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Many Catholics are unaware that Holy Thursday commemorates the institution of Christ’s ministerial priesthood. Perhaps this is due to the absence of Christ explicitly ordaining the apostles in the Last Supper narratives. Are there clues that suggest such an ordination? Karlo Broussard gives the answer.
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Transcript:
Most Catholics are aware that Holy Thursday commemorates Jesus’ Last Supper as the First Mass. But what some miss is that Holy Thursday also celebrates Jesus’ institution of the ministerial priesthood.
When you read the Last Supper narratives in the Synoptic Gospels you don’t find Jesus ordaining the apostles. You’re left wondering, “Where does the Catholic Church get off thinking that Jesus made the apostles priests at the Last Supper?”
There are three clues that support this claim.
First, Jesus commands the apostles to “do this remembrance of me.” The Greek verb for “do,” poieo, can be translated literally as “offer” in the sense of offering a sacrifice, as it is in in Leviticus 9:7 of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).
Now, offering sacrifice is a priestly function. Therefore, Jesus’ command to offer the Last Supper as a sacrifice suggests that Jesus made his apostles ministerial priests.
A second clue is the washing of the apostles’ feet in John 13:5. This calls to mind the ritual washings of Aaron and his sons, which included the washing of their feet, at their priestly ordination in Exodus 40.
Finally, Jesus says in John 13:8 that the apostles could not take “part” in him unless they were washed. The Greek word for “part,” meros, echoes Numbers <a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdGd59Yj8r4&amp;t=1100s">18:20</a> and Deuteronomy 10:9, which refer to the “portion” (Greek—meris) that Aaron and the Levites have in God as priests.
So, did Jesus make the apostles priests at the Last Supper? I think these exegetical points give us sufficient reason to answer yes.
If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com.
For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.

Did Jesus Make The Apostles Priests?

<div>May a baby be baptized during lent? </div><div>Yes, infants may be baptized during Lent.  There is no Church law or liturgical guideline that prevents or discourages the baptism of infants during the Lenten season.
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May a Baby Be Baptized During Lent?

There is a joke that Jesuits don’t worry about meeting Christ in the afterlife as much as they worry about meeting St. Ignatius.
There are reasons why Jesuits are called “Jesuitical,” referring to the perception that they employ fast-and-loose justifications around hard facts of faith that Ignatius of Loyola lived and died for. It’s tragic that the Jesuits now evoke a slinking, sidewinding spirituality that integrates too closely with the wayward world, compromising Catholic teaching to justify a “new” Catholic position.
The great missionary and founder of the Society of Jesus departed this earth on July 31, 1556. The current state of his order would likely incite his soldierly wrath. Such heroic Jesuits as Francis Xavier, Claver, Borgia, Brébeuf, Hopkins, and Schall once dominated our view of the Society of Jesus; now, on the contrary, it seems people can summon to mind one or two remaining “good Jesuits” amid a whole lot of “less good” ones. The Jesuits as an order have entrenched a reputation in recent times as the radical progressives of the Catholic Church. And the tendencies that have taken root in the Jesuits are the same as in progressive politics, so it is little wonder that Jesuits not infrequently take up <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/confusion-in-the-kingdom/">leftist causes</a> in a dangerous blend of Church and state.
The Jesuits leaned into action and breaking new ground. Ignatius himself, for example, vied to <a href="https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/10/compendium-of-reforms-of-roman-breviary_06.html">unshackle his men</a> from the well-respected custom of singing the Divine Office in choir—this not to disdain tradition, but rather out of single-minded zeal to open up opportunities for apostolic missionary work. Regardless of their saintly founder’s motivation, this trailblazing inclination brought the Jesuits more into the political sphere, and over time, more into the liberal sphere. The Jesuits have been drinking political water for some time—and now there’s something in the water.
Let us take a brief look at the life of Ignatius, this hero of the Faith, to see the origin of the Society of Jesus. Born in the Castle of Loyola in Guipuscoa, Spain, 1491, Ignatius was reared from his boyhood in the arts of chivalry, and after his unruly and amorous service at the court of Ferdinand V of Aragon, he was stationed at the barracks of Pamplona in 1517. Ignatius heroically led his comrades in the defense of the city against France’s siege, falling only after a cannonball shattered his right leg.
Ignatius’s convalescence was prolonged and painful. The boisterous knight lay restless, and though his reading had to that point been devoted to the escapades of Amadis of Gaul and El Cid, all he had on hand at this time were the life of Jesus Christ and the lives of the saints. Ignatius found in them chivalric battles and enraptured ends that put all his beloved legends in the context of a larger drama of which he had never dreamed. The Crusades were enkindled in the wounded knight of Loyola as he vowed to rival the saints in sanctity. He swore to take Jerusalem from the hands of the heathen, laid his naked sword across his knees, and waited.
As soon as he could walk, Ignatius went to the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, placed his armor before an image of Mary, and then went to a cave in the solitude of Manresa, where he spent ten months in self-mortification. Ignatius prepared his heart for a new type of battle, training in the arms of the spirit, strengthening his resolve to serve heaven through prayer and fasting. There in that cave, Ignatius learned asceticism and discovered the foundation of his Spiritual Exercises. He emerged lean and battered but happy—ready to storm the Holy Land.
Six followers gathered around this strange and striking ascetic. Ignatius led them like a military officer in serving the poor, in study, and in community prayer. Together, they vowed lifelong labor as missionaries. The Society of Jesus was born. These first Jesuits crossed the Alps toward Jerusalem, but they found Venice ravaged by war with the Turks and their passage blocked. In Venice they were ordained to the priesthood, and turning their footsteps toward Rome, they placed themselves under Pope Paul III, who approved the order in 1540 and named Ignatius the first superior general.
Jesuit spirituality was marked by unwavering faith, indomitability, and intellectual acumen. The Jesuits clashed with Protestants, rescued beleaguered Catholics from England, and defended the borders of France from heresy. No challenge was too daunting, difficult, or dangerous. They marched to India, China, and Japan. They sailed to the New World. They conquered countless souls for Christ.
The Jesuits have always sought to be the tip of the spear. Such motivation can lead to new ideas that are not as sound as old ideas. The healthy urge for discovery goes astray when liberal humanitarianism creeps in, with openness, however mentally justified, to shifting traditional paradigms. The cutting-edge quality of the Jesuits is a reason why they are often accused of being more political than theological. The progressive character of the Jesuits has brought the order to slippery theological places while giving it a place of regard within the eye of progressive politics, who are comfortable on slippery slopes. The unnatural positions adopted by both the left and many Jesuits regarding human sexuality and society are clear indications of a bad direction.
All this is not to denounce the holy order of St. Ignatius or wallow in thoughts of its decline. The Jesuits’ missionary zeal changed the world in tremendous ways. But now the world is having its revenge. It is terrible how effectively the secular can seize and twist the spiritual. But the world will not have the last word.
Ignatius was a knight who charged the giants of his day with the unconquerable valor of Don Quixote, proving himself, through buffets and bruises, a mighty champion who led an army on for the greater glory of God. It is never too late, and the Jesuits, by the persistence of their patron, can yet be brought back from the brink and earn a better judgment.

St. Ignatius and the Jesuits

<div>What is non-theism?</div><div>Non-theism includes a range of beliefs that reject traditional belief in God. This includes denials of God&#8217;s existence, such as atheism, or skeptical attitudes toward God&#8217;s existence, such as agnosticism. It also includes religious beliefs that do not include worship of God, such as pantheism and some forms of Buddhism.
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What Is Non-Theism?

Does the Good Thief Disprove Purgatory?

Yesterday’s reading at Mass contained that most marvelously pithy saying of John the Baptist from John’s gospel: “I must decrease. He must increase.”
Today we see this play out in Luke’s account of the Lord’s baptism in the Jordan. This is, let’s remember, pretty incredible. People wanted John to be the Christ. If he had said he was the Christ, they would have had no trouble believing him. And John takes that potential power and influence and casually sets it aside.
His humility paves the way for the even greater humility of the true Christ, who himself enters the waters for John to baptize. Our Gospel selection for today doesn’t include some of the dialogue reported elsewhere between John and Jesus, but in a way, it’s predictable. John is confused. He has been talking all this time about the one who is greater than he, whose sandals he is not worthy to untie, who will baptize the world with fire, and this great anointed one approaches him and asks to be baptized like everybody else. Really, Lord, why? I mean, shouldn’t you be baptizing me?
This is part of a large pattern in the Gospels. Perhaps one reason this story appears to us in the immediate context of the Christmas season is that we are conscious of the Son of God’s human vulnerability and humility. This is all headed to the cross, but before that we find Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and declaring that he calls them not slaves, but friends.
At the baptism, Jesus is publicly identified as the Son of the Father, and this identity is witnessed by the Spirit in the form of a dove. Various heretics in the early centuries, grouped together under the loose label adoptionism, saw this as a moment when the human person Jesus was somehow elevated to divinity. Church councils repeatedly rejected this theory in the first several centuries, even as the formal articulation of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine developed. But the problem I have with this view of the baptism is that it seems to miss the way it fits in with the whole gospel trajectory. If the baptism necessitates some kind of progression or elevation of Christ, so does virtually every other incident of his life. If it is merely human to submit to baptism, what would it take to submit to crucifixion?
In fact, the Fathers’ reading of this story show how it is precisely Christ’s divinity, in his baptism, that makes the difference. Christ was not baptized so that he might be sanctified in the water and become somehow more divine. He was baptized so that he might sanctify the water.
What does it mean to sanctify or consecrate something? It means to set it apart, to mark it somehow. That is the most fundamental meaning of holiness—including, as a transcendent example, the holiness of God. God is utterly unique; he has no equal, no real comparison. When we are baptized, we are consecrated; we are set apart by what the Letter to Titus calls the “laver of regeneration” and the “renovation of the Holy Ghost.” And water has specifically been set apart for this purpose.
But think about this: when we are baptized, is this consecration something ultimately contrary to our nature? True, it is an elevation of our nature, yet it is an elevation that was always intended—our nature was, from the beginning, oriented toward supernatural fellowship with God. And so it is not so much that baptism changes us—though from the perspective of sin, it certainly does that—but that it restores and reanimates what we truly are.
We can apply that to other kinds of consecrations. When we bless water for baptism, we aren’t adding something to water; we are in a way reminding water of its true purpose, which is the life of God. When Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan, he wasn’t somehow invading nature with a foreign substance. He was meeting his own creation face to face and saying, “Remember me?”
There is a liturgical and sacramental shape to creation. When we celebrate the Mass, part of the miracle is not so much to realize that bread and wine can become body and blood, but to realize that so much of the time, they do not do so even though they could. Think of it as pulling back the curtain and showing the true purpose of all time and space—which is to say that it is the time and the place for fellowship with God. This is why we have—in the normal sense—sacred times and sacred places: to heighten our senses and our intellectual contemplation of the fact that God has entered all times and all places to the end of bringing all things into the light of his glory.
Today, as we remember the Lord’s baptism, remember also the hope that it contains—the hope that all things can and will be restored to God’s goodness. In our own baptisms, we were restored to who we are, but it is only in holding fast to our communion with Christ that we can remain who we are. We can say, with John the Baptist, I must decrease; he must increase.
Another way of putting it is this: if I am only myself alone, I am not even that. I can find who I am only in the voice of the one who calls me beloved, who knew me even before I knew myself, and who will call me again to himself in the last day. Amen.

Jesus Greets the Water

Easter Vigil Mass celebrated by Fr. Paul Check at St. John Fisher Seminary.
Exsultet
Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven, exult, let Angel ministers of God exult, let the trumpet of 
salvation sound aloud our mighty King&#8217;s triumph! Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, 
ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom 
and darkness. Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice, arrayed with the lightning of his glory, let 
this holy building shake with joy, filled with the mighty voices of the peoples. Therefore, dearest 
friends, standing in the awesome glory of this holy light, invoke with me, I ask you, the mercy of 
God almighty, that he, who has been pleased to number me, though unworthy, among the Levites, 
may pour into me his light unshadowed, that I may sing this candle&#8217;s perfect praises.
V. The Lord be with you. 
R. And with your spirit. 
V. Lift up your hearts. 
R. We lift them up to the Lord. 
V. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. 
R. It is right and just.
It is truly right and just, with ardent love of mind and heart and with devoted service of our voice, 
to acclaim our God invisible, the almighty Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, his Son, his Only 
Begotten. Who for our sake paid Adam&#8217;s debt to the eternal Father, and, pouring out his own dear 
Blood, wiped clean the record of our ancient sinfulness. These, then, are the feasts of Passover, in 
which is slain the Lamb, the one true Lamb, whose Blood anoints the doorposts of believers. This 
is the night, when once you led our forebears, Israel&#8217;s children, from slavery in Egypt and made them 
pass dry-shod through the Red Sea. This is the night that with a pillar of fire banished the darkness 
of sin. This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from 
worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones. 
This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the 
underworld. Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed. O wonder of your 
humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son! 
O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that 
earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer! O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and 
hour when Christ rose from the underworld! This is the night of which it is written: The night shall 
be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness. The sanctifying power of this 
night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, 
drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. On this, your night of grace, O holy 
Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants’ hands, an 
evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church. But now we know the praises of 
this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God&#8217;s honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never 
dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a 
torch so precious. O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine 
to the human. Therefore, O Lord, we pray you that this candle, hallowed to the honor of your name, 
may persevere undimmed, to overcome the darkness of this night. Receive it as a pleasing fragrance, 
and let it mingle with the lights of heaven. May this flame be found still burning by the Morning 
Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from death&#8217;s domain, 
has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever. R. Amen.

Easter Vigil Mass: April 11, 2020

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DAY 121
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CHALLENGE
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“Catholic apologists say we must not use ‘private judgment,’ but we can’t avoid it. The point of apologetics is to convince someone to use his private judgment to accept a position.”
DEFENSE
This misunderstands the role that our exercise of reason plays.
It should be pointed out that, whatever happens in apologetic discussions, the theme of “private judgment” is remarkably rare in Church documents. The phrase does not appear at all in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and when it does appear in Church documents, it does not reject the role of the intellect in theology.
That would scarcely be likely given the rich intellectual tradition of Catholic theology, which has always celebrated the contributions of theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, and others as gifts from God. Indeed, God has granted every individual an intellect, and he expects them to use this gift “that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him” (Acts 17:27; cf. CCC 31–38).
Apologetics thus has an important role providing evidence so that people can understand the reasons for embracing the Faith—whether it is understood as the Christian faith broadly or the Catholic Faith specifically.
When understanding and appreciating this evidence, the individual exercise of reason is indispensible. However, once one has come to the point of faith, the situation changes, because we no longer rely on reason alone but on God’s revelation.
Jesus did not start a philosophy club but a religion. He “taught them as one who had authority” (Mark 1:22), proclaiming God’s definitive word to man (John 1:4; Heb. 1:1–2; Jude 3). Consequently, when one embraces faith in Christ, one must accept certain things as authoritative that one did not accept before the point of faith. It is here that the individual exercise of reason can become problematic.
It is praiseworthy to exercise one’s intellect in accord with the authorities established by Christ, as the great theologians have done. How- ever, it is problematic to exercise one’s intellect contrary to them. This was the origin of the heresies that have arisen in Christian history.
Both Protestants and Catholics agree that it is a mistake to prefer one’s “private judgment” to the authorities established by Christ. The question is what the authorities are and how we are to understand them.
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Private Judgment

For several decades now, our culture has associated Christianity, and especially traditional, creedal, Catholic Christianity, with “family values.” This association cuts across the Catholic/Protestant divide, and the idea is further tangled up in American political identity and modern disputes about the direction of liberal society.
Back when I was growing up in the eighties and nineties, there was “Focus on the Family” in the evangelical world. Now we have a variety organizations attempting to promote what they see as authentic human and social virtue amid the increasingly hostile secular space, where pride, pleasure, and personal autonomy have emerged as the lone permitted path to peace and happiness. Whether the shrill voices on the so-called left and right are anything more than noise, we can certainly understand the basic problems that go with a culture seems intent to untether itself from basic human realities, which we would call natural law. The natural human family—the natural relationships among fathers, mothers, and children—does in many places seem lost to the competing vision of human life as merely the quest to do whatever we happen to want, to be whatever we want to be, and to employ science and technology as unregulated tools to accomplish those arbitrary ends.
So if we have been accustomed to a certain role in that culture war, as Catholics who defend the moral principle behind the Fourth Commandment—honor your father and mother—against these hostile forces, it can come as a shock to recall the Lord’s hard words here in Luke 12:
<blockquote>Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.</blockquote>
Perhaps at the moment, having experienced such divisions in real time, the words did not come across quite as shocking. But we have to read these in the aftermath of the many declarations of the Lord’s peace, especially after his resurrection! Isn’t he the Prince of Peace? Doesn’t he say, in the upper room, “Peace be with you”?
These are contradictory only if you take for granted that there is only one kind of peace. But the Lord does clue us in here. Before his passion, Jesus says to his disciples in John’s Gospel, words echoed quietly by the priest at every Mass, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27).
Not as the world gives. What does that mean? The world’s “peace” could be the temporary end to conflict. It could mean compromise between opposing forces. It could be the peace imposed and protected by a victorious army. It is external, pragmatic peace. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is distinct from the “peace that passeth understanding,” the peace that is harmony and communion with the triune God.
The two kinds of peace aren’t always and inevitably at war, but they do often conflict. Our observation about “family values” is a case in point. Families are good. God made them as the ordinary and natural structure of human life. But the family is not more important than God. It is not even more important than the divine family of the Catholic Church. If this is challenging to us, it was even more challenging to the Jewish culture of the first century. Scholars have pointed out that this is one of the more subtle ways that Jesus claims his divinity: For a pious Jew, the only thing that could possibly be more important than the family was God himself.
One of the ways, I fear, that our conservative Catholic culture has at times lost itself, is in a subtle assumption that “family values,” the promotion of the traditional, natural family, is somehow opposed to larger social values. When you combine this with the larger trend to geographical transience, not to mention the sheer size and de facto anonymity of many American Catholic parishes, you have a situation where many Catholics and other Christians feel that the Christian life means somehow valiantly going it alone as a family, without any broader support network, against a hostile world.
But the good of the natural family is a relative good, a good that finds its place in the Church. There are far, far too many Catholics who, when faced with separation, or intractable division, or many other problems, feel, and are made to believe, that they simply can no longer be good Catholics because of their family situation. For them, I wonder if the Lord’s hard words about division may be something of a comfort. “Family values” cannot just mean some pious ideal of a mother and father and 2.5 kids—or maybe 7.5 kids in the more pious Catholic circles. It has to mean the submission of all natural family relationships to our relationship with God.
Is it sad to have a family without a natural father or mother? Of course. But this is why we have godparents; it is why we have a whole range of spiritual fathers and mothers and cousins. We cannot focus so much on preserving one good thing that we neglect the even greater things that the Lord provides for us.
Put another way, we cannot define ourselves by the things we like to complain about. Perhaps our moral situation, in the modern West, is something like Jeremiah being thrown down into a muddy cistern. We could complain about it. We could try to figure out how we got here. We could ask God why he allows bad things to happen to good cultures. Or we could remember the point of the story and look for and expect God’s rescue, ready to grab the rope that he throws down.
One way out was discussed just this past week in <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-solution-to-the-churchs-biggest-problem/">an interesting article</a> by a pair of social scientists analyzing several decades’ worth of material on the decline of the Catholic Church in America. Things aren’t looking good, from a demographic standpoint. Lots of people are leaving the Church—or rather, lots of people aren’t even staying in the Church, because the most striking figures are those showing how few Catholics stay Catholic as they get older.
But the silver lining to these statistics is pretty obvious: it is very clear that the difference between those who stay and those who leave centers not on family life, or even on clear doctrine, as important as those are, but on the larger communal and social life of the Church. On one end of the spectrum, you have someone who is baptized, who goes to Mass occasionally, but whose family doesn’t really practice the Faith in any meaningful way. Such a person is very unlikely to practice the Faith later in life. A little better is a child raised in a family where the parents take the Faith seriously, where they catechize and discuss matters of faith. But such a person is still quite likely to leave. Those who stay have not only a living faith in the family, but a regular social connection with a parish community. In other words, faith is more than just for the family. They know other adults who practice the faith, not just other children. They spend time with them outside Mass.
I like to think that we naturally practice this social dimension of the Church better in the Ordinariate because of our small size, but we don’t get a free pass. We’re not just talking about whether people are friendly; we’re talking about the salvation of souls.
Let us join the fight against the false peace of the world and seek the peace that only Christ brings. This is a peace worth sharing, a peace that alone can bring us true happiness through all the changes of the world.

‘Family Values’ Is Not Enough

I can’t stop thinking about a conversation I just had with my sister, a therapist. She poured out her heart to me about an encounter that began as one of the most challenging moments of her career—and ended as a profound example of how God works through us.
She became a marriage and family therapist to help people through their darkest times—addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder—and to provide a safe place for those in need. Sometimes her work tests how well she can balance her Catholic faith with her professional ethics and responsibilities. This was one of those times.
Her client—let’s call her Jane—was facing an unimaginable situation. She was planning to end the life of her unborn son, who had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome and water on the brain. Jane’s anguish was heartbreaking. Through tears, she explained that she didn’t want to have the abortion but felt she had no other choice. She believed it was an act of love to spare him from suffering, but her doubts were palpable.
My sister was deeply moved. She knew this was a moment of mission, one she hadn’t expected but to which she had been called. She silently prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide her words, to give her client clarity and courage, and to bring about a miracle. Within the constraints of her profession, she gently advocated for life, focusing on the emotional and psychological toll an abortion could bring.
After their session, my sister felt a mix of hope and helplessness. She had done all she could, but the decision ultimately rested with Jane. So, she continued to pray, trusting that God could work even where her influence seemed to end.
Then, the miracle came. The next morning, Jane told her that she and her husband—after hours talking, crying, and searching for answers—had canceled the abortion. Her relief and newfound hope were overwhelming. My sister saw the fruit of her prayer and cooperation with God’s grace. She had responded to his call, and a human life was saved.
In moments like this I’m reminded that love isn’t about avoiding suffering—it’s about embracing life and trusting that God will provide the strength to carry our crosses.
It is also a powerful reminder to me that we are all God’s agents in the world, often in ways we don’t expect. We might not see ourselves as capable of great things, but God uses us in small, situational missions to carry out his work. Whether we’re counselors, teachers, students, apologists, or parents, God will give us opportunities to be his partners, his instruments, in his good works. When we respond to his call, even in ways that seem minor or are constrained by circumstances, we become part of his plan.
For those of us engaged in apologetics and evangelization, this is the heart of our mission. We are called to be ready, to listen for God’s voice in the moment, and to act in cooperation with his grace. Just as my sister did not, we may not immediately (or ever!) see the effects of our choices, but in those moments, lives can be changed—and even saved.

We’re Always God’s Agents

Jimmy Akin explains the Biblical basis for free will in man, which is indicated wherever Scripture instructs us to make the right choice, and then walks through the concept of logical contradictions to show exactly what we mean when we say that God has free will.

Is Free Will Biblical and Does God Have It?

Often when asked where the Bible condemns contraception some Christians appeal to Genesis 38:8-10. There, Onan, son of Judah, is told to have intercourse with his deceased brother’s wife to “perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for [his] brother” (v.8). But knowing the offspring wouldn’t be his, Onan “spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother” (v.9). The author immediately reports that “[God] slew” Onan because of his deed. This, it’s argued, reveals that contraception is contrary to God’s will.
Recently, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@catholicanswers/video/7269917297798794542?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;web_id=6983056260526589446">someone in our TikTok comment section</a> was not convinced:

Let’s take the latter objection first—that the text only describes what happens and doesn’t give us the prescription that we ought not to contracept.
Our critic is simply wrong. The text does tell us Onan’s deed conflicted with God’s will: “And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD” (v.10). Given the implied assumption for this kind of religious text that we should avoid doing what displeases God, we can conclude that the passage is prescriptive and not merely descriptive. We can derive an “ought” from this event pertaining to at least one form of contraception: spilling semen to avoid conception.
This leads me to the first objection.
Our critic is right in saying it would be fallacious to move from God’s displeasure with one form of contraception to His displeasure with all forms of contraception. Spilling semen is not the only way a couple can contracept. Since that’s the only form of contraception that the above passage deals with, the appeal to Onan’s sin would only achieve the goal of providing evidence against that specific form of contraceptive act that Onan committed. More work would have to be done, whether biblically or philosophically, to determine whether other forms of contraception (e.g., the pill) are also displeasing to God. For an introductory philosophical explanation, see my articles <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/for-goodness-sake">“Sex for Goodness Sake,”</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-contraception-thwarts-love">“How Contraception Thwarts Love.”</a>
This is not to say, however, that a Catholic who makes the above argument is blameworthy for his lack of nuance. Often, the argument is given as an answer to the basic question of whether the Bible condemns contraception without any specification as to a particular form. And for a general question like that, Genesis 38:8-10 suffices.

Onan Died for This (and Nothing Else?)

<div>In 1 Samuel, David and Saul’s son Jonathan make a sacred covenant. What type of covenant was it?</div><div><blockquote>By the time David finished speaking with Saul, Jonathan’s life became bound up with David’s life; he loved him as his very self. Saul retained David on that day and did not allow him to return to his father’s house. Jonathan and David made a covenant, because Jonathan loved him as his very self. Jonathan took off the cloak he was wearing and handed it over to David, along with his military dress, even his sword, bow, and belt (1 Sam. 18:1-4).</blockquote>
The exact nature of the covenant is not explained. The fact that Jonathan hands over his clothing and weapon, which as the king&#8217;s son and a military commander would have been royal clothing and a royal weapon, is generally interpreted as a sign that Jonathan is ready to hand over the future throne to David. The general idea seems to be that Jonathan knows that David is a potential rival to the throne after Saul dies. Jonathan&#8217;s actions symbolize that he does not care if David is the one to ascend to the throne instead of him; he values David&#8217;s friendship too much to fight over the throne. This appears to be a covenant to mutually support one another as close friends, no matter what happens.
We see this arise when Saul plots to kill David (1 Sam. 20). Saul, knowing Jonathan&#8217;s affection for David, conceals his plan from his son. When David confronts Jonathan about the plot, Jonathan pleads his ignorance and promises to find out the truth and warn David if his life is truly in danger. For upholding his half of the covenant, Jonathan is rewarded by never having his family and descendants cast off as enemies of David when he ascends to the throne.
</div>

What Was David and Jonathan’s Covenant?

Jimmy Akin delves into the profound question of why God doesn&#8217;t erase hell after a certain time. He explores the concept of annihilationism, a minority view in Christianity, and explains why it doesn&#8217;t align with biblical descriptions or Catholic teachings. Akin emphasizes that damnation is everlasting, but the Church doesn&#8217;t have a definitive teaching on why God doesn&#8217;t delete hell.
Transcript:
I was just wondering why God doesn&#8217;t delete hell after a certain amount of time. I&#8217;m not saying like those suffering in hell are now allowed in. I&#8217;m just saying why doesn&#8217;t he just erase it instead of forever enduring those creations suffering, whether it was by their choice or not?
Well, there are some people who think he does from a certain point of view, or at least he deletes the people who go to hell. This is a minority view in Christianity. People who believe this are called &#8220;annihilationists&#8221; because they believe when a person is sent to the lake of fire in Revelation, the fire annihilates them, and so they cease to exist.
That&#8217;s problematic because the book of Revelation says that they have no rest day or night, and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. So the way the book of Revelation presents it, you&#8217;re not annihilated if you get put in the lake of fire.
Also, in addition to humans going to the lake of fire, demons are thrown into the lake of fire, and they are immortal spirits, so they wouldn&#8217;t die either. So it doesn&#8217;t look like the purpose of the lake of fire is to actually annihilate people. So this view has always been a minority view in Christianity, and it is not the Catholic view. If you look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, you&#8217;ll see that it holds that damnation is a tragic but real possibility, and that the Church teaches that it is something that is everlasting. It goes on forever. So that would imply God doesn&#8217;t delete the people who go to hell, or he doesn&#8217;t delete hell itself.
Why does he not do that? Well, here the Church doesn&#8217;t have a teaching, so this is a matter that we can speculate on, but we don&#8217;t have a certain answer.
According to a common historical speculation, the reason that God doesn&#8217;t do it is because, or one of the reasons that God doesn&#8217;t do it is because if he did, it wouldn&#8217;t satisfy justice. The people who are in hell are people who have chosen to receive justice rather than mercy, and since their sins were against an infinite God, justice would require that they pay an infinite price. And any finite, any limited time spent suffering is not going to pay a finite price if you&#8217;re a finite human being.
So the only way that a finite human being could fully experience justice, the justice that they had chosen, is if they suffer forever, because that&#8217;s the only way you pay an infinite price if you&#8217;re a finite human being.
So the justice argument is one that has been proposed in the past. There are other speculations, though, too, that don&#8217;t depend on that understanding of justice. For example,
one of the things that it has been pointed out is that existence itself is good, and even if your existence is not perfectly comfortable,
even if you have frustration because you&#8217;ve cut yourself off from the source of all joy, it&#8217;s still better to exist than not exist. And so God is still being generous on this speculation, even to the people in hell, by allowing them to continue to exist. The pains of hell on this view do not outweigh the goods that the people who are in hell are still receiving. Now, that may seem counterintuitive, given the imagery of fire, for example, that&#8217;s associated with hell, because humans find fire extremely painful. But,
you know, that&#8217;s imagery, and we don&#8217;t know what it really corresponds to in the afterlife. So it could very well be that, you know, even though there&#8217;s some frustration and some, you know, pain of an emotional sort or whatever for those in hell in the afterlife, it still doesn&#8217;t counterbalance the good that they&#8217;re receiving, the chance to still exist. And so that could be why God doesn&#8217;t delete them. He&#8217;s actually being merciful by keeping them in existence, despite the fact that they&#8217;ve cut themselves off from him as the source of all goodness. So those are two speculations. Then there&#8217;s the, well, you know, to be honest, we don&#8217;t fully know because God hadn&#8217;t told us everything about this. And so these are possible speculations, but there&#8217;s still an element of mystery here.
And so there remains room for discussion and debate on this subject.
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.

