)  O God, let all the nations praise you! 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
May God have pity on us and bless us; 
may he let his face shine upon us. 
So may your way be known upon earth; 
among all nations, your salvation. 
R.    O God, let all the nations praise you! 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
May the nations be glad and exult 
because you rule the peoples in equity; 
the nations on the earth you guide. 
R.    O God, let all the nations praise you! 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
May the peoples praise you, O God; 
may all the peoples praise you! 
May God bless us, 
and may all the ends of the earth fear him! 
R.    O God, let all the nations praise you! 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
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<h4>Alleluia     <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/8:12">JN 8:12</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
I am the light of the world, says the Lord; 
whoever follows me will have the light of life. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/12:44">JN 12:44-50</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
Jesus cried out and said, 
“Whoever believes in me believes not only in me 
but also in the one who sent me, 
and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. 
I came into the world as light, 
so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness. 
And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them, 
I do not condemn him, 
for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. 
Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words 
has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, 
it will condemn him on the last day, 
because I did not speak on my own, 
but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak. 
And I know that his commandment is eternal life. 
So what I say, I say as the Father told me.”
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: Wednesday, May 6, 2020

<div>What are the advantages and disadvantages of confessing to a priest who is not from the church you attend?</div><div>You are free to confess to any priest who has the faculties to hear confessions. It makes no difference whether you go in your own parish or another. Even so, it is usually good to go regularly to the same priest, since he can help you more knowingly, and, if he already knows your story, you may not have to repeat yourself if there are things you need to explain.
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Any Benefits Confessing to a Non-Parish Priest?

<div>What Evidence for Objective Morality Can I Give to an Athiest? </div><div>You can point to our common human nature, that despite coming from various socio-economic backgrounds and cultures, human beings manifest that there is a common law of God written on our hearts, i.e., our consciences (see Rom. 2:14-16), that we can know basic right from wrong precisely because we’re human.
For example, even though they likely made themselves vulnerable to great physical punishment from radical Muslim men in Egypt, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/cbs-reporter-lara-logan-discusses-sexual-assault-cairo/story?id=13504974">Muslim women wearing burkas interceded to save the life of a CBS reporter who had been sexually assaulted by a mob</a>. Based on their culture and religion that sometimes can be expressed in extreme ways, some might have expected these Muslim women to join in the beating of this “infidel woman,” or at least step away for fear of reprisals from the many menacing Muslim men gathered, especially later on when the Western media would not be around to report on their punishment. Instead, like the Good Samaritan who acted more righteously than a couple of devout Jewish leaders despite his (the Samaritan&#8217;s) espousing some heretical religious beliefs (Luke 10:25-37), these women illustrated that we are all made in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27) and thus are capable of knowing and choosing right from wrong, including doing so in courageous circumstances.
For more on how belief in God better enables mankind to know and anchor themselves in the natural moral law than disbelief in God does see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/can-you-be-good-without-god">Trent Horn’s related article</a>. See also <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/can-atheists-be-good-without-belief-in-god">Karlo Broussard shorter presentation on the same subject</a>.
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Evidence for Objective Human Morality to Share with Atheists

The Evangelical magazine World recently ran a fun piece looking at the <a href="https://wng.org/opinions/the-five-christians-you-meet-in-the-movies-1679657828">stereotypes of Christians that you meet in movies</a>. Check them out and you’ll see that many of the types cross over to Catholic movie characters, as well. But it got me thinking about specifically Catholic character tropes that we often encounter on the big screen or television. Here are few pulled (and in some cases composited) from the haze of my memory. What others would you add?
The Overly Formal Cleric
Calls everybody “my son” and “my daughter.” Drinks tea in his wood-paneled rectory. Speaks with a British accent no matter where the movie is set. (Cousin of the Irish Cleric, who smiles more and keeps a flask in his cassock.)
The Childlike Nun
Always fresh-faced and bubbly. Leads Bible songs on her weathered guitar. Someday will turn into the Hatchet-Faced nun, but for now is all sunshine.
The Parochial School Survivor
Complains about getting his hands whacked with a ruler when he was a kid, even though this hasn’t been done for about seventy years. Likes to begin his diatribes against the Church with stories of dubious accuracy that begin with, “When I was in Catholic school…”
The Hoodlum with a Crucifix
Italian-Americans in gangster movies have been the most common representatives of this trope, but you can just as easily come across a Columbian drug lord or IRA bomber fingering a rosary in one hand and machine gun in the other.
The Compassionate Heretic
A Catholic species of the “Wise Heretic” from the World article, this character can be lay, clerical, or religious but is in any case meant to be taken as a model of real Catholicism. Offers specious explanations and justifications to help other characters square their false or immoral ideas with their faith.
The Repressed Ascetic
Usually female, this character exemplifies the mousy, humorless, uptight vision of piety to which non-believers imagine full adherence to Catholicism must lead. Very concerned about burning in hell.
“How Do You Do, Fellow Catholics?”
Hollywood screenwriters tend not to be, or to know, any normal Catholic churchgoers, but sometimes a plot point requires them to think one up. Or harder still, to awkwardly write them into a Catholic scenario like Mass, confession, or family prayers. This character is the ersatz product of their ill-informed imagination, using Catholic-sounding phrases and surrounded by Catholic-looking props… but everything is just a little off.

The Kinds of Catholics You Meet in Movies

Romans 6:3-4 is a go-to passage for many Christians when they want to show from the Bible that baptism actually does something—that it saves. Paul tells us that through baptism, we’re “buried therefore with [Christ] . . . into death . . . [so that] we might walk in newness of life.” Then in verse 7, he adds that in this baptismal death, we’re “freed from sin.”
Now, here’s something interesting: The Greek word translated as “freed” is dikaioō, which actually means “to justify.” In other words, Paul is saying we’re justified—or saved—through baptism. That’s a pretty strong claim.
But not everyone agrees. In his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Rome-Biblical-Historical-Catholicism-ebook/dp/B0793SQWDL/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1LCKFYC64V0ZU&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Fk5bj4NZuV1mGQBc5qjfWFv6odqKjmqpAw8TX1cbs0A.Viow3QZMayCj6fzpIR95R0jsi7_dvJKkcQrxcxLxxqM&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=todd+baker+Exodus+from+Rome&amp;qid=1746209779&amp;sprefix=todd+baker+exodus+from+rome%2Caps%2C115&amp;sr=8-2">book Exodus from Rome: Volume I</a>, Protestant theologian Todd Baker pushes back on this idea. He argues that Paul isn’t even talking about water baptism here. According to Baker, Paul is referring to something merely spiritual. He gives two main reasons for this view, so let’s take a look at both.
Baker’s first argument is that Paul never actually says the word “water.” Here’s how he puts it:
<blockquote>Paul’s use of baptism in Romans 6:3-5 does not mention water anywhere, and therefore can conceivably convey the greater idea of identification with Christ in his death and resurrection for the sinner’s salvation, without necessarily pointing to the idea of the rite or act of water baptism . . . if Paul means a water and ritual baptism in Romans 6, he would have clearly included the term “water” as the descriptive modifier to baptism, which he does not.</blockquote>
But this is kind of a stretch. Think about it: Paul wrote Romans around A.D. 50. That means for about twenty years, Christians had already been practicing water baptism, following Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19 to go out and baptize. And we have multiple examples of it in action—just look at Acts 8:16, 10:48, 11:14, 16:15 and 33, and 18:8, plus 1 Corinthians 1:16.
So, for early Christians, “baptism” would have naturally meant water baptism. It was the norm. Paul wouldn’t have needed to tack on the word “water” every time. Just like today—if someone says he got baptized, you assume he means with water. There’s no confusion.
And let’s be real—Paul is describing a powerful transformation here: dying and rising with Christ. That’s a pretty dramatic image, and what better way to symbolize that than through a ritual washing? Ritual washing with water fits the theological message perfectly. Take away the washing, and you lose a lot of the meaning.
Now, Baker might respond by saying, “Well, Paul must be referring to something else besides water baptism because baptism is just a symbol of our union with Christ—it doesn’t actually do anything.” But that’s begging the question. In other words, you can’t argue that Romans 6:3-4 doesn’t support salvation by baptism just because you already believe that baptism doesn’t save. That’s the very thing we’re trying to figure out.
Baker may also counter and say that I’m misunderstanding his argument, thinking he’s arguing that Paul should have merely mentioned the term “water.” But the next few lines specify how Paul would have used “water” as a modifier if he envisioned water baptism. Baker writes (emphasis added),
<blockquote>Consequently, the Apostle would have written Romans 6:3-4, if water baptism were the productive means of salvation and union with Jesus Christ, to read: “As many of us were immersed (baptized) into water in Christ were immersed into water into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by immersing in water into his death.</blockquote>
Baker assumes that if Paul were talking about water baptism, Paul should have said we’re baptized into water. But that would be strange, since Paul would be saying the ritual act of water baptism unites us to water itself, which makes no sense.
Moreover, this detracts from what Paul actually says: “We baptized into Christ.” Spiritual union with Christ is the result of the baptism that Paul speaks about. This fits perfectly with the sacramental reading of the text. Water is just the medium through which this union with Christ takes becomes a reality.
Now, Baker’s second argument seems to capitalize on this very point: We’re baptized into Christ. He makes a big deal of the Greek preposition eis, which means “into.” The fact that Paul says we’re baptized into Christ leads Baker to conclude that Paul is talking about a spiritual baptism, not a physical one:
<blockquote>It is simply what the text of Romans 6:3-4 says it is: a baptism into Christ. . . . To merely assume that Romans 6:3-4 is speaking about the ritual of water baptism is to force that idea into the text when it clearly speaks of a baptism into Christ, not a baptism of water.</blockquote>
But this reasoning is flawed, too.
Baker is mixing up two questions: (1) What are we being baptized into? and (2) What kind of baptism are we talking about? Baker thinks the answer to the first question logically entails the answer to the second. But that’s not true.
There’s nothing about having union with Christ that logically excludes a physical action bringing about such a spiritual state. Even Protestants believe that the physical act of verbal confession that Jesus is Lord brings about our salvation. And they quote Romans 10:9-10 to prove it, which is commonly called “The Roman Road to Salvation.”
Spiritual union with Christ, therefore, could be brought about by the physical ritual of water baptism. Thus, Baker’s appeal to the spiritual effect of union with Christ doesn’t necessarily exclude water baptism.
At the end of the day, Baker’s case against water baptism in Romans 6 just doesn’t hold up. Expecting Paul to explicitly say “water” every time he mentions baptism isn’t realistic, especially given the historical context. And insisting that being baptized “into Christ” rules out water baptism is based on assumptions that don’t follow from logic or the text.
On the flip side, reading Romans 6 as referring to water baptism makes sense both historically and theologically. It fits with what the early Christians practiced, and it lines up with the powerful spiritual transformation Paul describes. Far from being a stretch, the sacramental reading of this passage is the most natural one.

What Good Is Water Baptism?

<div>Has Pope Francis made statements regarding a lifting or softening of the prohibitions against involvement in Freemasonry?</div><div>To the contrary, Pope Francis has spoken out strongly against Freemasonry and its impact on the Catholic Church, including <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130728_gmg-conferenza-stampa.html">in concluding remarks during a July 2013 in-flight press conference</a>, <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/june/documents/papa-francesco_20150621_torino-giovani.html">an address to children and young people in Turin, Italy</a>, in 2015, and <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/disorder-in-the-order-of-malta">regarding the reform of the Knights of Malta in 2017</a>.
See also <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/joe-biden-a-freemason">our related article</a> that elaborates further on Freemasonry’s problematic religious aspects. See too <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-church-say-about-freemasonry">our related Q&amp;A</a>.
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Pope Francis Speaks Against Freemasonry

The Carthusians are a unique religious order in the Church. The order dates its existence to the late eleventh century, from the founder, St. Bruno (1030-1101). Although born in Cologne, Bruno spent much time in Reims (modern-day France), where he was appointed chancellor of the diocese in 1075.
Consumed with diocesan administration for years, Bruno could not fulfill his desire to retire from the world in solitude to grow closer to God. Eventually, he left Reims and, along with six companions, settled in the Chartreuse Mountains near the town of Grenoble, where they built a small monastery and founded the Carthusian Order in 1084.
His time of solitude was brief, as Bruno left the refuge of the monastery in 1090 at the request of his former pupil (Eudes of Châtillon), who was now Pope Urban II. The pope needed Bruno’s administrative skills to assist in the ongoing eleventh-century reform movement. For the next decade, the Carthusian founder worked tirelessly behind the scenes for the good for the Church, and he went to his eternal reward in the early twelfth century.
Bruno’s order was unique in that it combined eremitical (solitary) and cenobite (community) monasticism. The monks lived in separate cells but gathered together for prayer and fellowship. The Carthusians built their monasteries in rural areas far from human habitation, a practice that continues into the modern day. The uniqueness of the order’s daily life is rooted in the “desert, the enclosure, and the cell,” which provides the environment for the Carthusian to practice “consecrated solitude” so that he can be “alone with the Alone.”
The austerity and simplicity of Carthusian life is beautifully illustrated in the 2005 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478160/?ref_=ttawd_ov">Into Great Silence</a> by director Philip Gröning (a film that took five years to produce). The Carthusians are known for their intense piety and strict obedience to their way of life, prompting one pope to write the order “need not be reformed, for it has never been deformed.”
There are not many celebrated individual Carthusians due to the order’s <a href="https://chartreux.org/moines/en/history/">axiom</a> that “the charterhouse makes saints but does not make them known.” In its nearly nine hundred and fifty years, there has never been a Carthusian pope, nor more than a hundred bishops. The order has witnessed martyrs in its history, including several English Carthusians in the sixteenth century, who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy advocating King Henry VIII as “head of the Church,” and numerous French Carthusians in the eighteenth century, who were martyred during the dark days of the French Revolution.
Despite the desire for anonymity, knowledge of the order, especially outside the Catholic world, increased in the nineteenth century due to the distillation of a special spirit known as the Elixir de Santé (“elixir of life”). The unique and tasty liqueur comes in pale green and yellow versions (with differing alcohol content) and is sold under the brand name <a href="https://www.chartreuse.fr/en/home/">Chartreuse</a> (from the name of the motherhouse <a href="https://chartreux.org/moines/en/">La Grande Chartreuse</a> in the mountains of France).
The elixir has a history as mysterious and distinctive as the Carthusians. The story begins in the early seventeenth century, when the Carthusians were given a secretive document containing a list of plants along with some general instructions for concocting a drink mixture that would help contribute to good health and produce a long life. Focused on prayer and monastic life, and coupled with the loss of the whereabouts of the manuscript for over a century, the Carthusians did not allocate the time or resources necessary to develop the elixir. However, the manuscript was recovered in 1736 by Michel Brunier de Larnarge, who became general of the order in 1737. Through trial and error, the monks in 1764 finally developed the formula for the famous pale green liqueur. (The yellow version was crafted in the following century.) The exact recipe is secret and known by only three monks, who never travel together, so that, should tragedy strike, the formula would not be lost. The only available information about the elixir’s contents is that it is made from 130 local herbs and flowers gathered by the Carthusians.
From the mid- to late eighteenth century, the monks focused on distilling the green spirit and producing small batches, with limited distribution, until 1792, when the Carthusians were expelled from their home monastery by French revolutionaries during the Reign of Terror. The original botanical manuscript and secret formula were passed hand to hand for safekeeping among the monks and their friends until the early nineteenth century, when the Carthusians were allowed to return to the La Grande Chartreuse and restart their distillation efforts.
The next twenty years witnessed small production batches and limited distribution until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the elixir was exported to cities throughout France and Italy. With the increase in production came concerns that the distillery work would impact the central mission of the order, so, in 1864, Pope Bl. Pius IX (r. 1846-1878) recommended that the monks move the distillery from the monastery to the nearest town to focus on prayer and the contemplative life. Limited production continued into the early twentieth century, but the establishment of an anti-religious government during the Third Republic forced the Carthusians to move the distillery to Spain, where it suffered damage in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. That same year, awareness of the tasty green liqueur increased due to its appearance in the Alfred Hitchcock film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030341/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_42_dr">The Lady Vanishes</a>, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.
Another important chapter in the history of the elixir began in the 1950s, when the name “Chartreuse” alone was featured on the bottle label, and an intensive marketing campaign utilizing radio and film began. Sales increased substantially, especially in the American market due to the popular <a href="https://punchdrink.com/articles/chartreuse-very-own-party-drink-swampwater-cocktail/">Swampwater</a> cocktail. Sales decreased in the early 1980s but began to rise again in the 1990s and reached the pinnacle in the early 2000s as the elixir rose to prominence in the exploding craft cocktail scene. Chartreuse became the  featured spirit in a multitude of <a href="https://www.liquor.com/slideshows/chartreuse-cocktails/">cocktails</a>, including the drinks the Last Word, the Green Martini, and the Swizzle. (It can also be enjoyed as a <a href="https://www.chartreuse.fr/en/degustation/digestive/">digestif</a>, neat or on the rocks.) The elixir found unsuspecting admiration from the music group ZZ Top in 2012 with the tribute <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCHIO0XHbUg">song</a> “Chartreuse” after the band discovered the spirit at a French music festival.
The cocktail world was surprised in January 2023, when the Carthusians announced their decision to limit production of the elixir. This shocking decision elicited articles in the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chartreuse-craft-cocktails-liqueur-french-monks-4c07df33">Wall Street Journal</a>, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/dining/drinks/chartreuse-shortage.html">New York Times</a>, and various wine and spirit trade journals. The growing popularity and demand to increase production of the elixir placed too many secular burdens on the Carthusians, who made the decision to limit their distillation work to focus on prayer and their unique charism of consecrated solitude. The elixir has become difficult to obtain in the United States and has led to purchase limits and hoarding, which has also increased the cost of available bottles.
Those who want to continue to enjoy the benefits of the “elixir of life” may be unable to do so, but the world will benefit more from the prayers offered by these spiritual warriors of Saint Bruno.

