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<h3>Memorial of Saint Athanasius, bishop and doctor of the Church
Lectionary: 278</h3>
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<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/9:31">ACTS 9:31-42</a></h4>
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The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria 
was at peace. 
She was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, 
and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit she grew in numbers.
As Peter was passing through every region, 
he went down to the holy ones living in Lydda. 
There he found a man named Aeneas, 
who had been confined to bed for eight years, for he was paralyzed. 
Peter said to him, 
“Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed.” 
He got up at once. 
And all the inhabitants of Lydda and Sharon saw him, 
and they turned to the Lord.
Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha 
(which translated is Dorcas). 
She was completely occupied with good deeds and almsgiving. 
Now during those days she fell sick and died, 
so after washing her, they laid her out in a room upstairs. 
Since Lydda was near Joppa, 
the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, 
sent two men to him with the request, 
“Please come to us without delay.” 
So Peter got up and went with them. 
When he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs 
where all the widows came to him weeping 
and showing him the tunics and cloaks 
that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 
Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed. 
Then he turned to her body and said, “Tabitha, rise up.” 
She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 
He gave her his hand and raised her up, 
and when he had called the holy ones and the widows, 
he presented her alive. 
This became known all over Joppa, 
and many came to believe in the Lord.
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/116:12">116:12-13, 14-15, 16-17</a></h4>
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R.    (12) How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
How shall I make a return to the LORD 
for all the good he has done for me? 
The cup of salvation I will take up, 
and I will call upon the name of the LORD 
R.    How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
My vows to the LORD I will pay 
in the presence of all his people. 
Precious in the eyes of the LORD 
is the death of his faithful ones. 
R.    How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
O LORD, I am your servant; 
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid; 
you have loosed my bonds. 
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving, 
and I will call upon the name of the LORD. 
R.    How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
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<h4>Alleluia    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/6:63">JN 6:63C, 68C</a></h4>
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R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; 
you have the words of everlasting life. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/6:60">JN 6:60-69</a></h4>
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Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, 
“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” 
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, 
he said to them, “Does this shock you? 
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 
It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. 
The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. 
But there are some of you who do not believe.” 
Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe 
and the one who would betray him. 
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me 
unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, 
many of his disciples returned to their former way of life 
and no longer walked with him. 
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” 
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? 
You have the words of eternal life. 
We have come to believe 
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: Saturday, May 2, 2020