Why Doesn’t God Delete Hell?

Does the Bible Contain Errors?

<div>If we defy religious assent and then the Church’s opinion changes, then is sin variable?</div><div>Our religious assent is to the authority of the Church, not to an opinion as such. Sometimes there are teachings that are not defined—for example, some of the teachings regarding the authorship or forms of certain books of the Bible, that a Christian may accept in obedience to authority while still hoping for a clarification. So what we really do is express our love for the Church when we obey regarding certain opinions; we do not do violence to our minds, which can still see that these opinions might be changed.
As for dogmatic teachings, if any churchman would tell us to reject those in favor of new ones, we would know right away that we do not owe obedience to that. St. Paul says in the epistle to the Galatians that even if an angel should appear and teach a different gospel from that which he taught, we should not submit in that case. In practice, in the history of the Church, those who are faithful Catholics intent on remaining in the communion of the Church have been able to see the difference.
</div>

Is Sin Variable?

<div>What is the process for convalidation?</div><div>A convalidation is when someone has been married civilly, but due to an impediment the marriage was invalid as a sacrament. The impediment must first be removed, and the couple then makes a new exchange of vows to enter into a sacramental marriage.
The usual impediment would be what&#8217;s called lack of canonical form, which is when a Catholic marries outside the Church without permission. In such a situation, a new exchange of vows is performed in the Catholic form in order to make it valid.
The process to have a civil marriage validated in the Church is essentially the same as any other couple getting married in the church:
<ul>
<li>Provide sacramental records</li>
<li>Evidence/testimony of freedom to marry in the church</li>
<li>Copy of civil marriage</li>
<li>Normal pre-marital paperwork</li>
<li>Exchange of vows before Catholic clergy and two witnesses</li>
</ul>
</div>

Convalidation Process?

As a Gen Z Catholic woman, I find it funny when beliefs that secularists labeled “outdated” become increasingly popular in my generation today. One of these beliefs relates to birth control and natural family planning.
Following the release of Humanae Vitae, secularists panned the Church’s view against artificial contraception as “outdated and incomplete.”  With the development of the birth control pill, women were able to more effectively space out the number of children they had or even avoid having children altogether. This newfound agency over their reproductive systems gave women a sense of empowerment: women could go to work full-time or pursue whatever opportunity they wanted without having to leave due to pregnancy or children.
One of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nqbnt">first advertisements</a> for the Pill tapped into this exact sensation: “From the beginning woman has been a vassal to the temporal demands . . . of the cyclic mechanism of her reproductive system. Now to a degree heretofore unknown, she is permitted normalization . . . of cyclic function” (132). Women are depicted as slaves to their reproductive systems, so the promise of regulating reproduction gave women hope that they could be more detached from it and, frankly, more like men.
But this newfound “hope” and “freedom” felt by Catholic women on the Pill was squashed in 1968 by the words of Pope Paul VI: “The Church . . . condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the latter practice may appear to be upright and serious” (<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">Humanae Vitae 16</a>). Critics viewed this teaching as the Church placing restrictions on what a woman could or could not do with her body and derided it as oppressive. After all, the feminists sneer, “what do celibate clergymen know about reproduction and a woman’s body?”
Furthermore, what’s really the big deal with taking the birth control pill? After all, the argument goes, is it really so different from practicing NFP? Both have the same goal in mind but just achieve it in different ways.
Without addressing that question directly (which is done <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/contraceptions-dark-fruits">here</a>), I want to respond that many Gen Z secularists are realizing that the birth control pill really is a big deal. <a href="https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250113/Study-reveals-decline-in-hormonal-contraceptive-use-and-increase-in-fertility-awareness-methods.aspx">One recent study</a> reveals that between 2018 and 2023, there was a decline in the number of women on artificial contraceptives and a nearly sixfold increase in the number of women practicing fertility awareness to avoid conception. With more research revealing an increased risk of <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-us/policy-and-advocacy/treatment-care/medicines-devices/combined-oral-contraceptives-and-cancer-risk">cancer</a>, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/35039562/common-medication-pill-contraception-stroke">stroke</a>, and <a href="https://www.factsaboutfertility.org/oral-contraceptives-and-risk-of-depression-a-review-of-research">depression</a> associated with oral contraceptive usage, it is understandable why more and more women have shied away from artificial contraceptives and have opted for more natural means to avoid pregnancy.
The advocacy for women to track their cycles naturally and practice NFP is also ever-increasing across <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT62HHscK/">social media pages</a>. Since modern technology has given women the ability to more easily track their cycles (such as cycle tracking apps and the new Oura ring), Gen Z women have even greater opportunities to understand and track their fertility compared to women in previous generations.
Ironically, this same ability now is more in tune with “female empowerment” <a href="https://drtanyakelloway.com/blog/empowering-yourself-through-understanding-your-menstrual-cycle">online</a>. Feminists who once received Pope Paul VI’s words as restrictive and oppressive now find this knowledge empowering. It seems a deeper, more holistic understanding of their bodies allows women to be feel more informed and, in turn, contributes to a stronger sense of agency. Instead of having to rely on doctors or medication, women can just rely on their own understanding and knowledge to regulate their pregnancies.
This attraction to real freedom is not surprising, considering that it is God’s desire for us to be most free, and this can be attained only when a holistic understanding of the human person is found. This understanding is not a threat to the Church, nor is it unscientific. In fact, it is through the Church that we understand the extent of the dignity and agency owed to the human person.
This is exactly what Paul VI desired to promote throughout Humanae Vitae. Instead of placing arbitrary restrictions on what a woman can or cannot do (which is how feminists can interpret it), Paul VI outlines what healthy boundaries look like in a flourishing, Christ-centered marriage. One of these boundaries includes preventing the objectification of wives by their husbands, which the usage of artificial contraceptives can reinforce, since “a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman” and thus may “reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection” (<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">Humanae Vitae 17</a>).
Nobody perceives guardrails on balconies as restrictions unjustly placed on tenants, diminishing their freedom. Instead, they’re looked at as reasonable safety measures. This same mindset should be had for boundaries put in place within marriage, which is a sacred institution created by God. Being the “sanctuary of life” and foundation of society, how much more safety and protection should it be given? (<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html">Centesimus Annus 39</a>). The safe is not for replaceable items, but rather for priceless valuables. That is how the Church views the sacrament of holy matrimony.
Although many of these secularists are using NFP for sexual acts outside marriage (read <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/may-my-girlfriend-and-i-be-intimate-with-one-another-before-marriage">here</a> for why that is bad), I still consider it a win that more and more people are aligning with a Catholic appreciation for NFP and fertility tracking. Understanding that the Church’s morality is not outdated or arbitrary is huge in a day and age that views objective morals as nonsensical. Who knows what “outdated” Catholic belief will be trending online next?

How the Outdated Became Empowering

Cy Kellett is joined by apologist Joe Heschmeyer to tackle the intriguing question of reincarnation and its implications for the nature of life and souls.
Transcript:
Caller: Yeah, I&#8217;m not Catholic because I&#8217;m Hindu. And so I&#8217;ve been reading a lot recently. I&#8217;ve gone through the Bible in a year with Father Mike Schmitz. And particularly, I&#8217;m in the ISKCON sect of Hinduism. I wanted to get your guys&#8217; thoughts on reincarnation and what is the Christian or Catholic refutation on reincarnation?
Cy: Well, let&#8217;s do that and then we&#8217;ll come back to you and see what you think of the answer.
Joe: Joe, I&#8217;ve got a couple of questions. ISKCON, this is a group someone called the Hare Krishna, right?
Caller: Yes, that&#8217;s right.
Joe: Okay. The Krishna consciousness is the &#8220;Khan,&#8221; I assume, in ISKCON.
With reincarnation, how do you harmonize that? Well, okay, let me step back even a little further. Within the cycle of reincarnation, I know that includes humans and at least some animals. How low in the kind of evolutionary org chart does that go? Like, does that include single-celled organisms? Is there a chance you would die and come back as like an amoeba?
Caller: Yes. So in our tradition, everything that has life has a soul, basically. And there is a chance that if you die, you can be a clean amoeba.
Joe: It seems like for this to work you would need a fixed number of living things throughout all time. Is that fair to say?
Caller: Right, right.
Joe: But it also seems like we know that the number of living things has grown from zero to a few to a bunch. That&#8217;s true whether you look at human history, the history of animals, or the history of organic life on earth. So how do you harmonize that with a view of reincarnation?
Caller: Yeah, so I mean, I have to say I&#8217;m not particularly a scholar in my faith, but what I do know is that there is this idea that there are always souls that are fallen, and they&#8217;re entering the material world and thus populating the world that we live in.
Joe: Okay. And so they go from like a pre-existent spiritual realm to becoming material. And then is the goal eventually to escape that and reach nirvana in that way?
Caller: Exactly, exactly. And so one thing that we actually are quite similar on, as opposed to like the Buddhists and other people who believe in reincarnation, is that we believe that there is a God above all other gods. I know the purpose of life is to develop a personal relationship, a loving personal relationship with Him and to be reunited with Him in heaven, so to speak.
Joe: And so what words&#8230; I&#8217;m sorry, I didn&#8217;t mean to interrupt you. What would be good evidence you would see for that? Because I assume we don&#8217;t have any conscious experience or memory of having lived some other existence. And a lot of the beings that we&#8217;re even talking about, I don&#8217;t know what it would mean to say that this human used to be an amoeba because an amoeba doesn&#8217;t have any of the elements of a human soul.
And so this thing used to kind of move around and then it died. Okay. There&#8217;s a certain sense we could talk about it having a material form, and we can call that a soul, but we don&#8217;t really mean the same thing by that word as we do when we talk about a human being having a soul with an intellect and will. So what would it mean to even say that you used to be an amoeba or an animal or whatever else?
Caller: Yeah, so it would mean that you are. Because we believe that the soul is less of our qualities as a human and it&#8217;s the spark of life. So like that spark is the soul, and everything else is either your physical, material body or something like your mind, which would be considered part of your subtle body.
Joe: Okay, yeah, yeah, that&#8217;s a good point. I&#8217;d forgotten about the subtle body. That does make for a different metaphysic. Yeah, because it seems like the spark of life thing&#8230; We want to affirm that there is something like that. Like even the word &#8220;anima&#8221; in Latin, which is the word for soul, is like the animating principle.
So if you were to take like two&#8230; Peter Kreeft gives the example of like two identical cows. One of them dies. The difference between them isn&#8217;t at the physical level, at least not right away. They might have the same number of cells, they might have the same identical looking organs, but one of them has this spark of life within it and one doesn&#8217;t.
That there is, in the case of one, an animating principle of the body, and in the case of the other, that animating principle no longer exists. And so the body decomposes. And so that part, I think we would find some common ground.
I think the difficulty is in the case of an animal, and even more so with like a lower life form. These are not subsistent souls. These are not souls that can exist apart from the body. To talk about that spark of life going into another thing would be like saying, well, this one thing I have has an on switch and then it gets destroyed. But this other thing I have also has an on switch.
And I think in some way those on switches are spiritually connected to each other. And it&#8217;s just not clear what that kind of claim would even mean. Because if they&#8217;re not physically one turned into the other, what kind of spiritual quality that&#8217;s bringing in is a little amorphous.
So I think we would just say we don&#8217;t see any evidence that subhuman life forms have immaterial souls and that therefore a cross-species reincarnation would be precluded. For that reason, at the level of reason, the number of living beings, the number of humans, or the number of all species, whatever, would have to be fixed.
And all evidence seems to point to the fact that it&#8217;s instead going up, and we don&#8217;t have any conscious experience, like memory of past lives that would put any weight on the other side of the ledger. Just to support maybe that being the idea that rather everything seems to point to the fact that we didn&#8217;t exist before we were conceived and that when we die there is a certain permanence to death, while at the same time we would believe death doesn&#8217;t have the final word.
There is a finality to death, that the decisions we make in this life are permanent, for better or for worse. So you&#8217;re not going to have a situation where you live a holy life and then die and then have to do it over again. But you&#8217;re also not going to have a situation where you live an unholy life, reject God, die, and then, you know, get another bite at the apple.
So whether that&#8217;s good or bad news, I think depends on the kind of life one leads. But we would argue that, I think, both from reason but also pretty clearly, you know, Scripture teaches it is apportioned unto all men to die once, after which comes the judgment. That there is a clear biblical denial of anything like reincarnation in favor of what&#8217;s called the specific judgment upon death.
Caller: Yeah, yeah, that&#8217;s a good point. And there are a lot of things in my own faith that I have a hard time reconciling, like the things that you mentioned. And in a certain sense, it comes down to something like, what is the definition of a soul? Because even in our faith when we die, we forget everything and then we get put into a new body.
Joe: And so&#8230; But that would be a completely different person or living being.
Caller: Right, right, right. Like what it means to even call that you. If you have no connection bodily or psychically, or, you know, psychologically, you know, like, how is that still you is one of the questions that I&#8217;ve grappled with in trying to understand it.
Joe: Yeah, I had some exposure to ISKCON and the Bhagavad Gita when I was in my teens and early 20s, and I found some good impetus to delve more deeply into these questions. I mean, the Bhagavad Gita is beautiful, but at the same time, I think the message that it has is deterministic in this way that as a Christian, I&#8217;m, as much as I&#8217;ve appreciated kind of what it did for me, if I&#8217;m being honest, I&#8217;m grateful that the Christian message seems to me much more optimistic and hopeful than I get from any of the early Hindu texts.
Caller: Right, right. I guess my last question would be like, in short, what would your definition of the soul be from a Christian point of view?
Joe: So, okay, you&#8217;re asking a philosophy nerd to do a short answer to a question that could go much longer. But at the very broadest level, it&#8217;s the immaterial principle of life for material things. So that&#8217;s for all things. And in the case of a human, because we have a rational soul, it is also the seat of the intellect and the will.
It is that part of us that isn&#8217;t reducible to the body and that part of us that can survive even when the body is destroyed. There are parts of you that are just your&#8230; you know, they&#8217;re so tied up in your body, you can&#8217;t even imagine, like, what does it mean to, you know, stub your toe without a foot? It doesn&#8217;t seem like it means anything.
But there are other things where to remember, to contemplate, to pray for. Those things don&#8217;t appear to be reducible to the body, that we have evidence that there&#8217;s more to ourselves than just our bodies. And the term for that spiritual center is the soul.
Joe: I get the feeling like you&#8217;re very open to kind of exploring the spiritual riches of what the Catholic Church has to offer. And I wonder if&#8230; oh, what, I&#8217;m blanking. What is the book we just came out with?
Cy: The Soul of Apologetics.
Joe: Oh, yeah, send them both. Apologetics.
Cy: Send them both. Of course. The Soul of Apologetics. Okay, we&#8217;ll send you both of those, Arch, if you&#8217;d like them.
Why? We&#8217;re Catholic and the Soul of Apologetics. It&#8217;s actually&#8230; it&#8217;s lovely that you called and talked about your Hindu faith, because I must admit, and it probably has to do with the demographics of the United States, we don&#8217;t get as many calls from Hindus as we would like to get from time to time.
We do, but we&#8217;d love to get more. So, you know, if you&#8217;re Hindu and you didn&#8217;t call today, Arch is just better than you. That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m saying.

I’m Not Catholic Because I’m Hindu…

<div>Who will be the Antichrist?</div><div>One can have the spirit of the Antichrist, and some men, because of the great evil of their actions and because of Scripture’s plural use of the word “antichrist,” have been termed <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/who-or-what-is-the-anti-christ">precursors of the Antichrist, e.g., Nero, Hitler, and Stalin</a>.
We can’t be certain on the identity of the Antichrist, but <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-antichrist-0">Jimmy Akin provides a good overview on the Antichrist</a>, and I also refer you to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-antichrist">our tract</a> on the Antichrist. Finally, my colleague <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-defeat-the-antichrist">Tim Staples provides a good overview on how to defeat the Antichrist</a> and those who act in the spirit of the Antichrist.
</div>

Who Will Be the Antichrist?

Both Catholics and Protestants of the Reformed tradition actually agree on something pretty important: when we’re initially justified, we become a “new creation.” To back this up, both sides regularly point to two passages from St. Paul:
<ul>
<li>2 Corinthians 5:17—“Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”</li>
<li>Galatians 6:15—“For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”</li>
</ul>
So where’s the disagreement? It’s not over whether Paul is talking about being a new creation. Rather, it’s over what that has to do with justification.
Catholics see these passages as evidence for their view that justification is rooted in an interior transformation—what we often call sanctification. Reformed Protestants agree that these texts describe sanctification, but they resist identifying sanctification with justification. On their view, sanctification certainly accompanies justification, but it isn’t what justifies us.
So which reading is right? I’m going to suggest it’s the Catholic one.
Before getting into that, though, let me say this: I don’t fault our Protestant friends for missing the connection between “being a new creation” and justification. After all, the word justification doesn’t appear in either passage. If the connection is there—and I think it is—it takes a bit of unpacking to see it.
Let’s start with 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Paul tells us that the condition for being a new creation is being “in Christ.” That phrase is doing a lot of work here.
In Romans 8:1, Paul explains what it means to be in Christ: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” To be in Christ, then, is to be free from condemnation.
Now, here’s the key move. The state of being justified and the state of being free from condemnation are logically identical. To be justified—to be in a right relationship with God—is precisely to not be subject to condemnation. And the reverse is true as well: if you’re not subject to condemnation, you’re justified.
Romans 6:23 reinforces this point. Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” To possess eternal life is to be justified. And Paul tells us that eternal life comes only in Christ. So once again, being in Christ and being justified are the same reality.
Now take that insight back to 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation.”
Since being in Christ means being justified (as Romans 8:1 and 6:23 indicate), and since being in Christ also means being a new creation, which entails interior righteousness (as Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:17), it follows that Paul is linking justification with becoming interiorly new—interiorly righteous. In other words, to be justified is to be transformed within. Or, said another way, interior righteousness belongs to justification itself.
That’s exactly how Catholics understand justification: as an interior state of righteousness that God brings about in us, not merely a legal declaration made from the outside.
Now let’s turn to Galatians 6:15.
The context makes it clear that Paul is talking about personal salvation—about justification. Just one verse earlier, in Galatians 6:14, Paul says he boasts in “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” because through it, “the world has been crucified to [him], and [he] to the world.” That’s Paul’s vivid way of saying he’s no longer under the dominion of sin. He’s describing his new, justified state.
Immediately after this, Paul contrasts circumcision with “a new creation.” Given what he’s just said about being crucified to the world, it’s reasonable to assume that he’s including himself—and every other Christian who has been crucified to the world—among those who are new creations.
This contrast is crucial. Circumcision was something some were relying on to be justified before God. Paul even spells this out earlier in Galatians 5:4, where he speaks of those who week to be “justified by the law.”
So Paul is setting two models side by side. On the one hand, there’s justification sought through circumcision and the Old Law. On the other hand, there’s being a new creation in Christ. The implication is hard to miss: being interiorly renewed—being a new creation—is the new basis for justification.
In short, our interior righteousness is not just something that is present alongside justification; it belongs what to justification is. It’s that on account that we are justified.
All of this means that Paul’s “new creation” language does support the Catholic understanding of justification—once the relevant texts are carefully unpacked.
And that leads to an important takeaway for Catholics today. Simply pointing to a verse about sanctification isn’t enough to make the case. We have to do the extra work of showing how Paul himself connects sanctification and justification. When we do that, the Catholic reading comes clearly into view.

Catholics and Protestants Agree! Kind Of . . .

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Andrew Wilson criticized me...

<div>How do you explain to someone why a man and woman would get married when one of them is expected to die the same day from cancer?</div><div>The reason is that if the couple have been previously married invalidly, then they can receive the grace of the sacrament before the death of one of them, and that is no small benefit to their souls. Even if they were not previously married at all, the bestowal of the grace of the sacrament is a more than sufficient reason. Of course, this is not an obligation. Sometimes also there can be economic reasons of inheritance and so on that might indicate that they should be legally married to protect the interests of the surviving partner.
</div>

How Do You Explain a Deathbed Wedding?

During the time of the apostles, were the local churches headed by single bishops (as Catholics claim), or by co-governing elders (as many Protestants claim)? Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong has a recent <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2024/02/revelation-2-3-monarchical-bishops-by-95-ad.html">blog post</a> in which he points out some interesting biblical evidence on this question: that the seven “angels” of Revelation 2 and 3 have long been understood, even by Protestant scholars, as referring to the seven bishops of the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
In my book <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-early-church-was-the-catholic-church-softcover/">The Early Church Was the Catholic Church</a>, I make a similar point: reading the “angels” as bishops is the best interpretation of the biblical data. As the Evangelical scholar <a href="https://shorturl.at/pKO26">Colin J. Hemer explains</a>, there are basically five ways of interpreting this passage:
<blockquote>A choice is generally offered between (1) heavenly guardians of the churches, and (2) human representatives of them, generally their bishops. Three other principal variants deserve consideration: (3) that the “angels” are personifications of the churches; (4) that they are literally human “messengers”; and (5) that the term is used in some complex and elusive way or at differing levels, so that we cannot expect to assign it a lexical equivalent that tells the whole story.</blockquote>
Jesus’ warning to these “angels” about their possible imprisonment and apparent spiritual lukewarmness (see Rev. 2:5, 10) suggests that we&#8217;re not to understand these to be literal angels (option 1). They’re also not personifications of the churches (3), since Jesus explicitly says that “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches” (Rev. 1:20). The stars/angels are clearly connected to the lampstands/churches, but they’re not the same thing.
So unless we’re going to give up on interpreting the passage (5), that leaves us with theories (2) and (4): that the “angels” are bishops or else some kind of messengers for the local churches. But they don’t appear to be simply messengers: they’re being praised or rebuked for the state of each of their churches.
What English readers may not realize is that the word for angel in the New Testament is ággelos, which means “messenger.” As <a href="https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/archangels-michael-gabriel-and-raphael/">Pope St. Gregory the Great explained</a>, “the word ‘angel’ denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message.” In other words, when God sends one of the heavenly spirits (like Gabriel) to deliver a message, we call that spirit a “messenger,” or “angel.”
Why does that matter? Because the Septuagint translation of Malachi 2:7 (“the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts”) refers to the priest as an ággelos, angel/messenger. The one delivering the message of God has an angelic mission to the Church. So reading the seven “angels” (or “seven messengers”) as the seven bishops makes the most grammatical and contextual sense.
This is a good reminder that (1) the structure of the Church (in which there’s one bishop per local church) dates to the time of the apostles and (2) we should pray for our bishops, who have been entrusted the task of being messengers of the good news of the Gospel.

When Bishops Are Literal Angels

Are Miscarried Babies in Heaven?

Our real problem is the failure to help Catholics stay Catholic.

Most Catholics have heard of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is referenced dozens of times throughout the Catechism, mentioned in the sermons of bishops and priests quite often, and generally known as the “main character” of Catholic theology even by those outside of the Church. Few, however, know about the theological tradition that the Angelic Doctor belonged to—and which bears significant importance for us today.
As opposed to dogmatic or positive theology, which explains and proves the truths of the Faith from Scripture and Tradition, scholastic theology (or scholasticism) explores the nature of these truths and their place within the Catholic faith. It enables the theologian to synthesize the faith and resolve apparent contradictions. To put it succinctly, the maxim of scholastic theology is “faith seeking understanding.”
The rise of scholasticism was concurrent with—and in many ways caused by—the rise of universities in Christendom. Scholastic theologians, also referred to as schoolmen, often belonged to theological schools that held to and preserved their own theological tradition. Thus, it is not uncommon to hear about disputes between Thomists (followers of St.
Thomas Aquinas) and the Scotists (followers of Bl. John Duns Scotus) on how the sacraments cause grace in the recipient, and, though belonging more to speculation, whether or not God would have become man if Adam had not sinned.
At the center of medieval scholastic theology is Peter Lombard (d. 1160)’s Sententiae or Sentences, a four-book work on theological judgments about the Christian religion. The work systematically covers questions about the one God, his triune nature, creation, man, sin, the Incarnation, redemption, and the last things. It is divided into four books and sectioned by “distinctions.” Shortly after its publication and approval from theologians, a commentary on the Sentences became a requirement for a Master’s degree in theology. Thus, the procedure later theologians followed when inquiring into what different theologians taught on a certain question was to refer to their commentary on the Sentences, each of which was uniformly organized after Lombard’s original work. For example, if I want to know what St. Bonaventure taught about the different aspects of purgatory, I simply go to the locus classicus of purgatory: book four, distinction 21. Every commentary on the Sentences is uniformly structured like this, allowing one to easily compare the teachings of the scholastics by simply referencing the proper book and distinction.
<h2>Should We Reject Scholasticism?</h2>
Many today want to forget and move past this historical period of theology, labeling it irrelevant and outdated. Others reject scholasticism due to its “heavy” reliance on extra-biblical, Aristotelian terms, such as “substance,” “virtual,” and “relation.” But these charges fail to demonstrate any true reason to reject such a powerful and beautiful theological system.
First, several recent popes have commended scholasticism as being integral to Catholic theology. Pope Benedict XVI said:
<blockquote>Still today, in reading the Scholastic summae one is struck by the order, clarity, and logical continuity of the arguments and by the depth of certain insights. With technical  language, a precise meaning is attributed to every word and, between believing and understanding, a reciprocal movement of clarification is established.
Dear brothers and sisters, in echoing the invitation of the First Letter of Peter, Scholastic theology stimulates us to be ever ready to account for the hope that is in us (cf. 3:15), hearing the questions as our own and thus also being capable of giving an answer. It reminds us that a natural friendship exists between faith and reason, founded in the order of Creation itself” (General Audience, October 28, 2009).</blockquote>
Pius XI, in his reformation of Catholic universities, commended the scholastic method as an authentic medium of doing theology in the Church:
<blockquote>Sacred theology is to be handed on with both the positive and the scholastic method; therefore, having explained the truths of faith and proved them from Holy Scripture and Tradition, the nature of those truths and their intimate reason are to be studied and illustrated according to the principles and teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. (<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/la/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xi_apc_19310524_deus-scientiarum-dominus.html#%3A~%3Atext%3DHaec%20autem%20disciplina%20methodo%20cum%20positiva%20tum%20scholastica%20tradenda%20est%3B%20ideo%20veritatibus%20fidei%20expositis%20et%20ex%20sacra%20Scriptura%20et%20Traditione%20demonstratis%2C%20earum%20veritatum%20natura%20et%20intima%20ratio%20ad%20principia%20et%20doctrinam%20S.%20Thomae%20Aquinatis%20investigentur%20et%20illustrentur">Deus scientarum Dominus</a> 29).</blockquote>
In fact, Pope St. Pius X identified the dislike of scholasticism as one of the errors of the modernists.
<blockquote>For scholastic philosophy and theology they have only ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is on the way to modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for this system (Pascendi Dominici Gregis 42).</blockquote>
As for the application of extra-biblical terms, we should keep in mind that the early Church, before scholasticism, also did this in its defense of trinitarian orthodoxy, with terms like “consubstantial” and “person.”
<h2>Why Read the Scholastics?</h2>
Scholasticism is not even primarily about niche theological questions, like whether the fire of purgatory is material or not. In exploring the nature of the mysteries in our faith, the mind, already believing in these, begins to understand their interconnectedness, opening the path for deeper meditation and contemplation before the Lord.
Scholastic theology also helps us synthesize Catholic doctrines. Some that seem to contradict at first, such as the belief that baptism is necessary for salvation and that a baptism of desire can substitute the absence of the sacrament, are easily resolved when we understand that baptism is necessary per accidens but sanctifying grace is necessary per se; the former may be substituted but is the ordinary means to an end, and the latter, being absolutely necessary, cannot be substituted, which is supplied by repentance, faith, and the desire for baptism. When asked how baptism can save us while upholding that we are saved by Christ alone, we may reply that baptism is the instrumental cause of our justification, whereas Christ’s passion is the meritorious cause: Christ achieved our salvation on the cross but applies it through the sacraments.
<h2>Where to Start?</h2>
Aquinas’s works, most of which have an English translation, are available for free at <a href="http://aquinas.cc/">aquinas.cc</a>. There is his famous Summa Theologiae, in which he treats the Christian faith systematically, which he never finished.
In his exposition on the Ave Maria, he comments on St. Gabriel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary, reflecting the contemplative mind of the medieval Church regarding the Mother of God. His commentaries on the Pauline epistles are especially illuminating for understanding Catholic teaching on grace, which Aquinas claims is the subject of Paul’s “entire teaching.” Aquinas synthesizes all of Paul’s letters by showing how the Apostle presents the grace of Christ as diffused throughout the body of Christ: from our head to the pastors and the faithful of the Church—both considered in itself and in its operation through the sacraments.
Some prominent contemporaries of Aquinas, like his teacher, St. Albert the Great, have also written wonderful works, such as <a href="https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=Medieval-EN/XCT.011.html%3Bchunk.id%3D00000007">On Cleaving to God</a>. One may also read <a href="https://www.franciscan-archive.org/scotus/">Scotus</a> or St. Anselm’s <a href="https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=Medieval-EN/XCT.005.html%3Bsurl%3DaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjYXRob2xpY2xpYnJhcnkub3JnJTJGbGlicmFyeSUyRmJyb3dzZSUyRmNlbnR1cnklMkYxMDAw%3Bchunk.id%3D00000007">Why God Became Man</a>.
Later Thomists, like Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., have amazingly edifying works like <a href="https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=Contemporary-EN/XCT.145.html%3Bsurl%3DaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjYXRob2xpY2xpYnJhcnkub3JnJTJGbGlicmFyeSUyRmJyb3dzZSUyRmNlbnR1cnklMkYxODAw%3Bchunk.id%3D00000005">On</a> <a href="https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=Contemporary-EN/XCT.145.html%3Bsurl%3DaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjYXRob2xpY2xpYnJhcnkub3JnJTJGbGlicmFyeSUyRmJyb3dzZSUyRmNlbnR1cnklMkYxODAw%3Bchunk.id%3D00000005">Providence and Trust in God</a>, along with <a href="https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=Contemporary-EN/XCT.144.html%3Bsurl%3DaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjYXRob2xpY2xpYnJhcnkub3JnJTJGbGlicmFyeSUyRmJyb3dzZSUyRmNlbnR1cnklMkYxODAw%3Bchunk.id%3D00000005">his commentary</a> on Aquinas’s treatment on grace.
In fact, some of the best defenses of the Catholic Faith were written by scholastics. One interested in defending the Faith against Islam or Eastern Orthodoxy may read St. Thomas’s De Rationibus Fidei (“Reasons for the Faith”), in which he explains and defends uniquely Catholic doctrines against these groups. Bellarmine has several volumes in his work Controversies where he defends the Catholic faith against the Protestant Reformers and their successors. Cardinal Franzelin, S.J.’s On Divine Tradition offers a fantastic explanation of the Catholic view of Sacred Tradition, occasionally responding to Protestant objections. The Sacrae Theologiae Summa is a great theological manual that covers all aspects of Catholic theology written by theologians who attended and influenced the Second Vatican Council. All of these have English translations and many be published online for free under public domain. Dozens of important theologians could be listed for each century, but when one becomes acquainted with just a few, he quickly becomes introduced to their contemporaries and grows in understanding of the scholastic tradition all the more.
In sum, scholasticism is not dead. It remains alive within the ecclesial tradition, practiced by those in the theological schools and commended by the Magisterium as most helpful.