Carthusians Make the Holiest Booze

Under the heading “Why isn’t the Bible more explicitly Catholic?” a user on the Catholicism subreddit <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/17md6y6/why_isnt_the_bible_more_explicitly_catholic/">asks</a>:
<blockquote>For example, why didn’t Jesus just directly say “Peter, you and your successors will lead my Church as Vicar of Christ until I return.” Or why didn’t He say outright “priests are to bless ordinary bread and wine and through that it will become my body.”</blockquote>
Questions of this sort appear in a lot of forms, and on a lot of different topics—“Why aren’t people nicer to each other?” “Why don’t we have a cure for cancer?” “Why can’t I find my car keys when I want them?” “Why isn’t the existence of God more obvious?” and so on.
“Why not?” questions like this express a wish for something and ask why this wish is not fulfilled.
Taken as a group, “Why not?” questions are all subcases of what philosophers and theologians call the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-problem-of-evil">problem of evil</a>. The thing that we are wishing for is a good, and since we don’t have it, we are experiencing a deprivation of that good—an evil. The question is why the evil exists, and if the question is asked in a theological context, why God would allow the evil to exist.
We have <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-horrible-suffering-does-not-disprove-gods-existence">partial answers</a> to the problem of evil, and sometimes the answers to “Why not?” questions are straightforward: If you’re regularly having trouble finding your car keys, it’s likely because you haven’t established the habit of putting them in a single place so that you know where to find them.
But there is a limit to our knowledge, and some evils have an element of mystery that remains even when we’ve explained as much as we can. We know that God would not allow an evil if he weren’t going to bring about an equal or greater good from it (CCC 324). But we don’t see the big picture, and so—in this life—we don’t always know what that good is, and thus we don’t always know why God allows a particular evil.
What about the question of why the Bible isn’t more explicitly Catholic? Well, it’s already <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-bible-is-a-catholic-book/">pretty darn Catholic</a>.
Jesus declared Peter <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/peter-the-rock">to be the rock</a> on which he would build his Church (Matt. 16:18-19), which makes Peter the head of the Church once Jesus ascends. If he didn’t mention Peter’s successors reigning in later ages, it’s likely because it had not yet been revealed that there would be any later ages. The first generation of Christians tended to assume that Jesus would return in their own day (1 Thess. 4:15), and the fact that there would be a long period before the end of the world wasn’t revealed for some time (Rev. 20:1-6).
That much of the answer is easy, but why didn’t God reveal it sooner that the world would go on for so long? We can’t say for sure.
When it comes to a clearer statement on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/transubstantiation-for-beginners">transubstantiation</a>, the Gospels are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jesus-no-seriously-guys">already quite clear</a>: Jesus takes ordinary bread and wine (Mark 14:22a, 23a) and says, “This is my body” and “This is my blood” (Mark 14:22b, 23b). He says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” and “my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:53, 55).
Could he have been even more explicit and given a technical statement of the doctrine of transubstantiation? Sure, but not without using the language of a later age of history, and as we’ve seen, the existence of later ages hadn’t yet been revealed.
Then there’s the issue of whether giving a fuller statement would actually solve the problem. Even if Jesus referred to successors of Peter, people could still find ways of denying their authority. And even if he’d been more explicit about transubstantiation, people could still say he was “speaking symbolically.”
Ultimately, we can’t be fully sure of why God has done everything the way he has. However, we can tell—from the way that the Bible is written in the language of a particular culture—that he wanted to use that culture’s language and modes of thought to communicate his message—not the styles of communication used by other, later cultures.
We also can tell that he didn’t want to make it too easy on us. He apparently wants us to learn by wrestling with the text. That’s the purpose of Jesus’ teachings in parables and of the prophets seeing symbols in their visions.
There is, apparently, a good to be gained by struggling with texts whose meaning isn’t immediately transparent, even if we can’t see all of the dimensions of this good until the next life.

Why Isn’t the Bible More Explicitly Catholic?

It is not a Nintendo game; rather, it was a wildly popular book back in the day.
The Prisoner of Zenda, written by Anthony Hope in 1894, is about a man forced by circumstances to pretend to be a king, for the sake of the real king, the kingdom, and the woman the pretender loves. It is a fascinating story of a man who does many noble things and displays many noble virtues, yet the story is itself a counterfeit, insofar as it (and its protagonist) pretend great evils are actually lofty and noble. Because Zenda, consciously or not, embraces the lie that society and the state are the highest goods, it also excuses sacrilege and adultery.
The Prisoner of Zenda begins and ends with the protagonist, Rudolf Rassendyll, in England, to all appearances an unambitious, languid country gentleman. However, while attempting to do some sightseeing in the European principality of Ruritania, he meets the soon-to-be-crowned king of that territory, to whom he is almost identical in physical appearance. When the king is drugged and captured by his rival for the throne, Rassendyll impersonates him to bide time while planning a rescue. He puts his life on the line again and again, dusting off skills and virtues no one ever suspected him of having, all the while falling in love with the beautiful princess Flavia.
If you can&#8217;t already appreciate something of the good of this story, well, you are precisely the one who needs to read it. For the most part, it is healthy entertainment, and healthy entertainment, as Daniel McInerny <a href="https://www.getprinciples.com/popular-entertainment-and-the-good-life-essay/">points out</a>, is prescribed by Thomas Aquinas as a virtue in itself. Beyond entertainment, swashbuckling stories prepare the passions to desire the virtuous. They inspire our irascible emotions, the ones that move us to accomplish difficult things for the sake of the good. Finally, as my friend and colleague Sean Fitzpatrick has noted, the story is in one sense an antidote to cynicism, because it is about a man who <a href="https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-prisoner-of-zenda-by-anthony-hope-escape-from-cynicism">sacrifices self</a> for others.
Yet even the ideal of self-sacrifice can become perverted, or even turn on itself, and the perversity in the novel is a danger. So it is not only appropriate to use this book as an illustration of an error, but also to forearm readers who take the worthwhile risk, to unmask the counterfeit morality lurking in the corners of this tale of the counterfeit king.
The first and most example of perverse self-sacrifice occurs early in the book. As part of the tradition of coronation in Catholic Ruritania, Rudolf receives the Holy Eucharist, although he is a Protestant. No objection is made by the loyal men of the king who are aiding and abetting him, although they are Catholics. In this way, late Victorian England, by the pen pf Anthony Hope, makes it clear that when it comes to duty, duty toward our maker can be peremptorily dismissed. It also sounds a false note in the rest of the appeals to God and his providence made through the rest of the book by the protagonist and his friends.
The second example of the Victorian noble lie is perhaps most illustrative. Rudolf, pretending to be king, in all truth falls in love with Princess Flavia. However, after Rudolf succeeds in rescuing the king, both agree that their love cannot be consummated, since the best thing for Ruritania would be her marriage with the real king and the consolidation of the royal bloodline. So far, though a bittersweet disappointment to the reader, it is perfectly right behavior. The commitment of matrimony is more fundamentally of the will than of the emotions, and Christian monarchs have sacrificed their personal attachments for the sake of their countries before.
However, the relationship becomes unchaste in the most insidious and deceptive way. Although Rudolph and Flavia do not physically consummate their love, they keep the fires burning in their hearts, even when Flavia finally marries the king. In what is meant to be a touching scene at the end of the book, Rudolf describes his yearly pilgrimage to Dresden, where a Ruritanian comrade brokers an exchange of roses between the old lovers. No physical sight of each other, much less physical proximity . . . and yet, what echoes through the chamber of our hearts is the idea that adultery can be fine, even noble, as long as it remains spiritual and, even more importantly, not disruptive to the interests of the state.
In this way, Hope joins a chorus of other Victorian English people of various creeds and political persuasions, such as John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, and George Eliot: the useful is what matters, not questions of God, the metaphysical, or even truth. However, this belief, prominent in The Prisoner of Zenda, too, presages the fall of Victorian England. For if God is important only so far as belief in him upholds the state, public morals, and decency, probing questions are opened up that the state, society, and decency cannot respond to. Aren&#8217;t the state&#8217;s rights, isn&#8217;t duty itself, important only insofar as they help individuals attain individual desires? If blasphemy is permitted in the interest of the state, why can&#8217;t treachery be moral in serving the interests of individuals? If adultery in the will and desire can be indulged in, why can&#8217;t promiscuity be justified if consenting adults aren&#8217;t hurting anyone?
In this way, we can begin to see that The Prisoner of Zenda as a pretense itself, based on a god that is not a god: the state. The only hope of what is noble in the novel is virtues that themselves receive their justification and status from a theology and philosophy that goes beyond those endorsed by the characters.
Nevertheless, if it is read in the right spirit, it not only serves some wholesome food for the imagination, and not only presents an unconscious history lesson on Victorian England, but also allows us to take part in the rescue of the book from its own imprisonment in a kind of relativism.

The Counterfeit King

A caller asks how to respond to an Anabaptist who claims that they were the original Christians and that Catholics cannot be the true Church due to how Catholics acted during the Reformation. Karlo Broussard, author of Meeting the Protestant Challenge, explains why the Catholic Church is the true Church.
Transcript:
Caller:
I have a sister-in-law who is Baptist, and she talks about her faith and the doctrines of the Baptist church, they sound very Protestant, but she indicates that they are not Protestant. They actually trace their roots all the way back to the apostles, and they believe that they&#8217;re the one true church that Jesus founded. And during the Protestant Reformation, it was the Catholics who participated in the killing of people of other religions, and it was the Anabaptists who did not participate in that. I was just hoping you could maybe fill in some blanks.
Karlo Broussard:
All right. So let&#8217;s think through this, Dee. Thank you very much for your call. So notice how the conclusion Catholic Church is not the original church is based on the premise, right, the reason that she&#8217;s giving for this is that the Catholic Church had sinners in its ranks and committed atrocities. Okay. Well, if committing atrocities and sinful leaders of your church precludes or excludes your church from being the one true church established by Jesus, well, then we&#8217;re going to have to exclude Peter and the Apostles in the first century from being the leaders and the originators of the original Church of Jesus Christ.
Why? Because they committed atrocities as well. Peter denied our Lord. Yes, he repented, but he denied our Lord. A leader, of one of the 12, Judas denied our Lord betrayed Him, and from the looks of it, he despaired. The other apostles &#8211; Matthew tells us of Matthew Chapter 27 &#8211; that all of them in some way betrayed our Lord and they fled and were not associated with our Lord during His passion and death.
So if we&#8217;re going to make holiness of leaders of the church the condition for being the original true church, then we&#8217;re going to have to say that the early apostles were not the true church established by Jesus. But of course, that&#8217;s absurd. That&#8217;s false. So once we expose that flawed reasoning there that they&#8217;re using holiness as a condition for determining which is the true church, like the holiness of the members of the church as a condition for which is the true church.
Well, then we ask the question, okay, well, how would we identify the true Church of Jesus Christ? Well Dee, when we look at the early Christian writings in the second century, for example, and even in the first century, if we look at Clement&#8217;s letter to the Corinthians in the first century, some dated to A.D. 70, some dated to A.D. 90, Clement talks about bishops being the successors to the apostles.
And in Clement&#8217;s mind, in the way that he&#8217;s writing, that is one of the ways in which we can identify the true Church of Jesus by looking to the succession of the apostles in the bishops. And then we see this confirmed again and again in the second century St.Irenaeus, when he&#8217;s talking about how to refute heretics, like how to know these guys are teaching things contrary to the orthodox faith of Christianity, what do we do? Irenaeus tells us we look to the succession of the apostles and the succession of the apostles in the bishops, because therein lies the preservation of the apostolic tradition, of the truth of God&#8217;s revelation given to us through Jesus as taught by the Apostles.
So in your conversation with your friend here, you could sort of carve this path or pave this path or articulate this way of going about it and saying, &#8220;listen, for these early Christians, they were looking to the succession of the apostles and the bishops for determining which was the true church of Jesus Christ and who had the true faith. Does your community have ministers who have been ordained by men who can be traced back all the way to the Apostles?&#8221; And of course, within the Anabaptist tradition, the answer would be no. So that would be one way of going about it. But then we have to take an extra step forward further and say, well, even though a Christian community might have bishops that can trace their historical lineage through succession all the way back to the apostles, the question becomes, well, do they have the successor to Saint Peter?
And that&#8217;s where the essential difference is going to come into play between Catholicism and all other groups of Christianity, even among our Orthodox brethren, because it&#8217;s the successor to Saint Peter and the Bishop of Rome, namely the Pope that is the idea defying marker of the original Church of Jesus Christ. Because in Matthew 16:18, our Lord tells Peter Simon, You are the &#8211; you are &#8211; you shall be called Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. Peter being the visible foundation of Jesus&#8217;s Church &#8211; allows &#8211; gives us a visible marker for identifying the true Church of Jesus. Because wherever the foundation is, there is the true Church of Christ. And of course, according to historical documentation, Peter died as the Bishop of Rome, so the successors to St. Peter as the Bishop of Rome would continue in that ministry of being the visible foundation of Christ here on Earth, Christ Church here on Earth, the Keeper of the Keys, the Supreme Binder and Looser, the Universal Shepherd of Christ&#8217;s flock here on Earth.
And that, Dee, is how we would move forward in articulating how we can determine that the Catholic Church is the original Church established by Jesus, not only by comparing and contrasting teachings like the Catholic Church teaches this, this is what we find in the New Testament, the early Christian testimony, but also by way of the historical succession to the apostles and more specifically to Saint Peter.

“The Anabaptists Were the FIRST Christians” | The Catholic Response

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Is the Bible pro-abortion? Some pro-choice advocates try to argue it is, citing a law in Numbers 5:11-31 and claiming it prescribes abortion as a punishment for adultery. Jimmy Akin explains why that&#8217;s incorrect.

Is the Bible Pro-Abortion?