The Way a Catholic Should Think

One hundred years ago, on July 21, a Tennessee jury convicted John Scopes of violating a state law banning the teaching of evolution. That case—especially as memorialized in the play and movie “Inherit the Wind”—is taken as a symbol of religiously fundamentalist ignorance allayed by “science.”
A century after Scopes, what lessons should Catholics draw?
Religion and science are not opposed. The Scopes trial helped cement a caricature of religion as opposed to “science,” a bastion of obscurantism. That may have been true of the biblical literalists in Dayton, Tennessee—but not of the Catholic Church.
It’s not just that the Church founded universities and hospitals—two places where science is rather active. It’s that Catholicism birthed science. In order to have a “scientific method,” you have to believe that
<ol>
<li>the universe functions according to certain laws, which make it</li>
<li>intelligible and</li>
<li>repetitious—i.e., under similar conditions, similar things happen.</li>
</ol>
Without those presuppositions, you can have no science. That’s why you should pick up books by Fr. Stanley Jaki (Science and Creation, The Road of Science and the Ways of God, The Savior of Science) and read about Catholicism’s hand in science as we know it.
Allied to this was the Church’s rejection of the so-called “double truth” theory—i.e., something could be true for science but false for religion (or vice versa). That might work for Protestantism, with its <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-protestant-roots-of-the-pronoun-wars">nominalist roots</a> (right and wrong are what they are because God said so, not because they are inherently good or evil), where everything’s a label. But if there’s one God, he doesn’t teach X here and lie over there. If there’s a supposed contradiction, it’s a challenge to dig deeper to find the underlining unity (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 159).
The Bible teaches that God created, not how he did it. Genesis is a theological text. It makes theological points. It is not the textbook for Biology 101.
The idea that God created establishes certain basic theological truths that are beyond science’s capacity to refute. Among the truths we hold is that the world is personal and designed and that God remains active in it.
Catholicism does not regard creation as some impersonal and maybe even accidentally serendipitous confluence of events that just so happened to produce the relatively orderly cosmos we know and love. Science may propose a Big Bang, but it cannot—one way or another—say anything about the one who made the Big Bang. Creation didn’t just happen—it happened out of love.
Those who grew up in the Anglophone thought world are perennially at risk of some form of deism—i.e., the idea of splitting the loaf by saying, “Yes, God created, but then—on the seventh day (or sometime thereafter) just disappeared.” Deists usually portray God as a clockmaker. He made the clock, wound it up (so well that it never needs subsequent rewinding or adjusting the time), and left to let it run by itself.
What’s wrong with this picture? Four things:
<ol>
<li>The world is not self-sustaining. Catholic teaching on creation is that God created and continually sustains Without God’s sustainment, everything would fall back into nothing, because nothing is self-caused, is self-sufficient, or can give itself life. So God is not out of the picture.</li>
<li>God created man to be his “co-creator,” to have dominion in his image over the world (Gen. 1:26-28). I like to say God made the world like IKEA: assembly required. God didn’t build houses. He gave man a brain and trees: figure it out! Responsible co-creation—fiduciary care of our common home—is man’s duty.</li>
<li>When parents let their child venture out independently, they usually don’t do it as “sink or swim.” While preserving a degree of autonomy, they also remain in the background to step in as needed. The same can be said—against the deists who denied the possibility of divine intervention—regarding God. Christianity is a faith that recognizes that God was and is active in history. That’s called <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/do-you-believe-in-providence">Providence</a>. His is not the Real Absence.</li>
<li>Man’s co-creatorship in God’s image and likeness makes a value judgment about man that pure biology cannot (and which I suspect haunted the background of the Scopes trial): the uniqueness of man. Man is part of the created world, but not just a part. He is part of the “circle of life,” but not just one species among many. Whether that “flattening” of human distinctiveness is a function of caricatures about evolution (man as overgrown monkey) or now about <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/baptize-the-environmentalist">environmentalism</a> (man is an ecologically hazardous species), the result is the same: in the name of “science” (which trespasses beyond its domain), man is treated as just another living thing.</li>
</ol>
Those who thought they were doing “God’s work” in prosecuting John Scopes may have wrongly believed that we have to read Genesis literally. The trial’s consequence has been to disparage the whole idea of creation, including ideas that “science” itself is incompetent to address. Those ideas include the distinctive nature and value of man and the supposed “closedness” of creation to ongoing divine intervention. I suspect that no small number of Catholics take a schizophrenic approach here, imagining God having an active role in history maybe up until the Acts of the Apostles (or more nebulous “ages of faith”) but certainly not being so gauche in our own “scientific” times. But the Catholic truth is that man is distinctive—even if he has one foot in a material world and developed according to steps—and Providence is real.
With the anniversary of the Scopes trial this week, let’s adopt a more nuanced approach to the issues it raised.
Want to read more? Two suggestions: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 282-301, and a short book by Joseph Ratzinger, <a href="https://ignatius.com/the-divine-project-dvpp/?searchid=2595375&amp;search_query=divine+project">The Divine Project</a>.

IKEA and the Monkey Trial

<div>Can artificial means of maintaining life be terminated if there is no sign of brain activity?</div><div>If there is absolutely no brain activity, then life supports can be removed, but often what is called &#8220;brain dead&#8221; in popular language is actually not. One must be insistent and know whether all activity whatsoever has ceased or just some principal functions of the brain. This is an important point, since sometimes there is pressure to remove supports for extraneous reasons, such as the harvesting of organs for donation.
</div>

OK to Pull the Plug If No Brain Activity?

Overcoming the Struggle with Impurity

Genesis 6 contains a mysterious passage about the “sons of God” marrying “the daughters of men” and giving rise to a group of giants known as the Nephilim.
In <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/rebellious-angels-and-the-great-flood">my previous post</a>, we saw that evidence both before and after Genesis points to the sons of God being fallen angels, which was the original interpretation of the passage in all of the existing Jewish and Christian literature.
This raises questions about what we should make of this passage, but before we turn to that, is there any way we could get confirmation of this interpretation?
One thing that Christians should take seriously would be a passage in the New Testament that confirms this interpretation, and we have such a passage.
The book of Jude warns its readers against false teachers in Christian communities, and Jude warns about how God has sent judgment on wrongdoers before. In verses 6 and 7, he writes:
<blockquote>And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.</blockquote>
This passage refers to a group of angels who “did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling” in heaven.
That could be any group of fallen angels except for the next part of the verse, which says that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities “likewise indulged in sexual immorality.”
If these earthly cities “likewise” did something, that means somebody else did it first. In context, the individuals being referred to are “the angels who . . . left their proper dwelling.”
Only the Greek text is even clearer than this translation would suggest, because the word rendered “likewise” is a four-word phrase in Greek that would be literally translated “in the same manner as these.”
The plural “these” points back to the previous plural noun “angels.” This is obvious when you read it in Greek, because it cannot refer to “Sodom” (a singular neuter noun), “Gomorrah” (a singular feminine noun), or “cities” (a plural feminine noun). The word for “these” is a plural masculine noun, so it points to a plural masculine antecedent, and the only noun that will serve is the plural masculine noun “angels.”
This makes it clear that Jude is saying that both the angels who left their dwelling in heaven and Sodom and the surrounding cities “indulged in sexual immorality.” The angels did so first, and then “in the same manner as these [angels],” Sodom and the cities of the plain did so as well.
Jude’s statement about the angels is thus an unmistakable reference to the event in Genesis 6, which is the only biblical passage he could be referring to.
There’s also a further aspect, which also is not obvious in this translation. In addition to saying that these two groups indulged in sexual immorality, it also says they pursued “unnatural desire,” but that’s not what it literally says in Greek.
The phrase used in Greek for what they pursued is sarkos heteras, which would mean “other flesh” or “different flesh.”
This points to something interesting. The men of Sodom are famous for attempting the homosexual rape of the two angels, who appeared to be men, and there are multiple passages in the Bible that condemn homosexuality. But this doesn’t seem to be the aspect of the act that Jude is thinking of.
If he were highlighting the homosexual aspect of what the Sodomites did, he would have expressed himself differently, because the apparently male flesh of the two angels would not be different (Greek, heteras) from that of the male Sodomites. Instead, it would be the same (Greek, homos).
What was different was not the sex of the flesh, but the species to which it belonged. Commenting on Jude 7, Richard Bauckham states,
<blockquote>Sarkos heteras, “strange flesh,” cannot, as many commentators and most translations assume, refer to homosexual practice, in which the flesh is not “different” (heteras); it must mean the flesh of angels. The sin of the Sodomites (not, strictly, of the other towns) reached its zenith in this most extravagant of sexual aberrations, which would have transgressed the order of creation as shockingly as the fallen angels did.</blockquote>
The fallen angels and the Sodomites, knowingly or unknowingly, thus were engaged in attempts to break the natural order by having sex with another species of God’s creatures.
Even if one disagrees on this point, the fact remains that Jude has an unmistakable reference to the events of Genesis 6 as involving “angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling” and “indulged in sexual immorality.”
We thus have New Testament confirmation of the angelic interpretation of the sons of God in Genesis. But how could this be? How can we make sense of this passage?
That’s what we’ll turn to in our final post in this series.
Posts in series: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-the-nephilim-biblical-aliens">one</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/7-mysteries-about-the-nephilim">two</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-angels-mate-with-human-women">three</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/rebellious-angels-and-the-great-flood">four</a>.

Angels Go Rogue

<div>What is or are some scholarly resources for why we accept the Apocrypha as inspired? </div><div>Here is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-deuterocanonicals">a good summary</a> of arguments defending the inspiration and canonical status of the so-called Apocrypha, called by Catholics the &#8220;deuterocanonical books.&#8221;
Ultimately, the inspired status of the books of Scripture is verified by the teaching Church, and this is why Catholics and Orthodox maintain that these books are inspired.
</div>

Why Accept the Apocrypha as Inspired?

<div>Can you tell me about consecration to St. Joseph?</div><div>In short, consecrating oneself to St. Joseph is an act of entrustment to his fatherly care, protection, and guidance. In the same way that St. Joseph was Jesus’ guardian, the Church calls us to put ourselves under his faithful care and patronage. 
Redemptoris Custos:
<blockquote>
Leo XIII explained “Joseph was in his day the lawful and natural guardian, head and defender of the Holy Family&#8230;. It is thus fitting and most worthy of Joseph&#8217;s dignity that, in the same way that he once kept unceasing holy watch over the family of Nazareth, so now does he protect and defend with his heavenly patronage the Church of Christ&#8221;(44).
</blockquote>
What are the reasons for such great confidence? Leo XIII explained it in this way:
<blockquote>
Recalling that God wished to entrust the beginnings of our redemption to the faithful care of St. Joseph, she asks God to grant that she may faithfully cooperate in the work of salvation; that she may receive the same faithfulness and purity of heart that inspired Joseph in serving the Incarnate World; and that she may walk before God in the ways of holiness and justice, following Joseph&#8217;s example and through his intercession (48).
Even today we have many reasons to pray in a similar way: &#8220;Most beloved father, dispel the evil of falsehood and sin . . . graciously assist us from heaven in our struggle with the powers of darkness . . . and just as once you saved the Child Jesus from mortal danger, so now defend God&#8217;s holy Church from the snares of her enemies (49).
</blockquote>
Today we still have good reason to commend everyone to St. Joseph.
</div>

Consecration to St. Joseph

Calvinists teach that man is powerless to resist God’s grace; hence, there is no truly free will.
The Catholic and biblical position, though, holds that we must “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”—meaning we must do something—“for it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13)—meaning God’s grace must precede and accompany every meritorious action that brings about our salvation.
The Catholic teaching emphasizes both God’s grace and man’s cooperation. But there is no room in Calvinist teaching for St. Paul’s inspired notion of man as “co-laborer” with God (1 Cor. 3:9). In Calvin’s words,
<blockquote>if [by free will] is meant that after we are once subdued by the power of the Lord to the obedience of righteousness, we proceed voluntarily, and are inclined to follow the movement of grace, I have nothing to object. . . . If, again, it is meant that man is able of himself to be a fellow-laborer with the grace of God, I hold it to be a most pestilent delusion (Institutes, Bk. 2, Ch. 3, Para. 11).</blockquote>
Catholics agree that man cannot “of himself” merit anything from God—meaning, apart from God’s empowering grace. But Calvin’s meaning is very different. For him, “subdued by the power of the Lord” means that man cannot resist the movement of God’s grace.
If God wills for you to go to heaven, he will give you grace to that end, and you will be irresistibly moved to act in accord with it. If God wills for you to go to hell, then you will not be given grace, and you will be moved to sin by God’s eternal decree.
Before we proceed, two notes. First, many Calvinists will claim, as the Westminster Confession does, that they believe in “free will.” But “free will” for the Calvinist means acting in accord with irresistible grace that he cannot do anything but accept. The term voluntary, which Calvin used in the passage above, becomes meaningless. According to Calvin, when God extends his “special grace” of salvation and mercy, he “does not suffer a refusal” (para. 6). Yet man is “free”? This would be like Vito Corleone, in The Godfather, making “an offer you can’t refuse” and then claiming that the offer was “freely” accepted.
Second, honest Calvinists acknowledge the contradiction here. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who at the time held the highest elected staff position in the Presbyterian Church (USA), <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL673338M/What_unites_Presbyterians">wrote</a>,
<blockquote>If a sovereign God decides to elect persons to eternal life, that is a decision for all time and eternity. . . . Presbyterians have endorsed this conviction, but with Calvin, we have always had trouble with it for two reasons.
First, if God predestines every person, and not all are called, elected, or predestined for salvation, then God has predestined (the Westminster Confession says “fore-ordained”) some persons to hell or eternal damnation. Second, if God has determined the ultimate fate of all persons, then the individual has no power to make any important decisions.
Presbyterians have learned to believe, also, in free will, realizing that these two doctrines are logically impossible to hold at the same time, but that each is true, as taught in the Westminster Confession. . . . Those persons who can with a clear conscience accept what they are taught, regardless of apparent inconsistencies, are in some ways better off than those who think (17).</blockquote>
Notice the almost cult-like acceptance of this logical contradiction. The Catholic and biblical faith never asks anyone to check his intellect at the door. Although we recognize that certain truths of our faith are supra-rational, there is nothing in our faith that is irrational. 
I have to agree with Kirkpatrick that a thinking man will have trouble with this Calvinist notion of double predestination. In fact, I would say that a thinking man is not going to remain Calvinist unless he can learn to believe what he knows to be irrational. And that is not faith; that is closer to superstition.
The grace of God is resistible, according to Paul:
<blockquote>You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love. You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Gal. 5:4-7).</blockquote>
Paul warns these Galatian Christians not to be seduced by “Judaizers” who were telling them belief in Christ is great, but they must also return to the Old Covenant temple, sacrifices, law, circumcision, etc. in order to be saved. He warns that if they do this, they forfeit Christ; they “fall from grace.” To “fall from grace” means they resist God’s grace.
The inspired author of Hebrews also teaches that we can “fall from grace”:
<blockquote>Strive for peace with all men, and for that holiness without which no man will see God. Take heed lest anyone be wanting in the grace of God [Gr.—usteron apo tes karitos tou theou—“falling from the grace of God”]; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by it the many be defiled; let there not be any immoral or profane person, such as Esau, who for one meal sold his birthright (Heb. 12:14-16, Confraternity Bible).</blockquote>
The Greek verb ustereo, translated above as “wanting,” means “to fall short of, lack, or want.” Because the preposition apo, or “from,” is used immediately after the verb, a literal translation would be “falling short of from the grace of God.” I translate it as “falling from the grace of God.”
Similarly to Galatians, Hebrews warns Christians not to “sell their birthright” as sons of God and forfeit the glory of heaven that is their inheritance as Christians. Indeed, we truly are sons of God, and if sons, “then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). The context of Hebrews emphasizes the truth that Christians can, in fact, “fall from grace” and lose their heavenly inheritance.
St. Stephen chimes in specifically when it comes to resisting the grace of God. He almost seems to have Calvin in mind 1,500 years before Calvin when he speaks to his “brethren and fathers” (Acts 7:2) among the sons and daughters of Abraham:
<blockquote>You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you (v. 51).</blockquote>
The Holy Spirit calls us by grace; thus, to “resist the Holy Spirit” is to resist God’s grace.
And finally, the words of our Lord himself are most clear:
<blockquote>O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, you house is forsaken and desolate! (Matt. 23:37-38).</blockquote>
Jesus here speaks as God and informs us that he is ever calling to his people by his grace to come to him, as a hen calls to her chicks. But he is equally clear that he respects the freedom he has gifted us. It is their choice whether they will resist his call—resist his grace—or cooperate with it unto salvation (Gal. 6:7-9, Rom, 5:1-2, 2 Cor. 6:1-2).

John Calvin, the False Optimist

<div>Does doubting make God angry?</div><div>This depends on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-difference-between-obstinate-doubt-and-ordinary-doubt">what you mean by &#8220;doubting.&#8221;</a> Sometimes we use this word simply to indicate that we find it difficult to understand a particular truth or see how it could be true at all. St. Cardinal John Henry Newman said, &#8220;A thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.&#8221; So it is reasonable to examine the Faith and to try to resolve the problems our mind has with its teaching.
The same goes with the sometimes extremely troubling events of life that we have a hard time reconciling with what we understand to be God&#8217;s will, or plan, or goodness. A sinful doubt would be to refuse the testimony of God&#8217;s word in preference for our own or someone else&#8217;s reasoning, like the serpent&#8217;s persuading of Eve in Eden, so she followed his words instead of the divine command.
This, of course, leads to some punishment for our sin of doubting—for example, confusion, further errors we ourselves commit because we have cut ourselves off from the light of God&#8217;s word (this is perhaps the most common punishment), frustration in our activities, and so on. These punishments for doubting God&#8217;s word are experienced as though God were angry at us. Of course, God cannot be really angry in the human sense, but his corrections and punishments in order to establish justice and to further instruct us are described in Sacred Scripture as effects of God&#8217;s anger because <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-god-have-emotions">that is how we experience them</a>.
Let us put all our faith and trust in God, so that as difficult as things may seem to us, we always cling to him. As Holy Job said, &#8220;Even though he kill me, still will I praise him!&#8221; And yet Job had difficulties that he openly expressed to God about the trials he was made to undergo.
</div>

Does Doubting Make God Angry?

What is purgatory?

Tim Staples clarifies the meaning of the term scapegoat to explain why Scripture does not describe Jesus as such.

Was Jesus a Scapegoat?

Media depictions sell the &#8220;Rapture&#8221; as a Christian doctrine. But the event generally understood as the Rapture is not Christian doctrine at all. Karlo Broussard, the author of Purgatory Is for Real, decodes the truth about the end times.

The Rapture Code

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

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What would you do?

Sometimes I feel as though I’m the last to know things. Maybe you feel the same. I’m coming from the perspective of a husband and father, as a boss in my day job, but also as a lay Catholic who wants to share the truth of our Faith with the world. Information and skills with using that information are vastly important to all of these activities and states of life.
It’s easy to be impatient or frustrated in “I didn’t know” or “not knowing before I should” moments, because let’s face it: the stakes are high. A child wants to know why it’s immoral to do this or that when everyone at school is allowed, and the parent struggles to explain why outside “because I said so.” Or, at a New Year’s party, religion comes up, and someone who knows you are Catholic asks why you don’t just confess your sins to God, and you fumble to come up with a practical explanation rooted in biblical truth. There goes a chance to put the issue to rest and vindicate the Catholic Faith.
We’re all familiar with this. I’ve had my own moments of frustration, when I don’t know what I’m supposed to. But something happened in 2015 that began to straighten things out. The details don’t matter here, except that it ended with a friend saying something profound: “Knowing you don’t know something is still knowing.”
This statement carries profound truth, particularly for those who walk the path of faith. As Catholics, we are invited to embrace the mystery of God and to approach the unknown with both humility and trust. Our faith deals with incredible concepts like revelation, mysteries, miracles, and divisions of authority. Whether we were raised in the Catholic faith or came home through a conversion, even with a lifetime of study, the task of pulling these concepts together is requires a most humble rigor: recognizing the limits of our knowledge. It is not a weakness at all, but a strength—a doorway to deeper wisdom, faith, and understanding.
The Bible reminds us repeatedly of the value of humility in the pursuit of knowledge. In the Book of Proverbs, we are told, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (9:10). This verse underscores that true wisdom begins not in certainty, but in reverence and an acknowledgment of our dependence on God. And God, let’s face it, didn’t back the FedEx truck up to the Garden of Eden with instructions and diagrams of everything we want to know. To “fear the Lord” is to recognize our finite understanding in the face of God’s infinite wisdom.
Job’s response to God is a profound example of what I call “holy ignorance.” After chapters of questioning and wrestling with his suffering, Job ultimately declares, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:3). Job’s humility in acknowledging his limited understanding leads to a deeper relationship with God. His story is a powerful reminder that it is not our answers that bring us closer to God, but our willingness to surrender to His mysteries.
The saints, too, have much to teach us about intellectual humility. St. Augustine, one of the Church’s greatest theologians, famously wrote, “If you think you understand God, it would not be God” (Sermon 117). Augustine’s insight challenges us to embrace the mystery of God rather than confining him to the limits of human reason. His own journey of faith—from skeptic to believer—was marked by a growing awareness of his dependence on God’s grace and wisdom.
St. Thomas Aquinas, often regarded as the pinnacle of Catholic intellectual thought, experienced a moment of profound humility near the end of his life. After having written volumes of theological works, he had a mystical experience that left him declaring, “All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.” This confession did not diminish his contributions, but rather highlighted his awareness that even the greatest human intellect pales in comparison to the fullness of divine truth. St. Teresa of Avila offers yet another perspective, reminding us of the importance of recognizing our limitations. “The real truth,” she said, “is humility.”
The Catholic Church has always encouraged intellectual humility as a cornerstone of faith. Pope St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, emphasized that faith and reason are complementary, but human reason must always remain open to the transcendent. He wrote, “Faith liberates reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher” (76). Meaning all human people, John Paul II was communicating that by acknowledging what we cannot know, we create space for the mystery of God to fill our hearts and minds.
As we settled in to pray the rosary as a family recently, my son, who is eight years old, asked, “What’s a mystery?” I had to think on my feet to get this mighty concept down to a third-grade level. I said something like, “These are things we understand on a basic level, but make us ask questions we cannot have the answer to—and by doing this, they build our faith through trust in God. Like the wedding at Cana—we know that Jesus performed a miracle, but it’s more than that. It was the start of his public ministry. He obeyed the request of his mother, and the whole situation made for an analogy about new wine coming last. On the basic level, we see the story of a miracle, but really there is a lot more we don’t know that informs us about who Jesus is, which deepens our need act in faith, not according to mere narratives.”
Okay, maybe I overexplained, but Dominic said he understood, so I’ll take it as a win.
How can we, as Catholics, cultivate this intellectual humility in our daily lives, especially as we get older? First, we can embrace the mysteries of our faith rather than seeking to explain them away. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Trinity, and the Incarnation all transcend human understanding. By approaching these truths with reverence rather than skepticism, we open ourselves to deeper faith.
Then we can practice humility in our conversations, whether friendly or adversarial. St. James reminds us, “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (1:19). Recognizing that we do not have all the answers allows us to listen more attentively to others and to learn from their perspectives.
Always, we must turn to prayer. In moments of uncertainty, we can echo the prayer of the father in the Gospel of Mark: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24). This simple plea acknowledges both faith and doubt, and it invites God to lead us into deeper trust.
“Knowing you don’t know something is still knowing” is more than a clever aphorism; it is a spiritual truth with deep roots in Scripture, tradition, and the lives of the saints. As Catholics, we are called to walk in humility, recognizing our limitations while trusting in the infinite wisdom of God. This intellectual humility is not a surrender, but an invitation to grow in wonder, faith, and love.
In a world that often prizes certainty and control, the Catholic perspective reminds us that true wisdom lies in surrendering to the mystery. As St. Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12). Until that day, may we embrace the beauty of not knowing, trusting that God’s truth will always surpass our understanding. Whether we are defending the Faith, teaching it to our littles, or searching for the bits of knowledge that help us retain and appreciate the divine mysteries, we must always apprehend the strength of humility over all other forms of knowledge.

When You Just Don’t Know

Lent is no Catholic Ramadan, and we as Catholics should be boldly honest about it. Although both seasons include fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, the two seasons arise from different visions of God and different understandings of salvation. Therefore, treating them as parallel religious expressions confuses what each one claims about the human condition and about the nature of the relationship man has with God.
First, Lent is rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Church enters forty days of prayer and fasting because Christ himself fasted in the wilderness. The Gospel tells us, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights” (Matt. 4:1-2). Accordingly, Catholic fasting participates in his obedience. The season prepares believers to celebrate the cross and the Resurrection, where redemption was accomplished. St. Paul writes, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Therefore, Lent overflows from within a covenant already established through the grace of Christ’s finished work.
By contrast, Ramadan is an obligatory pillar of work within Islam. It marks a month of daytime fasting, intensified prayer, and communal devotion. Many Muslims understand the month as a time of seeking forgiveness and increased reward. A well-known hadith states, “Whoever stands in prayer during Ramadan out of faith and seeking reward, his previous sins will be forgiven” (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī). That line reveals a central feature of Ramadan’s spiritual logic. Forgiveness in Islam appears closely tied to faithful observance and pietistic work during a prescribed period, especially Ramadan.
The Christian faith thinks vastly differently about forgiveness. Scripture declares, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). Moreover, salvation for the Christian rests upon grace rather than accumulated merit. “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Consequently, Lent is not a spiritual transaction designed to secure divine favor. Instead, it calls believers to deeper repentance within a covenant relationship already initiated by God.
Furthermore, Christianity diagnoses the human problem as a wounded nature in need of healing and transformation. The prophet Ezekiel records the Lord’s promise: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezek. 36:26). Jesus teaches that sin flows from within, from the heart of man (Mark 7:21). Therefore, Christian conversion aims at interior renewal through the grace of divine life. In that reality, fasting serves that interior renewal by disciplining our base desires and turning our hearts toward God.
In Islam’s theological traditions, the central doctrinal issue is the slave’s insufficient submission to divine command and law. Consequently, the remedy is more stringent compliance with concrete revealed law. Nabeel Qureshi, the late Christian convert from Islam, wrote in No God but One, “Islam diagnoses the world with ignorance and offers the remedy of sharia, a law to follow. Christianity diagnoses the world with brokenness and offers the remedy of God himself, a relationship with him that leads to heart transformation.” Hence, in Islam, the believer demonstrates obedience through highly structured practices, including the fast of Ramadan. That framework shapes an entirely different spiritual posture. The worshiper seeks to fulfill what God has commanded in order to transactionally receive mercy and reward.
Christianity, conversely, has always taught a covenantal and filial vision. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). That address changes the spiritual atmosphere and approach. The child approaches God as Father through the Son. St. John proclaims, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). Therefore, all Christian Lenten practices arise from a spiritual adoption into God’s covenant family. The baptized fast and pray as sons and daughters seeking deeper communion and intimacy with the heart of their Father.
Moreover, Lent stands within a very specific historical drama. It leads toward Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The Church contemplates and relives Christ’s paschal mystery in suffering and victory. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ was “tested as we are, yet without sinning” (Heb. 4:15). Consequently, believers lovingly unite all their small sacrifices with his perfect obedience. Salvation in the Christian framework rests entirely upon his conquest of sin and death on the cross and the faithful’s subsequent participation in that sacrifice. The Christian fast therefore expresses a sense of both gratitude and repentance in response to that magnificent victory.
Ramadan, by contrast, commemorates the revelation of the Quran and reinforces communal, slavish, voluntaristic submission to Allah’s will. It does not culminate in the celebration of a redemptive event in which God enters history through incarnation and sacrificial death in benevolent love. Christianity proclaims that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Lent draws its meaning from that astonishing claim—a claim that, I’ve personally witnessed, simply outrages and scandalizes the Muslim. The Son of God took on human nature, bore human sin, and rose in triumph to save mankind from sin and death. Therefore, Lenten fasting participates in a mystery of complete divine self-giving; it is ordered in love precisely because of divine love.
The difference extends also to divine assurance. In Christian teaching, believers rest entirely on Christ’s finished work. Jesus cries from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). That declaration signals completion of the great work of man’s atonement back to God. Through repentance and faith, the sinner receives forgiveness grounded in Christ’s sacrifice. In Ramadan, earned forgiveness is directly linked to stringent observance within the sacred month. The spiritual logic of each of these traditions greatly shapes the believer’s interior life in distinct and disparate ways.
At the same time, Catholics can honestly recognize a sincere sense of devotion among Muslims during Ramadan. Regardless of one’s creed, physical hunger sharpens a person’s spiritual awareness. Extended prayer tends to build a desire for closeness to God. Jesus teaches, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6). That longing for righteousness reveals something about God’s plan for the human person, even if someone doesn’t have faith in Christ. Therefore, Catholics should pray that these longings among the Muslims this month lead to conversion to the fullness of truth in Christ.
Charity, however, always necessitates truth, or it ceases to be charity. The gospel proclaims that “there is salvation in no one else” and that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The season of Lent compels us to renew that proclamation with conviction, boldness, and joy. It invites all of us as believers to repentance, confession, and renewed fidelity to the covenant way of life. Paul urges, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Lent embodies that urgency of the Gospel message.
Therefore, calling Lent a Catholic version of Ramadan simply ignores profound theological differences. The two seasons share outward similarities, yet their core foundations significantly diverge. One is based on a covenant sealed by Christ’s blood. The other is based within a framework of prescribed slavish submission seeking reward from a divine master. Consequently, their spiritual direction and meaning differ at the deepest level.
Even so, the overlap of the two seasons can serve as an opportunity for real witness. Catholics can live Lent with humility, sincerity, and joy. They can fast discreetly, give generously, and pray fervently. Jesus teaches, “When you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites” (Matt. 6:16). Instead, the Christian fast flows from love of the Father who sees in secret. Through such witness, neighbors may glimpse the difference between fasting for performance and participation in the life of grace. This should also, thereby, be an opportunity to pray for and work toward the conversion of Muslims to the lordship of Jesus Christ and life in his covenantal family.
Finally, Catholic hope is secure, because every human heart longs for mercy and communion with God. Lent directs that longing toward the crucified and risen Lord. As we believers walk through the forty days, we are called to remember that Christ has already secured our redemption. Therefore, Lent is a season of repentance within hope, sorrow within Christ’s promise, and fasting in divine joy that anticipates the resurrection of Easter morning. In that light, Lent remains uniquely Christian, beneath the shadow of the cross, yet also illuminated by the light of the Resurrection, all within the grace of Almighty God.

Lent Versus Ramadan

I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. I know I have. “I can’t worship a God who would send people to hell for not worshipping him.” Some will make a similar claim: “I can’t believe God would send my loving family member to hell for simply being atheist.” These claims make sense to many, but do they hold up to scrutiny?
First things first: I am not here to make judgments on any specific person who has died. God would not be very happy with me if I tried to do that. However, there’s a good reason why Catholics generally claim that we have to believe and worship God in our lifetime in order to be in heaven in the next lifetime.
Many people describe God as “loving”—but there is more to it than that. God actually is love itself. We have two main reasons for believing this.
First, it’s explicit in Scripture. St. John tells us in his first letter that “anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8) John doesn’t tell his audience that God is loving. He tells them that God actually is love.
Another reason we have for believing that God is love itself comes from philosophy. All theists believe that God is necessarily all-loving (i.e., God cannot exist if he is not all-good). All theists also believe that God is self-sufficient, meaning that God is not reliant on anything outside himself to exist. This all seems straightforward. But what if love were something outside God? This would mean that God is reliant on something outside himself to exist. After all, if love does not exist, then God would not exist. This would then mean that God is not self-sufficient—a nightmare for Christian theology!
Another way to think about this would be to consider a situation in which God were “accidentally” all-loving. Essentially, this means that God can be all-loving or not all-loving, and it would not change who he is. God could still exist if he were not all-loving. If this were true, love would either be:
<ul>
<li>caused by something outside God</li>
</ul>
or
<ul>
<li>caused by God.</li>
</ul>
If something outside God made him who he is, we run into problems. This means that God is reliant on something outside him to make him who he is. And so God cannot be God without something that is not God. Likewise, if God caused himself to have these accidents (i.e., God caused himself to be all-loving), then he would change in time: God was not all-loving before, and after, he is. But because there is no “before” or “after” in the general view of God, this cannot happen.
This type of philosophy also helps us to make sure we are worshiping God and God alone. For instance, say someone starts worshiping God because of his love. This would be a rational thing to do, since God’s love is the reason we exist and have the ability to go to heaven. Many Christians throughout history have worshiped God because of his love.
However, what happens if God’s love is something outside himself? In that case, we would be worshiping God and God’s love. This isn’t to say we aren’t worshiping God when we do this; rather, we are worshiping God and something else that is not God as well. If we want to worship God alone, we had better not worship God because of his love . . . if God’s love is something outside God. But since it’s rational to worship God because of his love, and Scripture tells us to worship only God (Exod. 20:3), we can conclude that God is the same as his love. Similarly, in worshiping God’s love, <a href="https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2015/01/divine-simplicity-and-uncompromising.html">we are really worshipping God</a>.
No matter what reason seems more persuasive to you, it’s vitally important that this technicality is discussed. If God is love itself, the hypothetical quotes I gave in the introduction do not hold up. If God is love itself, and I tell him I do not want anything to do with him in this life, he will allow me to do as I choose and go to a place without love (hell). Alternatively, when we spend time with God in this life, we are showing him that we want to be close to love. That is what allows us to enter heaven.
All in all, it’s vitally important that we make the clarification that God is not merely a loving being, but actually love itself. We have different reasons for believing this, from scriptural to philosophical, but it’s the conclusion to that realization that is most important—when we show God we do not want anything to do with him in this lifetime, we are showing God we do not want anything to do with love. This concludes with God allowing us to go to a place that has no love: hell.

A Loving God Requires Hell

<div>Is centering prayer true prayer?</div><div>Fr. Thomas Dubay, an author and teacher on contemplative prayer, wrote the following response to a question asking if he thought <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-danger-of-centering-prayer">centering prayer</a> is helpful:
<blockquote>The simple answer to your question is no, I do not. Rather, it is more of a hindrance to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/contemplation">contemplative prayer</a>. It seems that the promoters of centering prayer have recently been changing their message, due perhaps to criticism. However, I shall respond to what has been generally presented to many people. Centering methods have been much influenced by oriental ideas, and that is the main problem. For the sake of clarity and brevity, I shall make three points.
The first is that one should beware of techniques for emptying the mind to prepare it for contemplation. This is unnatural. Our minds are made to be filled, not emptied. Nowhere does Scripture advise this. Rather, the beginner is told to fill his mind by pondering the word of God day and night (Ps. 1:1-2). This is meditation, not emptying our minds. St. Teresa rightly said that when we are ready, God gives us something better than our efforts can produce, namely, infused communing with himself. . . .</blockquote>
<blockquote>Secondly, it is an illusion to think that techniques can produce an immersion in God. He is not one to be manipulated as one can manipulate a machine or appliance.
And thirdly, emptying methods can frustrate both the beginner who needs input on which to reflect and the advanced person who needs freedom from human efforts to be able to receive the light and love God wishes to communicate (Prayer Primer: Igniting A Fire Within, 155-156).</blockquote>
</div>

Is Centering Prayer True Prayer?

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What is "sacrifice"?

“Where’s <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/purgatory">purgatory</a> in the Bible?” Protestants ask this all the time.
Any Catholic who is familiar with apologetics knows to answer with 1 Corinthians 3:11-15:
<blockquote>For no other foundation can anyone 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, straw— 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.</blockquote>
Paul is talking about the Day of Judgment, which comes after death (see Hebrews 9:27). And in light of the “fire” that tests the quality of a person’s works, Catholics argue that the person is being purified. Fire is used metaphorically in Scripture as a purifying agent—in Matthew 3:2-3,11 and Mark 9:49—and as that which consumes: Matthew 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). This state of existence can’t be heaven because the individual has the defilement of bad works and is suffering loss. Nor can it be hell because Paul says the person “will be saved.” A state of purification in the afterlife that is neither heaven nor hell—that’s purgatory!
But for Protestants it’s not so clear. They offer a few reasons why they think this doesn’t refer to purgatory.
One is that Paul says these things will only happen at the Final Judgment—“for the Day will disclose it” (v.13; emphasis added). For this text to support the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, so the argument goes, it would need to speak of an intermediate judgment before the Second Coming. Since it doesn’t, a Catholic can’t use it to support purgatory.
What should we make of this Protestant counter? Is it a precious stone that would survive the fire of scrutiny? Or is it more like straw? Let’s test it and find out.
It’s true that when Paul speaks of “the Day” he is referring to the Final Judgment—that is, the judgment at the end of time when Christ comes in glory (Matt. 25:31-46). But this doesn’t prevent a Catholic from using this passage to support purgatory.
Paul was not envisioning this passage for such an intermediate state because, as some scholars point out, Paul wrote this at a time (c. A.D. 53) when he thought the Second Coming was imminent, and that he and most of his audience would experience it. For example, he writes in reference to it, “we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:17; emphasis added. Cf. 1 Cor. 15:51).
Given this, we wouldn’t expect Paul to think that these events take place during an intermediate judgment before the Final Judgment. But what if the time horizon shifted and most people died before the Second Coming? Could we say they received some kind of judgment prior to the Last Judgment? And would these events that Paul describes have taken place at that judgment?
The time horizon indeed does seem to shift for Paul. In 2 Timothy 4:6, he tells Timothy that he knows his death is imminent: “For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come.” If he knows he’s about to die, then surely he doesn’t expect to be alive for the Second Coming.
What about an intermediate judgment before the Final Judgment? Scripture reveals that such a judgment does exist, and it occurs immediately after death when God determines a person’s final destiny—what the Catechism calls “the particular judgment” (1022).
Jesus makes this clear in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus is “carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22) and receives a fate of comfort (v.25). The rich man is taken to Hades where he experiences “torment” (v.23) and “anguish” (v.25). The different fates assigned to each man immediately after death imply a particular judgment.
Hebrews 12:23 speaks of our union with “the spirits of just men” as members of the New Covenant. That we approach their spirits suggests they are dead. And that they are a part of the heavenly reality that Christians participate in tells us that they exists in heaven, and thus have been judged.
Revelation 6:9 implies the same thing, for the martyrs in heaven beg God to avenge their blood on their persecutors who are still on earth. Revelation 7:9-14 describes those “clothed in white robes” who “have come out of the great tribulation” of the first century experiencing their eternal reward in heaven.
Now that we know there is such a thing as an intermediate judgment (“the particular judgment”) before the Final Judgment, the question becomes: “Can we apply the events that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 to the particular judgment?” We have good reason to think that we can.
The events that Paul describes have no intrinsic relation to the timing of judgment, but to judgment itself. Works are being weighed, and the soul receives its final destiny (in this case it’s heaven).
This is what happens at the particular judgment. According to the Catechism, each person has his works weighed (1021) and receives his “eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death,” “either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately,” or “immediate and everlasting damnation” (1022).
Since the type of judgment that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 (e.g., works are tested, the soul’s final destiny is determined) is the type of judgment that takes place for souls at the particular judgment, then it’s reasonable to use this passage to describe what happens at the particular judgment. And if the particular judgment, then purgatory.
Pope Benedict XVI points out in Spe Salvi that the “fire” could be “Christ himself, the Judge and Savior,” before whose gaze “all falsehood melts away.” “This encounter with him,” he explains, “burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves” (47). The particular judgment for those who die in friendship with Christ, and thus are guaranteed heaven, could be the purgatorial experience itself.
Therefore, Paul’s reference to the final judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 in no way stops a Catholic from using this text for purgatory. The “Last Day” objection has been tested and proven inadequate.

Testing a Biblical Objection to Purgatory

The book of Ecclesiastes shows up in the current Sunday lectionary only this once every three years, so we ought to consider that briefly before looking at its connection with today’s Gospel.
I’ve always loved Ecclesiastes. I think this love began when I was a teenager and wrestling with matters of faith as a Protestant. I grew up in something of an anti-intellectual tradition (not that we would have ever used the word “tradition”), so my questions about the Bible and theology weren’t always very welcome by many of my Sunday school teachers or youth group leaders. I was barely aware of the existence of Catholicism at that point in my life, but looking back, I can see how easy it was to call the bluff, so to speak, on much of the Protestant teaching I received. You can’t go around criticizing Catholics for their authoritarian tradition while at the same time insisting that the Bible has to be read a certain way just because. There’s an intellectual and cognitive incoherence there that I and many others found hard to bear.
Ecclesiastes comes into my story as an example of . . . well, a somewhat annoying series of questions without obvious answers. Right there in the heart of the Old Testament is a thought experiment where the writer, known as the Teacher, for the sake of argument, just puts aside everything he knows about divine revelation and tries to figure out whether life makes any sense. It can come across as dark, or as whimsical, but it struck me all those years ago just as it does now, as real. For something written thousands of years ago it feels very postmodern.
What Ecclesiastes shows us is, among other things, a world without hope. There are all sorts of things we can know with reason alone: things about the natural world, even the existence of a creator. But we cannot know anything about meaning, or hope, or love, except in the most superficial and ephemeral ways. Ecclesiastes boldly asks the question almost taken for granted by many people in our age of idle wealth: What if this is really all there is? What if the only meaning in life is what I make of it, what I do with my time and my money, how I pursue pleasure and happiness before I inevitably die?
Ecclesiastes isn’t the final canonical answer to these questions, of course, even within the Old Testament. It needs to be read along with the other books of Solomon, especially Proverbs and the Song of Songs. There we can see, in rough outline, a sort of three-act drama. In Proverbs, Solomon asserts the conventional practical wisdom of the natural law. In Ecclesiastes, he explores the absurdity of following merely natural law in a world of death and chance. In the Song, he finds that the ultimate human vocation is not merely in the virtues of this world, in wealth and pleasure, but in the ecstatic embrace of divine love, which is mirrored in human marital love.
But the more cynical moments of Ecclesiastes continue to resonate, and it seems that our theoretical rich man in the Gospel takes a this-worldly approach to life’s meaning. His strategy, of building up his business may strike a modern businessperson as basic prudence. Yet the prophets would have reminded him that, although doing good work is indeed virtuous, and making wealth is also good, he has to remember that this material success brings certain obligations to the common good as well as certain temptations to his own soul’s health. To treat his success as something to simply capitalize on for his own benefit, or even for that of his heirs, is to neglect a basic principle rather bluntly stated by St. Ambrose in his commentary on this passage: “The things we cannot take away with us are not even ours. Only virtue is the companion of the dead. Compassion alone follows us.”
If this seems to cut into the heart of the “American Dream,” then perhaps we begin to understand aright what the Lord wants us to hear. Those of us more comfortable in a classic economic “conservatism” may then fret that the Lord wants us to become socialists or something, but this isn’t the point, either. The Catholic ideal is not some sort of flattening economic equality, where everybody must forcefully get the same thing all the time. It is rather the insistent awareness of what material things are for, and what they are meant to do: they form us either in virtue or in vice. They can aid us in seeking communion with God or stand as obstacles in our way.
In his reading of this passage, David Lyle Jeffrey points out that Jesus is warning here against the hypocrisy and covetousness of not just the rich, but also his poor disciples, who might resent and covet that same wealth. In other words, sitting around being envious of the rich is just as dangerous as sitting around hoarding your wealth
Whatever our present status, the Lord calls us to invest in what matters. This doesn’t mean we can’t also invest in the things of this life. It is not a bad thing to make provisions for our children or our friends, because this can be an aid to their spiritual growth insofar as it provides for their material health. But there are very real dangers to the soul if we do not take seriously the Lord’s call to be generous with what we have, and to prioritize the things of God. If we treat our possessions as merely ours, we will form our souls not for heaven, but for the dust of the ground. And this is a matter of not just money, but every aspect of life.
Do we regard having more than two children as “too expensive” because we take as normative the expectations of American consumer culture? Do we shrink from the idea of our children pursuing celibacy in religious or clerical life? Do we think we are being generous when we throw a small bill into the offering plate every so often? Do we resent it when the Church asks us to show up on a weekday, or fast, or abstain from meat?
Hard questions for reflection, maybe, but worth asking if we want to be prepared for the life to come, where the size or our granaries or our investments accounts mean exactly nothing, except insofar as they were used to cultivate the divine life in us and those around us.

A World Without Hope

How to become Saint Patrick

What do we know about the language Jesus spoke? Jimmy Akin shares the basics (and teaches us a new word!) on Catholic Answers Live.

What Language Did Jesus Speak?

My heart sank when I saw Monday’s news of the Vatican&#8217;s <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260129/meet-luce-the-vatican-s-cartoon-mascot-for-jubilee-2025">unveiling of Luce, a cartoon mascot</a> intended to promote the upcoming Jubilee Year. After decades of attempts to make church cool and relevant had failed to reverse Christianity’s hemorrhaging of young people, Vatican leaders decided this was a perfect time to . . . try to make church cool and relevant.
In their own words:
“Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s chief organizer for the jubilee, described the mascot as part of the Vatican’s goal to engage with ‘the pop culture so beloved by our young people.’”
Everybody say the line!

This was my gut reaction.
And yet!
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143626" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-e1730418440502-300x181.png" alt="" width="326" height="197" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-e1730418440502-300x181.png 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-e1730418440502-768x464.png 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-e1730418440502-662x400.png 662w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-e1730418440502.png 1282w" sizes="(max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143627" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-300x81.jpg" alt="" width="394" height="106" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-300x81.jpg 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-768x206.jpg 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1-1200x322.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-1.jpg 1284w" sizes="(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143630" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1-300x258.jpg" alt="" width="390" height="335" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1-300x258.jpg 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1-768x659.jpg 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1-466x400.jpg 466w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1.jpg 827w" sizes="(max-width: 390px) 100vw, 390px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143628" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-095715-e1730418597171-300x137.png" alt="" width="307" height="140"/>
At least some Catholics—across age groups!—are embracing Luce. Scores of <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/luce-the-vaticans-anime-mascot">fanart variants and memes</a> have exploded into the zeitgeist. Of course, the outcry against Luce has been just as loud and passionate. But that’s not surprising; it is surprising to see this many young Catholics voice such full-throated approval for Luce, rather than roll their eyes at the umpteenth attempt by these old men to “appeal to the youth.”
So what’s going on here? As a Gen Z staffer at Catholic Answers whose job is literally to be online, I observe the following.
First and foremost: as an anime character, Luce instantly appeals to an obsessive demographic that overlaps with a significant portion of online Catholics (the “anime profile pic trad” is a well-known archetype). I have never taken interest in anime, so I couldn&#8217;t say why other fully-grown adults find it so captivating; suffice it to say that this subculture is a major driver in Luce’s initial positive reception. But I don’t think it’s the only one.
Second: Luce is undeniably adorable. Maybe you disagree, but I have to hand it to the creators: they nailed the look of childlike faith and innocence. And the pilgrimage symbols embedded in her character—muddy boots, Camino de Santiago shells in her eyes, pilgrim’s cross, and World Mission rosary—are subtle. Nothing evokes the overbearing “Jesus is COOL, kids!!” lunkheadedness of, say, <a href="https://christchurchusa.org/questministries/blog/what-a-tripp-mascots-revealed-quest-kids-ministry/">VBS mascots</a>.
Finally, I take these folks at their word: they think Luce is fun.
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143631" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-091117-300x57.png" alt="" width="553" height="105" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-091117-300x57.png 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-091117.png 737w" sizes="(max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143632" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture2-300x238.jpg" alt="" width="429" height="340" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture2-300x238.jpg 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture2-503x400.jpg 503w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture2.jpg 667w" sizes="(max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143633" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-105916-300x91.png" alt="" width="544" height="165" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-105916-300x91.png 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-105916-768x232.png 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-105916-1200x363.png 1200w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-105916.png 1462w" sizes="(max-width: 544px) 100vw, 544px"/>
I find myself agreeing more as the days pass. If nothing else, a cute Catholic mascot makes great <a href="https://i.imgur.com/0LYdOvf.png">meme fodder</a>—and the <a href="https://i.imgur.com/YQ8YonY.png">memes</a> have been <a href="https://i.imgur.com/IBDJJ7e.png">fantastic</a>. But I think it runs deeper.
Most of the time, Catholic social media (especially X) is just not fun. People accuse each other of heresy, bicker and squabble over nonessentials, post and re-post vain platitudes, popesplain, refute the popesplainers, refute the refutation of the popesplainers, say unthinkable things about “the Jews,” and generally conduct themselves with a degree of arrogance that would make a saint convulse. Gongs clash and cymbals clang. Meanwhile, news breaks every day about another church scandal, another confusing statement from the pope, another example of why everything is too trad or not trad enough and why the Church is therefore doomed; and if that wasn’t enough, election season is coming to a head.
<a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/486/992/0f8.png">It’s all so tiresome.</a>
Enter a wide-eyed child with a Vatican-yellow raincoat and an unflinching smile:
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143634" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-110334-261x300.png" alt="" width="406" height="466" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-110334-261x300.png 261w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-110334-768x882.png 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-110334-348x400.png 348w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-31-110334.png 1297w" sizes="(max-width: 406px) 100vw, 406px"/>
I get it. Luce is <a href="https://i.imgur.com/dRP4QOK.jpeg">above it all</a>. Our Lord tells us we must “change and become like little children” to enter the kingdom of heaven, and she portrays that in a disarming way. That’s why Luce has won me over.
However, memes, trends, and hype are fleeting. The buzz will die down, probably sooner than we expect. And then it will be time to face the real question: did this help save souls?
Well…
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143635" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-090727-300x59.png" alt="" width="514" height="101" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-090727-300x59.png 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-090727.png 737w" sizes="(max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px"/>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143636" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-2-291x300.jpg" alt="" width="366" height="378" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-2-291x300.jpg 291w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-2-768x792.jpg 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-2-388x400.jpg 388w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Image-2.jpg 1284w" sizes="(max-width: 366px) 100vw, 366px"/>
Maybe!
I mean, with God all things are possible, right? And he likes to work through the simple and the unexpected. We talk a lot in apologetics about the importance of planting a seed and letting God water it. I see no reason why this mascot, paired with an unusual outburst of online Catholic joy, can’t be a seed to outsiders.
But that&#8217;s speculation. Unfortunately, I have a more concrete reason to be pessimistic about a cartoon mascot&#8217;s salvific potential. You may be thinking about it already.
This move, like every move the Church makes these days, takes place in the shadow of a looming specter that hasn&#8217;t gone away since 2002. The institutional Church has yet to fully reckon with it and make complete restitution, and until such time, I can&#8217;t help but feel that a child cartoon mascot is just poor optics.
Father Paul Hedman puts it well:
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-143639" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-092346-248x300.png" alt="" width="447" height="541" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-092346-248x300.png 248w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-092346-331x400.png 331w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-10-29-092346.png 740w" sizes="(max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px"/>
Luce is a hit for some, but Vatican leaders can’t rest on their laurels. After the hype dies off, the stench of scandal will remain, still warding off souls. It takes more than a mascot to overcome that.

Live, Laugh, Luce

Don Johnson, author of Twisted Unto Destruction, explains his claims that slavery and racism have been enabled by and are linked to the Protestant “Bible Alone” theology.
Purchase Don’s new book, Twisted Unto Destruction: How &#8220;Bible Alone&#8221; Theology Made the World a Worse Place:
https://shop.catholic.com/twisted-unto-destruction-how-bible-alone-theology-made-the-world-a-worse-place/
Watch the full Catholic Answers Live show from September 28, 2022: 
https://www.catholic.com/audio/cal/twisting-scripture
Transcript:
Let&#8217;s start with um racism and the actual history of racism over the last 500 years, because Sola Scriptura is 500 years old. Well, it&#8217;s 505 years old, I think, this year. So we&#8217;ve had a lot of racial problems in the West in the last 500 years. So tell me about how that&#8217;s involved with Sola Scriptura.
Sure. So at the age of exploration, which coincided quite closely with the Reformation, right. You&#8217;ve got people traveling around the world looking for money, starting to sell people. I mean, America. I&#8217;ll jump ahead a little bit to the thesis of the book. But in America, I think you have almost the distilled version of what Sola Scriptura like looks like morally because it was so Protestant in its founding, right?
Yeah, we are. Yeah, it&#8217;s just a very Protestant nation, just as a fact. I mean, not that there wasn&#8217;t Catholics, but in general, a very Protestant nation and one that was built out of, you know, the wars of religion and all of that whole mess. Right. Right. And so what do we do? So. Well, you start.
Let&#8217;s jump to the slave trade. All right. 1619. We&#8217;ve got slaves sold in the British colonies. Well, this gave the Christians pause there. Of course, they&#8217;re like, well, should we be buying and selling people? It seems like there&#8217;s you know, I&#8217;m a little I&#8217;m a little scared. I&#8217;m little uncomfortable with this, after all. But on the other hand, you know, it&#8217;s making me some money.
So is there some way is there some way to justify it? Well, from a Catholic mean, just from a Catholic perspective, this had been although the certainly there was Catholic slave traders. I mean, yeah, those boats were that was probably stolen from I think it was St John the Baptist was the church or was the boat that got those first slaves were taken from.
So it&#8217;s not the Catholics weren&#8217;t doing the slave trading, but the official announcements of the church were very much clear, like you will be excommunicated if you continue in this. Yeah. So the the official position of the church was unequivocal. No slave trading. This will get you sent to hell. But the Puritans, the Protestants of America didn&#8217;t listen to that.
So what are we going to do as Protestant Americans? Well, very quickly, they started to relook at scripture to support this. And so you would look at passages like The Curse of Ham, Noah&#8217;s son. And this has been a has a long tradition in America of an explanation for why we can degrade the African men and women because they are the descendants of Ham, who was the cursed son of Noah.
And the therefore, they were actually meant by God to be in slavery. And this continued to get more and more elaborate. Like not only is slavery their lot in life, according to the decree of God as we can read in Scripture, but it&#8217;s actually good for them to be in this state of servitude so that they can be drawn closer.
Like at one point you had a sort of pharisaical approach to the slaves where, “well, are they really human?” Like some people would say, “Well, do we have to love one another?” You know, like love your neighbor is sort of like the whole love your neighbor thing. “Well, who&#8217;s my neighbor?” And you&#8217;re like, Well, are they really human?
Do we have to give them human dignity? So you would awill know we don&#8217;t have to because they are not human. Other say well, no, they’re humans. So how are we going to get around that? Well, they&#8217;re there under the curse of ham. Well, maybe they&#8217;re not under the curse of ham, but is there some other scriptural passage that we can use to support the slave trade?
And they would go to elaborate issues of like government for example, well, their servants. And so they should obey the government and stay in a state of servitude like from Saint Paul promised to. Yeah, right. All right. So all of these really started to embed very early on in the American experiment experiment, a biblical justification for slavery in particular.
And then the racism, I think I feel like kind of built out of that. Now this you&#8217;re like, well, okay, then we get over that, but realize that this was no small issue. Like we fought a war over this and one of the reasons a good Protestant historian, by the way, Mark Noll, who&#8217;s one of the great historians of Protestantism in America, very explicitly says, and also people like Paul Johnson that if we did not on both sides of the Civil War, think that we were on God&#8217;s side,
Right. Like you look at the the writings of the evangelical preachers in the South at the time. “We are fighting against the satanic godless attack on scripture like we are fighting against the enemies of God. When we defend slavery, we are fighting on behalf of the Bible and God itself.” And so you had this holy war attitude. Yeah.
00:04:47:28 &#8211; 00:05:04:15 
Unknown 
Which was reflected a little less maybe, but still to some degree from the North. I mean, they&#8217;re still motivated. It&#8217;s not like we had a huge atheist population. I mean, everybody&#8217;s basically Bible believers at the time, right? Yeah. And so you would justify the North saying, well, no, we are on the side of God, love your neighbor. These are human beings.
We shouldn&#8217;t be enslaving them. The the motive, the passion. It was not just a war of economics, but a war over interpretation of scripture. And if you didn&#8217;t have that scriptural backing, you wouldn&#8217;t have had the passion and on both sides. And so I believe I go with Mark Noll I mean, obviously, you know, people can debate, but I go with Mark null that it actually made that situation worse and certainly even to this day implemented a I mean, you can look at scripture, you can look at passages, sermons preached in the 1970s on the curse of Ham to support school segregation.
It&#8217;s not like this went away. Right. Right. And so, yeah, I think that instilled in America this scriptural support for what I see as a grave evil. And then this becomes a self-perpetuating thing because then the child is taught about this and this is becomes their pattern of the way they interpret Scripture. But I suppose that at root then what you&#8217;re saying is that that Scripture is, is not a self interpreting document.
Somebody&#8217;s got to interpret it. And there&#8217;s always going if we say there&#8217;s no authority to the competent to, to interpret it, the church, namely, then there&#8217;s always going to be the opportunity to say, well, what the Bible really teaches is transgenderism. What the Bible really teaches is slavery, or what the Bible really. And that will go on endlessly.
We can always justify what we want to do using the Bible. You can always justify anything. And that&#8217;s the thing. Like it&#8217;s not just the fact that we can justify our doctrinal positions, it&#8217;s that we justify our actions and our attitudes that quite possibly are sinful. That&#8217;s really where I feel like the rubber hits the road. I mean, we all know that.
Yeah, it doesn&#8217;t speak for itself. Scripture has to be interpreted, any writing has to be interpreted, but it is the ethical implications of that that really cause a lot of pride in Luther. I mean, Luther himself saw this. You read what Luther said about the morality of the church, everything. Like “I can&#8217;t believe all the immoral people that have resulted from their terrible interpretation of the text.
I mean, everybody should be interpreting the Bible the way I am.” Right? It was quite derogatory, but it was a it was the ethical issue that he was mostly concerned about.