A couple of days ago, following the publication of Fiducia Supplicans (FS) and the debate and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/blessing-same-sex-couples-a-ca-roundtable">commentary</a> it sparked, our <a href="https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/it-is-not-good-for-some-couples-to-be-alone">friend Tony Esolen mused on the nature of couplehood.</a>
He concludes by noting the natural connection between couplehood and sexual intimacy, and thus the impossibility of supporting the former (by, say, a priestly blessing) while excluding the latter. The end result of trying this, he writes, is to signal that “almost nothing of what the Church teaches about sex is to be taken seriously.”
I can’t argue with that logic. But an earlier section of Esolen’s piece is more notable to me. He points out that one characteristic of couplehood is exclusivity, and contrasts this with friendship:
<blockquote>Friendship, by its nature, is or ought to be nonexclusive: you may feel that your best friend is like your brother, but neither you nor he wishes to have no more such friends; that would be like wishing you had no more brothers. Friendship, particularly among boys and men, is directed outward, to the world.</blockquote>
Thus, Esolen continues, “two boys or two girls should not be a couple at all because that exclusivity is not what friendship is for; it is, in fact, an obstacle to the full flourishing of friendship.”
If exclusivity is not part of friendship, then what is it for? Ultimately, marriage. Exclusivity (also called fidelity) is one of the goods of marriage, along with indissolubility and procreation. And to the extent that it is a feature of couplehood prior to marriage, it’s because couplehood is ordered to marriage and is perfected in marriage. A man and woman in a committed dating relationship informally choose to forsake coupling with others as a leadup to doing so formally, by vow, in the near future.
I think this is an extremely important point for us to remember in these ongoing conversations over blessing same-sex couples. Namely, that it’s not so easy or so simple to extract homosexual activity from same-sex couplehood in order to “bless”—approve of, ask God to make flourish—the presumed good that remains. Because the entirety of couplehood, not just genital acts, belongs to the realm of marriage.
Often, the rhetoric in favor of blessing same-sex couples hinges on the presumption that to the extent that the persons exhibit fidelity to an exclusive partner, a unique and intimate kind of self-giving love, harmonious common living, and so on, those things should be affirmed. But if these “couple things” are properly qualities of marriage, not friendship—and if in fact they are obstacles to friendship—then they ought not to be affirmed any more than genital activity. (Indeed, it stands to reason that affirming some pseudo-marital goods in a same-sex couple will make it easier, not harder, for them to justify the sexual part of couplehood.)
Instead of blessings that affirm the non-sexual parts of couplehood in same-sex couples, we might consider a pastoral approach that redirects those things toward friendship: toward helping them become two people looking out at the world, not a “couple” looking at each other. Only in this way can they find inner healing, the right ordering of their affections, and full reconciliation with God and the Church.

Couplehood Is for Marriage

<div>Is watching Mass on television the same as going to Mass?</div><div>Watching Mass on TV is not the same as attending Mass and does not fulfill someone’s Sunday/holy day obligation. However, if someone is unable to attend Mass, then there is no obligation to attend Mass. Being with the community of faith and in the presence of the eucharistic Lord is not the same as watching it on TV. After all, would you consider internet video chat with a loved one the exact same as being in the same room?
Now, even though they are not the same does not mean watching Mass is without merit or benefit. Continuing with the internet analogy, if you’re unable to to physically be with someone, being able to see them is a good second best. While watching Mass on TV someone can reflect upon the readings, hear the homily, and pray along with the community at that Mass. These all good and pious things that bring spiritual benefit. However, that benefit is not the same as being present in church with the Lord and receiving him in Communion.
</div>

Is TV Mass as Good as the Real Thing?

The Sinister Plot of the Transgender Movement

On November 4, 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a doctrinal note entitled Mater Populi Fidelis (“Mother of the Faithful People”), “on Some Marian Titles Regarding Mary’s Cooperation in the Work of Salvation.” This note is in response to many requests, mostly in relation to the request of a Fifth Marian Dogma of Mary’s Spiritual Maternity (which includes <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-dreaded-cult-of-mary">the titles</a> Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate).
Protestants are shouting for joy, as if this were some sort of victory over the Church. Even headlines from notable news sources jumped the gun, <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/vatican-dispatch/2025/11/04/vatican-mary-redemptrix-mediatrix-doctrine/">proclaiming</a> that the Church has <a href="https://angelusnews.com/news/vatican/titles-for-mary/">tossed out</a> the titles Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix.
This has been interpreted by a large contingent on social media as the Church changing its doctrine. And some Protestants are sarcastically writing off the notion that the Church’s teaching is unchanging, pointing to Mater Populi Fidelis as a change in the longstanding tradition.
But what does Mater Populi Fidelis really say?
It bears mentioning first that this doctrinal note is about titles, not doctrine. It seeks not to change any doctrine, but to address the use of particular titles so that the Church’s doctrine may be clearly understood. Second, the perception on the internet of the remarks on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-dreaded-cult-of-mary">the titles themselves</a> has largely misrepresented what was written.
Because it needs to be said, let’s look at what the document actually says pertaining to these unchanged doctrines, and the DDF’s reasoning for wanting to address the usage of titles. As a sneak peak, it is not because the properly explained theology is incorrect.
<h2>Co-redemptrix</h2>
In its treatment of the title Co-redemptrix, the document begins by affirming Mary’s cooperation in the work of salvation. Just as St. Paul said, “We are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9) and “I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col. 1:24), the Church affirms that we have an active participation in the work of salvation. We unite our sufferings to Christ’s and intercede for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Mater Populi Fidelis affirms that Mary’s unique participation in Christ’s saving work, “attested to in Scripture,” has also “been taught by the Magisterium of the Church.”
So what, then, is the intention of the document, if the Church’s true teaching on Mary’s role in redemption is not changed? The short answer is that the DDF wants to address particular titles associated with this work. Though not altering the true understanding of Co-redemptrix, the DDF essentially states that too many explanations are required for people to understand what the title actually means. As such, “this title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith.”
The document continues:
<blockquote>When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the people of God and becomes unhelpful. In this case, the expression Co-redemptrix does not help extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ.</blockquote>
The takeaway is that the true theology is not changed—that which outlines Mary’s unique participation as the one who said fiat to the Annunciation, who suffered alongside her Son at the foot of the cross as a mother, and who is given to us as Mother of the Church. Yet at this time, the DDF deems it “unhelpful” to use the title “Co-redemptrix.”
<h2>Mediatrix</h2>
On the topic of mediation, the doctrinal note begins by affirming the concept of mediation among all Christians—that when we pray for one another, our sufferings, when united to Christ’s on the cross, are meritorious, and we assist our brothers and sisters in coming to Christ. This is quickly applied to Mary, who, in a singular and unique way, mediated Christ’s presence (through the Annunciation) to us and continues this mediation today. It has always been understood that in the proper sense, Christ is the one true mediator (see 1 Tim. 2:5), and any other mediation on behalf of believers is a participation in Christ’s mediation.
This is the quickest summary of the treatment of Mary as mediatrix. The document says that the title Mediatrix can be used with caution, so long as it is absolutely clear that Mary does not have some sort of mediation parallel to Christ’s, but subordinate and participatory in his. Mary’s mediation is not some second option to Christ’s, but rather, to put it in the vernacular, her role is to bring us to him who is himself the Mediator.
Mater Fidelis Populi clarifies that it can be said that Mary is mediatrix of “graces” (plural) “when seen in reference to Mary’s maternal help at various moments in our lives,” which “can have an acceptable meaning.” The document does, however, state that the specific title Mediatrix of All Graces has “limits that do not favor a correct understanding of Mary’s unique place. In fact, she, the first redeemed, could not have been the mediatrix of the grace that she herself received.”
It should be explained that the understanding of the title Mediatrix of All Graces, when properly taught, states that Mary has mediated Christ to the world through her fiat and the Annunciation, and that all grace comes to us from Christ (or, to be precise, from the Father, through the Son, and given by the Holy Spirit). As a correct understanding theologically, the DDF is also not changing this teaching of the Church, but issuing caution regarding the use of titles. As Mater Fidelis Populi states, “Mary can implore God to grant us those internal impulses of the Holy Spirit that are called ‘actual graces’” (6). The document goes on to explain these “actual graces” as aids given by the Holy Spirit to help sinners prepare for justification.
In short, the document wants to stress that Mary does not distribute “spiritual goods or energies apart from our personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and that Mary should be seen more as our “mother in the order of grace.” Catholics should have no problem with looking at Mary as our spiritual mother, because as the best mother, she provides her children with all their needs.
<h2>Heavenly Realities Are Not Changing</h2>
At this point, we ought to remember that this is a discussion about titles, not so much about doctrine. There may be a couple of lines in the document that deal with the doctrine of Mary’s role in dispensing graces, but those will be fleshed out over time. For us, the most important thing to remember is that heavenly realities are not changing. Mary still exercises her role as the most powerful intercessor in all of heaven, and the many saints, Doctors of the Church, and papal teachings (including encyclicals) stressing Mary’s mediation are not being thrown in the trash. The Church doesn’t just change doctrine like that, so pray a Hail Mary and ask our Lady for peace.

Is Mary Still Mediatrix of Graces?

Episode 125: Year C
In today’s episode, we highlight several details that are relevant for apologetics in the readings for this upcoming Palm Sunday, Year C. Many of the details, which are found in the Gospel reading for the procession of palms—Luke 19:28-40, and the second reading, taken from Philippians 2:6-11, we’ve already covered in previous episodes. So, our discussion of these details will be brief. The two details that we will mainly focus on come from the Gospel reading, which is taken from Luke 22:14—23:56. The apologetical topics that these details relate to are the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and Peter’s Role as the First Pope.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm">Click Here</a>
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Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>
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Did Jesus Appoint Peter as Leader of the Apostles?

There are many ways to go about discussing arguments for God. I have heard many of them, from Protestants and Catholics alike. But one argument—quite a strong one—that doesn’t get as much attention as it should centers on the mathematics behind eucharistic miracles.
Eucharistic miracles are miracles in which the host is actually seen bleeding. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Many times, it happens in times of weakened faith in transubstantiation.
According to Ronald Rychlak, professor of law and associate dean at the University of Mississippi, the Church currently recognizes <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/eucharistic-miracles-evidence-of-the-real-presence-0">around 120 eucharistic miracles</a>. These include hosts that have been preserved for over <a href="https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=75217">1,200 years</a>.
One such story comes to us from 1992 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was in Pope Francis’s former diocese as bishop. Carlos Domínguez, a lay minister, noticed host fragments in front of the tabernacle. He mentioned this to the priest, who encouraged him to begin a dissolving process, as he thought they were no longer edible. A week later, the priest checked the container and was amazed at what he saw. There were blood steaks on the walls of the container. This, followed by a bloodstained paten containing a consecrated host in the same parish, led researchers to examine the situation. Dr. Adhelma Myrian Segovia de Sasot (say that five times fast!) did just that. After a series of tests, she found that the blood film revealed “nonspecific debris, vacuolated cells and abundant bacterial contamination by cocci.” This suggests that the analyzed blood sample had been in a state of suffering. (These events were followed up by two more eucharistic miracles in the same parish, one in 1994 and another in 1996.)
The way we are able to research these events is quite astounding. For instance, the miracle I referenced previously that was preserved for over 1,200 years does not currently have any reliable historical documents about its origin. However, because it was preserved, researchers could still examine it. This is exactly what happened in 1970, when Professor Odoardo Linoli, anatomical pathologist and the head of a hospital in Arezzo, conducted tests on the flesh over 100 days. Over this period, he <a href="https://sophiainstitute.com/product/a-cardiologist-examines-jesus/">came to the following conclusions</a>:
<ul>
<li>The blood of the eucharistic miracle is true blood, and the flesh is true flesh.</li>
<li>The flesh is made of heart muscle tissue.</li>
<li>The blood and the flesh belong to the human species.</li>
<li>The blood group is AB and is identical in the blood and the flesh; hence, in all likelihood, both belong to the same person.</li>
</ul>
Actually, the blood type for all the eucharistic samples that have been tested has been AB. Although this may not seem important on the surface, it is one of the most astonishing mathematical arguments for God available.
(According to Serafini, a scientist in 2010 discovered that the blood likely would have been AB-. However, since this will require further checks, I will be grouping both AB- and AB+ probabilities together. Obviously, if the samples differed on this, it would be a blow to my case. However, this has not been established.)
In order to determine the probability of such an event, first think about how statisticians measure probability. Assuming that events are independent (that is, one event does not affect the other events), we would measure the probabilities by multiplying them together.
For instance, if you wanted to determine the probability of rolling a two three times in a row on a regular six-sided die, we would multiply 1/6 times 1/6 times 1/6. This can be simplified as 1/6^3, 1/216, or about 0.46 percent. You’d be very lucky if you were able to roll three twos in a row.
In doing this analysis, we can determine the probability that it is merely a coincidence that all of these blood types are AB. After all, they would all have to be the same blood type in order to be taken seriously by anyone, as Jesus would not have had multiple blood types. Not to mention that multiple blood types would allow a skeptic to make the claim that it is merely the priest’s (or whoever else)’s blood and that it is not miraculous at all.
In order to estimate the probability that all of these eucharistic miracles just happened to involve AB blood, we need to see what percentage of the world’s people have AB blood. According to Carter Blood Care, that is about 5 percent of the world population. This includes 4 percent who have AB+ and 1 percent who have AB-. Using the same process as above, we can determine that the probability of two people in the same room both having blood type AB is 5/100^2, or about 0.25 percent.
As far as I know, only five of the 120 miracles mentioned above have been tested for blood type—and even this small number makes for a mathematical anomaly. The probability that all five would have AB blood is 1/20^5. This simplifies to one in 3.2 million.
In order to better understand these probabilities, imagine having a coin. To get this same probability, you would have to flip the same result over twenty-one times in a row. And these probabilities grow very fast—in fact, they grow exponentially. If someone were to test another one of the samples we have and conclude that the type is also AB, the probabilities go to 1/20^6, or one in 64 million. This time, you can imagine flipping a coin and getting heads 26 times in a row. This would be far from a coincidence.
(1/20^120 = 1/2^x. Using natural log rules for the denominator, we get 5 * ln20 = xln[2] to get the appropriate exponent: just over 21. I use a similar pattern to determine the odds for another AB testing.)
All in all, these eucharistic miracles give us great mathematical evidence for both Christ and the Real Presence. Even in the examples where blood type was not tested, we have other reasons for belief, such as in the first example, with the case of vacuolated cells.
I encourage Catholics to consider using these arguments in discussions of the Real Presence with non-believers and skeptics. In doing so, we are providing a simple, easy-to-understand path to God, as opposed to some of the more complex arguments we might find from Aquinas and other philosophers and theologians.
Overall, Eucharistic miracles give us a great reason to believe in the Real Presence—and, as a conclusion, God. Those who understand the math behind these probabilities will be left with only one conclusion: this is a statistical impossibility, so these events must have been miraculous . . . and our Lord has AB blood!

A Mathematical Case for the Real Presence

Today people are fascinated by cryptids—hidden creatures—like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W55wLpMoelM">Bigfoot</a> and the <a href="https://youtu.be/ru0YLTXQH1w">Loch Ness</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/RXVMOwrmN_E">Monster</a>. In the ancient world, the most famous cryptid was the dragon, so did early Christians believe in them?
The term dragon (Greek, drakôn) appears in the Greek Bible, but normally it is in a symbolic context—like when the devil appears in the form of a dragon in the book of Revelation (e.g., Rev. 12). So this doesn’t provide good evidence for belief in literal dragons.
However, the term also appears in other contexts. For example, in Daniel 14, the prophet Daniel kills a large drakôn that the Babylonians worshipped. However, in secular Greek, the term drakôn originally referred to a snake or serpent, and it did not always have monstrous connotations. This is clear in Wisdom 16:10, where the author refers back to the snakes that bit the Israelites in Numbers 21 and describes them as “venomous drakontôn.” The author of Daniel 14 may thus have expected readers to imagine a big snake, and some modern Bible translations like the Common English Bible use “snake” in the passage.
The Bible thus doesn’t provide a good basis for documenting belief in literal dragons. However, we do find some in the early Church who were open to the idea. St. Augustine writes:
<blockquote>As for dragons, which lack feet, they are said to take their rest in caves, and to soar up into the air. While these are not too easy to come across, this kind of animated creature is for all that definitely mentioned not only in our literature but also in that of the Gentiles (Literal Meaning of Genesis 3:9:13).</blockquote>
This passage may not mean what it suggests, however. You’ll note that Augustine says dragons have no feet—which would point to snakes—but that they fly. There were—indeed—references to flying snakes in ancient literature. Isaiah mentions them (14:29, 30:6), and so does the Greek historian Herodotus (Histories 2:75-76, 3:109). So Augustine is likely not referring to what we would think of as a dragon but to flying snakes. (Note: flying—or, technically, gliding—snakes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16aGSx9gFO4">do exist in some parts of Asia</a>.)
The flying snakes that Herodotus referred to were small, but in another passage, Augustine envisions dragons that are very large:
<blockquote>Now dragons favor watery habitats. They emerge from caves and take to the air. They create major atmospheric disturbance, for dragons are very large creatures, the largest of all on earth. This is probably why the psalm began its consideration of earthly creatures with them (Expositions of the Psalms 148:9).</blockquote>
Augustine wasn’t alone in thinking about real, enormous dragons. Other Church Fathers did so also, and so did non-Christian thinkers.
The reason is obvious when you think about it. Although the term paleontology was only coined in 1822, humans have been running across fossils for as long as there have been humans. When they came across the bones of giant, monstrous animals, they correctly concluded that there used to be giant animals in the area.
In her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Fossil-Hunters-Dinosaurs-Mammoths/dp/0691245606/">The First Fossil Hunters</a>, historian Adrienne Mayor insightfully argues that it was the ancient discovery of fossils that formed the basis of the legends of dragons and similar creatures the world over.
St. Augustine himself reports finding a giant tooth on a beach, where the action of the waves presumably uncovered it:
<blockquote>Once, on the beach at Utica, I saw with my own eyes—and there were others to bear me witness—a human molar tooth so big that it could have been cut up, I think, into a hundred pieces each as big as one of our modern teeth. That tooth, however, I can well believe, was the tooth of a giant (City of God 15:9).</blockquote>
I’m not a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/should-catholics-be-young-earth-creationists-with-jimmy-akin">Young Earth Creationist</a>, but I have to agree with musician Buddy Davis’s fun children’s song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyUYckTo0A8">D Is For Dinosaur</a>:
<blockquote>When dinosaurs first roamed the earth, many years ago
People called them dragons (and just thought you’d like to know) 
So dinosaurs and dragons are both the same thing 
The only thing that’s different is we changed the dragon’s name</blockquote>

Dragons, St. Augustine, and Dino Bones

Is religion just for the uneducated because many scientists and philosophers are atheists? In this video, I challenge that assumption by examining what the data really shows, why expertise matters, and how some of the greatest intellectual minds—past and present—have seen faith and reason as allies, not enemies.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Is religion just for the ignorant? For many people who don’t believe God exists, this is one reason why: the smart people they know and respect, such as scientists and philosophers, are often atheists. And this seems to suggest that religion is just for people who don’t know any better. But is it true that most smart people, like scientist and philosophers, don’t believe God exists? And even if a lot of intellectuals don’t believe in God, does that mean religion should just be dismissed?
Hey guys, Welcome back to the channel! So glad to have you with me. If you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel. Also, I’d like to invite you to consider helping me keep this podcast going by financially supporting us over at Patreon at doctorkarlo.com with “doctor” spelled out.
So, let’s kick things off with this question: If most intelligent people you know believed something, would you believe it?
Many unbelievers don’t think God exists because they’re convinced most intelligent people—like scientists and philosophers—are atheists, thereby making religious belief something for the uneducated. But is this true? And does it even matter what the intellectual elite among scientists and philosophers believe?
These are legit questions. So let’s take a closer look and see where reason takes us.
It is true that a lot of the smart people we hear about today, especially in science and philosophy, are atheists. For example, a 1998 <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/28478">study</a> in the journal Nature called “Leading Scientists Still Reject God” found that 93% of members of the National Academy of Sciences—one of the top science organizations in the U.S.—don’t believe in God. And a study from PhilPapers Survey <a href="https://philpapers.org/surveys/metaresults.pl">showed</a> that 73% of professional philosophers are atheists.
So with numbers like that, it’s easy to feel like, Well, if all these brilliant people are rejecting God, maybe I should too. A lot of folks think that if smarter people believe (or don’t believe) something, it’s probably right.
But should we actually buy into that? Honestly&#8230; not really.
Here’s the thing: just because someone’s brilliant in one area doesn’t automatically make them an expert in everything. Think about it—would you trust your mechanic’s opinion on politics, or quantum mechanics, just because he’s great at fixing cars? Of course not. And the reason is that no matter how much training he has in car mechanics, that training doesn’t equip him to adequately speak to issues in politics and quantum mechanics.
Same thing applies here. Just because a scientist is super smart in his or her field doesn’t mean he or she is qualified to speak on questions about God.
Why? Because God isn’t something science can directly study. God’s not material. He’s not part of the physical world that science deals with. So even if a scientist is a total genius in biology or physics, that doesn’t mean he’s equipped to weigh in on whether God exists.
It’s like asking a world-class chef to critique a symphony. He might have good taste—but music isn’t his expertise.
Now, this doesn’t mean science can’t enter the discussion about God’s existence at all. There are certain things the scientific community tells us that can be of help when talking about God’s existence. But that scientific evidence only goes so far. It merely provides us empirical data to start our philosophical inquiry into whether God exists. The scientist is rightly trusted when it comes to giving us the data. But the philosophical inquiry goes beyond his competence as a scientist.
A similar response goes for philosophers. Not every philosopher is familiar with the arguments for God’s existence. A philosopher might specialize in ethics, political theory, or the philosophy of mind—and never seriously engage with the arguments for God within the philosophy of religion.
So if a philosopher hasn’t studied arguments for God’s existence, like those philosophers who specialize in the philosophy of religion, his opinion on the matter doesn’t really carry more weight than the opinions of any other thoughtful or educated person.
In fact, some atheist philosophers actually misunderstand the classic arguments for God pretty badly. A good example is philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. In his book Breaking the Spell, he summarizes the cosmological argument like this:
“The Cosmological Argument, which in its simplest form states that since everything must have a cause, the universe must have a cause—namely God… [But then] what caused God?” (pg. 242). 
But here’s the problem: Dennet thinks the core idea is that everything must have a cause and that’s not what the cosmological argument says at all.
Take Aquinas’s five ways, for example. These arguments don’t start with “everything has a cause.” Instead, they start with things like motion, or the fact that some things don’t have the reason for their existence in themselves. Or that things have order and direction. It’s these things that need a cause, which then, when worked out philosophically, leads to the logical necessity of something existing that doesn’t need a cause—something that’s uncaused in its existence, uncaused in its causality of motion, and uncaused in its directing activity, the ultimate foundation for everything else.
The logic of these arguments leads to the conclusion that there must be a first cause—a cause that itself wasn’t caused—because an infinite chain of caused causes just doesn’t make sense when worked out philosophically. So when Richard Dawkins calls this “a completely unwarranted assumption” in chapter four of his book The God Delusion, he’s missing the point. The logic behind God’s existence, at least in arguments like Aquinas’s Five Ways, is way stronger than that.
Now, back to the idea that most smart people—you know, the intellectual type, like philosophers and scientists—are atheists. What do we make of this?
Well, here’s where things get interesting. Let’s break it down into two parts.
First, when it comes to what scientists and philosophers actually believe, the numbers aren’t as one-sided as people think.
Now, let’s be clear: stats don’t prove whether God exists or not. But if someone’s looking to follow what the intellectual crowd thinks, it might surprise them to know that a lot of smart people do believe in God.
Take scientists, for example. People often cite the National Academy of Sciences to show that most scientists are atheists—but that’s just around 2,000 elite members. Compare that to over 2 million scientists in the U.S. alone, according to the National Science Foundation.
So what do the broader numbers look like?
According to a 2009 Pew Research Center study:
<ul>
<li>51% of scientists believe in God or some higher power.</li>
<li>41% reject belief in any higher power.</li>
<li>Only 17% actually identify as atheists.</li>
</ul>
So—despite what we often hear—most scientists do believe in God or some form of higher power.
Now let’s talk philosophers. The PhilPapers <a href="http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl?%20affil=Target+faculty&amp;areas0=22&amp;areas_max=1&amp;grain=medium">survey</a> found that among philosophers who actually specialize in the philosophy of religion, about 72% are theists. That’s a huge number!
Even atheist philosopher Quentin Smith admitted in a 2001 article in the journal Philo that belief in God made a big comeback in philosophy departments starting in the 1960s. His exact words? “God is not dead in academia.”
So if you&#8217;re someone who wants to base your beliefs on what smart people think—well, the smart people aren’t all atheists. In fact, a lot of them aren’t.
And I must say, it’s good to know that you don’t have to feel like you’re anti-intellectual for believing in God.
Okay, for the second part of our response, let’s look at history. Some of the greatest minds ever—including founders of modern science—were believers.
Let me give you just a few examples:
Nicolaus Copernicus, who gave us the heliocentric model, said:
“The universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.” <a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician and astronomer behind the laws of planetary motion, wrote this:
“Praise and glorify with me the wisdom and greatness of the Creator, which I have revealed in a deeper explication of the form of the universe.”<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a>
Max Planck, father of quantum theory, once said:
“Religion is the link that binds man to God—resulting from the respectful humility before a supernatural power, to which all human life is subject.”<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a>
Hermann Weyl is another. Weyl was one of the great mathematicians of the twentieth century, who also played a role in theoretical physics. Here’s what he writes in his 1986 book, The Open World: Three Lectures on the Metaphysical Implications of Science:
Many people think that modern science is far removed from God. I find on the contrary . . . in our knowledge of physical nature we have penetrated so far that we can obtain a vision of the flawless harmony which is in conformity with sublime reason (pg. 28-29). 
Fred Hoyle (1915–2001), British astronomer, had this to say in his 1981 Engineering and Science Journal essay entitled “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections”:
Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly miniscule?” Of course you would . . . A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. 
Here&#8217;s a quote from Robert Jastrow (1925–2008), founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies:
The scientist . . . has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls him- self over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theo- logians who have been sitting there for centuries (pg. 116). 
That comes from his book 1978 God and the Astronomers.  
This is just a sampling of great scientific minds throughout history who affirm God’s existence.
But it doesn’t stop there. Catholic clergy have made huge contributions to science too:
Take, Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168–1253), for example, a 12th and 13th century, bishop of Lincoln in England who pioneered that branch of science called “optics.”
Roger Bacon, a 13th-century Franciscan monk, predicted the construction of the telescope and helped lay the groundwork for the scientific method.
St. Albert the Great (1200–1280), a 13th century bishop who taught St. Thomas Aquinas, did a great amount of observational work in botany and zoology.
Thomas Bradwardine (1290–1349), a 14th century archbishop of Canterbury, was the first to attempt to formulate a mathematical law of motion.
Nicholas of Oresme (1323–1382), a 14th century bishop of Lisieux in France, made significant contributions to psychology, physics, mathematics, and economics.
Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650), a 16th and 17th century Jesuit priest, was one of the first five people to discover sunspots with a telescope independently of one another. His sunspot data is still used by scientists today.
Giambattista Riccioli (1598–1671), a 16th and 17th century Jesuit priest, was the first person to observe a binary star, he perfected the pendulum for measuring time in a precise manner, and mapped the surface of the moon with his fellow Jesuit, Francesco Grimaldi.
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799), a Catholic priest, was a top biologist in the eighteenth century whose investigative work and experiments served as the foundation for the work of Louis Pasteur.
Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826), a Catholic priest, was the director of the Palermo Observatory and discovered the first known asteroid.
Pietro Secchi (1818–1878), a Catholic priest, was a founder of modern astrophysics and initiated the study and classification of stars using spectroscopy (color classification).
Gregor Mendel, a 19th century Augustinian monk, founded the field of genetics.
Abbe Henri Breuil (1877–1962), one of the leading paleontologists of the 20th century and known for his expertise on cave paintings and prehistoric art.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples is Fr. Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and director of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He was one of the first to propose what we now call the Big Bang theory.
So when you look at both history and current stats, it’s just not true that religion is only for the uneducated. Some of the brightest minds—past and present—have been deeply religious.
If you’re a believer, you don’t need to feel like you’re being irrational or anti-intellectual. Far from it. Faith and reason can go hand in hand.
Well, my friends, that’s it for today! If you found this video helpful, make sure to like, subscribe, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And for more resources, check out my website at karlobroussard.com.
If you want me to come and speak at your event, visit catholicanswersspeakers.com.
Lastly, I’d love for you to consider supporting me over on Patreon. I can’t continue doing this podcast without your financial support. You can find me over at patreon at doctorkarlo.com with “doctor” spelled out.
Thanks for hanging out, and I’ll see you next time!
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<a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Quoted in Roy Abraham Varghese, The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God (Fountain Hills: YR Publishing, 2003), 103.
<a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Quoted in Varghese, The Wonder of the World, 103.
<a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Quoted in Raymond J. Seeger, “Planck, Physicist” in The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 37 (December 1985): 232–233.

Is Religion Just for the Ignorant? The Answer Might Surprise You

<div>An atheist tells me that the original gospels were never found and they are based on word of mouth accounts.</div><div>First, convey to your atheist friend that original copies of Plato, Aristotle and Homer’s works don’t exist, yet no credible historian questions their historical authenticity, including whether these prominent ancient men wrote their respective works. Similarly, while we don’t have the original copies of the gospels, we do have rather early manuscripts and fragments, and many when compared to the number of other ancient written works.
In addition, St. Matthew and St. John were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus and St. Mark and St. Luke relied on the reports of eyewitnesses.
For more on the origin and authorship of the four gospels, please see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-matthew-mark-luke-and-john-really-write-the-gospels">this article from our Catholic Answers Magazine</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/where-are-the-original-scriptures">this excerpt from Father Henry Graham’s book Where We Got The Bible</a>.
In addition, explain to your atheist friend that the Catholic Church does not rely on the Bible alone, given that the Church existed for decades before all of the New Testament books were written and centuries before they were officially compiled into the New Testament canon, not to mention that members of the Church wrote the New Testament books and Church authorities determined that they were indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit and thus worthy of inclusion in the biblical canon.
There’s no doubt that the Catholic Church existed from the time of Jesus, as various historical sources, Christian and non-Christian attest. For more on the bona fides of the Catholic Church, please see our tract <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/pillar-of-fire-pillar-of-truth">Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth</a> and also my book <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/what-did-jesus-do-the-biblical-roots-of-the-catholic-church/">What Did Jesus Do?: The Biblical Roots of the Catholic Church</a>.
</div>

No Original Copies of Gospels? And No Eyewitnesses to Jesus’ Life?

The (Rare) Word That Refutes Sola Scriptura

Episode 34: Year A &#8211; 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we zero in on three details in the readings for this upcoming 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A. The first two come from the second reading, taken from Romans 8:18-23. The relevant apologetical topic that each relate to, though in different ways, is the problem of evil. The third detail is basically the whole of the Gospel reading, which is Jesus’ parable about the Sower and the seed in Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23. The relevant apologetical topic that I will draw out is the possibility that Christians can lose their salvation, which refutes the notion prevalent among some Christians that once we’re a Christian we are eternally secure in our salvation.
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071623.cfm">https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071623.cfm</a>
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday</a>