How “Bible Alone” Allowed Slavery

<div>Can you listen to music with earbuds during adoration?</div><div>I’m not aware of any Church regulation on wearing earbuds during adoration. But adoration chapels do have guidelines for chapel conduct, usually with a reminder to turn off cell phones (or place on silent/vibrate mode) and all electronic devices. This is to minimize distractions and to place the focus where it belongs: on Jesus and his presence. &#8220;Be still, and know that I am God,&#8221; says the psalmist (Psalm 56:10).
Why not unplug for an hour when you&#8217;re with the Lord? Sadly, we live in a culture of noise and distraction where earbuds, cell phones, and Muzak drown out the beauty of silence. In an address during a pastoral visit to Turin, John Paul II reminded us of the value of silence: &#8220;Our age needs to rediscover the fruitfulness of silence in order to overcome the dissipation of sounds, images, and chatter that too often prevent the voice of God from being heard.&#8221;
Recommended reading: <a href="https://www.ignatius.com/The-Power-of-Silence-P1989.aspx">The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise</a> by Cardinal Robert Sarah.
</div>

Earbuds During Adoration

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Jimmy Akin joins Cy Kellett to answer a timely question: Could Pope Leo XIV “rewrite” the Second Vatican Council? Jimmy unpacks what popes can and can’t do when it comes to ecumenical councils, clarifies the authority and permanence of Vatican II’s teachings, and explores how future popes might interpret or emphasize certain aspects of the Council.
Transcript:
Caller: I want to try to make this very simple here. So let&#8217;s say the new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, is in a meeting with the Society of St. Pius X. They&#8217;re trying to negotiate some type of reconciliation. And the Society of St. Pius X says, we still have a problem with Dignitatis Humanae, the decree on Religious Liberty of Vatican II. Could the Pope say, okay, you know what I&#8217;m going to do? I&#8217;m going to go in and I&#8217;m going to modify and change certain passages or certain words in Dignitatis Humanae to make them acceptable to you guys? Can he do that?
Jimmy: Well, that&#8217;s not how they&#8217;d handle this kind of situation. The Pope would not go back and rewrite the text of a document that had been issued by Vatican II and approved by his predecessor, Paul VI. What could happen is that there are a couple of things. Popes have different abilities to modify previous teaching, and their ability is affected by whether the teaching has been articulated infallibly or whether it&#8217;s been articulated non-infallibly. We refer to this process of modification of teaching over time as doctrinal development. That&#8217;s the term that&#8217;s been used ever since St. John Henry Newman gave it that name.
If a teaching is non-infallible, then it is, to use a classical term, revisable. It can be modified. And so if an ecumenical council needed modification in one of its teachings, the Pope would simply announce the new teaching. He wouldn&#8217;t go back and rewrite historical documents. Instead, he would just say, here&#8217;s the Church&#8217;s understanding of this teaching.
Now, if a teaching has been articulated infallibly, whether by an ecumenical council or not, then the Pope cannot modify it because it&#8217;s infallible or irreformable, to use the classical term. What he can do in that case is not modify the teaching itself, but supplement the teaching. Because when teachings are infallibly defined, they&#8217;re always very narrowly framed. They don&#8217;t specify everything in the context that&#8217;s related to the question. They just infallibly define this one single point.
The Pope could go and add additional points around what had been defined to flesh it out a bit. In the case of Vatican II, none of the Vatican II documents articulated any new teachings in an infallible way. They did refer to teachings that had already been infallibly declared, like, for example, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but they didn&#8217;t issue any new teachings. Therefore, anything that was new that the Council articulated on religious liberty is non-infallible and therefore, at least hypothetically open to revision.
Caller: Okay, very good. So basically he wouldn&#8217;t do it. Is that what we&#8217;re saying? I mean, what if he tried to? What if he said, I&#8217;m changing these words, I&#8217;m just doing it, even though it&#8217;s not been done before?
Jimmy: He would essentially create a new document that had the new wording in it, but it wouldn&#8217;t change the fact that Vatican II wrote a document that had different wording in it, and people would know that the historical, original Vatican II document said something different. The situation would kind of be like taking a Vatican II document and treating it like the Code of Canon Law. The Code of Canon Law is a set of laws that the Church has, and it can periodically be modified where they go into the Code of Canon Law itself and change the words.
What the scenario you&#8217;re proposing would be basically like that, treating this Council document as if it was a legal document that could be modified. But that&#8217;s not how the Pope would do it. In practice, the same goal could be achieved of I&#8217;m going to do things that will make whatever the question is acceptable to the SSPX. He could do that. He just wouldn&#8217;t do it by rewriting the document. He&#8217;d just say, here&#8217;s what the Church understands now, and here&#8217;s the level of authority that this previous statement has.
Cy: Nick, thanks. That brings us to our first break. Our guest is Jimmy Akin. Ask me anything this hour and next on Catholic Answers Live.

Could Pope Leo “Rewrite” Vatican 2?

Today Joe tackles the Protestant accusation that Catholics practice necromancy when they pray to the Saints. We take a look at 1 Samuel 28 and Saul&#8217;s consultation with the Witch of Endor.
Transcript:
&nbsp;
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I&#8217;m Joe Heschmeyer. Today I want to consider two contradictory arguments often made by the very same people against the Catholic practice of praying to the saints and Mary in heaven. So some Protestants will regard this practice simply as pointless. Why not just go directly to God? But other people will go beyond that and say it&#8217;s not just pointless, it&#8217;s actually sinful, and they&#8217;ll accuse Catholics of engaging in idolatry for asking those who have died to pray for us. In fact, some go so far as to say that if you do this, you&#8217;re guilty of the sin of necromancy. Now that is a pretty strong claim and it should be backed by pretty strong evidence. So is it true? Do Catholics practice necromancy? Are they trying to consult the dead to gain secret, forbidden knowledge? Well, the answer to that question, it&#8217;s probably first good to go back and just say, what do we even mean by necromancy?
In the modern age of popular fantasy video games, when we hear words like necromancy or necromancer, it might invoke images of walking skeletons and zombies. But in the Bible, necromancy means something a little different. Necromancy refers to the practice of contacting the dead to try to gain hidden knowledge or control events, and in the Bible it is strictly forbidden. So when these Protestants accuse Catholics of engaging in necromancy, when they pray to the saints, they&#8217;re putting the practice of saint a prayer to the saints in the same category as something like trying to conjure up the dead or Ouija boards or sorcery or any kind of OC cult practice that engages in this kind of forbidden spiritual necromancy and looking at people who argue that this practice is necromancy. A lot of the arguments don&#8217;t actually make sense together. So recently I heard the Protestant ministry got questions making the case that this Catholic practice is necromancy, and I got to say, I&#8217;m kind of surprised they didn&#8217;t notice that two of their arguments back to back contradict each other. Take a listen.
CLIP:
Praying to the dead is strictly forbidden. In the Bible, Deuteronomy tells us anyone who consults with the dead is detestable to the Lord. The story of Saul consulting a medium to bring up the spirit of the dead Samuel resulted in his death because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance. Clearly, God has declared that such things are not to be done.
Joe:
So that&#8217;s the first argument. When Catholics pray to the saints, this is just like going to a witch specifically, and this is going to be important. It&#8217;s like what happened when Saul goes to the witch of indoor to try to conjure up the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. Then literally though, the very next argument they make is this one,
CLIP:
Consider the characteristics of God. God is omnipresent everywhere at once and is capable of hearing every prayer in the world. A human being on the other hand, does not possess this attribute.
Joe:
So did you catch that contradiction? Remember the two claims of this? Number one, praying to the dead is evil. It&#8217;s akin to King Saul trying to conjure up Samuel. And number two, praying to the dead is futile. The saints aren&#8217;t omnipresent, and apparently you have to be omnipresent to be able to hear prayers. Those are the two arguments, and I could see either one of them being coherent by itself, but what we should notice is they can&#8217;t both be true. If you have even a rudimentary knowledge of the biblical texts we&#8217;re talking about here, God questions is relying on this event again, king Saul going to the witch of indoor in one Samuel chapter 28, and the first thing you should notice is that the dead Samuel absolutely can hear Saul, even though he&#8217;s not omni Thep present, they have a full on conversation, and Samuel not only knows what&#8217;s happening in Saul&#8217;s life, he accurately foretells that Saul and his sons will die the next day, which they do. So if you&#8217;re going to say that praying to the saints is forbidden in the Bible, you can&#8217;t argue both that it&#8217;s evil because it works, but in a cult way and that it doesn&#8217;t work at all.
Now, I know that some people, certain Protestants and Seventh Adventists who don&#8217;t believe that the soul continues to exist when we die, who think that what happens here in one Kings 28 isn&#8217;t kings. Saul has a conversation with Samuel because under that theology, it couldn&#8217;t possibly be Samuel because he&#8217;s dead, and so how could he be aware of what&#8217;s going on? I actually recently did a debate very much related to this point, which I&#8217;ll link to in the description below if you want more on that in a particular Catholic Adventist conversation. But when confronted by verses like these, SDA apologists will claim that what Saul is talking to isn&#8217;t Samuel the Old Testament prophet, but is instead a demon or a familiar spirit.
CLIP:
Y&#8217;all remember the witch of Endor when Saul, God wasn&#8217;t talking to Saul at all, and so Saul goes to a witch and the witch allegedly pulls up Samuel and the Bible just talks about it like, yeah, she pulled up Samuel. Y&#8217;all need to understand that wasn&#8217;t Samuel. That wasn&#8217;t Samuel, you guys,
Joe:
But if you read for Samuel 28, it repeatedly stresses that this was in fact, Samuel. In verse 11, Saul asks the witch of indoor to bring up Samuel. For me, this is necromancy. This is forbidden, but it&#8217;s clear what he&#8217;s asking for and the witch seems surprised when it seemingly works, and we are confronted with Samuel. Now, for her part, she claims it&#8217;s an Elohim, a God or a spirit, but the biblical author says that it&#8217;s not. It&#8217;s Samuel. For instance, in verse 12, he identifies this as Samuel in verse 14, he says, Saul knew that it was Samuel and then reaffirms that it&#8217;s Samuel in verse 15 and in verse 16, if that&#8217;s not enough, Samuel actually rebukes for engaging in necromancy right there in verse 16. And then as I said before, he accurately foretells the future In verse 18, a prediction that comes true even if you don&#8217;t just take the biblical author&#8217;s word for it when he says over and over again that it&#8217;s Samuel and refers to his prophecy as the words of Samuel, you should also be asking, well, why would a demon rebuke someone for sinning and how would a demon accurately foretell a future event he has no knowledge of?
So all of that, I think pretty decisively shows that yes, in fact the deceased Samuel is well aware of what&#8217;s going on. It&#8217;s just not true. You have to be omnipresent to be able to respond to prayers or to talk to someone on earth or to know what&#8217;s going on on earth, right? We have plenty of biblical evidence for that. After all, Moses and Elijah seem to be well aware of what&#8217;s going on in the ministry of Jesus when they talked to him at the transfiguration. Abraham seems to be well aware of what&#8217;s going on in the rich man&#8217;s family when he talks to him in Luke chapter 16. So it&#8217;s just not true When people tell you the dead cannot hear you, and the reason for this is Jesus explains is because they&#8217;re not dead in the full sense. Sure bodily, they are dead, but spiritually they&#8217;re alive with Christ, which is why Jesus can respond to the Sadducees by reminding them that God is the God of the living and not the dead, and therefore when he&#8217;s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that means we have to acknowledge Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as alive, not simply dead.
This is why they can hear you and why people who deny this Jesus&#8217;s words to them are you are quite wrong. Even if you ignore all of the biblical evidence, even if you reject everything I say here and insist, no, I still think it was demon even then it would disprove the idea. You have to be omnipresent to be able to communicate with someone on earth because the demons aren&#8217;t omnipresent so much for the argument that the saints can&#8217;t hear you. What about the argument that this is necromancy? So why is it okay to pray to saints? But it wasn&#8217;t okay what Saul was trying to do with Samuel, and it&#8217;s not okay to use Ouija boards or have a seance or the like.
CLIP:
I&#8217;m going to tell you straight up, if you&#8217;re praying to saints, you are not praying to Peter or Paul or Timothy. You are praying to demonic spirits. You&#8217;re praying to familiar spirits if you&#8217;re praying to saints.
Joe:
Well, to answer that question, another way we could ask it would be what is the difference between the miraculous and the magical? Because on the surface, understandably, people might be confused. Consider Exodus chapter seven. You have Aaron who takes his staff and it turns into a serpent. And then you have the Egyptian magicians using OC cult arts who turn their staffs into serpents. Those look the same, but one is good and one is evil. Why at the heart of it, the answer is quite simple. The miraculous works through God. It relies upon God&#8217;s goodness and divine power, the magical distrust either God&#8217;s power or goodness and tries to work around God or else force his hand. When Saul cannot get what he wants by going to God, he doesn&#8217;t feel like his prayers are being answered. He tries to go around God. He tries to find out the information he needs by either forcing God&#8217;s hand or using occult forces to find it out for himself.
That is sinful. That is a distrust in the power and goodness of God. On the other hand, when somebody prays their rosary or asks a saint to pray for them, when we say things like, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, at the end of the Hail Mary, we are relying quite explicitly on the fact that God is powerful and good and loves to answer our prayers. This is why intercessory prayer exists in the first place. We go to everyone, whether it&#8217;s our brothers and sisters here on earth or our brothers and sisters who are already enjoying the fullness of God in heaven, and we ask them to pray for us because we believe in the goodness of God, whereas the magical relies on not believing in the goodness and power of God. And just to be perfectly clear, it is entirely possible to believe that Jesus Christ is our one mediator between God and man, the one who alone could die for our sins as St.
Paul says in one Timothy chapter two, and believe that we still need intercessory prayer, as St. Paul also says in First Timothy chapter two, those two things aren&#8217;t just compatible. They&#8217;re both explicitly taught in sacred scripture. So there you go. The Bible teaches us very clearly that the righteous dead can and do hear us, and that intercessory prayer, including what&#8217;s going on when we&#8217;re asking the saints to pray for us, is good, not evil. The miraculous may look like the magical, but it&#8217;s actually the opposite of the magical. Praying to the saints is just the opposite of necromancy. Final point, I want to say a special thank you to everyone who is liked, shared, commented, and done everything else to boost kind of the spread of this channel. And also for all of you financially giving over on Patreon, shameless joe.com, you guys have really helped revolutionize this so that it sounds and looks, I think a lot better than the old days when it was pretty obviously just me in a basement with PowerPoint. So thank you for all you&#8217;ve done. If you want to be part of that good work, I encourage you to engage in whatever way you see fit. For Shameless Popery. I&#8217;m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.

Do Catholics Practice Necromancy?

Gotta love the Catholic interwebs. There never seems to be a shortage of brothers and sisters arguing about the important things, like whether to go see a movie or not. If you are on the fence about seeing the new film Cabrini, I would like to share with you three reasons I think it’s worth your time.
<h2>Girl Power</h2>
Back in my day, when someone was trying undeservedly to claim the moral high ground, it was not uncommon to respond by saying “You’re no Mother Teresa.” I don’t recall anyone ever saying “You’re no JPII.” That’s not because St. John Paul II was not viewed by many as a particularly holy man. It’s simply because stories of Mother Teresa and her mission to help the poor and sick in India made news around the world. It’s also worth pointing out that EWTN was <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/motherangelica">founded by a woman</a> who persevered against the odds to create a literal Catholic media empire. In a similar vein, the story of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini is a shining example of the tremendous witness one woman can provide for our Faith even if she can’t be a priest or bishop. You simply can’t tell her story without this element.
<h2>Fighting Bigotry</h2>
Cabrini is set around 1889 when Pope Leo XIII sends Mother Cabrini to New York to care for the poor Italians who immigrated there. An unfortunate fact of our country’s past is that certain ethnic communities have been disparaged and oppressed. Mother Cabrini was Italian, female, and Catholic; all three were strikes against her in 1880’s New York. She fought back hard against all of these obstacles and achieved great things in her life. That alone is inspiring—which brings me to my third reason.
<h2>Evangelization</h2>
Most of the criticisms over Cabrini that I have seen focus on a lack of clear Catholic piety. This likely has to do with the purpose of the film.
Catholic Answers was asked by the producers to host a viewing of Cabrini (before it was finished) here in San Diego. I spoke to one of them in the hallway afterwards. He told me that Cabrini’s story was chosen because of its value for evangelization. If that is the case, then it doesn’t surprise me that they didn’t try to pepper the film with a lot of images of explicitly Catholic devotion.
Imagine a scene showing Mother Cabrini praying silently in Eucharistic Adoration. Who besides you and I, dear reader (assuming you’re Catholic) would understand what is going on in that scene without some amount of explanation? It’s possible that the filmmakers went too far in this regard, but that still doesn&#8217;t mean you should avoid the film, in my humble opinion.
Or, putting it another way (as <a href="https://x.com/ethan_stueve/status/1767285743905280068?s=20">this tweeter does</a>):

Furthermore, before my conversion, the thing that attracted me most to Catholicism was the heroic missionary work of a Mother Teresa or a Mother Cabrini. It wasn’t how much time they spent praying the rosary that caught my attention, but how selflessly they gave their lives to the poor and downtrodden. If the creators of Cabrini want to evangelize, then focusing the bulk of the film upon that facet of a saint&#8217;s life is a perfectly acceptable and effective way to achieve that goal.
When it comes to entertainment and Catholic storytelling, there’s simply no way to please everyone. If you have not seen the film already, my recommendation is to stop reading reviews and go see it for yourself.

Three Things I Enjoyed About ‘Cabrini’

<div>Why can’t same-sex couples adopt?</div><div>There are many reasons that we could give, such as how <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610">studies show that same-sex relationships have negative effects on children</a>, but suffice it to say the fundamental reason is that it presents the adopted child with a false view of human sexual relationships. It teaches a child that it’s okay to have romantic relationships with members of the same sex.
But such relationships are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/for-goodness-sake">contrary to our human good</a>. Consequently, it does grave harm to children to bring them up in an environment where such relationships are promoted as a moral good. Rather than providing the child with proper human formation, which is the duty of every parent (whether biological or adoptive), it provides malformation.
This might sound unjust to some. But it’s unjust only if same-sex sexual relationships are morally good. In that case, there would be nothing wrong in principle with a same-sex couple adopting and raising a child. And to oppose a same-sex couple from adopting a child would be unjust.
But such relationships are not morally good. Therefore, there is no way in principle that it could be good for a same-sex couple to adopt a child. To oppose a same-sex couple adopting a child is no more of an injustice than it is to oppose a couple that has had a history of abusing children.
We must look out for the well-being of children. And since an environment where same-sex romantic relationships are promoted as good is not ordered to the well-being of a child, it ought to be avoided.
</div>

Why Same-Sex Couples Shouldn’t Adopt

Jimmy Akin discusses Ministers of Holy Communion (also known as Eucharistic Ministers), and explains the difference between Ordinary and Extraordinary Ministers and when the latter should or should not be used in mass.
Transcript:
Host: We will go now to Steve in Presque Isle, Maine, listening on WEGP. Steve, thank you so much for being with us here on Catholic Answers Live.
Caller: Thank you Cy, and Jimmy, good to talk to you again, I haven’t talked to you in months. My question is: I’m looking over an obituary of a person here in Presque Isle—or Lewiston, Maine, actually—who was a devout Roman Catholic. “In his lifetime, he was a Eucharistic Minister. Now he has nine children and twenty-five grandchildren.” What is a Eucharistic Minister? What kind of position is that in the Church?
Jimmy: Well, actually, there—it’s a misnomer. That’s not actually a term that the Church uses in its official documents. The proper term is “Minister of Holy Communion,” and that’s a person who distributes Communion at mass.
And there are two types of Ministers of Holy Communion. The first type are “Ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion,” and that would be people like a priest or a deacon or a formally instituted acolyte, of which there are not very many—not these days, anyway, in the Latin rite. Then there are what are known as “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion,” and that’s—unless this guy was a deacon, then that’s probably what they mean. They probably mean that he was an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion.
And Extraordinary Ministers are people who are typically laypeople…I mean, they would be laypeople, but typically they’re just ordinary laypeople, they’re not, like, in religious orders, for example. And they also distribute Holy Communion at mass. The reason they’re called “Extraordinary” is because they’re used, and are meant to be used, on a somewhat extraordinary basis; that is, they shouldn’t be used in preference to the Ordinary Ministers, like priests and deacons.
So if your parish has enough priests and deacons to distribute Holy Communion in a reasonable amount of time to the people coming for Communion, then you should use the priests and deacons first. But if there are so many people—and, frankly, this is true in a lot of American Catholic parishes—if there’s so many people coming that it would unduly prolong the distribution of Communion, then laypeople can be deputized to serve Holy Communion on what’s known as an extraordinary basis. “Extraordinary,” in this case, doesn’t mean that they don’t do it regularly, because if you’ve got, you know, a lot of people coming to a mass, then they may need Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion on a regular basis; but it does mean that they’re not used—not to be used in preference to the Ordinary Ministers who may be available.
Host: Okay, Steve?
Caller: Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmy: Sure thing.

What Is a Eucharistic Minister?

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi is a traditional Catholic principle maintaining that the law of prayer is the law of belief. In other words, the way we pray—especially at Mass—expresses and shapes our faith in Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him as His disciples. What is the divine architecture of the Mass, in which we are invited to participate? What grace does Our Lord offer to us when we pray and prepare to receive Him in Holy Communion? With what blessing, understanding and mission do we go forth, when the Mass is ended?

Liturgy and Belief

Bodily Autonomy vs Right to Life

A discussion about <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/abortion">abortion</a> can easily devolve into a bitter shouting match, which won&#8217;t change anyone&#8217;s heart. Here are some tips from pro-life speaker Stephanie Gray Connors about <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/three-ways-to-be-a-better-pro-lifer">how to keep your cool</a>.

How to Stay Calm While Discussing Abortion

Let me start by saying I have nothing against pets—dogs, cats, or any other type. I was raised on a small farm with a variety of animals. My morning routine included shoveling the manure left by my pony, Betty Lou, and Mama Goat (whom I milked twice a day) and our other four-legged friends. I collected the chicken and duck eggs and fed the rabbits. I loved every minute of it.
My dog Princess was my constant companion as I ran through the woods as a boy and played baseball in our front yard. If you saw me, you saw Princess, too. After marriage, we had lots of animals for our kids and grandkids. Pets are beneficial for children&#8217;s development and helpful and comforting for many people. They are great in their proper place.

<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-148640 aligncenter" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-duck-277x400.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="400" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-duck-277x400.jpg 277w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-duck-208x300.jpg 208w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-duck.jpg 468w" sizes="(max-width: 277px) 100vw, 277px"/>Me with my dog Princess in September 1966; my son with Wilbur the Duck in 1990.
Families have always enjoyed pets. But over recent decades, things have shifted. Today, there is an alarming tendency to see pets as family members, even as substitute children.
My grandkids are very Catholic, and they are also very inquisitive. While home from university this summer (Ave Maria University and Wyoming Catholic), four of them suggested that we visit a local mega-church out of curiosity to see how they worship. We did—and it was sad. Perhaps someday I will describe what we experienced there, but for now, I have only one thing to share. I will start the way they started.
With thousands of &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-protestant-worship-isnt-worship">worshipers</a>&#8221; sipping their coffee in the comfy theater-style seats, the pastor strolled onto the massive stage. As the lights turned up, we saw him with a little puppy in his arms. He proudly announced, &#8220;I would like to introduce you to my son.” (He then said the dog&#8217;s name, which I have since forgotten.) “My son has a bigger brother at home who is too large to bring to church.”
He spent almost five minutes talking about his dog, as though it were a person, a son, and a part of his family. The crowd roared their approval and applauded. My grandkids looked at me with shock. I threw my hands up in disbelief and whispered, &#8220;What in the world . . . ?&#8221;
I see people in my neighborhood walking their dogs in strollers. The birth rates are way down, and the pet industry is mushrooming. Doggie strollers are now a “thing.” South Korea is one country setting the trend. Dog strollers are no longer a novelty—they now sell more dog strollers than they do baby strollers. Dog carriages now come in a wide array of designer styles. Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-news-dog-strollers-babies-1952011">recently noted</a>,
<blockquote>South Korea, which has one of the world&#8217;s lowest fertility rates, recorded another drop in 2023, with the average number of expected babies per woman going to 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022. . . . Yoon Hyun-shin, CEO of Pet Friends, South Korea&#8217;s largest online pet-shopping platform, told the Journal that pet ownership has become a major trend.
The surge in pet stroller purchases is striking. Sales have quadrupled since 2019, and top-end models can sell for as much as $1,100. . . . &#8220;Pet ownership is rising, and so is spending on pets as people choose them over children,&#8221; Yoon said.
&#8220;What I worry about is young people not loving each other,&#8221; South Korea&#8217;s labor minister, Kim Moon-soo, said in 2023. &#8220;Instead, they love their dogs and carry them around. They don&#8217;t get married, and they don&#8217;t have children.&#8221;</blockquote>
Trends in the United States are also on the rise—not only for dogs, but also for cats. Fewer children, an aging population, and the growing popularity of dogs on TV and in advertising are partially driving these trends. The pet industry is booming. The Washington Post ran <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/31/snake-bit-my-cat-clearing-out-my-bank-accounts-save-him-was-an-easy-choice/">an opinion piece</a> entitled, “A snake bit my cat. Clearing out my bank accounts to save him was an easy choice.” It went on to explain how this woman spent $6,200 on vet services.
At a nice restaurant recently, we unhappily sat in close quarters with two girls eating lunch with their “fur babies” on their laps. Those dogs were cooed and fondled as though they were substitute babies. Others had dogs at their feet tripping the waiters. More than once, I’ve had a dog or cat squirming at my feet on an airplane.
Is this something new? In our modern world, yes. This did not exist in my parents’ generation. In many parts of the world, dogs are frowned upon as unclean animals. However, in other places, they have been coddled in the same manner as they are today. The phenomenon of embracing animals as family, or as more than just animals, is not unknown in history.
I recently came across <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Plutarch%27s_Lives_(Clough,_v.1,_1865).djvu/358">a fascinating quote</a> from Plutarch (ca. A.D. 50-120), a Roman citizen, pagan writer, priest of Apollo, Greek biographer, essayist, and Platonist. He lived during biblical times but was obviously not a Christian.
<blockquote>Caesar [Augustus] once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind [that is, real human sons and daughters].
With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good.</blockquote>
Isn&#8217;t it interesting that Plutarch quotes the surprise and dismay of the Caesar of Rome, who delivered a &#8220;prince-like reprimand&#8221; to those women who &#8220;lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind”—namely, human beings?
Does the Catholic Church speak about pets? The Catechism does! It says,
<blockquote>They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. . . . It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons (2417-18).</blockquote>
Animals were created by God and intended to be used at for work and leisure. Pets are great. They comfort many a lonely person, entertain children, assist the blind or the handicapped, and perform a dozen other good and helpful services.
It is disturbing, though, when a society begins to abandon marriage and bearing children and resorts to pets as substitutes. It should raise our eyebrows when people spend an inordinate amount of time and money on pets that could help the poor or needy. Some of the alarming statistics are presented in the Catholic World Report article &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/02/11/opinion-thou-shalt-have-no-dogs-before-me/">Have No Dogs Before Me</a>.”
Pets play a valuable role in our lives, but misplaced affection can also be a concern. As Christians and as a society, we should strike the proper balance.
<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-148641" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-cows-586x400.jpg" alt="" width="586" height="400" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-cows-586x400.jpg 586w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-cows-300x205.jpg 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-cows-768x525.jpg 768w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/steve-cows.jpg 1300w" sizes="(max-width: 586px) 100vw, 586px"/> 
Picture of me with our animals. I am holding the cow right in front of my dad.

Pets as Children

NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/09/06/nx-s1-5092402/eco-chaplains-helping-people-deal-with-climate-grief">describes</a> seventy-eight-year-old Diane Ware, a “retired elementary school teacher” and environmentalist who got no satisfaction from the scuppering of a proposed natural gas pipeline in her Oregon hometown. The battle was won, but not the war, because “it may be too late to save a planet in deep peril.” Ware sank into depression and sought treatment for her “climate grief.”
Enter the eco-chaplain, “a new kind of spiritual adviser rising among clergy trained in handling grief and other difficult emotions.”
You can learn all about this peculiar quasi-spiritual therapist from the NPR story. More interesting to me than the treatment is the condition: climate anxiety, as <a href="https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-climate-anxiety">Yale calls it</a>, or eco-anxiety, or climate doom (!). This is not to be confused with worry; worry is “a good and healthy thing,” per Yale Expert #2, “because worry as an emotion is a motivator; if you worry about something, you are motivated to figure out what you can do about it. We actually need more people to be worried about climate change.”
That’s one way to think about it. But if we take the above quotation and replace “climate change” with “heaven and hell,” then we’re on to something. We really do need more people to wrestle with the Four Last Things.
After all, why do we need more people to be worried about climate change? So they’ll fix it, right? But how? How much? Where? What even are they trying to fix? And how will they know when they’ve succeeded, or failed?
<a href="https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf">None of these questions can be answered definitively.</a> When it comes to this new phenomenon of climate change, there is no actual knowledge to leverage. We don’t know the ideal global temperature; there’s not even any such thing as a global temperature. (You want to average all the temperatures on earth—assuming you could ever do that—and then tell me the number means something? And we should act on it?) We don’t know which actions will solve the problem—which, remember, we can’t identify. Maybe abolishing gas-powered cars will do it. Pope Francis proposes a crusade on air-conditioning (see Laudato Si 55). But it’s impossible to be sure.
And so we all end up in a cloud of unknowing, with no idea what will appease Mother Nature and yet with vague instructions on how to appease. (The most popular ones involve <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cap-and-trade.asp">spending lots of money</a> on nothing in particular.) And if we mess it up, “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-fragile-earth-how-close-are-we-to-climate-catastrophe/">some devastating tipping point</a>” will kill us tomorrow, or <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27082019/12-years-climate-change-explained-ipcc-science-solutions/">twelve years</a> . . . er, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736">eighteen months</a> . . . from now, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-what-will-happen-to-the-climate-in-the-next-100-years-52051">a hundred years</a> from now.
This doesn’t look like light-bringing, mind-freeing <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/science-is-great-but-its-not-always-enough">Science</a>. It looks like a grim religion, at once rules-obsessed and effete, groaning for redemption but incognizant of the redeemer.
We can see parallels between the religion of climate change and the state of Judaism just before the Messiah. The Jews had their Temple, and they had their manifold sacrifices, and they had their Day of Atonement, but they could never really be sure if God had absolved them of their sins . . . or if another conscience-cleansing seventy-year exile was around the corner. Likewise, the anxiety-ridden climatista can speak out, lobby, write letters, and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2022/11/30/climate-activists-attack-paintings-mona-lisa-scream/10699588002/">splatter paint on art masterpieces</a> until he’s blue (or whatever color Sherwin-Williams offers) in the face, and yet he can’t know if his work has improved the “global temperature” by one iota.
The Jews, at least, had a promise from the one true God. The religion of climate change has only the stabbing finger of Greta “How Dare You?!” Thunberg. And now eco-chaplains.
Christianity, unlike the Church of Climate, provides the certainty that the ancient Jews and the Diane Wares of the modern world could only grasp at. “Come to me,” Jesus exhorts us, “all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). His program emphasizes the good things those who follow him can expect, like comfort and inheritance and satisfaction (Matt. 5). And it’s not an unattainable goal, either: from the Ten Commandments to the Two Great Commandments to two rich millennia of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching, the Christian God gives us the Google map to our eternal happiness and the step-by-step directions on the left side of the screen.
Christians can be confident in a good outcome because Our Lord promised it to us—provided we follow the rules. In other words, Jesus authoritatively, reliably gives us both a clear goal and the means to achieve it—the exact two things the Church of Climate most needs and least has.
“No man knows the day or the hour” of the (climate) apocalypse, so anxiety at the thought of it is energy wasted. But every one of us can pursue the moral life, concretely, today. No eco-chaplain required—but a good spiritual director will help.

Climate Therapy with Your Eco-Chaplain

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Does Scripture support relics of the Saints?

In the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/hebrew-bible">Hebrew Scriptures</a>, God gives quite specific directions on how to make sacrifices to him. We ask Jimmy Akin why God does this? What good does it do? And does God need all these sacrifices?

Why Does God Command Sacrifice?

<div>How do we (the Catholic Church) explain hermaphrodites?</div><div>There is always the possibility of defects or deformities in any of the bodily parts of a human being. The sexual organs are no exception. The existence of so-called hermaphrodites does not relativize the normative, binary nature of human sex any more than blindness would mean that it is indifferent to human flourishing if someone can see or not. Where there is a defect, we seek to compensate for it, not explain it away.
In any case, as far chromosomes are concerned, the hermaphrodite is always clearly of a determinate sex, although unfortunately he or she suffers from a deformity of the sexual organs. We do not lighten the burden one may bear by denying its importance.
</div>

How to Explain Hermaphroditism

Every World Youth Day, it seems, there are reports of abuse of the sacred host. The massive outdoor liturgies employ hundreds of volunteer ministers of Communion with varying degrees of training and diligence. Hundreds of thousands attend the Masses with little to no top-down discretion over who receives the Eucharist and how. For every horror like the <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/3664/eucharist-pulled-from-e-bay-sale">WYD host that ended up on Ebay</a>, surely there are many hundreds or thousands of examples of dropped or pocketed hosts, reception of Communion by non-believers, and other failures to do justice, in the little ways that please him, to God’s presence.
One report from the just-concluded WYD in Portugal, for instance, tells of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/savannah.dudzik/posts/959356335370161">consecrated hosts being stored in plastic tubs under a tent</a>. Some intrepid pilgrims kept vigil before those Tupperware tabernacles before reporting the situation to organizers.
Now, I hope that this is all a misunderstanding. It’s easy to imagine extra unconsecrated hosts being kept in such tubs and false rumor leading people to believe they were consecrated. But what if it’s true? Is it really a big deal?
After God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, he did something he else: he told Moses how to store them. He was very explicit, in fact, giving detailed orders for the construction of the Ark of the Covenant (Exod. 25:9-22).
Those tablets were the holiest thing on Earth. They signified God’s unique presence and, moreover, his personal investment in mankind and the world—and especially his Chosen People. And so they needed special handling.
But why? we might ask. After all, you can’t hurt God. He would not be diminished in any way if his commandments were slung in a pack as the Israelites wandered through the wilderness, or tossed on a pile of hay at night. And besides, the distance between the reverence due to God and our ability to show reverence is infinite. That means that a golden ark and a holy tent are no closer to what God truly deserves than any other, less fancy way of treating his presence.
Well, I can think of two reasons why.
The first reason is that although it’s true that meager mortal efforts can’t come anywhere close to reverencing God’s presence with the splendor it deserves—not even the mighty angelic hosts who praise God continuously in heaven are giving him, strictly speaking, his full due—nonetheless, it pleases him to receive that reverence. Like the father who gives his son sixpence to buy him a gift, to borrow <a href="https://generositymonk.com/2013/01/16/c-s-lewis-sixpence-none-the-richer/">C.S. Lewis’s famous analogy</a>, God does not disdain our earnest offerings: even when they’re small and even when they’re merely a re-gifting of what he gave us. The economy of worship is not by-the-books; it’s heavily rigged in our favor.
The second reason is that, although it’s true that we can’t hurt God no matter how badly we treat his holy things, we can hurt ourselves. Giving God his due is only one part of worship. The other is training our own bodies, minds, and souls to have the right orientation toward him, which is good for us. The Catechism says that worship <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2097.htm">“sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin, and from the idolatry of the world.”</a> In this sense, the fancy ark with its golden cherubs and strict handling instructions wasn’t for God’s sake but for the Hebrews’ sake.
We don’t have contents of the ark anymore (or <a href="https://aarkangel.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/warehouse-raiders.jpg">do we?</a>), but we have something better, the thing that they prefigured: the holy Eucharist. In it, God is truly present in the full incarnate form that, so much more than the old Law, signifies his personal investment in mankind and the world—and especially his chosen spiritual family, the Church.
And we must give that Eucharist no-less-reverent handling today than the Hebrews gave its type, all those centuries ago. Accordingly, Church law gives <a href="https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=934-944">detailed instructions</a> on the manner and materials used to reserve, transport, and expose the Blessed Sacrament.
The Church in the U.S. is presently in a middle of a “eucharistic revival,” on which enormous resources have been spent, all aimed at restoring Catholics’ <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/">plummeting credence</a> in the Real Presence. But I fear that all the clever and expensive religious-ed programming in the world won’t even balance out, much less override, the harms done to young persons’ eucharistic faith if the Church doesn’t bother to act like we really believe it. God doesn’t need us to treat the Eucharist reverently and it doesn’t harm him when we don’t. But it harms us.

Don’t Put Jesus in Tupperware

Is this a good argument for abortion?

Trent Horn answers a caller who wonders whether a married couple who uses contraception has fully consummated their marriage, and whether the marriage might become invalid if they repeatedly use it.
Transcript:
Host: Robert in Redding, California, you are on with Trent Horn. What do you reject in Catholic morality?
Caller: Not so much reject&#8211;brilliant show, guys&#8211;and Trent, just a question kind of along the sexual morality and ethics: If a couple is using contraception that are inside the Church&#8211;which we know some parishes upwards of eighty percent or more&#8211;or outside the Catholic Church, before they get married, during the marriage prep, and after, are they actually consummating their marriage? Because we&#8217;re seeing a lot of controversy over Communion to divorced, and whether that&#8217;s pastorally being taken into account, but I guess the real question is: Is it consummated when the couple is is using contraception?
Trent: Yes. There may be a question about the validity of a marriage that perpetually uses contraception, and the couple, or at least one of the partners, is not open to life in any way, shape, or form, and is opposed to that from before the marriage on through it, so there may be a question about validity. But if the couple engages in the marital act, if that act takes place, even if there are things to try to contracept it or to prevent the procreative end of it; if the act is achieved, even once, then the marriage has been consummated. The two became one flesh. There may not have been&#8211;an important end may have been blocked in that, but the act itself still took place, if even if contraception were used.
So if the act took place, it would be consummated, but some perpetual uses of contraception could question the validity of marriage in certain cases. But I&#8217;m not saying someone who just used contraception, you know, who just habitually used it would necessarily be in an invalid marriage. I&#8217;m not saying that. What I am saying, though, is that if a couple used contraception on their wedding night, if they did that, it would still be a valid, consummated marriage, because they engaged in the marital act.

Can a Marriage Be Consummated When Using Contraception?

Is Halloween Actually Pagan?

<div>Is it OK to enroll in Obamacare if you need health insurance? </div><div>Yes, enrolling in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially called Obamacare, is morally acceptable, particularly if you have no other means of health care.
Some might object that some money in the ACA will go <a href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/hhs-mandate/index.cfm">to pay for sterilizations, abortifacient contraceptives, and other contraceptives</a>. While that’s unfortunately true, the same can be said—and worse—of U.S. taxpayer revenues that help fund Planned Parenthood.
However, in both cases, there is no formal cooperation on the part of the individual taxpayer or the individual who purchases health care via the ACA. In the case of the taxpayer, he is striving to be a responsible and upstanding citizen and, regrettably, a small portion of his taxes are used by the government to fund immoral practices. Similarly, a person who purchases health care under the ACA does so to provide himself and possibly also loved ones with good health care, and yet a small portion of his premiums is used for immoral practices.
The same can be said regarding many employee health care plans. In each of these cases, the cooperation is remote, because faithful Catholics would not be directly providing money—such as a direct donation to Planned Parenthood—nor would they otherwise be sharing the goal of those who misuse their funds.
In contrast, the Church has vigorously opposed the related <a href="http://www.usccb.org/news/2016/16-057.cfm">HHS Mandate</a> because the Obama administration was attempting to force in various ways Catholic and other religious entities to directly/formally provide their employees’ health-insurance coverage that would cover the aforementioned immoral practices.
For more information on the Church’s perspective on formal and material cooperation, see these <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/explaining-ratzingers-proportionate-reasons">two</a> <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/moral-investing">articles</a> by Catholic Answers Senior Apologist Jimmy Akin.
</div>

Is Obamacare Morally Acceptable?

Fr. Anthony Dorsa explains what a joyful Catholic should and should not do in a discussion with someone who is angry, rude, or aggressive.

Dealing With Belligerent People

How can Catholics be certain that God exists?

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Is Catholicism a FALSE religion?

<div>Why would God, an omnipotent being, love and care about us humans? Why doesn’t God see us like how we see bugs, as worthless things? </div><div><blockquote>When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—what is man that you are mindful of him? (Ps. 8:4-5).
Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you (Isa. 49:15).
Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you (Isa. 43:4).</blockquote>
Why do parents love their babies? Babies cannot return love, they cannot contribute in a material way, they need constant care and attention. Yet parents love their babies because they are their children. God loves humanity because he created us in his image and likeness.
Human persons are not bugs or worthless things. We can love, create, and truly choose good. Human persons are not mere reactionary creatures but a creation that, like God, can freely choose to do good and to love one another. Human persons are also able to know and understand goodness and love. In that knowledge and understanding we are also able to love God and enter into a relationship with him, unlike animals.
</div>

Why Does God Care About Us?

On September 12, just two days after her husband’s shocking assassination, Erika Kirk made an incredible statement about the mission and legacy that Charlie left behind. “If you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country. . . . The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.”
Her voice sent chills across my skin. She spoke to the power that women everywhere feel within themselves—a strength that God built into the deep parts of the wife, the mother, the virgin, brought out most when she is protecting what she loves.
We see this archetype through history’s myths and stories. However, it is most accurately reflected in Scripture.
In her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goddesses-Everywoman-Powerful-Archetypes-Womens/dp/0062321129/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.h-2nmH6j5lBizXtwRQtS5Qn4xYf9ctHSGhr7KoCjApjaGj0XfkbOBGb0tDq6EK-OaqhEPXWI1jwwr1FQWdCmtkrJF_dn0Tx4ud6jyVyflv4FqHVpVspJFjdnWdg66nvUTwDKI1RmNfJM6VK-Zqzgcct9sOVhlq2uBYTQC2IwbYPRMmihOTcoe3z3mSXQwrPDvQ_SQRJAA0px5Bd_xHnr2mRBiHanIF7022pRM3gmG7w.9qkZirVZSXlRQCHXs-OTqaIaqTps3JKz97S5_nhZA2I&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;hvadid=695275624512&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvexpln=67&amp;hvlocphy=9023226&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvocijid=13416016820196245673--&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvrand=13416016820196245673&amp;hvtargid=kwd-300989718151&amp;hydadcr=15523_13558508&amp;keywords=goddesses+in+every+woman&amp;mcid=411a328fe82e3c54a4d450aace8ca74b&amp;qid=1758115899&amp;sr=8-1">Goddesses in Everywoman</a>, psychiatrist Jean Shined Bolen uses the stories of Greek goddesses and the female archetypes they reflect to help women process the powerful internal responses they have to the world and people around them. She explains that the patterns seen in these ancient myths reflect timeless truths about women and how they function. Similarly, Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes explores what she terms the Wild Woman archetype in her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Run-Wolves-Archetype/dp/0345409876/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CISJBGQXJZ9G&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PdatIxnF62j_6y7vbjSibD5gwM8ZSBzFKnzVNcIjMLwDAPTEpODNgvJTo1WthzbkfCxLViPDvEpynJLE8KMwmFRiVQ0oI6-pysFXvKz6M85R0S5lVdc8Qvoc925hdUeQ69ekcAtzUxiedOACRvLu-nMAldH-NA0KCwpB9i8tBKlCOwoxy5Mgi6FyU4urxRXJOdGbuLt5NL3cyOdJN6tJkls_nmw1yafzmKKX__YWRpY.9F7Y1ppG1L5zQO5r7KNhwKE7mSZgMdvgMHOlXEzIy5w&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=women+who+run+with+the+wolves&amp;qid=1758116298&amp;sprefix=women+who+run+with+the+wolve,aps,195&amp;sr=8-1">Women Who Run with the Wolves</a>. She states, “These words, wild and woman, cause women to remember who they are and what they are about. They create a metaphor to describe the force which funds all females.”
This feeling of deep, hidden ferocity can be awakened by a variety of events. Perhaps one of the most common is in the experience of becoming a mother. While giving birth, a woman is pushed to the edge of herself and discovers that she is capable of much more than she ever knew. The raw, carnal path of pregnancy, labor, and delivery often leaves her with a newfound confidence in her ability to raise and, if necessary, defend that baby. There’s a reason that the type of bear people most fear to encounter is a mother with cubs.
Although most commonly portrayed in mothers, all women have a strength of mind that can move them to incredible feats. The feminist movement is so appealing because women know that they are capable of greatness, but they have been deceived about how to tap into it. The world tells us we must leave our femininity behind, like Lady Macbeth, who cries, “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty” (Act 1, Scene 5). This deception leads women to abandon the nurturing and self-giving they were made for, thinking they can find their inner strength only if they abandon their womanly instincts.
However, in the saints and the truth of Scripture we see that women are most powerful in the fullness of their womanhood. Judges 4 tells us the story of Jael, who secured the peace of her land by allowing the enemy general to rest in her tent and then driving a tent peg through his head as he slept. In Esther, we see an example of a woman who, due to her staggering beauty, was taken from her home and made the wife of King Ahasuerus. Rather than giving in to bitterness or sin, she submitted herself to God’s will and sought him in prayer. Because of this, God used her to save the Jewish people, and their enemy was hanged on his own gallows.
My favorite story of a powerful woman is the widow Judith, who, rather than accept the sinful resignation of the elders of Israel, seeks the Lord in prayer and devises a plan to save the nation from the army of Holofernes. She and her maid infiltrate the enemy camp and spend four days securing their trust. The enemy army is so impressed by Judith that they say, “Who can despise these people who have women like this among them? Surely not a man of them had better be left alive, for if we let them go they will be able to ensnare the whole world” (10:19). They never have a chance to kill the men, though, because on the evening of the fourth day, Judith and her maid secretly cut off Holofernes’s head and escape safely back home, where Judith instructs the elders to display the head on the parapet wall. In Judith 16:9, the people sing her praises, saying, “Her sandal ravished his eyes, her beauty captivated his mind, and the sword severed his neck.”
Of course, I would be leaving out the most impressive woman of all if I failed to mention the quiet heroism of the Virgin Mary, who, through her submission and self-giving, brought forth the savior of all of humanity and battled for her children against Satan himself (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-mary-the-woman-in-revelation-12">Rev. 12</a>).
Scripture reveals the truth about God and his design for women. We are strong and capable of great heroism, but that greatness will always be achieved as a woman. It is in submission, self-giving, and often intense suffering that women are empowered to defend their homes, families, and nations.
We see this archetype through history and Scripture, and we see it lived out in our nation today in Erika Kirk. Jael drove a tent peg through the her enemy’s skull, Esther saw Haman hanged, Judith severed the head of Holofernes and hung it on a wall, and Mary crushes the head of Satan. With this in mind, it seems wise not to find ourselves on the wrong side of a God-fearing woman’s prayerful battle cry.

The Widow’s Battle Cry

This is a problem in Protestantism that NO ONE talks about...

If you look at the bulletin for a typical Catholic parish, you’re likely to see a schedule of upcoming Masses along with notes for “Mass intentions,” like “for the holy souls in purgatory,” “pro populo,” “the Brown family,” “John and Jane Smith,” etc.
Some of these are straightforward. If the Mass intention is for the holy souls in purgatory, that means that the priest will intend to apply the spiritual benefits of the Mass in a special way to these souls.
Similarly, in Latin, pro populo means “for the people,” and so that Mass will be intended to benefit the people—meaning the people of the parish.
But what about Mass intentions for “the Brown family” or “John and Jane Smith”? Obviously, the Masses are intended for the benefit of the named individuals, but why do they rank? Why do they get Masses celebrated for their benefit?
The answer is that they asked. At some point, they spoke to the priest (or called the parish office), said that they’d like to have a Mass celebrated for their intentions, and got put on the schedule.
You can do the same thing!
But there’s something else that they likely did, which was to offer what’s known as a Mass offering or stipend. This is a sum of money that is given to the priest who celebrates the Mass.
At this point, your spider sense make go off. You may be wondering, “Money? For a Mass? Is this some clever device to extract money from the faithful? Is it a form of clerical abuse of the laity? And since the Mass is a sacred thing, is this <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-sin-of-simony-and-does-it-have-anything-to-do-with-simon-peter">the sin of simony</a>?”
As we’ll see, the answer to these questions is no—at least, not unless a priest is breaking the law.
The Gospels record Jesus making statements that exist in tension with each other. For example, as Jesus is sending out the Twelve on a preaching mission, he tells them not to take a bunch of supplies with them, because “the laborer deserves his food” (Matt. 10:10). Luke’s parallel passage has “the laborer deserves his wages” (10:7).
Passages like this indicate that ministers of the Gospel have a right to earn their living from their ministry—a theme stressed in other passages in the New Testament (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:4-14, 1 Tim. 5:18), and St. Paul summarizes Jesus’ teaching by stating that “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:14).
On the other hand, just two verses before Jesus told the Twelve that the worker deserves his food, he told them, “You received without pay, give without pay” (Matt. 10:8).
That makes it sound as if ministers shouldn’t charge for their work. As we often do in Christianity, we thus have two principles that at first seem opposed and need to be harmonized. They both reflect aspects of a deeper, more complex truth.
Light may be shed on the situation by the case of Simon Magus. In Acts 8, the magic practitioner Simon converts to Christianity through the ministry of Philip the Evangelist in Samaria, and then Peter and John arrive to confirm the Samaritan converts.
When the converts receive the Holy Spirit, Simon is impressed and offers them money, saying, “Give me also this power, that any one on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 19). Peter then rebukes him “because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money” (v. 20).
This leads to Simon’s sin being named after him—simony—and today, it is defined as “the buying and selling of spiritual things” (CCC 2121).
How can we harmonize the biblical data? On the one hand, ministers have a right to earn their living from the gospel, so they must be able to receive money—or goods and services—in connection with their work. That’s not the problem.
The problem must be something more specific—like how or under what conditions they receive the money.
One way of receiving money is accepting donations in a general way, without them being tied to any specific act of ministry. This is how most ministers today—Catholic and otherwise—earn their salaries.
However, you also could pay someone on a per act basis. This is the way non-salaried employees get paid—e.g., for each bushel of grain harvested, each chair put together, or each article written, they receive a certain amount of money. The same could be applied to ministers.
There’s nothing immoral about either a general salary or a per act payment, and the same applies to ministerial laborers as much as any others.
So what was wrong about Simon’s situation? For a start, he was essentially offering to buy ordination from the apostles. But ordination is not simply a commercial good. It is a gift of God and a calling to the service of others. That fits with the definition of simony as the buying of spiritual things.
But perhaps there’s something more to learn here. What would Simon have done with ordination if he had obtained it? Presumably, he would have used it to make money.
He’d previously amazed people with his magic—from which he no doubt earned income—and after ordination, he would offer to give the Holy Spirit to people in exchange for money, which would fit with the other side of simony—the selling of spiritual things.
This also would have been wrong for Simon to do, but why is that the case if ministers have a right to earn their living from ministry?
Think about what happens in a store. There’s something you want to buy—maybe even something you desperately need—and the seller requests money for it. But what if you don’t have the money? What happens then is that you don’t get the wanted or needed item.
Now cast your mind back to the ancient world, when the overwhelming number of people were poor and barely scraping by, living hand-to-mouth.
Spiritual things are the most essential things in life, and if they are being sold—in the proper sense of the term—then the poor would just have to do without spiritual things!
You’re a poor person and can’t pay to get baptized to be forgiven and go to heaven? Too bad for you!
Yet God loves the poor, and so Christian ministry must not allow such situations to occur.
Christian ministers deserve to earn a living from their ministry, but the poor deserve to have the benefits of that ministry, even if they can’t pay. Any system of compensation for Christian ministers must incorporate these principles.
Therefore, ministers cannot act like shopkeepers and deny spiritual goods to those who can’t afford to pay for them. There’s nothing wrong with compensating ministers on a per act-of-ministry basis, but if they refuse to minister to those who cannot pay, then they cross the line into selling spiritual goods and thus into simony.
What about Mass stipends? There have been abuses of Mass stipends in the past, but for centuries, the Church has implemented strict policies to prevent abuses.
There’s nothing wrong with compensating a priest for saying a Mass for your intentions, but there need to be—and are—laws to keep this from becoming a money-making scheme, an abuse of the faithful, or outright simony.
The principal laws are found in canons 945-958 of the Code of Canon Law. That’s right: fourteen canons devoted to just this topic! Counted other ways, the section amounts to twenty-two subsections and over 800 words—just devoted to regulating the kinds of stipends priests can accept and how they must handle them. That’s an indication of how seriously the Church takes this issue.
A fundamental protection is set up even earlier, when the Code says,
<blockquote>The minister is to seek nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by competent authority, always taking care that the needy are not deprived of the assistance of the sacraments because of poverty (can. 848).</blockquote>
So a priest can’t ask (or hint) that he’d like more than what the locally approved offering is. In the United States, this ranges between $5 and $20 for the celebration of Mass, with most dioceses setting it around $10.
And even those who are impoverished are not to be “deprived of the assistance of the sacraments.” Later, this theme is picked up again: “It is recommended earnestly to priests that they celebrate Mass for the intention of the Christian faithful, especially the needy, even if they have not received an offering” (can. 945 §2).
With the poor and others who have not made an offering taken care of, that prevents outright selling and thus <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/simony">simony</a>.
It also keeps this from being a form of spiritual abuse of the faithful. The Church earnestly exhorts the priest to say Mass for the intentions of a member of the faithful even without an offering.
And about this being a money-making scheme? The Code provides, “No one is permitted to accept more offerings for Masses to be applied by himself than he can satisfy within a year” (can. 953).
Except for Christmas, a priest is allowed to keep only one Mass offering for himself per day (can. 951 §1), so if you multiply $10 by 365 days, that would be an annual sum of just $3,650. Nobody is going to get rich on that.
The Code also provides numerous other protections for the faithful. For example, if the faithful give an offering, and it isn’t clear how many Masses they want said, the priest is supposed to compute it from the offering.
Back when I entered the Church in 1992, the standard Mass stipend in Arkansas was $5, and one family in my parish made a $50 donation—wanting only one Mass—and they were surprised to find ten Masses listed on the schedule for their intentions!
The Code also mandates a bookkeeping system to ensure that the Masses are said. Pastors of parishes are “to have a special book in which they note accurately the number of Masses to be celebrated, the intention, the offering given, and their celebration,” and the bishop or his representatives are required to audit this book every year (can. 958).
The Code even provides punishments for priests who traffic in Mass offerings (can. 1383).
There are additional provisions to ensure that the wishes of the faithful are strictly honored in this matter, and the Church is very serious about Mass offerings remaining modest, in keeping with the legitimate financial support of the Church and its ministers, and not turning into a crass money-making scheme.