Jesus’ Teaching against Eternal Security

You don’t need to wait until Lent to go to confession. Any time of the year is wonderful to receive <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-forgiveness-of-sins">the forgiveness</a> that Jesus promised us for sins we commit following our baptism.
<h2>Is Confession Biblical?</h2>
Some people argue that the sacrament of confession isn’t biblical, yet Jesus commands all persons to forgive those who trespass against them personally (Matt. 6:12-15). In marked contrast, beginning on the evening of that first Easter, Jesus gives the power to forgive sins in general—or retain them—to only a relative few: his apostles, their successors, and others whom they designate:
<blockquote>Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21-23).</blockquote>
Jesus didn’t limit this sacramental gift to his visible time on earth. Rather, his ministry of forgiveness continues until the present day through <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-biblical-evidence-for-apostolic-succession">apostolic</a> <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/apostolic-succession">succession</a>, because Jesus promises that the gates of hell will never prevail against <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/pentecost-and-the-papacy">the one Catholic Church he founded</a> (Matt. 16:18-19). So the idea that we can simply repent to Jesus and automatically receive the forgiveness our Lord gained for us on the cross is, actually, not biblical.
<h2>Now that It’s Lent, Why Wait?</h2>
The season of Lent is a great time to go to confession—especially if you’ve been away for five, ten, fifteen, or even fifty years or more. And if by the very off-chance you get a priest who <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-to-do-when-you-get-a-bad-confessor">treats you rudely in the confessional</a> . . . well, let him absolve you of your sins, through the power Jesus has given him, and then tell him—and his diocesan bishop—that he needs an attitude adjustment, not to mention absolution for his own sins, including those he committed against you in the confessional.
I say this because someone close to me had a bad first confession experience as a Catholic child.
“What do you mean, you haven’t done anything wrong?!” the gruff priest told the lad, who couldn’t come up with anything. When I heard the person make this recollection many years later, I tried to make light of the matter, saying, “Well, when you go into the confessional, you know you’re supposed to have at least something to confess.”
But seriously, don’t let a bad experience in the confessional, or the failure of a Catholic role model, or the sins of a priest, bishop, and/or pope keep you from receiving Christ’s absolution for your sins. You’re going to confession <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm">to encounter our merciful Lord Jesus</a>, who sustains the mission of his Church <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/pentecost-and-the-papacy">amid the failure of her human leaders</a>:
<blockquote>Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, &#8220;The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins&#8221; and exercises this divine power: &#8220;Your sins are forgiven.&#8221; Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name (CCC 1441).</blockquote>
If you need reassurance about God’s desire to reconcile with you, remember those wonderful parables you likely learned as a kid—e.g., the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and the Good Shepherd (vv. 1-7).
<h2>The 5 Steps of Going to Confession</h2>
1. Examination of conscience. You need to recognize your sins to confess them well. An examination of conscience—rooted in <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/command.htm">the Ten Commandments</a> and with an awareness of the seven deadly sins (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#V">CCC 1866</a>)—will guide you, especially if you’ve been away from the sacrament a good while. See our <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-catholic-answers-guide-to-an-examination-of-conscience">examinations here</a>—one each for adults, teens, and younger children, as well as one in Spanish.
In addition, we need to distinguish between mortal (i.e., grave or deadly) sins and venial or lesser sins (see 1 John 5:16-17, James 5:19-20). If we commit a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-do-i-know-if-its-a-mortal-sin">mortal sin</a>, we need to go to confession before <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/who-can-receive-communion">we receive Holy Communion again</a>. There are three components of a mortal sin: 1) grave matter, 2) full knowledge, and 3) complete consent (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#IV">CCC 1857-1859</a>). Some grave sins have become legally protected over the years, including <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/abortion">abortion</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/divorce-annulment-remarriage-and-communion-a-catholic-primer">attempting to marry while still married to another person</a>, and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/marriage-has-been-redefined-now-what">the redefinition of marriage</a>. So don’t be misled. For more, see Joe Heschmeyer’s article, “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-do-i-know-if-its-a-mortal-sin">Mortal Sin: The Basics</a>,” as well our synopsis on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/grave-matter">grave matter</a>.
2. Contrition. You need to repent for your sins to have true sorrow for having offended God and others by your transgressions. The Church distinguishes between perfect contrition, which “arises from a love by which God is loved above all else,” and imperfect contrition, which is born of lesser reasons, including “the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner” (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#VII">CCC 1452-1453</a>). To be clear, imperfect contrition in the confessional is sufficient for the absolution of all of our sins.
3. Commit to not sinning again. Implied in true contrition, lest there be any doubt, is the resolution not to sin again, particularly regarding mortal sins, given their deadly nature. This is known as having a firm purpose of amendment (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#VII">CCC 1451, 1490-1491</a>). After you confess your sins, you say <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/no-act-of-contrition">an act of contrition</a>. Click <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-do-i-make-an-act-of-contrition">here for a good one</a> to guide you.
A key part of repentance, if at all possible, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-to-repent-and-reconcile-with-others">is repenting to the people you offended</a>, whether before or after your confession. Further, in going forward, you want to avoid the twin grave sins against the virtue of hope: despair and presumption (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c1a1.htm#I">CCC 2091-2092</a>).
4. Confession of sins. You need to confess your sins to an ordained priest, distinguishing between your venial sins and mortal sins, as the latter need to be confessed in both kind and number. Deliberately withholding a mortal sin will nullify your absolution. As the <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#VII">Catechism</a> provides,
<blockquote>when Christ&#8217;s faithful strive to confess all the sins that they can remember, they undoubtedly place all of them before the divine mercy for pardon. But those who fail to do so and knowingly withhold some, place nothing before the divine goodness for remission through the mediation of the priest, &#8220;for if the sick person is too ashamed to show his wound to the doctor, the medicine cannot heal what it does not know&#8221; (1456).</blockquote>
If you haven’t been to confession for a while, it’s good to make an appointment with a priest to accommodate any extra time you may need, though that’s not required. And if you encounter any irate penitents in line after your lengthier confession, smile and say, “Remember what our moms used to say: ‘Offer it up.’” In addition, don’t fret if you <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-if-i-forgot-to-confess-a-sin-and-remembered-it-later-was-it-absolved">fail to recall</a> a particular grave sin.
Going forward, remember the reassuring words of <a href="https://www.omvusa.org/bruno-lanteri/about-bruno-lanteri/spirituality/nunc-coepi/">Ven. Bruno Lanteri</a>: “If I should fall even a thousand times a day, a thousand times, with peaceful repentance, I will say immediately, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KfZ79lo8XY">Nunc coepi</a> [Now I begin, or Begin again].”
5. Penance. You need to do the assigned penance, whether prayers or other actions, that your priest confessor gives you (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#VII">see CCC 1459-1460</a>). Yet strive to avoid <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/mortal-sin-and-resolutions-for-reparation-for-sin">scrupulosity</a>, which <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/escaping-the-trap-of-scrupulosity">if unmanaged</a> will impact not only you, but also <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/scrupulosity-the-occupational-hazard-of-the-catholic-moral-life">your loved ones</a>.
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How to Go to Confession

Why do Christians believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? After all, there are several other possibilities: (1) that Jesus didn&#8217;t REALLY die; (2) that Jesus&#8217; Body wasn&#8217;t really buried in the Tomb, but was left up on the Cross to be eaten by animals; (3) that the biblical language of &#8220;resurrection&#8221; was just meant as a metaphor; (4) that the story of the Resurrection is a later Christian legend; or (5) that the Apostles were knowingly lying about the Resurrection. So what&#8217;s the case against all of those denials of the Resurrection&#8230; and where does that leave us?

A Simple Case for the Resurrection

Mark Brumley provides a thoughtful response to a common question posed by evangelists: &#8220;Do you think you&#8217;re a good person?&#8221; Drawing on scripture and Catholic theology, Brumley explains why the answer isn&#8217;t a simple yes or no.
Transcript:
To practice my apologetics, I often watch anti-Catholic videos, and among them I watch Ray Comfort from Living Waters. And one thing that he&#8217;ll often do is he will ask people if they think they&#8217;re a good person, and then after they&#8217;ve told him whether they do or not, he&#8217;ll explain to them that they&#8217;re actually bad people. So I was wondering, what would be a good Catholic response to his question? I think that the way I would handle it is kind of in the direction that you&#8217;re going here, that if someone asked me, &#8220;Do I think I&#8217;m a good person?&#8221; I would say, &#8220;Well, I think that there is no one good but God alone,&#8221; which is what Jesus said. Interestingly enough, he was asked that, he said, &#8220;Good,&#8221; he was approached by the rich young ruler and said, &#8220;A good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?&#8221; And Jesus said, &#8220;Why do you call me good? There&#8217;s no one good but God.&#8221; Well, Jesus wasn&#8217;t denying that he was good, he wasn&#8217;t denying that he was God, but he was helping this person who was working out of an assumption that there&#8217;s sort of kind of a human vulnerability to Jesus, and in fact, Jesus&#8217;s vulnerability was divine, and not just graced divinity like we participate in the divine nature, but he is actually God, right?
So, you know, when people, and I&#8217;ve had this come up with Evangels before, and they&#8217;ve used that line on me before, and I say, &#8220;No one is good but God alone,&#8221; but I believe by virtue of Jesus&#8217;s passion, death, and resurrection, and my communion with him, that he has made me righteous, and that by abiding in him, I have God dwelling in me, and I can grow in holiness and goodness of life. So that&#8217;s kind of how I respond to it. Now, when there&#8217;s a next step, which I think is what you&#8217;re alluding to, that has to do with, well, what&#8217;s the nature of this sharing in God&#8217;s own life, you know? Some Protestants will emphasize, well, it&#8217;s a legal declaration, and so on, and Catholics would say, &#8220;Well, that doesn&#8217;t adequately express what the Bible teaches about belonging to Jesus and being justified,&#8221; and so on.
And then some Protestants are going to go further and insist on this once-saved, always-saved idea. But I think the core point, that we&#8217;re not good on our own, we&#8217;re good because of our relationship with God, and he makes us good and righteous in Jesus. We sin, we repent of that, and we sin, we fall short of the goodness that God wills for us and offers us in Jesus, but fortunately, he gives us his Holy Spirit through the sacrament of reconciliation, that we can be brought back to union with God. And if we are faithful, by grace, we will be found without spot or wrinkle when we come into the fullness of the kingdom. So I think the best way to respond is to explain that, to make the distinctions between the kind of natural goodness and the goodness that we have in Christ, and that it&#8217;s all – we&#8217;re completely dependent upon him for any even smidgen of goodness that exists in us, in our souls.
That&#8217;s how I typically would respond.
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When Protestants Ask: “Are You a Good Person?”

How I Would Share Christianity With a Trans Person

<div>How could Jesus speak with his mother at wedding at Cana? Is it because they didn’t start to practice gender separation back then, or is it a Jewish wedding? (It seems he’s very comfortable to hang out with Gentiles in the Gospels.) </div><div>Given their proximity in the womb and infancy, there’s always been a closeness between a Jewish mother and her son, including the Blessed Mother and Jesus. So conversation between them would’ve been normal and expected throughout their lives, including for Jesus to fulfill the Fourth Commandment.
On the other hand, as you noted, there is the separation of men and women for worship at Orthodox synagogues. For more on that, see <a href="http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/160962/jewish/Separation-in-the-Synagogue.htm">this presentation</a>.
</div>

Jesus Speaking with Mary at Cana

This week, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) published the declaration <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html">Fiducia Supplicans</a> (FS), which reflects on the theology of blessing and, for the first time, sanctions clerical blessings of same-sex couples and mixed-sex couples in irregular unions. This has sparked no little controversy, particularly since that same dicastery ruled out, with the pope’s approval, the possibility of any such blessings just two years ago. The implications of the change are complex and far-reaching. In this Catholic Answers Roundtable, we offer perspectives from Catholic Answers staff on this text and what it means.

Blessing Same-Sex Couples: a CA Roundtable

The Biblical Case for Infallibility

Questioning the historical record of apostolic succession? Jimmy Akin explores the challenges and evidence for tracing the lineage of Catholic bishops back to the apostles. He discusses the fragmentary nature of early Church records and the importance of &#8220;snapshots&#8221; documenting ordinations. Discover the safeguards within the ordination process that ensure the validity of apostolic succession.
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Transcript:
Sophia is in Minnesota listening on our website, Catholic.com. Sophia, go ahead with your question for Jimmy.
Hi, Jimmy. Thank you very much. I, basically, I was, I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about apostolic succession, and a lot of the defense for apostolic succession comes from the writings of the church fathers, which makes a lot of sense. But I was kind of wondering if there is like an actual line kind of recorded somewhere, and if there isn&#8217;t, are there like fragments of that line recorded somewhere?
So there&#8217;s, to my knowledge, there is not a single comprehensive list map in all of the world&#8217;s bishops, all the way back to the apostles.
There is, and this is easily available on a website, I believe the website is Catholicclergy.com, although I could be mistaken about that. But there is a registry within the Catholic church that traces the lineage of all current bishops back several hundred years. And I know that before that, we also have other indicators of who ordain, which bishop ordain who as another bishop. But it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s not a complete list. 
Also, the process has failsafes built into it. So it&#8217;s not just one bishop lays hands on you if you&#8217;re going to be consecrated to bishop. It&#8217;s typically at least three. So even if there was a danger that one bishop might have been invalidly ordained, the other two bishops putting hands on you will secure your ordination as a bishop. And so even though we don&#8217;t have, to my knowledge, a list going all the way back to the apostles for every single bishop, it is morally certain that that that we do have lines that go all the way back to the apostles. 
The problem is, we just don&#8217;t have good records in the earliest history of the church. The amount of surviving literature from like the second century is very sparse. A lot of it didn&#8217;t get written down and a lot of it that did get written down has not survived the ages. But even then, we do have records of like principal sees where like for the bishop of Rome, this guy succeeded this guy who succeeded this guy.
So we do have records from that time and they indicate the substantial integrity of the lines of apostolic succession.
Okay, so just so that I understand, I might be repeating what you just said, but I just want to make sure I understand that there&#8217;s going to be like little snapshots of the apostolic line technique. Like, we&#8217;ll find little snapshots that we uncover, but we just don&#8217;t have it just because it was so long ago, basically. Yeah, and then after a certain point in history, like no later than the, I forget the 15 or 1600s, we&#8217;ve got the entirety of it for all the lines of bishops. So the defense of the earliest, the line, especially in the early church will be from like our knowledge of how the practice of ordination is, right?
Yeah, I mean, we do have records of them talking about ordination and saying this is what we do and this is how we do it. When it goes back to the apostles, we just don&#8217;t have all the links in the chain documented, but we have them saying this is what&#8217;s going on and it goes back to the apostles.
Hey, thanks for watching. If you like this Catholic answer, be sure to like, subscribe, and check out our live streams Monday through Friday, 3 to 5 p.m. Pacific, or find the episode after on YouTube, your favorite podcast platform, or our Catholic Answers app.

Does the Catholic Church Have Unbroken Apostolic Succession?