Mass Stipends and Simony

Ezekiel’s meditation on God as the shepherd continues a recurring note over the last several weeks on leadership. For this prophet, and in this particular moment, the future realization of God’s promises involves the direct “shepherding” of the people by God. This is, after all, what seems to have been the original intention, when God first made a covenant with his chosen people. It was only due to their stubbornness and hardness of heart that he gave them a king. And in David that kingship took on its own significance, since God made a covenant with David, giving him an eternal throne.
When one reads the prophets, the question emerges: how can there be one shepherd, God, when there is also going to be a king forever from the line of David? We now know the answer: Christ himself is the Davidic king. He is also God.
In the Old Testament there were three primary offices instituted by anointing. Prophets were anointed, as a sign of their appointment to speak on God’s behalf to the people. Priests were anointed, as a sign of their role in offering sacrifices to maintain fellowship between people and God. And kings were anointed, a sign of their role in governing God’s people on earth.
The word Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek, means “anointed one.” And so the early Church thought it quite clear that in assuming this role of the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus was true prophet, priest, and king—and it was important that he be all three. For a king alone would rule but would not reconcile. A priest alone would reconcile without giving order. A prophet alone would speak truth without giving the power to live in it. Christ our Lord is the fulfilment of all these roles: as prophet, he proclaims the truth of God’s kingdom; as priest, he reconciles us to God; as king, he empowers us to live a life of justice and virtue.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following ancient tradition, insists that in baptism we receive in some sense all three of these roles as we are incorporated into the body of Christ. As prophets we are given the mission to proclaim in word and deed the truth of God’s kingdom in the world. As priests we are asked to intercede for the world and reconcile it to God. In this sense, the priesthood of the whole Church and the ministerial priesthood are two sides to the same coin, ordered to one another.
But how do we embody the kingly ministry of Christ? To be sure, this is a difficult question. For Catholics, the kingly ministry of Christ’s Church is hard to separate, historically, from the political power of the papacy in Europe until very recently—exemplified, perhaps, by that triple-tiara of the popes that was abandoned, controversially, in 1963, and which in part represented the temporal power of popes as not just ecclesiastical rule, but secular monarchs of a sort. That is an interesting can of worms for another day.
The Fathers of the Church, along with the medieval commentators and our current Catechism, seem pretty clear in their view that the kingly power of Christ is exercised, at least among the faithful, primarily by their reign over their own bodies. In other words, we exercise Christ’s kingly reign by ruling over our own passions and desires, by regulating our selves and forming our actions according to virtue rather than vice.
To be clear, this is not to denounce or delegitimize the various ways that the Church has, through the ages, exerted her power in the temporal realm. That has been, I think, sometimes for good, sometimes not. But ultimately it is a prudential matter, accidental to the essence of what the Church is. Whether or not the Church is in charge of the world, Christians show that Christ is Lord by their lives. They worship Christ the King not by coercing others to his rule, but by living in such a way that his rule is a necessary conclusion, an inescapable reality.
Perhaps this is why the Gospel for today emphasizes charity. Christ’s kingly ministry is exercised most not in dominance or power, but in lowly service—“as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” And this should come as no surprise, for this is the witness he gives us at even such a moment of power and grace as the Last Supper, when, before he institutes the Eucharist, he washes his disciples’ feet. And at this point we ought to just go all the way and remember that Christ is king, most decisively, on the Cross. That is his throne in this world. And it is from that throne, that seat of glory, that he most clearly shows the character of his rule, which is ultimately a rule of love. He would rather die than let us be, as our collect for today reminds us, “divided and enslaved by sin.”
Here’s the thing: the “freedom” of this world, the ability to do what we want, when we want—it’s all a delusion to the extent that it veils the reality of sin and death. Our world is under judgment—and it has been since AD 33. However good and noble America is, however good and free any other good nation might be, such states, modern or medieval or ancient, cannot ultimately provide the freedom that God ordained for us, because that freedom is not simply the indifferent ability to choose what kind of ice cream we want or whom we want to be our president, but the freedom to live the life of abundance in fellowship with the God who made us and loves us.
Thus, that early Christian proclamation—that Jesus is Lord—is a political statement. Not political as in staking a claim within the existing politics of this world, but offering an alternative politics, an alternative polis, which is the City of God. And the saints and Fathers of the Church insist, in every age, that no earthly city, no earthly state, can offer the fullness of what that kingdom holds.
This does not mean that we withdraw or act as if we are not part of the earthly city. Christianity is not an escape from reality. But we live here as citizens of another realm. And our mission is not first to control or to manage this realm, but to give witness to another.
I’m always struck by the strangeness of the title of today’s feast: Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. What an unusual thing to say. But surely this is an even more unusual thing, in 2023, to live. And so as we celebrate the Mass, and as we carry our Lord himself in procession by the street, remember that strangeness. From a pagan perspective, we are about to walk around singing praises to a wafer. But I’d like to think that the weirdness of such things is exactly how we remind the world that all is not as it seems. There is, in fact, a Lord of history. There is an order and a meaning to this world. And we know that the only access point to that ultimate reality is Jesus Christ, who will in the end unite us all under his “most gracious rule.”

How We Be Kings

Trent Horn, <a class="mention-chip ytcp-social-suggestion-input" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot">The Counsel of Trent Podcast</a> , gives a few examples of where ancient Jews documented Jesus. He includes Book 18 and 20 of the Antiquities and discusses their reliability.

Did Ancient Jews Write About Jesus?

It might be the most <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/do-wives-have-to-be-submissive">politically incorrect verse</a> in the Bible: &#8220;Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord&#8221; (Eph. 5:22). How can this possibly lead to a loving household? Monica Doumit explains the proper understanding of this verse on Catholic Answers Live.

Should Wives Submit to their Husbands?

During our third year in marriage, we decided it was time to have a baby. I cheerfully had my birth control implant removed from my arm (it was still eight years before we converted to Catholicism), and we went about our business, naturally assuming I would shortly come up pregnant.
Except I didn’t. Month after month went by, and my womb remained empty.
I was confused. Had I missed something important in my high school health class? Didn’t sex lead to pregnancy?
My conversion to Catholicism and thus to Natural Family Planning has been an eye-opening journey as I become aware of the astounding breadth of information I missed out on. And I am surprised that even within the Catholic community, many teenage girls are not being taught the basics of NFP.
It took seven months of timed trying as I slowly learned to navigate my own reproductive system, but we finally conceived. We went on to have three more healthy pregnancies, and I’m currently pregnant with twins, but our family-building has not been without effort. I have <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-womanhood-feels-pagan">lost three babies</a>, and every pregnancy has required planning and trying. Our twins are an exception, though, and here I have to insert credit to the intercession of Mary: I asked several of my friends to pray a week of rosaries with me, and we conceived the first month.
I imagine that my story is not unique. There are people who are infertile and people who become pregnant with surprising ease. Between those edges of the bell curve, there are women who need a little tracking and trying and giving their bodies a little extra support to conceive. And if those women attended a perfectly respectable public school and had perfectly normal parents, they are probably as clueless as I was. It is concerning to discover many teenage girls formed in the rich tradition of the Church are also clueless.
In addition to NFP’s role in family-building, there are numerous benefits to understanding the cycles of the female body that have nothing to do with conception or the avoidance thereof. Each month brings the cycle of symptoms and changes that impact our normal day-to-day routine. Almost any adult woman can tell you a story or decision in her life inspired by a hormonal shift, and we come to understand that some days we feel bloated or depressed or impulsive or easily aroused. These are all part of the four phases of a woman’s cycle. This would have been beneficial to learn much earlier in life, when the easy predictability of such feelings would have led to knowledge and freedom from emotional undulations.
Our culture today is working to eradicate gender differences. In 2021, approximately <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/">42,000 </a>children and teens across the United States were diagnosed with gender dysphoria—three times as many as in 2017. The culture’s statement to teens is that if they are uncomfortable or unhappy in their bodies, there must be something wrong with them. This is laughable to anyone who has endured puberty, but particularly to women, when each month brings a fresh cycle of discomforts and inconveniences. Knowledge of these cycles—what they mean, what causes the shifts, how to navigate them—can prevent a sense of feeling overwhelmed or embarrassed by being a woman, and rather understand it as a pathway to closeness with our creator.
As such, we can use NFP to begin teaching our girls about the beauty and dignity of womanhood. To fight the culture’s torrent of gender ideology, it is essential to celebrate the uniquely feminine aspects of their bodies and understand the troublesome ones. For girls, menstruation is the ideal time to talk more consistently about how the female form—both the beautiful and uncomfortable aspects—uniquely draw us to holiness. In the words of Fulton Sheen,
<blockquote>it is well known that women are capable of far more sustained sacrifice than men; a man may be a hero in a crisis, and then slip back to mediocrity. He lacks the moral endurance, which enables a woman to be heroic through the years, months, days, and even seconds of her life, when the very repetitive monotony of her tasks wears down the spirit.
Not only a woman’s days, but her nights—not only her mind, but her body must share in the Calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption than men have: they have come to associate the risk of death with life in childbirth, and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceding it.</blockquote>
Almost every aspect of our culture shouts messages of shame, rejection, and disgust around the female body. Our curves are reduced of objects of sexuality, our cycles are nuisances to be medicated, and children are offensive and worthy of murder. As parents, we must increase our efforts to counter these messages and remind our daughters their bodies are holy temples rather than confusing inconveniences.
The concepts of NFP and hormone tracking should be taught to every female as soon as she begins her monthly cycle. By the time she enters marriage, she should know the nuances of her body and be able to articulate them to her spouse. In addition to the obvious family planning benefits, a woman’s cycle can often be an indicator of health. Irregular or painful cycles can be a symptom of endometriosis and require medical intervention. Long delays between cycles are often caused by malnutrition. Stress, illness, and life changes can all impact our cycle and indicate how well our body is coping.
If this task feels daunting to you, fear not. Like many things in parenting, this can be a gradual process that brings about greater bonding between you and your daughter. Women are blessed to have a natural coming-of-age experience. Experiencing a period for the first time is an exciting rite that should be celebrated. It indicates to young women that they are entering a new phase of life, a transition for greater maturity, freedom, and responsibilities.
Her first period is the time for a girl to begin tracking her cycles in a simple planner and maybe indicate her emotions around the experience. When she comprehends her cycle, you can begin to talk to her about bodily indicators. As the years go on, you can add the use of a basal body thermometer and explain temperature changes around hormonal shifts. Our bodies give many signs of our monthly cycles, and by the age of eighteen, a woman should have a clear understanding of each one.
The years of scientific research behind NFP have gifted Catholics with tools that go far beyond the manageable spacing of children. Our understanding of the rhythms of the female body are unique within broader culture, and we should make greater use of them to prepare our daughters to thrive. The truths about biological sex, reproduction, and family life are some of the most countercultural aspects of our faith. So many of these truths are expressed in a unique way by the role of women and God’s unique design in their anatomy. It is vital that we succeed in teaching our daughters about their bodies in order to equip them with the knowledge and tools to navigate this time in history.

Teach Your Daughters NFP

<div>Why did God create the world?</div><div>Some philosophies and religions have claimed the universe necessarily “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-impossible-that-god-created-the-universe">emanates</a>” from God, but the Church teaches that God freely chose to create the world for his glory (CCC 293-295). God didn’t have to make the world, nor did he make it because he needs it; he created the world because we need him. God, who is love itself (1 John 4:18), desires the good of all things and so, out of a super-abundant, overflowing possession of goodness, God created beings that would benefit from being in relation with him.
</div>

Why did God create the world?

<div>Did Mary experience bodily death?</div><div>Yes, it is the common teaching in the ordinary Magisterium of the Church and in its liturgical worship that Our Lady underwent bodily death. This is the unanimous teaching of all the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/fathers-of-the-church">Fathers of the Church</a> in the context of their teaching on her <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption">Assumption</a>. The fact that the Venerable Pius XII did not define that Our Lady died when he defined her bodily Assumption has been taken by many to mean that she did not die; but in the very bull of definition itself he brings forth the teaching of the Fathers that she died, was resurrected, and then assumed into heaven.
St. Thomas Aquinas held that Our Lady died as did everyone else. Bl. Duns Scotus did not deny that she died, but in his theology his followers found a rationale for holding that she did not. This is a theological opinion that is licit to hold but that is not the opinion expressed in the ordinary teaching of the popes and the Fathers and Doctors. Rather, the doctrine that Our Lady is everywhere seen as sharing in her Son&#8217;s lot indicates that she would have chosen to die (she did not have to die, since she was sinless) in order to conform herself to him who chose to die for the salvation of the world. This is by far the better attested and traditional teaching.
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Did Mary Die?

The story of the woman caught in adultery is a favorite among those who want to find in Jesus a rulebreaker and rebel, who want to take the message of mercy and strip it bare of any connection with justice or morality.
To find these things requires a certain deliberate misreading of the story. We’d have to ignore that final line “Go and sin no more” and replace it with something generic and affirming: Hey, you do you. We’d also have to act as if Jesus in fact fell right into the trap set for him by the Pharisees. You see, they want him to downplay the sin or relativize it so that they can catch him violating the law of Moses. Either that, or they want him to condemn the woman to death and thereby condemn himself by disobedience to Roman authority, which alone could authorize such punishment. He does neither of those things. He knows the game they’re playing, and he wants none of it.
We read through this part, and it tends to come across as happening faster than it probably did. It’s hard to insert an awkward pause and silence into scriptural narrative, but John tries to make it pretty clear with this odd detail of Jesus bending down and writing in the dirt. The Pharisees come out in front of the crowd—everyone’s eyes on them, and on Jesus. They demand a response. Everyone is on edge, wondering what he’ll say, whether it will enrage them or stir up the crowd or get him arrested by the soldiers no doubt watching. And he just . . . ignores them. It’s really remarkable. That’s something to remember the next time we’re baited by the algorithms that feed on our constant sense of outrage.
It is only after some time, when no doubt the silence became deafening, when Jesus has deftly shown his mastery over the situation, that they press him again, and he says, almost casually: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Again, it’s not “Stop this nonsense about sin and let’s all get along!” or “Destroy the sinner.” It is a calm nod to both justice and mercy. After all, some commentators think the whole thing may be staged: Whether the woman actually committed adultery or not, the setup is a bit too convenient. The implication is that the authorities don’t really care anything about this woman or her sins; they’re only interested in trapping Jesus. The finger of judgment is pointed at him more than at her. St. Bede says that by turning to the ground, the Lord suggests that before making judgments we should look to our own faults so as to avoid being unjust or unmerciful. Alcuin also suggests that the ground is a sign of the human heart, and that when faced with our neighbors’ faults, we should “not immediately and rashly to condemn them, but after searching our own hearts to begin with, examine them attentively with the finger of discretion.”
Another small but significant detail in John is that the elders among the scribes leave first—the wiser men, in other words, realize that their trap has failed. Certainly it is possible that they are convicted by the Lord’s words and realize that they are not completely without sin. More likely, though, is a calculated choice to risk losing the moral high ground with the crowd rather than risk being arrested.
There’s more to this than Jesus just being clever. Someone else could have, in principle, made the same diffusive argument. But John wants to show us in his Gospel over and over that this man is himself the key to everything. Especially in the backdrop of the Temple, we should imagine the signs and symbols of that great structure: the large candelabras, the altar, the great doors, the secret interior sanctuary. But Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the bread that came down from heaven. Likely this scene takes place around the time of the feast of tabernacles, when the altar would be ceremoniously washed with large quantities of water, suggesting the spring flowing from the Temple in the end of the Book of Ezekiel. And here is Jesus, the true living water. Whereas the dust of the ground is a sign of our condemnation, our falling back into the earth, he is the cleansing water that transforms us with the life of heaven.
As the prophet says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing;  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isa. 43:19). In Christ we are no longer trapped between condemnation and rebellion. The law was just, but, on its own, it insufficiently manifested the divine mercy. The solution here isn’t to reject the law, or to dig in with greater scrupulosity, but rather to accept that all law is superseded in the presence of the lawgiver. He wrote the law. He is the law, for he is the eternal Word of the Father. He is both justice and mercy, full of both righteous hatred of evil and unbounded loving kindness to the penitent.
Whatever the circumstances of the woman in John 8, Jesus offers her something new. “Go and sin no more.” This is a moment of conversion, turning away from the past toward the future gained for us by the Lord’s mercy. Today’s readings provide stark language about this newness. In Isaiah: “Remember not the former things,    nor consider the things of old” (43:18). In Philippians: “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (3:8). I intentionally use a more literal old translation, because where Douay and King James use “dung,” most of our modern translations use polite terms like “rubbish” and “refuse.” But the Greek word is maybe even more accurately translated as a word for excrement not appropriate for a Sunday-morning pulpit!
This should suggest that St. Paul really means business. Just as Isaiah instructs us to “remember not the former things,” the apostle insists that he is “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (3:13). Surely there is a kind of exaggerated rhetoric here amid the Bible’s otherwise routine instruction to remember things. And indeed I think it would be a mistake to read these verses as if they instructed us literally to forget everything about the past—if the Church believed that, we wouldn’t have kept these words of Scripture. Yet conversion must really mean a new start, and the forgiveness of sins must really be the forgiveness of sins.
To make sense of this, we should consider the paradox of the Lord’s eternal memory alongside his promise to “remember not” our sins. Going to confession is an act of remembering in order to forget. Being baptized is an act of forgetting ourselves so that we can be remembered by God. Likewise, all the sacraments are acts of remembering and forgetting.
I suppose that is a clever way of thinking about things, but maybe not terribly helpful in itself. What I think we ought to remember about the story in John 8 is this: that when we are thrown down into the dust by the false dilemmas of this world, whether we’re “caught in the act” of some immorality, or whether we’re caught in the snares of those who want to use us in their political games, or whether we are stuck in the business of rounding up people to condemn . . . Jesus is there in the dust with us, offering us the cleansing water—that is, himself—that empowers us to get up and walk away toward a better life. At the end of our lives—and I think this is what St. Paul means—the final and most important thing is whether we remember Jesus. Because we know that he will never forget us.

Caught in Adultery!

Trent Horn explains why it is important to come to the fullness of understanding on theological divisions between Catholics and Protestants, such as Marian and Eucharistic doctrines, and demonstrates why the mere fact that the two churches disagree does not mean that no definitive answer can be found.
Transcript

Host: We go now to Len in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, listening on Sirius satellite radio. Len, you are on with Trent Horn, what&#8217;s your question?
Caller: Good evening, guys. So I&#8217;m a lifelong Catholic, but I&#8217;ve studied Protestant theology probably at least as much as I&#8217;ve studied Catholicism. I have the same objection into both churches, and that is the extent to which both churches tend to divide over issues as to which there is no definitive answer on this side of Heaven. And the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/isnt-consubstantiation-more-incarnational-than-transubstantiation">transubstantiation/consubstantiation</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/hail-mary-conceived-without-sin">whether Mary was born with Original Sin</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/justified-by-faith-or-works-or-both">whether we&#8217;re saved by works</a>, whether works have any salvific value, and it just seems like there&#8217;s divisions over points that just simply cannot be definitively answered. And it causes me, you know, great heartache because theology tends to divide people, whereas mission work, for example, tends to unite people. I just wonder what your thoughts are about that.
Trent: Okay Len, I guess my first question would be: you&#8217;re saying that these issues such as the nature of the Eucharist or Marian dogmas or the nature of salvation can&#8217;t be resolved. Why do you think they can&#8217;t be resolved? Is the only reason you think they can&#8217;t be resolved is because people disagree over them?
Caller: Well, the problem&#8217;s the proof. I guess the question is, where do you look to find the answers to such questions as, for example, whether Mary was born with Original Sin, or whether the Holy Eucharist is actually Christ&#8217;s body or whether it&#8217;s a symbol. Protestants and Catholics look at the same Bible, essentially, and come to different conclusions, and yet they divide over issues like that.
Trent: Okay, sure. Well, I would say that where you would look would be the sources of divine revelation, which as Catholics we believe would be Sacred Scripture&#8211;so God&#8217;s Word in its written form in Sacred Scripture, God&#8217;s Word that has been passed on to the Church and sacred tradition&#8211;and the Church that Christ founded, what the Church teaches on these subjects, because God didn&#8217;t simply leave us with a Bible, He left us with a Church endowed with His authority that could be passed on to successors. So I would say that it can be resolved, these issues can be and have been resolved, the Church does definitively teach on these issues.
There are other issues, I agree with you, that the Church has not definitively taught about, that our&#8211;we are separated by the veil, if you will, and so the Church has not definitively taught, for example, what the exact nature of Purgatory is, for example. Or even issues related to Mary&#8217;s virginity, the Church has not definitively taught who the Brethren of the Lord are. Whether it&#8217;s definitive that they are cousins, or half siblings, whatever it may be; so there are issues where the Church has not definitively defined a subject, but then there&#8217;s issues where it has. And just because there&#8217;s disagreement, I don&#8217;t think that takes away from&#8211;you know, there&#8217;s disagreement, just some people are right and others are wrong.
Because, Len, look at it this way: you say, &#8220;Well, Catholics and Protestants look at the same thing, they disagree, so let&#8217;s not focus on that.&#8221; Would you agree that Christians and atheists can look at the same evidence in the natural world, and they disagree about whether God exists?
Caller: Sure.
Trent: Okay, but would that mean there&#8217;s no definitive answer to the question of whether God exists?
Caller: No, I would say not, no.
Trent: But why is that? Atheists look at the same evidence and they don&#8217;t come to that conclusion.
Caller: Well, we come from a different worldview. Atheists, for example, don&#8217;t accept the Bible as the Word. If you&#8217;re going to ask the question, I think part of the question has to be, where do you find the answer? And if you&#8217;re going to ask the question, for example, about how we were created, the atheist worldview is not Biblical, and obviously the Christian&#8217;s is. So where you stand is where you sit.
Trent: I think I see what you&#8217;re saying here about presuppositions a little bit. Do you think, though, that a person could use reason to show God exists? That you don&#8217;t have to assume the Bible is true, that you could just make an argument based on nature that shows God exists? Do you think that&#8217;s possible?
Caller: Well sure, I know about the ontological arguments and all the arguments that are positive, but, you know, even those have weaknesses as well. I mean, at some point we can reason through, but at some point we can&#8217;t understand and we have to apprehend what we don&#8217;t really comprehend.
Trent: Sure, and Len, I think that this example would show that on important issues, like the existence of God or the deity of Christ, Christians and non-Christians, whether they&#8217;re atheists or Jews or Muslims, will disagree over evidence they look at, but you and I would agree that Christians are correct on this even though there&#8217;s disagreement, and we would agree there are still definitive answers.
And your your point about &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s about ultimately your own worldview,&#8221; I agree with you, so that same logic would carry over to the Catholics and Protestants. We look at the same evidence, we&#8217;re gonna be approaching it in different ways, and we come to our foundations of our worldviews in different ways; but there are still definitive answers there even if people don&#8217;t agree.
There&#8217;s one last point I&#8217;d like to address before we move on: you say &#8220;Well, theology divides, but things like mission work unites.&#8221; But I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s necessarily bad if something divides. For example, you would&#8211;would you agree that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, what He taught, He divided people. Wouldn&#8217;t you say?
Caller: Oh absolutely, no doubt about that.
Trent: Yeah, but that&#8217;s okay, because truth is ultimately going to divide people between those who accept the truth and those who reject the truth. So it&#8217;s okay to cause division; in fact Jesus Himself said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve come to bring division, to set father against son, brother against brother,&#8221; because the truth does divide people. That in itself isn&#8217;t bad; it&#8217;s necessary, so that we can help people who are in error come to the truth to pass over that dividing line, if you will.
So that&#8217;s probably how I would take a look at all that, and I still think theology would be important, and what the Church has defined on dogmatic issues related to the nature of the Eucharist, or Mary, I think that we have very good evidence for that from Scripture, from tradition, and from the teaching office of the Church. And if you would like more information about those subjects and their foundations in the deposit of faith and divine revelation, I&#8217;d recommend visiting our website Catholic.com and looking up those points, and I think you&#8217;ll get a lot more from there. So thanks very much for calling in.

Are Theological Divisions Pointless?

<div>What do you do when someone only focuses on the bad stuff in the Church?</div><div>It depends on how well you know this person. If this person is merely an acquaintance, you can offer information that addresses that person&#8217;s concerns, and then move on if it is not received well. With someone you do know well, you can also offer information, but if it is not received well then you can politely ask that person for a respite from negative discussions. I recommend Joanna Bogle&#8217;s article <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/seek-something-to-be-glad-about">Seek Something to Be Glad About</a>.
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Focusing on the Bad

<div>What pictures or paintings or icons are suitable for the sanctuary of a Catholic church?</div><div>I recommend you read the USCCB document <a href="http://www.sfdslg.org/Church/Documents/ChurchReno/Built%20of%20Living%20Stones.pdf">Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship</a> issued and approved by the authority of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on November 16, 2000. In it you’ll find specific guidelines for using art in churches.
Further resources:
Canon 1188: “The practice of exposing sacred images in churches for the veneration of the faithful is to be retained. However, these images are to be displayed in moderate numbers and in suitable fashion, so that the Christian people are not disturbed, nor is occasion given for less than appropriate devotion.”
<a href="http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-5.cfm">General Instruction of the Roman Missal</a>
<a href="//www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html">Sacrosanctum </a><a href="//www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html">concilium</a> (no. 125)
<a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1987/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19871204_duodecimum-saeculum.html">Duodecimum Saeculum</a>
<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s1c2a1.htm">Catechism of the Catholic Church</a>
<a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists.html">Letter to Artists</a>
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Appropriate Liturgical Art

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Joe Heschmeyer joins Cy Kellett to tackle one of the most common questions about the life of faith: If God already knows everything, including our needs, what&#8217;s the point of prayer? Joe explains how prayer isn’t about informing God, but about drawing closer to Him—cooperating with His will, growing in trust, and participating in the divine plan.
Transcript:
Caller: I&#8217;ve been recently just like, looking into religion in general as well as Catholicism. So my question was that if God&#8217;s will is always going to be done, what is the purpose of prayer?
Joe: Ah, that&#8217;s a great question. There&#8217;s a great bit in Matthew chapter 6 about this. Jesus has this kind of funny line where he tells us not to pray like the Gentiles. This is Matthew 6, verse 8, because he says, your Father knows what you need before you ask him. But then he says, pray then like this. And he gives us the Lord&#8217;s Prayer, the Our Father.
And you want to stop and say, hold on a second. Didn&#8217;t you just say God knows what we actually need before we ask him? Like, I&#8217;m not giving God any new information when I pray. All he&#8217;s getting are my worst ideas about what should happen. This is not improving at the level of, like, divine knowledge of reality.
What&#8217;s going to happen? So the reason is the will of God isn&#8217;t just for some external thing to happen. The will of God is for me to share in divine life. And that means praying. That means cooperating with God.
So you go all the way back to Genesis, and after God chooses Abraham, one of the first things that he does is tell him about his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Why? So that Abraham will intercede before God. And even though Sodom and Gomorrah is so corrupt, they still are destroyed. Abraham&#8217;s intervention works in saving the righteous and saving Lot and his family.
And we&#8217;re told that in the next chapter that God remembered Abraham and saved Lot. So if you want to think about it like this, there&#8217;s a logical way. If I tell my kids, eat your vegetables if you want to have dessert. Now, my will is accomplished if they eat their vegetables and then have dessert. My will is technically also accomplished if they don&#8217;t eat their vegetables and don&#8217;t have dessert. They didn&#8217;t meet the condition, and so the result didn&#8217;t happen.
So your prayers actually can change things. Not for the worse, for the better. Does that distinction make sense?
In both cases, the will would be achieved if you said, eat your vegetables if you want to have dessert.
Caller: Could you give me an example that is like a positive? So let&#8217;s say I prayed for, like, I don&#8217;t know, like a good test grade or something. How would that apply to your principle?
Joe: Yeah. That God wants your success more though he wants your prayers, your growth, and like your spiritual success, if you will. And so he will often reward prayer in various ways because the good of you praying is something that is to be encouraged.
And so in James chapter five, we get some concrete cases of this. Beginning in verse 16, he says, the prayer of a righteous man has great power and its effects. Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
So prayer can actually change the outcome of things. And you say, why would God allow that? Because his plan is for our cooperation in divine life. And prayer is one of the ways we share in divine life. We are in union in relationship with God, and He rewards that relationship.
Caller:  So does that mean his will is not predetermined in that, like, my entire course of my life is not already seen by God because is he not omniscient?
Joe: So he already knows. He is omniscient. He knows what you&#8217;re going to do. But knowing what someone is going to do isn&#8217;t the same as forcing them to do it. You know, if you are up on a hill and you see like a train track and see that, like, the track is awry and two trains are going to collide with each other, you might see all of that happening. You&#8217;re not causing it to happen.
Now, divine foreknowledge doesn&#8217;t work just like that. I just give that as an example to say God knows how you will respond freely to the prompts that he gives you. And that&#8217;s another factor in this. When you&#8217;re praying, when you&#8217;re doing these things, and it&#8217;s having a result that&#8217;s not thwarting the divine will, that is the unfolding of the divine will.
Like, God&#8217;s plan involves your free cooperation, and he knew how you were going to freely cooperate, and he planned that into his plan from all eternity.
Caller: Okay, I think I understand what you&#8217;re getting at. Thank you so much for your help.
Joe: Absolutely. Please continue to call as you are on this exploration. It&#8217;s really beautiful, the thing you&#8217;re exploring, and you&#8217;re grappling with a very big question. And it&#8217;s okay if it&#8217;s daunting at first and if it seems kind of hard to put all the pieces together. That&#8217;s absolutely normal.
Cy: If you&#8217;d like, Laura, I would send you our big book of Catholic answers just for your interest in reading. As you have questions, there are 250 questions answered in there.

Why Pray If God Already Knows Everything?