Speaking of the Eucharist as a spiritual weapon might strike you as odd, yet St. Paul reminds us we’re in a war, and that our primary enemies are ones we cannot see:
<blockquote>For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).</blockquote>
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/apostle-paul-catholic-answers-guide-to-st-paul">Paul</a> has in mind the sacraments in general—and the Blessed Sacrament in particular—when he teaches,
<blockquote>Though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/bringing-the-blessed-sacrament-to-the-battlefield">10:3-4</a>).</blockquote>
Many Protestants will scoff, because the sacraments are not explicitly noted in either 2 Corinthians 10 or Ephesians 6:10-18. However, our Lord Jesus affirms that the devil seeks our death and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-devil-hates-priests">especially desires our souls in hell</a>. “He was a murderer from the beginning,” Jesus says of Satan (John 8:44), adding that “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (10:10)
How does Jesus give us abundant life, including eternal life in heaven? Principally through intimate sacramental encounters with himself. Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus teaches that being born again begins <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/born-again-the-bible-way">in baptism</a> (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/bible-navigator/necessity-of-baptism">3:3-5</a>), is nurtured through receiving him <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/christ-in-the-eucharist">in the Holy Eucharist</a> (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/john-662-63-further-affirms-real-presence-of-eucharist">6:51-58</a>), and renewed and strengthened <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-go-to-confession">through confession</a>, the normative means by which our sins—especially mortal sins—are forgiven (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-forgiveness-of-sins">20:21-23</a>).
<h2>Unexpected Lessons from Lucifer on the Truth and Power of the Sacraments</h2>
Some might reflexively reply, “Blasphemy!” to the assertion that we can learn something good from the devil. After all, Jesus teaches that the devil
<blockquote>has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).</blockquote>
However, Satan does affirm the truth—in spite of himself—in expressing unvarnished hatred against “the truth,” which he knows is a divine Person, not an abstract concept (John 14:6; see Phil. 2:9-11). The devil can’t help himself in giving witness to the truth, although he does so perversely. That’s why his most infernal blasphemy is known as <a href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/07/14/when-the-devil-does-tell-the-truth/">the Black Mass</a>, not to be confused with its propitiatory analogue, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-the-point-of-a-priest">the sacrifice of the Mass</a>. He also hates the sacrament of confession, which is why two of the priests he attacked most were renowned confessors: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/ordinary-means-extraordinary-ends">St. John Vianney</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/padre-pio-stigmatist-and-mystic">St. Padre Pio</a>.
In less obvious ways, the devil also opposes eucharistic adoration, because he knows how powerfully the Lord blesses us when we make the personal decision to draw near to him in a local church or chapel. (This is something to ponder as we prepare to celebrate <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/feast-of-corpus-christi-what-it-is-when-its-celebrated-and-why-it-matters">the solemnity of Corpus Christi</a>.) Yes, God is omnipresent, so we can pray to him anywhere, yet the Lord manifests himself most intimately in the tabernacle, whether in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant. The ancient Israelites knew this well, and that’s why they didn’t presume <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-did-jesus-finish-his-sacrifice">to enter the holy of holies</a> apart from the high priest on the Day of Atonement, lest they die (Lev.16:1-2).
Jesus offered himself for our sins so that we might all draw near to him for intimate communion, symbolized by the tearing of the Temple veil, which separated the holies from the holy of holies (Matt. 27:51).
<h2>You Need Not Be Catholic to Adore Jesus in the Eucharist</h2>
The Church authorizes only Catholics in a state of grace to receive our eucharistic Lord in Holy Communion. Paul affirms that he who “eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself,” which is why, as he counsels the faithful in Corinth, “many of you are weak and ill, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/heres-why-you-can-be-absolutely-sure-that-paul-believed-in-the-eucharist">and some have died</a>” (1 Cor. 11:29-30).
However, one need not be a baptized Christian or in a state of grace to benefit from drawing near to the eucharistic Lord Jesus.
Unfortunately, parishes and the faithful often reduce adoration to those occasions when our eucharistic Lord is placed in a monstrance, as if we can only benefit from drawing near to Jesus through adoration with exposition. This is very ill advised.
First, given that eucharistic adoration with exposition requires the participation of a priest or deacon, it’s impractical for the average parish pastor to offer such adoration frequently. Second, seeing a consecrated host still requires that we believe that our Lord is really present, hidden beneath the appearances of bread. Third, the only reminder we need of our Lord’s real presence is the adjacent, lit tabernacle lamp. Fourth, because parish priests and deacons are overworked, let’s give them a deserved break and provide parishioners—and anyone else in the local community—the opportunity to draw near to Jesus for adoration without exposition.
Male parishioners can volunteer as unarmed security guards—and parishes can add other security if needed—so that parish churches throughout the country and world could be open every week on Tuesday–Thursday for two or three hours in the evening, with perhaps another adoration time on Saturday mornings.
<h2>“<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19781022_inizio-pontificato.html">Open Wide</a> the Doors to Christ!”</h2>
A parish can advertise such adoration via its bulletin, its website, and especially the big sign visible to those who drive by the church regularly: “Encounter Jesus in the Holy Eucharist: All Are Welcome.”
Parish volunteers can encourage visitors to pray quietly (for the benefit of all), with the aid of spiritual reading, reciting the rosary, lectio divina, etc. Whatever one’s preferred method, visitors can be directed via laminated handouts to become childlike (Matt. 18:1-4), quieting themselves so that they can hear God’s still, small voice in their hearts (1 Kings 19:11-13), confident that Jesus will, in due time, exalt them (see 1 Pet. 5:6; James 4:10). To help raise people’s minds and hearts to the Lord Jesus (Col. 3:1-3, <a href="https://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1.htm">CCC 2559</a>), parishes could also broadcast <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/pop-goes-the-mass">truly sacred hymns</a>, especially <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5AohCMX0U">Gregorian chant</a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCa2kyHFpM">powerful beauty of which</a> has stirred countless young adult male fans of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEC11agf_o">the Halo game franchise</a> (8:20ff). Further, approved lay leaders could periodically provide brief and edifying teachings.
We might be surprised who shows up, including many inactive Catholics more inclined to approach our eucharistic Lord Jesus initially than a parish priest, deacon, or parish lay leader. Ditto with non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians.
Lest we have any doubt, recall the countless saints who have drawn near to the Lord through adoration, including St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Peter Julian Eymard, and the soon-to-be <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/venerable-fulton-sheen-evangelizing-a-nation-through-radio-and-tv">Bl. Fulton Sheen</a>. Archbishop Sheen kept a daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament <a href="https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/post/american-eucharistic-witnesses-the-venerable-fulton-sheen-and-the-most-holy-eucharist">for more than sixty years</a>, the overwhelming number of which were eucharistic adoration without exposition. Enough said.
Priests have easy and blessed access to the Eucharist, including often via tabernacles within their parish rectories. So why not make the Lord more accessible to the parish faithful and people in general? I can testify to the tremendous blessings gained through regular access to our eucharistic Lord in our chapel at Catholic Answers (Matt. 6:33, John 14:27; see Rom. 8:28).
<h2>Do We Believe? Can We Afford Not To?</h2>
Many U.S. dioceses have seen a significant decline in Sunday Mass participation rates <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2026/04/10/archdiocese-restructuring-plan-now-in-phase-2-what-to-know/">during even the last fifteen years</a>, and it’s not simply because of older Catholics dying and fewer married Catholics having children. Nor just the cumulative effects of the clerical abuse scandal and the lingering consequences of COVID closures. Nor only the continued societal erosion exacerbated by the explosion of digital media over recent decades, including the easy access of always-destructive pornography.
No, amid the undeniable and collective impact of all of these factors, we’re not pivoting and providing adequate spiritual counterpunches. And a key way we’re failing is by not providing people an easy way to encounter Jesus regularly, intimately, and powerfully.
Will we let God be fully God on his terms? Or will we not open wide the doors to Christ when the Lord Jesus himself is knocking (Rev. 3:20), and instead leave him &#8220;on the bench&#8221; while the visible and invisible enemies of the Church continue to wreak havoc?
If we open wide our parish church doors to Jesus, people will—in due time—line up in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-go-to-confession">long confessional lines</a> to reconcile themselves with Christ and his Church, OCIA sign-ups will increase markedly, and spiritual fruits of every type will abound. Learning how to manage these kinds of problems is a burden every diocese and parish should be so blessed to bear.
Do we believe? Are we willing to answer the call and open wide the doors to our <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/adoration-benediction-catholic-answers-guide-to-eucharistic-adoration">eucharistic Lord Jesus Christ</a>?
The devil is hoping we’re not humble and holy enough to do so. Let’s disappoint him.

Eucharistic Adoration: A Neglected Spiritual Weapon

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent pays tribute to three heroes who gave their lives so others could survive famous disasters.

FFAF: Heroes who Stayed Behind

Did Mary ever die? Wouldn’t there be a record of that?

Why does the Church promote the use of hospice care? It feels like mercy killing.

How can a Catholic best explain Pentecost and the birth of the Church to a Protestant?

I’m taking a college course and there’s a group of people who are taking the course in not a good direction. How can I as a Catholic be charitable to them while trying to keep us on track?

When is typology the legitimate exercise in pattern recognition?

What is the great war in heaven mentioned in Rev. 12, going to look like?

In relation to the earlier call on hospice. How does Terri Shaivo innocent look from the Catholic perspective?

Pope Francis allegedly made a comment saying that homosexuals live the gift of love. Is this true?

Do we have to pray aloud to Mary?

Does faith/believe or repentance need to be present for baptism to be valid? If it does, how is infant baptism valid?

Ask Me Anything

Does John 3:5 refer to water baptism? @NeedGodnet

In this episode, Trent shows how scandals in the Protestant world call into question their doctrine of eternal security.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KWFxqjiG1o&amp;t=530s"> 4 Awful Christian Best-Sellers</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSzl2wSh9OY&amp;t=645s"> 3 Reasons to Confess Your Sins to a Priest</a>
Transcription:
Trent:
Recently Dallas based Trinity Baptist Church fired Pastor Steve Lawson because of what they called an inappropriate relationship with a woman. Lawson was fairly well known in Calvinist circles and served as one of the deans of John MacArthur&#8217;s the master Seminary. In today&#8217;s episode, I&#8217;m not going to dunk on a Protestant pastor for being caught up in a scandal. As a Catholic, I&#8217;m depressingly familiar with having to hear about scandal. Instead, I want to focus on how scandals like these undermine the popular Protestant doctrine of eternal security, the belief that you can&#8217;t lose your salvation. While not all Protestants hold this view, it is common among Calvinists, but even many non Calvinists accept it. The late Protestant apologist, norm Geisler called himself a moderate Calvinist, but he wrote an anti Calvinist book called Chosen but Free in an anthology on eternal security. He wrote, there is literally nothing in all creation that can separate a believer from Christ on their website.
Trinity Baptist Church says under the heading, security, we believe that all the redeemed once saved are kept by God&#8217;s power and are thus secure in Christ forever. But in their statement about the Lawson scandal, the church said, let us always be mindful of the words of one Corinthians 10, 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. What kind of fall are we talking about? Is this a metaphorical fall from grace or a literal fall from grace like the one that St. Paul talks about regarding the Judaizers In Galatians five, four, you are severed from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. You&#8217;ll see that even defenders of eternal security still act like Catholics and other Christians who believe we can forsake our salvation through gravesend. But before I talk about that, I want to point out that we aren&#8217;t entirely sure what Lawson did.
A lot of people assume he committed an act of adultery, but that might not have been the case. Two years ago, Matt Chandler temporarily stepped down as pastor of the popular village church on the grounds of having an inappropriate relationship with a woman, but it turned out it wasn&#8217;t romantic or sexual. His wife knew about it, but the church considered his actions unwise and unguarded. So we don&#8217;t want to make assumptions, but these kinds of scandals involving graves sin do happen and how people respond to them in the Protestant world really shows the unworkability of eternal security in spite of Protestants who say that this is much more reassuring than the Catholic view of salvation. You see, Protestants often caricature the Catholic view of salvation as can be seen in this animation from the documentary American Gospel as making it seem like a person needs to do a bunch of arbitrary good deeds in order to be saved and they don&#8217;t know how many they need to do.
And because of this, a Catholic can never really have assurance that they will go to heaven. Their salvation depends on what they do, and so if they do the wrong thing, they won&#8217;t be saved, which from their perspective is not just false but pitiable. However, those who say salvation cannot be lost claim to follow a simple plan of salvation that gives assurance. They say they have true assurance because salvation doesn&#8217;t depend on what they do. And by the way, if you want to see my rebuttal to American Gospel, check out the link in the description below. They even claim that if it depended on us and what we did, we&#8217;d inevitably mess it up. So it&#8217;s good that we have nothing to do with our own salvation. John MacArthur is often credited as saying, if you could lose your salvation, you would redeem Zoomer puts it this way, if my salvation depended even 0.0, 0, 0, 0, 0 0 0 1% on my works, I&#8217;d be going straight to hell.
And in a 2020 post, Steve Lawson said, if you could lose your salvation, you definitely would, but you cannot, so you will not. You are eternally secure in Christ, although the Catholic view is not that we have to do an arbitrary number of good deeds in order to be saved, you only have to do one good work to be saved. Do not die in a state of mortal sin. We are saved by grace alone. When we receive baptism, our initial salvation has nothing to do with any works. All we must do after that point is not remain in grave sin. And if we do engage in grave sin, we must seek God&#8217;s forgiveness and be restored to friendship of God. That&#8217;s it. And eternal security Protestants believe the same thing, even though they aren&#8217;t willing to admit it specifically, they follow the same three steps that Catholics follow in the church&#8217;s plan of salvation.
Number one, they take steps to avoid grave sin. Nate Picowitz, the author of Why We Are Protestant, somebody I should really sit down and chat with soon writes regarding the Lawson scandal. A pastor belongs at home every night sleeping next to his wife. It&#8217;s time to kill the conference circuit. Setting aside the issue of whether travel contributed to Lawson&#8217;s inappropriate relationships, since that&#8217;s not clear, Picowitz is really promoting the Catholic concept of the near occasion of sin. This is something that isn&#8217;t objectively sinful but has the potential to lead to sin. Also, they recognize there are two types of sin, major and minor Catholics call this mortal and venial, but it&#8217;s really the same thing Trinity Baptist Church said in its statement about Lawson. In light of this, we may be reminded that we are all sinners and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and Christ remains head of his church, which is bigger than any fallen man.
But if we are all sinners, then why can&#8217;t Lawson remain a pastor, especially if he&#8217;s no longer engaged in this sin? Part of the reason is that some sins are incompatible with the Christian life. Protestants know this. They&#8217;re what Catholics call mortal sins. And so a person cannot be a pastor if they engaged in these serious grave sins or even briefly succumb to them because of the scandal they caused through their behavior without the mortal venial sin distinction, you get extremely unhealthy scrupulosity in his book. Absolutely. Sure Steve Lawson writes, conversion does not mean we can no longer sin, but that we can no longer sin and enjoy it. But this creates two problems. First, what about if you enjoy incredibly minor sins like stealing a few chocolate almonds from the grocery store, does that mean you are not saved? Or number two, as long as you feel bad about persistent grave sin, like say viewing pornography, does that mean you are saved even if you don&#8217;t change your behavior?
Now, Picowitz and others may say that just because our salvation is secure, that doesn&#8217;t mean we won&#8217;t sin. He might say we should still be prudent, and even with the best of intentions, we may still fall into sin. But according to Lawson and other eternal security advocates, the difference is that a true Christian will not remain or persist in grave sin. He or she will eventually repent. But this brings me to my next similarity. Number two, they ask God to forgive the grave sins they&#8217;ve committed and they seek to amend their behavior. When Catholics engage in mortal sin, they ask God to forgive this specific grave sin in the sacrament of confession. They know by committing this sin, something has changed in their souls through their disobedience to God. And now they must return to God to be healed. And deep down, defenders of eternal security know this happens when they sin. Consider the Jimmy Swaggart prostitution scandal. In 1986, Swaggart, a popular televangelist minister accused fellow minister Marvin Gorman of engaging in affairs and Gorman said the accusations ruined his ministry. Gorman then sued Swaggart, but the matter was settled out of court for about $2 million, the equivalent of 40,000 gifted copies of Swagger&#8217;s Saturday night in Memphis preaching tapes.
CLIP:
But when God speaks to you, I know he&#8217;ll bless you if you will, to respond and if you could send a gift of $50, we want to send you this video called Saturday Night in Memphis,
Trent:
Gorman then hired his son and son-in-law to spy on Swaggart at a motel where Swaggart met a prostitute. Gorman used the evidence to blackmail swaggart into publicly admitting he lied about Gorman&#8217;s alleged affair. But when Swaggart did not get a reinstated to being a pastor, Gorman went public with the evidence. In 1988, Swaggart made this famous public speech about the incident now called the I have Sinned speech. Here&#8217;s one news channel covering the incident.
CLIP:
Jimmy Swaggart is the top rated preacher on tv. He leads a multimillion dollar evangelical empire. Now he&#8217;s confessed to a moral mistake and he&#8217;s pulling away from the pulpit For a while,
I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in dece of God&#8217;s forgetfulness. Thank you. Thank you.
Trent:
But Swaggart has said on other occasions that Christ&#8217;s death atone for all our sins past, present, and future. But does he sound like setting aside the question of whether he&#8217;s acting to get sympathy? Do the words he say, do they sound like a man proclaiming that his sin was already forgiven or a man petitioning God to forgive him now to cleanse him now of his sins? And when most people who hear this, wouldn&#8217;t they intuit that we must ask God to forgive us and not just recognize that God has already forgiven us. Now, some Protestants will say that grave&#8217;s sin doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;ll lose your salvation, but it can affect your soul and it can affect it in a way that God will punish you for this bad behavior. This makes sense given that Hebrews 12, seven says, God is treating you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline. In fact, here&#8217;s Lawson in an older clip saying how God would punish him if he were to fall into sin.
CLIP:
And I needed a healthy, holy fear of God, of what God would do to me if I fell into that sin, the discipline of the Lord, he would&#8217;ve taken me to the woodshed and it would not have been pretty. It would&#8217;ve been painful.
Trent:
Now, the idea we are saved, but we still have to suffer for our sins. Kind of sounds like purgatory, doesn&#8217;t it? But some Protestants will say that this suffering, it&#8217;s just the psychological feeling of being distant from God, even though we are still saved. It&#8217;s what they call a lack of fellowship with God. Here&#8217;s how Protestant author Charles Stanley puts it.
CLIP:
You&#8217;re not disconnected from him. The feeling is disconnecting. So what do we do? We acknowledge our sinful acts, whatever there may be that&#8217;s causing these feelings, we ask him to forgive us of our sin. We repent of that sin and by faith we accept his forgiveness.
Trent:
But is it just a feeling of being disconnected from God or is that feeling rooted in the actual reality of our souls being disconnected from God because of sin that destroys the love of God in our hearts, which makes more sense, although some people say you cannot lose your status as a child of God, so you cannot lose your salvation just as you can&#8217;t lose your status as being the biological child of your own parents, but you can be disinherited by your parents. And the Bible frequently talks about salvation as being a kind of inheritance, including one we can forsake. St. Paul gives a warning in Ephesians chapter five that applies to those within the church, not just a statement for those outside the church, he says, no immoral or impure man or one who is covetous, that is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, let no one deceive you with empty words.
For it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The point of the parable of the prodigal son is that the son was spiritually dead when he was estranged from the Father, even though he was still that man&#8217;s son. That&#8217;s why his father says, my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, which applies to all Christians who repent of grave sin. This is also why in the second century, St. iis said Those who do not obey him being disinherited by him have ceased to be his sons. Wherefore they cannot receive his inheritance. And number three, eternal security Protestants worry about the salvation of unrepentant Christians. Steve Lawson&#8217;s ministry One Passion Media says that he has confessed his sin and regrets the damage he caused. So it appears that he&#8217;s repentant, but other fallen pastors don&#8217;t repent of their sin. In my previous episode on terrible Christian bestsellers, I covered how popular youth pastor Joshua Harris, author of the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, left the Christian Faith recently, and now some Christians say this means he was never saved in the first place.
CLIP:
In terms of Joshua Harris, I don&#8217;t believe that you can be a Christian for 20 years and all of a sudden decide, oh, I don&#8217;t want to be a Christian anymore and kick the Holy Spirit out of your body and become unsaved. I believe that people that leave the faith and say, oh, I want nothing to do with it anymore after being a part of it for years and years, I don&#8217;t think they were a Christian
Trent:
In the first place. Catholics say that if a person is in grave sin and he refuses to repent and reject that sin, then he has forsaken God and he could die apart from God for all eternity. And Calvinists and other eternal security protestants really do say the same thing, except they would say that that person rejected God, not when he committed his grave sin. But throughout his entire life, his unrepentant sin simply reveals that he was never saved in the first place, even if many other people thought he was saved because he was a popular pastor, even if he thought that he was saved, he was never saved in the first place. So notice that all Christians basically do the same thing. They receive salvation by grace alone. They strive to obey God, and they ask God to forgive grave disobedience. Eternal security advocates just complicate this process with claims about having never been saved in the first place to redescribe how things actually seem to appear.
But this robs people of their assurance. It doesn&#8217;t give it to them in his book. Absolutely. Sure Lawson writes, as a pastor for the past 20 years, I have had to answer many questions on a variety of subjects, but without a doubt, the question I&#8217;m asked the most is how can I know I&#8217;m saved? But what contributes to this uncertainty that people ask Lawson about are statements like this from pastors like Steve Lawson. He writes, assurance never comes from looking to a past event but to a present reality. Now, Catholics agree that the question of whether we are saved at this very moment or whether we are now in a state of grace and friendship with God that can only be known by doing an examination of conscience and looking at our lives right now, but we don&#8217;t do an examination of conscience to determine if we were saved in the past or if our initial salvation was genuine.
That&#8217;s why Catholics don&#8217;t have to constantly worry about this question. Am I a true Christian who has just backslid in his behavior or am I a false Christian who was never saved in the first place? Lawson writes, if you can answer yes to these nine questions, then the assurance of salvation should be yours to enjoy. Wow, only nine questions. What a deal, right? And the questions deal with things like desiring communion with Christ, confessing sin, reading scripture, compassion for fellow believers, changing desires, learning more truth, becoming Christ-like being confident in prayer and living a life that is in conflict with the world. I&#8217;m sorry, but if a Catholic said that you have to have all of these things in order to be saved, Lawson would condemn that as works-based salvation, but he gets a free pass because he just says that these are merely signs that you were already saved.
But this leads to people worrying and saying stuff like this, I gave my life to Christ when I was 13, but I&#8217;ve been a pretty mediocre Christian since then. I don&#8217;t have all nine signs that Pastor Lawson mentions. Maybe I wasn&#8217;t truly saved then maybe I need to give my life to Christ all over again. Or what about people who become ensnared in their sin and feel like their repetitious sin proves they were never really saved in the first place and so now they want nothing to do with God? That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m so grateful for the sacraments of Christ Church. I know beyond a reasonable doubt that 22 years ago my soul was forever changed when I was baptized, I became a child of God at that moment and I will never have to be baptized again, and I don&#8217;t have to appeal to some standard like Lawsons that basically says Mediocre Christians aren&#8217;t true Christians, so we&#8217;re never saved in the first place.
In addition, I can examine my conscience and reasonably know if I am in a state of mortal sin, and if I am, I can respond to God&#8217;s grace that convicts me of my sin, and then approach a minister of the church to be reconciled with God through the sacrament of confession. Just like I approached a minister of the church to be first reconciled to God through the sacrament of baptism, I can be reconciled to God through the sacrament that Christ gave. The apostles when he told them who sins you forgive are forgiven, and who sins you retain are retained. I say all this to point out that eternal security Protestants and Catholics aren&#8217;t that far apart from each other when it comes to the issue of salvation. We both agree that Christians must be obedient to God, and if we gravely disobey God, then we must repent and return to God or we&#8217;ll be lost. Catholics and other Christians just describe this process as it appears. They don&#8217;t use an overly complicated description in service of an unbiblical doctrine like eternal security. I hope this was helpful for you all, and I hope that you have a very blessed day.