Looking back on my days as a Protestant, it occurs to me that we were comfortable with two types of authority. The first was the Bible. Although I never belonged to a tradition that placed much if any emphasis on sola scriptura, we maintained an underlying principle that things in the Bible were true. Moses <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-word-set-in-stone-how-archaeology-science-and-history-back-up-the-bible/">really parted</a> the waters of the Red Sea, so we knew that highly improbable natural events could occur. The Israelites really brought down the walls of Jericho with their horns and marching, and therefore miraculous victories were known to happen. Obviously, Jesus really did rise from the dead, thus we believed we would be resurrected, too.
There was also a second type of authority that my Protestant community of origin trusted—at least for the most part: personal testimony. If a missionary on furlough from his ministry in Africa came to visit our community and told us he saw a man die and get filled with embalming fluid, but the next day, the man woke up giving thanks to God, we believed him. Weird stuff like that happened in the Bible, right? If a woman stood up in a prayer meeting to say her daughter’s cancer had mysteriously disappeared from her body, of course we all rejoiced with her. We had no need to meet her daughter in person, let alone look at the girl’s pathology report. Again, thanks to Scripture, we knew that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/miracles-keep-going-and-going">miracles were real</a>.
Oddly, however, the Protestant world I grew up in did not hold Tradition in the same high esteem as a source of authority, akin to the Bible or personal testimony. I say oddly, because Tradition both is connected to the big picture of biblical truth and is a more reliable form of testimony than what people I knew took for granted as true.
A great test case for my point is the dogma that the Church celebrates today as a solemnity and a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-are-the-holy-days-of-obligation">holy day of obligation</a>: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Now, many things we know about Our Lady come straight from the Bible. She conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:31-34); she bore Our Lord in Joseph’s ancestral home city of Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1, Luke 2:4-7); she asked her son to help the wedding guests at Cana (John 2:3); and she was taken into the home of Jesus’s beloved disciple, John, when Our Lord was dying on the cross (v. 27). Both Catholic and Protestants, taking the Bible as authoritative, accept all these stories as true. In other cases, like the perpetual virginity of Mary, all Catholics and some Protestants believe, but some Protestants dissent on the basis of a different scriptural interpretation.
All but a tiny handful of Protestants, however, dismiss the Assumption. Or at the very least, they do not hold it as an essential dogma of the faith. It’s not in the Bible, so that’s that. No point in worrying about it.
But this rejection of the Assumption is, on examination, completely illogical.
Let’s think for a moment about the prophet Elijah, whose <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/was-elijah-assumed-into-heaven-before-mary">assumption</a> is recorded in the Bible. In 2 Kings 2, after Elisha is appointed to assume Elijah’s ministry, the text says,
<blockquote>And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more (vv. 11-12).</blockquote>
Naturally, almost all faithful Catholics and Protestants believe this story because it is in the Bible. We agree on the trustworthiness of the account that Elijah was assumed into heaven, proving that any person could be thus assumed, body and soul.
Now, Mary’s assumption is not recorded in Scripture, but assumption, per se, is attested by Scripture as the sort of thing God does. God could, therefore, assume Mary’s body and soul into heaven just as he did Elijah’s . . . but would he? Scripture points to various affirmative answers.
To name just two: First, Mary is the new Eve, succeeding where our ancestral sinner failed. Whereas the first Eve lived in both bodily and spiritual harmony with heaven before her sin, the new Eve belongs in heaven by her sinlessness. Second, Mary is the recapitulation of the Ark of the Covenant, whose original contents, the Ten Commandments, came from heaven, and whose fulfilled contents, the eternal Word of God, came from heaven to earth and ascended back to heaven again. In this sense, Mary, the vessel of the Word, once again belongs in heaven—body and soul—with the resurrected body and soul of her son, Jesus.
So God could and would assume Mary into heaven. But did he?
When Pope Pius XII finally declared the Assumption a dogma in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus in 1950, he noted that the bishops of the Church offered “an almost unanimous affirmative response,” with “outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful” (12). Add the countless sacred images of the Assumption from many centuries, the naming of churches and holy sites through the ages, the defense of the Assumption by some of the Church’s greatest theologians from different eras, and the inclusion of the Assumption as a mystery of the holy rosary, and you’ve got one monumentally convincing testimony. Yes, we say with total confidence, God could, would, and did assume Mary, body and soul, into heaven.
Here we see how Tradition works, intimately connected to the Bible and exceeding the trustworthiness of an individual testimony at a modern-day Protestant church gathering or private prayer meeting. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation puts it this way: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church” (10).
In brief, the Assumption is no assumption! Believe this great dogma of the Church in all its fullness, and celebrate it today.

The Other Assumption

In this podcast, Catholic Answers senior apologist Jimmy Akin will take up a different challenge to Catholicism every day of the year and show how you can defend the Faith and give answers to skeptics. It’s the perfect podcast for the thinking Catholic on the go—less than five minutes a day to learn a new apologetic argument.

Daily Defense Podcast

When Did the Early Churches Recognize a Pope?

Jonah is a familiar story. The prophet hears the call of God. He says no. He gets on a boat to go as far away from Nineveh as possible. There are unaccountably fierce storms, so he rightly discerns God’s judgment and has the crew toss him into the sea, where he is swallowed by a large fish—or perhaps a whale—and spit up after three days. He journeys to Nineveh, where our story picks up this morning, to preach repentance. The people repent, as does God—more on that in a moment—and then, after today’s selection, Jonah goes into a fit of pouting self-pity.
It&#8217;s an odd story in many ways, which is part of why it is one of the most memorable stories of the Old Testament. But it’s worth pointing out how the content of the book as a whole is also unusual in the context of the whole Bible. Jonah is sent not to the kings of Judah or of Israel; he is not sent to the people of the covenant. He is sent to heathen foreigners who have no direct contact with the God of Israel. In much of the Old Testament, we could easily forget that promise to Abraham long ago that in his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Yet here we have this clear insistence that God is interested in and cares for the Gentiles.
One other interesting aspect of the book is how it subtly asserts the absolute singularity of Israel’s God in the world. It wasn’t that unusual for ancient peoples to make large claims about their gods. But for the most part, those claims end at the border of the nation. It seems strange to us, but this was a typical ancient attitude: well sure, our god is the creator of all things, but by “all things” we really mean this village or this river or this nation. The other nations and cities have their own gods, and we leave them alone. Yet in Jonah, there’s this seeming ignorance that anyone even claims to worship other gods. We see God’s power first on his native turf—his call to Jonah. But then we see God’s power over the wind and the waves, his power over the animal kingdom, his power over plant life, over the sun, his power over a huge city that has never even heard of him. No other gods are even mentioned. The implication is that they are too small, too insignificant to warrant notice. Their power, if it is power, is illusory and limited. They are not really, in the end, gods at all.
But, hold on. Doesn’t Jonah’s God “repent” at the end of the story, changing his mind from the evil he intended to do to the city? This might seem the final nail in the coffin for a view of God’s transcendent, changeless perfection, but not so. First, the book as a whole seems designed to show God’s absolute singular and unique holiness in the face of the diverse powers of the world. Second, Scripture and Tradition as a whole insist that God is perfect and unchanging. How then do we interpret this line about God’s “repentance”?
We’d best go with analogy here. If you live in a hot, sunny place, and you defy the sun’s power, walking about at midday without cover or sunscreen or hydration, it may seem as though the sun is out to get you: it threatens dehydration, sunburn, heatstroke. If, however, you respect the sun’s power and prepare to be in its presence, it will seem that the sun is no longer your enemy. What once seemed the source of pain will now seem like a warm embrace. In these two scenarios, the sun didn’t change. You did.
Not that God is merely some great natural force like the sun. But for the ancient writer to say that God “repented” is a sort of shorthand for the idea that people have adapted to the reality of who God says he is, and so what once seemed like judgment now seems like mercy and grace.
Our Lord himself says, in that long conversation with the disciples on Maundy Thursday, that “in a little while” their sorrow “will be turned to joy” (John 16:20). The cause—in this case, the cross—hasn’t changed. But what changes is the disciples themselves, for when they really encounter the cross in all its power, and the one who gives it power through the divine life he most fully reveals in his resurrection, they experience it in a new way.
This radically different experience of the same ultimate reality goes at the heart of the Christian understanding of heaven and hell. We can say that hell is “absence” from the presence of God. But this is an absurdity, since God is everywhere. Hell is, rather, the experience of God’s presence as absence—or the experience of the good as something painful. It is like the person so worn down and corrupted by hatred and anger that he perceives a gesture of love as an attack.
Those aren’t perfect descriptions at all, but they suggest something of the paradox of God’s relation with the world. God never changes. But we do, and the world does. Furthermore, God has, in a mysterious way, chosen in his eternal will to allow our choice to matter. When we say that prayer matters, part of what we mean is that God’s changeless decision is to decide certain things in relation to our free will.
I think it is very much in the light of this same divine transcendence that St. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians that we should live as if we were not married when we are, as if we had nothing when we don’t, as if we were rejoicing when we are not. It seems clear that these paradoxical statements aren’t concrete instructions—elsewhere, for example, he has some lofty things to say about marriage. The point is that whatever good things there are in this world—and there are some truly good things—cannot compare with the glories of eternity. Maybe we could even describe this as a Pauline argument for wit and good humor.
Anyway, we have to hold even the best things of this world, its joys and its sorrows, with a light touch. Here the Buddhist notion of “detachment” gets it right in some important ways, recognizing that the source of much suffering comes from holding on to things that do not last. Where St. Paul and Christianity part ways from Buddhism is on the recognition that detachment isn’t itself the ultimate goal; the ultimate goal is actually to be attached, just to the right thing: God. When we orient our hearts to him, all the earthly forms of goodness can shine with the reflected light of the true sun. But if we try to take these various mirrors away from the light, they will only ever be dull and meaningless.
The true light of Christ, the transcendent and eternal divine Son, is in fact the only thing worthy of the kind of devotion we see in the early disciples. For a serious Jewish man in the first century, there was nothing more important than family and work. The only thing that could dare call one away from that was . . . well, God himself. The fact that Peter and Andrew, James and John, drop their nets and follow him, suggests that they recognized in him something precious beyond price. Nothing is more important than following him. Nothing.
Today we don’t see those old visible competitions between gods of river and mountain and nation. But there are plenty of other gods demanding their place—gods of commerce, of political party, of family comfort, of wellness and self-care, of pleasure, of self-expression, of control. All of these want a small piece of us, and it seems reasonable because they want just that little piece, and they’re fine leaving the rest to somebody else. But Jesus does claim more, because he’s not just the god of Sunday or the god of traditional morality or the god of Catholics: he is Lord of the nations, King of Kings, the Alpha and the Omega. It is God, or it is nothing.
The time is running out, Paul says. That was a theme of Jonah’s preaching too, it turns out. Maybe we’re like the disciples, or like Jonah, or like the citizens of Nineveh. We cannot run forever. The city of this world will not last forever. Our family and our work will not last forever. All the best things will pass away. But if we choose first the kingdom of God, all the good things of this life will shine with the brightness of God’s own light.

How God Repents

Judging by social-media reactions, this year’s most controversial Super Bowl commercial was not the VW spot featuring a prairie-church wedding with two brides (and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/12/volkswagen-vw-super-bowl-advert-hiding-nazi-past/">making some choice omissions</a> about the company’s past) but <a href="https://youtu.be/94BqlDQ-Ppo">the latest installment of “He Gets Us.”</a>
That big-dollar media-evangelization brand, with its characteristic ads featuring emotion-baiting soundtracks, stark tableaus of human suffering, and the reassuring message that Jesus understands that suffering, is no stranger to controversy. Last year, for instance, it <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/blog/should-jesus-have-super-bowl-ads">came under fire</a> from “progressive” Christians for receiving underwriting from conservative Evangelicals who must have been using the ads as a front for a homophobic, racist, exclusionist agenda.
This year, the brand is under control of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2024/02/11/he-gets-us-super-bowl-commercials-jesus/72562492007/">a new nonprofit group</a>, and apparently gone are the ties to the old conservative donors. And now the script has flipped, with conservative and traditional Christians largely panning the Super Bowl ad (though some on the religious left are still <a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/02/13/hobby-lobby-funded-jesus-super-bowl-ads-cant-hide-the-hate-that-fuels-the-christian-right/">warning us not to fall for the pro-Maga trickery</a>).
One reason for the criticism is the new ad’s embrace of hot-button political imagery. In the sixty-second spot, set to a cover of the 1980’s torch standard “Never Tear Us Apart,” various figures intended to represent the downtrodden are having their feet washed by figures intended to represent the powerful, followed by the message, “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate.” Images include:
<ul>
<li>a pro-life protester washing the feet of a pregnant girl outside an abortion clinic</li>
<li>a cop washing a young, tough-looking black man in an alley</li>
<li>a suburban woman washing a bussed-in migrant girl</li>
<li>a Christian minister washing a gay man who had been roller-skating at the beach</li>
</ul>
Whether or not I agree with them, I “get” the criticisms over some of these images and others (still others were non-controversial and even poignant). The Gospel example of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet should not be appropriated for another context without extreme care, and it’s certainly debatable whether invoking modern politics and culture wars constitutes such care. It’s also debatable whether the ad is communicating opinions on some of those issues that are contrary to Catholic teaching or right reason.
But I’m noticing a deeper vein of debate dividing Christians: over the question of whether this approach is evangelically fruitful.
In one corner is the camp that says that messages like this “He Gets Us” ad are all bark and no bite; all Easter and no Good Friday; all consolation and no conversion. That the promise that Jesus &#8220;gets us,&#8221; full-stop, is too easy to take as an assurance that we are good just as we are. And so you end up converting people to <a href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholic.com%2Fmagazine%2Fonline-edition%2Fme-my-god-and-i&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctaglialoro%40catholic.com%7Caf2a9611deec49a684fa08dc2cdca754%7Cdd9faf74765b495cac09cabd182c95a7%7C0%7C0%7C638434573421864749%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=Qc44xOsVjXL%2FAmvQKmstH0t1t3aTdmvGwKsUp%2FPyFR8%3D&amp;reserved=0">moral therapeutic deism</a>, which is probably where they already were anyway.
The other side counters that simply to be told that we are loved and understood in our suffering—and, yes, sin—is revolutionary. That for many people it’s all they’re able to hear and process at this point in their lives. And so it’s the milk they need before the harder food of faith and conversion, a necessary first baby step on the road to discipleship.
The parameters of this debate seem to me strikingly like those around the recent declaration <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html">Fiducia Supplicans</a>, which permitted clerical blessings for couples in “irregular” unions. One side saw it as a capitulation that will have the effect of confirming people in their sin; the other, as a gentle invitation to begin hearing the promptings of the Spirit.
Me? I think these are both examples of a classic evangelistic balancing act: to challenge but not repel; to sympathize but not enable; to convict but not pronounce judgment. I think the “He Gets Us” spot, whatever else may be said of its methods, its enormous cost, its underlying theology, and so on, both succeeds and fails at achieving that balance. Which is probably the case with most of our efforts to evangelize.

Will ‘He Gets Us’ Get Souls?

From an early date, the Church in the West has used Latin—not only for administration, study, and communication, but for prayer. This was natural for regions where Latin was the majority language, but as the centuries passed, the Western Church persisted with a Latin liturgy in evangelizing peoples on and beyond the edges of the Roman Empire not conversant with it, such as the North African speakers of Punic and the speakers of Celtic and Germanic languages in western and central Europe. By contrast, the Eastern Churches sometimes made use of the languages of their new converts, even when these had to be specially developed in their written forms for this to be possible, as with Ethiopia’s Ge’ez and Russia’s Church Slavonic.
There is thus a close association between the Western Church and the Latin language. Even today, when the liturgy can be celebrated in a huge range of languages, this relationship has left its mark, and Latin remains an option for both public and private prayer—not only in celebrations of the pre-Vatican II liturgy, but also for the reformed Mass.
Why has the Church been so attached to Latin? The answer is that liturgical Latin is not just a convenient language, but a sacred language. Many religions have sacred languages, or a sacred register of an ordinary language, for use in their liturgies. Islam has classical Arabic, a language not widely understood by its many millions of non-Arabic believers, and some distance from the Arabic spoken today in the Arab world. Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Jain religion share the very ancient sacred language of Sanskrit. Judaism has biblical Hebrew, and the languages of many Eastern churches today are specialized sacred languages: the Church Slavonic and Ge’ez already mentioned, and the koine Greek of the Greek churches.
Sacred languages, like sacred garments, sacred forms of music, and the styles associated with sacred buildings and sacred art, may derive from the non-sacred, but even in their origins, they often have distinguishing features. Koine Greek and Church Slavonic were literary creations rather than natural languages. No one ever spoke the sacred English created by Anglicanism and found in the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible: it includes archaisms and deliberately exotic syntax to mimic Hebrew and Greek. The High German of Luther’s Bible and liturgy was the language of the imperial court, not the language of most German-speakers. Similarly, the form of Latin found, first in the early Latin translations of the Bible and then in liturgical texts, is distinct from ordinary Latin. No Roman ever said, “Amen amen dico vobis”: “Truly, truly, I say to you.” The first word of many Latin prayers, “quaesumus,” “we beseech,” was already archaic when it was first used in them.
There is a powerful religious instinct to have special, separate words, things, buildings, and music for worship. These are intended not to exclude worshippers, but rather to draw them in to something supernatural, to introduce them into a sacred zone for communication with the divine, a communication that transcends mere words. Hearing a sacred language, like entering a sacred building, is a clear signal that we are leaving the ordinary world behind. In common with other religions, the Church still insists on special vestments; sacred vessels not to be used for anything else; and distinctive furnishings, artistic styles, and language, even in the context of the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20010507_liturgiam-authenticam_en.html">vernacular liturgy</a>.
Latin is the Church’s superlative means of creating a sense that we are communicating with God and not with human beings. Even in the act of announcing the liturgical reform that would largely displace Latin with vernacular languages, Pope St. Paul VI <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/changes-in-mass-for-greater-apostolate-8969">described</a> Latin as “sacred utterance” and “the language of the angels”. The effect of Latin on the worshipper was noted by Pope St. John Paul II, who <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1980/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19800224_dominicae-cenae.html">remarked</a> on the sense of worldwide unity it inspired and also “the profound sense of the Eucharistic mystery” it elicited.
There is a parallel with the use of silence in the liturgy. This has a place in the reformed Missal of 1970 (for example, for the “priestly prayers”), and its importance was <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2003/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20031204_spiritus-et-sponsa.html">emphasized</a> by John Paul II and Pope <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/messages/communications/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20120124_46th-world-communications-day.html">Benedict XVI</a>. In silence, nothing is communicated by words, but when worshipers are united in an act of adoration, a period of silent prayer can communicate at a deep level, both horizontally, in terms of a sense of solidarity, and vertically, to and from the object of worship, God. Latin does something similar in creating a meaningful frame for prayer.
It is relevant, therefore, that Latin prayers are meaningful. The liturgical formation that all adult Catholics should have should equip us to understand in general terms what is going on in Mass regardless of the language. Even people without formal Latin education know what gloria in excelsis, agnus dei, and the like mean. The Church has always encouraged the study of Latin, and this can provide us with a dimension of liturgical participation that goes beyond what we get in a vernacular translation, since (at least with prayers of ancient origin) it puts us in touch with the words used by our predecessors in the Faith, often from the time of the Fathers of the Church. We can, however, choose to focus on the words, or on the general thrust of the liturgy, just as someone praying the rosary can focus on the words of the Hail Mary or instead on the mystery being considered in that decade. Liturgy in the vernacular tends to be more insistent and demanding of our attention, word by word, particularly when we have to make responses and change our bodily posture.
The Latin of the liturgy has something special to offer those with a knowledge of Latin, since they can understand it better and be directed in their engagement with the liturgy in a more detailed way. Paradoxically, it also has something special to offer those with limited knowledge of the vernacular used in the liturgy they happen to attend. These include the speakers of minority languages and migrants. Many tens of millions of Catholics are obliged to worship not in their mother-tongue, but in a second language: in Africa, usually the old colonial language; in China, the “standard Chinese” favored by the State. The use of a vernacular inevitably favors those most at home in it, and also those who prefer verbal communication over non-verbal communication: adults over children, the more educated middle class over the working class, and even women over men.
In this way, Latin can be a leveler, like silence. As Pope St. John XXIII <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/john23/j23veterum.htm">expressed</a> it, Latin belongs to no one in particular, but is “gracious and friendly to all.” The experience of the sacred that Latin makes possible has been appreciated by saints and scholars, soldiers, peasants, and sinners, and even small children, since the Church’s early centuries. It remains available to us today.

How Dead Is Latin, Really?

There’s a scene in the 1979 comedy The Jerk in which a madman has randomly targeted dim-witted gas station attendant Navin Johnson (Steve Martin) for assassination. The madman’s aim is off, and he ends up shooting the oil cans directly behind Navin, prompting his memorable line, “He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!”
Navin persists in this confusion until his boss Harry (Jackie Mason) corrects him: “He doesn’t want to put holes in the cans, he wants to put holes in you!” Until that point, Navin couldn’t see past the cans to understand what was going on. The cans were just an inadvertent symbol of the madman’s rage.
I’m reminded of that scene in reading the 1927 talk (and later, essay) <a href="https://users.drew.edu/jlenz/whynot.html">Why I Am Not a Christian</a>, in which the British philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that Jesus was not, in fact, “the best and the wisest of men.” To be sure, Russell accepted certain of Christ’s teachings, even claiming to ”agree with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do” on teachings such as not judging, turning the other cheek, and so forth. But in particular areas, Russell found Jesus’ morals lacking. To wit:
<blockquote>Then there is the curious story of the fig-tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig-tree. “He was hungry; and seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came if haply he might find anything thereon; and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever” . . . and Peter . . . saith unto him: “Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away.” This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above him in those respects.</blockquote>
In other words: “He hates this fig tree! Stay away from the fig tree!”
I cannot help but wonder how Russell would have approached a passage like 1 Kings 11:26-40, in which the prophet Ahijah tears a garment into twelve pieces and instructs the king to pick up ten of them, foreshadowing the division of the Israelites into the ten northern tribes (Israel) and the two southern tribes (Judah). Reading this, would he seek to understand why the prophet was mad at a garment and object that the garment had done nothing wrong? Or would he understand (as he apparently failed to in his objection to Jesus’ conduct with the fig tree) that the action here is symbolic?
In the case of Jesus and the fig tree, the symbolism of Jesus’ action should have made immediate sense, for before cursing the fig tree Jesus gave the Parable of the Fig Tree, making the symbolic meaning clear (Luke 13:6-9):
<blockquote>And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”</blockquote>
This imagery is nothing new. As the prophet Isaiah declared, “[T]he vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry!” (Isa. 5:7).
Jesus gave the parable of the fig tree “on his way through towns and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem” (Luke 13:22), and it’s at the culmination of this journey that we see him cursing the fig tree. Here’s how St. Mark describes the scene:
<blockquote>On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. [&#8230;.] As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered” (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21).</blockquote>
The fig tree isn’t a moral agent. It’s not self-aware. And it’s not being punished. Rather, the fig tree is an obvious reference to Israel’s spiritual sterility. You may have noticed an ellipsis in the above passage: that’s because between Jesus cursing the fig tree and Peter remarking on it the next day, Jesus went into Jerusalem and drove the money-changers out of the temple while saying “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). Rather than interrupting the cursing of the fig tree, this action draws out its meaning more clearly: judgment is being visited upon Israel, and particularly Jerusalem.
It would be easy to view this simply as judgment upon fruitless Israel, but Jesus makes clear that the lesson also applies to each one of us. At the Last Supper, he put it in these terms:
<blockquote>I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned (John 14:1-6).</blockquote>
Spiritual fruitfulness is required in the Christian life. Like a bicycle that either moves forward or falls over, there’s no place for stagnant spirituality. In the parable of the talents, the spiritually sterile Christian is depicted as an unprofitable “worthless servant” and cast out of paradise (Matt. 25:30). We are called to abide in Christ, and through him, to bear much fruit.
This leaves one mystery. Mark specifies that Jesus “found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs” (Mark 11:13). But if that’s the case, why curse the fig tree? <a href="http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-chapter-15.htm">St. Josemaría Escrivá</a> understood it this way: “Don’t tell me you have excuses. It availed the fig tree little, relates the Evangelist, that it was not the season for figs when our Lord came to it to look for them.” By way of further explanation, <a href="http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/friends_of_god-point-51.htm">he said</a>:
<blockquote>Our Lord comes to pick [figs], knowing full well that he won’t find any at this time of year. However, when the tree proves to be barren in spite of its apparent fertility and luxuriant leaves, Jesus commands, “Let no man ever eat fruit of yours hereafter.”
Hard words, indeed! May you never more bear fruit! How must the disciples have felt, especially if they considered that it was the Wisdom of God who had thus spoken? Jesus curses the fig tree because in it he has found only the appearance of fruitfulness — many leaves. Let this be a lesson to us. There is no excuse for being unproductive. Some might say “I don’t know enough&#8230;” But that is no excuse. Or else, “I am unwell, I haven’t much talent, the conditions are not right, my surroundings&#8230;” These aren’t excuses either. How pitiful the man who adorns himself with the foliage of a false apostolate, who has all the outward appearance of leading a fruitful life, but is not sincerely attempting to yield fruit!</blockquote>
Everyone who neglects to bear spiritual fruit can point to some excuse: I’m not a priest or religious; I don’t know the Faith well enough; I’m not a good enough person; my friends don’t want to hear about the faith; I’m too busy right now, etc. Each of us can find some reason why it’s not our season to flourish, why we should wait until later. In cursing a tree that also seemed to have an “excuse” for not flourishing, Jesus is showing us what he thinks of this excuse-making.
This also explains why both Matthew and Mark specify that the tree was a fig tree with “nothing on it but leaves only” (Matt. 21:19). The first mention of fig leaves in Scripture is back in the Garden of Eden. At the moment of the Fall, “the eyes of both [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gen. 3:7). This is where we get the English idiom <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fig%20leaf">fig leaf</a>, referring to “something that conceals or camouflages, usually inadequately or dishonestly.”
When Jesus arrives at the tree, he finds no fruitfulness, just fig leaves. Let the same not be said of each of us on Judgment Day.

Why Does Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

FEMALE PASTOR calls Catholic show

When a Child Enters a Same-Sex Union

My wife and I lived in Beijing for eight months right after we were married in 2016. Our experience was typical of most Westerners. We were allowed to worship and do Catholic things with limited interference, because we were not viewed as a threat.
Chinese Catholics, on the other hand, face surveillance, bullying, and intimidation. Two Masses we attended and a hidden church we visited stand out as testimonies of faith in the midst of opposition—valuable for us Western Christians, who might take our freedoms and opportunities for granted.
The first Mass was on a wet and cold late fall evening. We hurried to make it in time to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, also called “The South Cathedral,” or “Nantang” in Mandarin, after a long day of touring the city. When we arrived, we were mostly just grateful to sit down to rest our feet. But then my attention was drawn to the inordinate number of security cameras. Pillar after pillar had one, creating an odd contrast with the seventeenth-century architecture. There was hardly any gold to steal; it had already been taken in previous persecutions. I was confused as to why they were on such high alert until a friend explained, “They are government cameras. They can watch everyone who comes in here.”
The homily was all in Mandarin and lasted for an obscenely long thirty, possibly forty minutes. I was exhausted, ravenous, and grumpy. But afterward, I learned that it was illegal for the priest to instruct the children of the parish in the Faith or give them any materials to read. The homily was his only chance to reach them, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
While we lived in Beijing, we were fortunate to visit many other parts of China. My wife had been adopted as an infant from Wuhan (of COVID fame). She had always wanted to visit her native city. Through a series of providential events, we went to Mass Christmas Eve in a church right next door to the orphanage she was adopted from.
Outside, there was a collection of dozens of nativity sets from around the world on display. Inside, the Church was packed, and the indoor creche brought to life that moment in Bethlehem where God turned the tide of human history and gave to us our Savior.
All of this was familiar, and comforting, to any American or Westerner. What was also familiar—but more surprising—was the other characters ready to welcome the newborn King: Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus were all there alongside the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and the Wise Men.
Why were these secular figures taking up what should be space for sacred art? We learned that many Chinese Catholics see Frosty, Santa, etc. as a part of how free people fully rejoice in the joy of the God-Man coming to Earth. They can’t fathom something being “Christmassy” but not religious.
Our culturally acceptable but rationally bizarre celebrations in America of Christmas without Christ don’t make sense to those who risk the ire of the government to celebrate it. We heard that a year or so before, the police had shown up at another church right before Mass began and barricaded the doors. They informed the distressed families who had not yet gotten inside that “enough people are going to Church today. Go home.”
And thus it was that one of the most beautiful Christmas Masses of my life was in the company of not just the angels, shepherds, and wise men, but also the whole cast of “commercial Christmas” characters. At their best, these figures help heighten our sense of excitement, wonder, and mystery as we prepare for the Nativity. In Wuhan that year, they lived up to that calling in a way I would never have guessed.
The final church experience that particularly struck me was again in Beijing. In the heart of the capital city, there is a district called Wangfujing. It is a bustling hive of traffic and activity. At what looks like the end of one of the main plazas, there is a gargantuan rectangle of an office building. If you walk all the way up to it, however, you realize that the street continues, wrapping awkwardly around and resuming its course on the other side. There you find St. Joseph’s, a Romanesque edifice from the early 1900s, and one of four historic Catholic churches in Beijing. They all suffered the loss of many of their material treasures in the decades that the Chinese Communist Party has run the show, but they are still beautiful and culturally significant. Relatively recently, government officials decided that it was too easy for passersby to see the beautiful, cross tipped spires. In an act of petty vindictiveness, they built a massive block to hide the Church from view unless you deliberately seek it out.
Chinese Catholics are always under the watchful eye of the Chinese Communist Party, or secretly practicing their faith under the radar. The division is not as cut and dried as “underground” being the faithful and “aboveground” being sellouts to the government. The situation—including how Pope Francis had tried to address it—is too complicated to discuss in full here. What is more important to take away is that we Catholics in the United States of America and the West have more freedom, resources, and opportunity than most any people have ever had on the face of this earth. If we fully took advantage of these and used them to spread the gospel, how many souls would we bring to Jesus?
If we were half as willing to face the social media mobs and snickers behind our back as those in China are to face government intimidation, surveillance, and bullying, how much holier would our nation be?
My heart is filled with gratitude for the many ways God has blessed us in the West. I am also grateful for how he has provided for the many wonderful Chinese Catholics who do far more with far less under persecution. I am so grateful for the joyful and persistent brothers and sisters in Christ who remain faithful in the midst of so much uncertainty and opposition. May their witness be a way God inspires us to take up our crosses and follow him.