How Scandal Unravels Protestantism’s “Eternal Security”

One of the most dangerous ideas of the Protestant Reformation is that Scripture is somehow self-interpreting. According to this view, Scripture is so clear that we don’t need an infallible Catholic Church. The idea originates with Martin Luther, but Protestants often believe it’s something taught by Scripture itself. Professor John Gerstner (1914-1996) <a href="https://www.ligonier.org/posts/primer-roman-catholicism-pt-7">argued in favor of this view against Catholicism</a> by saying,
<blockquote>First, Rome denies that the Bible is a self-interpreting revelation. The Bible declares itself to be self-explanatory. This is called the doctrine of the perspicuity of the Scriptures (the see-through-ableness of the Scripture). It may be understood in its own light. What is obscure in one passage will be clearer in another. What is incomplete here is completed there. What is a figure in one place is a commentary in another.</blockquote>
The claim that the Bible is “self-interpreting revelation” is not only unbiblical, but incoherent, like saying “the book reads itself.” Someone interprets the Bible. He may do that infallibly or fallibly, well or poorly, but the text doesn’t interpret itself.
We see this in action within Scripture. Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt. 13:24-30). At St. Peter’s request, he then explains the parable’s meaning (vv. 36-43). The parable didn’t explain itself: Jesus explained it. Likewise, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus walks with two of his disciples and, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). St. Luke doesn’t say Scripture interpreted itself to the disciples. Jesus interpreted it.
Likewise, St. Philip was led by the Holy Spirit to an Ethiopian eunuch. “So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless some one guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him” (Acts 8:30-31). Notably, the man didn’t reply, “Of course I understand it! The book of Isaiah is self-interpreting.” Instead, someone (this time, Philip) explained its meaning.
This is the role of the Church, but it’s also the role of the theologian and the preacher. St. Paul tells St. Timothy to “attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:11). That is, he’s called to read Scripture and then to explain what it means, just as Jesus did in the synagogue (Luke 4:16-22).
So where does the Bible ever “declare itself to be self-explanatory,” or promise that “what is a figure in one place is a commentary in another”? Gerstner offers no citation for the simple reason that none exists. Even the idea that “what is obscure in one passage will be clearer in another” is question-begging, since Christians don’t agree about which passages are clear and which are obscure. As the Calvinist historian Alister McGrath <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Reformation_Thought.html?id=Zk6MhgGl2MEC">explains</a>:
<blockquote>Luther and Zwingli were unable to agree on the meaning of such phrases as “this is my body” (which Luther interpreted literally and Zwingli metaphorically) and “at the right hand of God” (which—with apparent inconsistency on both sides—Luther interpreted metaphorically and Zwingli literally). The exegetical optimism of the early Reformation may be regarded as foundering on this rock: Scripture, it seemed, was far from easy to interpret.</blockquote>
In response to the Catholic observation that Scripture needs interpretation, Gerstner says:
<blockquote>If the Bible must be interpreted by the Church in order to render its meaning certain, then the interpretation of the Church will have to be interpreted by another authority to make its meaning certain, and then there will need to be an interpreter of the interpreter, and so on ad infinitum.</blockquote>
If this were true, it would mean that no one could ever explain anything. That is, Gerstner isn’t so much arguing against Catholicism as he is arguing against communication and knowledge of the truth in general. If his argument were true, it would prove agnosticism, not Protestantism.
It’s also logically unsound. Certain passages of the Bible admit of multiple interpretations: they could mean A or B. If the Church clarifies, “It means A and not B,” that clarification doesn’t necessitate some further clarification—the argument simply doesn’t follow. If the Ethiopian needs Philip to explain Isaiah, it doesn’t follow that he must also need someone else to explain Philip, and so on ad infinitum.
But Gerstner gives his whole argument away immediately after this:
<blockquote>Our various Protestant church courts actually provide authoritative interpretations on most points when such decisions are necessary. But there is a difference between authoritative and infallible decisions. Compare, for example, the necessity for an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution. A Supreme Court performs that task. Yet what American believes the Supreme Court is infallible? Still, its decisions prevail as a matter of necessity. . . .
The Protestant church has provided for authority so that decisions can be rendered when necessary, but has avoided the error of investing this authority with infallibility. The Protestant church, not being infallible, can err, has erred, will err. There is one error, however, which it has not made and that is the greatest of them all—the error of thinking it cannot err.</blockquote>
So Gerstner actually recognizes the need for the Church to provide authoritative interpretations “when necessary.” The difference is simply that Protestant churches’ decisions can’t be trusted, because we don’t know if they’re erroneous, and they can err, have erred, and will err.
This is a remarkable concession for a few reasons. First, if Scripture is as clear and self-interpreting as Gerstner is claiming, why aren’t the Protestant teachings clear? How is it that there’s more than one Protestant denomination, and why isn’t each denomination sure that its own interpretation of Scripture is the right one? In one and the same argument, Gerstner is arguing that Scripture is so clear that there’s no need for an infallible Church to interpret it, but also that it’s so unclear that Protestants can’t escape from continually erring in interpreting it, and that the greatest error possible is thinking that we cannot err in our interpretation.
Second, the stakes here are higher than with the Supreme Court. The Constitution isn’t divinely inspired; Scripture is. If a denomination gets its “authoritative interpretation” wrong, it’s forcing its members to either go into schism or accept heresy, both of which are condemned in the New Testament. But since the “various Protestant church courts actually provide authoritative interpretations” that contradict one another and cannot be trusted as free from error, that’s precisely what Protestantism has to offer.
The fact that well-meaning and well read Protestants disagree with one another on the meaning of biblical passages should suffice to prove that Scripture isn’t self-interpreting. The fact that God gave us Scripture “to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15) should make Protestants care enough to find a Church capable of reliably interpreting what Scripture means without the constant danger that they might be endorsing heresy.

The Amazing Self-Reading Bible!

Martin Luther and Taylor Swift have this in common...

Second Sunday of Advent, Year A
In this episode of The Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on four apologetical themes that appear in the Liturgy of the Word for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A: 1) The divinity of Jesus; 2) The nature of Christian baptism; 3) Hell; and 4) The importance of good works once we’re converted. All four themes come from the Gospel reading from <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120422.cfm">Matthew 3:1-12</a>.
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The Biblical Understanding of Hell

The New Testament quotes Psalm 69 over a dozen times as being fulfilled in the life of Christ and the Church, including such well known texts as verse 9, which St. John quotes as referring to Jesus after his famous cleansing of the Temple: “For zeal for your house has consumed me” (see 2:17). All four Evangelists refer to verse 21 as foretelling the offering of cheap wine, or “vinegar,” to Jesus on the cross (John 19:28-29; see also Matt. 27:45-50, Mark 15:33-37, Luke 23:44-46). There are multiple additional prophetic references we could consider.
Many of our Protestant friends like to point out what they see as a problematic couple of verses for Catholics in Psalm 69:7-8, which prophesies the intense reproach Our Blessed Lord would experience in his life and especially his passion:
<blockquote>For it is for thy sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brethren, an alien to my mother’s sons.</blockquote>
The idea here is this: if this is a heavily messianic psalm, with multiple allusions to Jesus Christ, here we have a clear prophecy not only that Jesus would have “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/brethren-of-the-lord">brothers</a>,” but that Mary would have other “sons.” That would make belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary untenable.
Our goal here is not a full-fledged defense of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (You can find those <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-explain-the-perpetual-virginity-of-mary">here</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-case-for-marys-perpetual-virginity">here</a>, among many other places.) Rather, we’re going to show how Protestant attacks against Catholic doctrines are bound to fail when they involve taking a literalistic approach to Old Testament types and prophecies. The Protestant will end up denying more than he bargained for—like the whole foundation of New Covenant fulfillment!
So how are Catholics to respond?
First, in considering prophecies or types from Old Testament texts, we never find their fulfillments or antitypes to be perfectly one-to-one. Hebrews 1:1 tells us that “in many (Gr. polumeros, ‘partial’ or ‘piecemeal’) and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets.” We see a clear example of this in this same psalm (69:24-25), where the Psalmist prays that God will deal with his enemies in justice:
<blockquote>Pour out thy indignation upon them, and let thy burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation, let no one dwell in their tents.</blockquote>
St. Peter declares this text to find its ultimate fulfillment in Judas’s apostolic office proceeding to St. Matthias. Even though the Hebrew of Psalm 69 uses the plural, and David is clearly referring to a whole class of people, Peter declares definitively that it refers to Judas in its fullest sense:
<blockquote>For it is written in the Book of Psalms, &#8220;Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it”; and “His office [Gr. episcope, ‘bishopric’] let another take” (Acts 1:20).</blockquote>
Not exactly a one-to-one fulfillment.
Second, if we are going to insist on one-to-one fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and types, then we have a real problem in Psalm 69:5-6. Just three verses before the Psalmist speaks of his “mother’s sons,” he also says,
<blockquote>Oh God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me. O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me.</blockquote>
In this text, King David is, no doubt, thinking of his famous sins as well as the general “sin which clings so closely” to us in our fallen state (Heb. 12:1). But we don’t want to say Jesus must have had sin in his life because of what’s here in this messianic psalm. By no means!
The truth is that all of the Old Testament types and the overwhelming majority of prophecies we could consider in the Old Testament have multiple fulfillments: immediate ones on the literal level at the time they were published in history and their New Testament fulfillments, where they find their fuller meaning.
A defense of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is beyond the scope of this article. And non-Christians won’t find satisfaction here because they deny the inerrancy of Scripture completely. But for those non-Catholics who claim to follow the Bible, there is one big lesson to be taken from this brief consideration: be very careful before taking Old Testament types or prophecies to a place where your conclusions about them end up denying some of the crucial infrastructure of the New Covenant.
Yes, the New Covenant is “hidden in the Old,” as St. Augustine famously said, but that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. Rather, Augustine continued, the Old Covenant is “fully revealed in the New”—which means we can expect some surprises when it comes to how types and their fulfillments shake out.

The Psalm that Disproves Mary’s Perpetual Virginity?

For many, the mercy of God seems incompatible with the doctrine of hell. If God is all-merciful, then wouldn’t he have mercy on the damned and give them the grace they need to repent? Although the damned wouldn’t be able to reorient their wills to God naturally, given the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-blackfriars/article/abs/aquinas-on-the-fixity-of-the-will-after-death/7694E049B34DEB149D311D54A40C3072">irrevocability of the will after death</a>, perhaps God could give such a grace that would enable them to change their wills supernaturally. Since God doesn’t give this grace, then he isn’t all-merciful.
Even if we assume for argument’s sake that God could give a grace of repentance to the damned despite the natural irrevocability of the will after death, the major problem with the objection is that it assumes that God must give the grace of repentance to be merciful. But this assumption is false. And the reason it’s false is that it entails a contradiction.
Mercy, by definition, is an act of giving that which a person doesn’t have to give. For example, if you have a debt and owe me money, I could easily require in justice that you pay the debt. But I could also just as easily exercise mercy and remit the debt. The reason it would be an act of mercy is that I didn’t have to remit the debt, yet I did, gratuitously.
So to say that God must give the grace of repentance to be merciful—whether to the damned or us in this life—is to say that giving the grace of repentance is an act of mercy and not an act of mercy at the same time and in the same respect. It would be an act of mercy simply by virtue of saying that God is merciful. And it would not be an act of mercy insofar as the objection assumes that God must give the grace. That’s a contradiction.
Since the fundamental assumption of the objection—namely, that God must give the grace of repentance to be merciful—entails a contradiction, we can conclude that the objection from God’s mercy has no persuasive force against affirming the reality of hell.

God Owes Us a Ticket Out of Hell!

There’s no shortage of biblical objections when it comes to Mary’s perpetual virginity. A common one comes from Luke 2:7, where Luke writes, “And she gave birth to her first-born son [Gk. prōtotokos] and wrapped him in swaddling cloths.”
Some Christians argue that the word “firstborn” itself necessarily implies there were other children born of Mary. If there was a firstborn, so the thinking goes, then there must have been a second-born.
Other Christians, however, distance themselves from the necessary implication of the word prōtotokos and argue that even though the word can imply either “other siblings” or “the first to open the womb,” Luke elsewhere in his Gospel gives us reason to think he intends the “other siblings” meaning.
Thus, we have two versions of this objection from Luke 2:7, the former being the less sophisticated. Let’s deal with that one first.
The main problem with this version of the argument is that it assumes that the term “firstborn” itself necessarily implies there were other siblings born of Mary. But this is patently false.
We can start with the Bible. Consider, for example, Hebrews 1:5-6: “To what angel did God ever say, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’? Or again, ‘I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son’? And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.” Does this mean that God the Father had other sons, since Jesus is referred to as the “firstborn” of God? Of course not!
Exodus 13:2 is another example: “Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”  Does this mean that the parents had to wait until there was a second-born to consecrate the first to the Lord? Nope!
As we see in these examples, “firstborn” doesn’t necessarily mean there were others. It also can mean “the first to open the womb.”
St. Jerome makes this argument in his The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, writing,
<blockquote>The word of God compels me to dedicate to God everything that opens the womb if it be the firstling of clean beasts: if of unclean beasts, I must redeem it, and give the value to the priest (12).</blockquote>
The Protestant biblical scholar Victor Hamilton joins ranks with Jerome, writing in Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary, “To say that Jesus is Mary’s prōtotokos is simply to say Mary had no child before she gave birth to Jesus” (14).
Since the Bible uses “firstborn” without implying a second-born, this argument from Luke’s mere use of the term “firstborn” doesn’t prove Mary was not a perpetual virgin, since Luke could be using it to signify the first to open the womb.
Well, which is it? This leads us to the more sophisticated version of the argument.
In his 2022 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6eN2WUoTk8">debate</a> with Trent Horn, Protestant apologist Steve Christie acknowledged that prōtotokos can be used either to imply other siblings or the first to open the womb. But he thinks we have reason to conclude that Luke intended the “other siblings” meaning. Here’s what he argued in the debate:
<blockquote>If Luke was communicating Jesus was Mary’s only child, he would’ve used the Greek word [monogenēs] translated “only begotten,” rather than prōtotokos, like he did elsewhere in his Gospel, such as in Luke 7:12, 8:42, and 9:38.</blockquote>
For Christie, therefore, that Luke uses prōtotokos instead of monogenēs implies that Luke intended the “other sibling” meaning versus the “first to open the womb” meaning.
The problem with this counter is that Christie shoots at the wrong target: the claim that Luke was communicating that Jesus was Mary’s only child. In other words, he’s attacking a straw man.
Recall his argument: if Luke had intended to communicate that Jesus was Mary’s only child, then he would’ve used the Greek word monogenēs, translated “only begotten.”
Notice that Christie creates an expectation for the use of monogenēs, making its absence seem to be a defeater of Mary’s perpetual virginity. But there is no need for Luke to use monogenēs if he’s not intending to communicate that Jesus was Mary’s only child. Perhaps he intended to communicate something else that wouldn’t necessitate monogenēs (only begotten). If this were the case, then Christie’s objection would have no persuasive force.
One plausible candidate for that “something else” that Luke was intending to communicate is the simple point that Jesus was the first to come through the womb of Mary. This would be true regardless of whether there were other siblings or not.
But there is another plausible candidate. As Trent correctly pointed out in the debate, the context reveals that Luke’s focus was something entirely different—namely, Jesus’ &#8220;firstborn&#8221; status as being consecrated to God. Verses 22-23 make this clear:
<blockquote>And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”).</blockquote>
Luke explicitly quotes Exodus 13:2 within the same chapter that speaks of the law to consecrate to God the first to open the womb—i.e., the “firstborn.” Given this context, we can conclude that by “firstborn,” Luke intended the “first to open the womb” meaning.
Christie counters this by saying that Luke 2:22-23 is a different event from what occurs in Luke 2:7. Thus, we can’t interpret “firstborn” in verse 7 considering what he talks about in verses 22-23.
But who says we can’t interpret “firstborn” in verse 7 as reference to the consecration of the “firstborn” in verses 22-23? If the term is frequently used as such within the Jewish milieu, which it is, and Luke speaks of Jesus’ consecration as the first to open the womb as the culmination of the same infancy narrative that he kicks off with the use of the term, then it’s exegetically reasonable to interpret “firstborn” in verse 7 in light of the consecration in verses 22-23.
Secondly, even if we concede that Christie blocks our appeal to the consecration in verses 22-23, we still can appeal to either the possibility of the simple use of the term to signify the first to open the womb or the Jewish use of “firstborn” as a reference to the firstborn consecration, thereby creating an impasse as to which meaning Luke intends. It could refer to “other siblings,” but it could also refer either simply to the first to open the womb or the consecration of the first to open the womb. Given such ambiguity, and without further evidence to tip the scales, Christie wouldn’t be able to appeal to the “firstborn” text as a defeater of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
In sum, Luke’s use of prōtotokos in 2:7 does not, by itself, establish that Mary bore other children, since Scripture and Jewish usage regularly employ the term to signify the first to open the womb without implying subsequent births. Also, the appeal to monogenēs fails, because it assumes that Luke intended to assert Jesus’ status as Mary’s only child, when the context instead points to legal and cultic concerns surrounding firstborn consecration.
At best, then, Luke 2:7 is ambiguous, and an ambiguous text cannot overturn the historic Christian belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity.

Firstborn Jesus’ Brothers and Sisters?

One of the most painful experiences for faithful Catholic parents is knowing that your kids don’t share your faith. This pain is compounded when your kids have their own children, and then don’t bother to get them baptized.
Catholic grandparents in this situation can easily find themselves with a choice: should they secretly baptize their grandchildren? After all, even though infants and small children don’t have personal sin, they do have original sin. And baptism is more than just the forgiveness of sin. The Catechism describes it as “the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit . . . and the door which gives access to the other sacraments.” In addition to freeing us from sin, it is through baptism that we are “reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: ‘Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word’” (CCC 1213). Of course we want our loved ones (and everyone else!) to be baptized. And yet the Church generally forbids grandparents to baptize their grandkids in this kind of situation. Why?
The Code of Canon Law says that for an infant to be baptized licitly (that is, lawfully), “the parents or at least one of them or the person who legitimately takes their place must consent,” and “there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed according to the prescripts of particular law after the parents have been advised about the reason” (can. 868 §1). This is true not just for babies, but for any children under seven, along with anyone who “habitually lacks the use of reason” (for instance, for reason of mental illness or development disability) (can. 97 §2; can. 99).
Notice what the standard isn’t: it’s not required that the child’s parents be faithful, practicing Catholics. It may happen that there’s one faithful parent. Or perhaps neither parent is practicing, but there are other faithful relatives (like grandparents) who will be able to bring the child up in the Catholic faith, and the parents are okay with their child being baptized. Those aren’t perfect conditions, but there’s still a reasonable hope that the child will be raised as a Catholic, and the baptism may proceed.
But in the case of grandparents wanting to secretly baptize their grandchild, it’s clear that the conditions laid out in canon law haven’t been met. After all, if the parents were okay with their child being baptized, there would be no need for secrecy. And if the child’s parents refuse to even allow their child to be baptized, it’s hard to claim there’s a “reasonable hope” that these same parents will then allow their child to be raised in the Faith.
This might seem cruel, particularly to troubled grandparents. After all, the Catechism warns that “the Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer baptism shortly after birth” (CCC 1250). Yet here is the Church, seemingly denying the child that priceless grace. What gives?
The critical point is that although baptism is “the sacrament of faith,” the sacraments aren’t magic. The “faith required for baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop,” and this faith “needs the community of believers” to develop as it’s meant to (CCC 1253). To baptize a child and then leave him to languish spiritually in an unbelieving family isn’t really doing him any favors.
But that’s also why there’s one important caveat to everything I’ve said so far: danger of death. “An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents” (can. 868 §2). If a child is dying, or at least is in danger of dying, the whole calculus changes. Why? Because now it’s not a question of raising the child in the Faith, but of allowing him to be freed of all stain of original sin, and to give him access to all the graces possible while preparing him for possible death.
If the past two generations have shown us anything, it should be that lukewarm and half-formed Christianity doesn’t work. As Our Lord warns the church in Laodicea, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).
This isn’t to say that Catholic grandparents are helpless. There are several things you can still do, beginning with trying to evangelize your wayward children. Successful family evangelization probably won’t look like scolding your children or nagging them to go to church. On the contrary, that approach is likely to backfire by associating Christianity with guilt. Instead, make your home (and your presence) something that your kids and grandkids enjoy. Be welcoming and inviting and hospitable. Don’t hide your faith, and don’t be afraid to talk about Jesus—particularly about how he’s changed your life—but don’t imagine that your job is simply to remind them that they’re not Catholic and should be.
What does a welcoming Catholic home look like? The Catechism calls for the creation of homes in which “tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule” (2223). Moreover, parents of adult children are cautioned to “be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse,” although this “necessary restraint” does not preclude giving your children “judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family” (2230). In other words, don’t nag them or try to tell them what to do, or live their lives for them. Be gentle and respectful and forgiving, respect their God-given freedom, and serve them (as they’ll let you) by giving good counsel.
Finally, remember St. Paul’s words: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6). There’s no method that’ll guarantee that your children will come back to the Faith, or that you’ll be able to persuade them to get their kids baptized. Faith is a gift, and while we do what we can in planting the seeds of faith, or watering the ones that we find, we’ve got to ultimately turn in prayer to the only one who can bring your kids and grandkids home.

Can I Secretly Baptize My Grandchildren?

In this month of remembering the dead, I want to draw attention to someone who passed away in May. I never met him in person, but I see reminders of him every day.
I don’t recall exactly how I was connected with Deacon Lawrence Klimecki, nearly twenty years ago when I was searching for an artist to illustrate the cover for an unusual work of fiction I was editing: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tripods-Attack-Young-Chesterton-Chronicles/dp/1933184264">The Tripods Attack</a>, first entry in the <a href="https://youngchestertonchronicles.wordpress.com/">Young Chesterton Chronicles</a> by John McNichol. We needed someone to capture the steampunk aesthetic crossed with Chestertonian whimsy that the book called for.
When I caught sight of Deacon Lawrence’s arresting take on sacred art, I knew we had found the right man. He did a masterful job not only on the cover and back of the book, but on its interior design. Freelance graphic artists will tell you that they’re usually overworked and underpaid, but I can’t think of another book project where an artist did so much for so little.
It wasn’t guilt over this, though, that motivated me afterward to buy a number of his works for myself and as gifts—it was plain appreciation for his uncanny ability to create popular Catholic art unlike anything else out there. I am a man of letters, not pictures, and I lack the vocabulary to describe what it is that makes his images of saints and holy scenes so unique and compelling. The best I can say is that he combines deep and reverent faith with a touch of sci-fi or fantasy style and an unabashedly masculine, almost militant hand.
How else could I describe his <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/terror-of-demons-lawrence-klimecki.html?product=art-print">“Terror of Demons,”</a> depicting St. Joseph stomping the spine of a submissive devil and cradling the barque of Peter while two priests attend him? Or the <a href="https://i1.wp.com/deaconlawrence.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/MaidoforleansColorWeb.jpg?resize=600%2C900&amp;ssl=1">“Maid of Orléans”</a> that captures St. Joan’s strength, humility, and femininity just so? Or the <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/raphael-lawrence-klimecki.html?product=poster">St. Raphael</a> that adorns my office wall: not a pale statue or neutered cherub but a creature of cosmic power and riotous color. Or the large icon of <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/icon-of-saint-junipero-serra-lawrence-klimecki.html?product=poster">Junipero Serra</a> that hangs in the halls of Catholic Answers, safe at least there from the cancelers and the vandals!
Deacon Lawrence Klimecki was <a href="https://www.scd.org/news/funeral-mass-deacon-lawrence-klimecki-thursday-may-18-cathedral-sacramento">only sixty-two when he passed</a>. I lament the unmade future works that died with his hand and the void he leaves as a mentor to artists and as a leader in the Christian-art conversation. But I delight in the thought that he will pierce the veil to glimpse his subject face to face. Let us pray that God will speed him to that sight.
Support Deacon Lawrence’s family and artistic legacy by checking out his work <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/lawrence-klimecki">for sale here</a>.

Remembering a Spellbinding Catholic Artist

Episode 101: Year B &#8211; 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we look at one detail from the second reading, taken from Hebrews 5:1-6, and the whole of the Gospel reading, which recounts the story of Jesus healing the blind Bartimaeus, recorded in Mark 10:46-52. The apologetical topic that relates to the detail in the second reading is the nature of the Mass as the Sacrifice of Christ. The topic of focus for the Gospel is the historicity of Jesus as a healer.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102724.cfm">Click Here</a>
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The Sacrificial Nature of the Mass

Last year, I wrote a piece for Catholic Answers called “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-find-a-husband">How to Find a Husband</a>.” Here is the belated companion piece for men who are looking for a good Catholic wife.
Much of the advice is the same: expand your social circle by attending both Catholic and not-necessarily-Catholic events that attract single adults, then challenge yourself to actually speak to at least one single woman at each social event. Have a “wing man” hold you accountable to this goal if needed.
However, I have some specific tips for men, too, based on what I liked when I was looking for a husband a couple of years ago, and what I heard from other women as I researched for my book, <a href="http://prettygoodcatholic.com">Pretty Good Catholic</a>.
Many Catholic women complained that the devout Catholic men they met were . . . well, boring. They tended to have fewer hobbies and interests than non-Catholic men and didn’t joke or flirt as much. So you can take three concrete steps to make sure you stand out from the crowd.
1. Develop or rekindle some interests so that you’re well rounded. Ideally, you should do something physical that keeps you fit and doubles as a social activity, where you can meet women who share the interest. (I know a married couple who met through a casual Ultimate Frisbee group, and plenty of Catholic women love partner dancing!)
Intellectual and creative pursuits are great, too: play an instrument, learn a new language, or read some great works of literature. Basically, do things that women also do, so that you have something to talk about with them, and somewhere to take them on dates besides coffee or dinner. If you find that you and she are both into art, inviting her to a museum comes naturally.
If you’re using a dating app or website, showcase all these interests on your profile, via words and pictures, so women can really see who you are.
2. Lighten up a little bit! You should have a good prayer life and know your faith well, but you should be capable of talking about less serious things and joking around. Women love a man who can make them laugh, and they usually don’t love a man who obsesses over the finer points of the liturgy. Serious discussions about the Faith have their place, but these should come a little later. As a friend of mine says, “don’t mention the Fourth Lateran Council on a first date!”
3. Related: Learn the art of appropriate flirtation. That is, show a woman you are interested in her in a confident, yet playful and non-pushy way. Compliment her, tease her mildly in a way that makes her laugh (if you know her well enough to know she won’t be hurt), ask her questions about herself, and generally give her attention and observe how she responds.
If she’s responding well—laughing, smiling, keeping the conversation going rather than trying to find a polite exit—ask her out! Most Catholic men need to ask for dates more boldly and more quickly than they think they should. A matchmaker I know says that if you talk to a woman for more than ten minutes, you should ask for her number, and if you ask for her number, you should call her (yes, call!) within a few days to ask her for a date.
If this scares you a little, remember that a date doesn’t mean you have to commit to being her boyfriend and actively considering marriage right away. It’s just a chance to get to know her a little better, to see if you want to go on a second date, and so on. Step by step, you’ll learn more about her, and you’ll have plenty of time to decide whether to propose to her or not.
Every date can help you discern better who would make a good spouse for you and vice versa. Plus, dates are fun! Although we shouldn’t date just for fun, without thoughts of marriage, we should enjoy dates and see them as time well spent, regardless of whether the relationship continues. After all, getting to know another image of God is always a gift.
Once you’ve secured that first date, it’s your job to continue pursuing her for as long as you’re still interested. Keep planning thoughtful dates based on your shared interests, or trying new experiences together. Ask her questions about herself, progressing slowly from more surface-level topics to deeper things over the course of several months. When you’re more seriously interested in her (and no one else), ask her to be your girlfriend, and talk about what that means. Also, ask her before attempting any <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/chastity-in-dating-not-just-no-sex">physical gestures</a>. They might not do it in the movies, but saying, “May I kiss you?” is actually very romantic!
All these conversations take courage, but courage is attractive. Plus, they are good practice for your eventual proposal, and for many important discussions that will come up during marriage.
Being the one to initiate all these important steps in a relationship means risking rejection. On behalf of all women, thank you for being brave enough to risk rejection! All the times you heard “no” will be completely worth it when the right woman says “yes.”

How to Find a Wife

<div>What was the language of the original scriptures?</div><div>Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Some portions (e.g., sections of Daniel and Ezra) were written in Aramaic. Books that are contained in the Catholic canon but not the Protestant or Jewish canons were written in Hebrew and Greek.
The entire New Testament was written in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek">Koine Greek</a>. Some scholars have theorized that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, but that claim is highly disputed.
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Original Languages of Scripture?

Are we allowed to pull the lever or not? Does your intention make a difference? The classic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem">trolley problem</a> DOES have an answer! Fr. Sebastian Walshe walks through the details of this contemporary moral dilemma.