Discover

Recently, my colleague Trent Horn <a href="https://youtu.be/E0z1HgkQH6M?si=Mm7r8A7ThYz35IDh">released a video</a> explaining why he won&#8217;t be watching Christopher Nolan&#8217;s rendition of The Odyssey. He argues Christians should avoid watching the film due to its &#8220;normalization of transgenderism&#8221; through its casting of a transgender individual, “Elliot” or Ellen Page.
Normally, I would agree—casting a woman with gender dysphoria as a male soldier would be a hard pass for me, as it’s more than likely an attempt to normalize the transgender movement. In Nolan’s movie, however, I would argue this is not the case, and I think a great deal of good can come, and already has come, from people watching the film.
<h3 style="font-weight: 400;">Reason One: The Character Arc &amp; Analogy </h3>
The character Page plays, Sinon, is not some heroic soldier to be lauded and idolized alongside Achilles. Instead, Sinon is portrayed as a young boy drafted into war after being coerced into taking someone else&#8217;s place. Even more unfortunately, Sinon’s role in the war is built on deception and lies: the character is unknowingly sent on a suicide mission that ends in death and a descent into Hades.
In many ways, Sinon’s story serves as a fitting analogy for the tragic reality we see in someone like Ellen Page. Both Sinon and Page are fed a lie that ultimately leads to their destruction—this in no way glorifies the transgender movement. In fact, it reveals the ugly truth behind it.
Thus, Christopher Nolan cannot be accused of driving an ideological agenda. He doesn’t present Page’s character as though transgenderism were just another norm in the story, as many other Hollywood movies do. Sinon is not a hero to be admired. Instead, Nolan evokes a sense of pity among the audience for Sinon and, inevitably, for Page as well.
<h3 style="font-weight: 400;">Reason Two: An Entry Point to Greek Mythology</h3>
For those who were never exposed to Greek mythology, or who, like me, refused to engage with &#8220;boring&#8221; books in high school, a film like this can serve as a spark that ignites an interest in classic literature for the first time.
I’ll admit that after watching The Odyssey, I went straight down a rabbit hole searching for the source material and other ancient texts associated with it. I’m gaining a fuller appreciation for classic works simply by watching a film—a film that, yes, may have taken significant creative liberties, especially with the casting, but remains a source of inspiration nonetheless.
And I am not the only one. Odyssey book sales <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2026/07/17/odyssey-movie-translation-emily-wilson-popular/90944888007/">are up seventy-six percent</a>, and e-book and audiobook versions of the text are skyrocketing in usage as well.
Granted, when Helen of Troy looks nothing like the ancient Greek ideal of beauty, it can temporarily take you out of the story. And Agamemnon having an eerily Batman-like presence certainly stands out! But regardless of those choices, the movie did exactly what it was supposed to do:
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<li>It pulled me into the epic.</li>
<li>It made me want to learn more about these characters and the journeys they endured.</li>
<li>It helped me appreciate a staple of Western literature.</li>
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So, while I would normally side with Trent&#8217;s perspective on these issues, I have to give credit where it&#8217;s due: the film succeeded in many areas, particularly in sparking a genuine interest in and appreciation for classic literature.
All in all, I would recommend watching The Odyssey. Always be aware, with a sober mind, of what you&#8217;re watching. But for reasons already stated, I’d say go enjoy the film.

Trent Horn Is Wrong About This

The Jewish Roots of “Christ Is King”

Tim Staples explains why it is improper to call God &#8220;She,&#8221; and what exactly is meant by referring to God as &#8220;Father&#8221; as He revealed Himself to us.
Transcript:
Host: Marvin, watching us today on Facebook, writes the following:
&#8220;I have a friend that wants to call God &#8216;She&#8217; and not a &#8216;He,&#8217; because God doesn&#8217;t really have a sex, so if there&#8217;s nothing wrong with calling God a &#8216;He&#8217; then there shouldn&#8217;t be anything wrong calling God a &#8216;She.&#8217; Is my friend right?&#8221;
Tim: No. Your friend is wrong, and this is why.
Now, from a Catholic and Christian perspective, God has revealed Himself as Father. He has not revealed Himself as &#8220;Mother.&#8221; Therefore it would be inappropriate for us to refer to&#8211;to pray the &#8220;Our Mother,&#8221; for example, because He has revealed Himself in a profound way. If you&#8217;re a Catholic&#8211;I don&#8217;t know if this person is Catholic.
Host: It doesn&#8217;t say.
Tim: Doesn&#8217;t say, but I would encourage them to take a look at <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm#239">paragraph 239 and 240 in the Catechism</a>. In a very clear and succinct way, it points out that God is neither male nor female, is not a man or a woman. There&#8217;s no genitalia with God. Now we can talk about the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/incarnation">Incarnation</a>, the second person of the Blessed Trinity was incarnate, and so God experiences&#8211;that is, the second person of the Blessed Trinity experiences what it is to be man because of the Hypostatic Union, that&#8217;s a great mystery.
But God in His eternal nature cannot be male or female. Why? Because that would limit God. We talked about, earlier, if you have a thing that is &#8220;this but not that,&#8221; then that&#8217;s not God, because that posits potency or a lack of something in that being. God has no lack, so there can&#8217;t be male or female.
Now, but you say, &#8220;Well wait a minute, doesn&#8217;t it imply lack, then, to say God is Father?&#8221; No, and this is why: because when God reveals Himself as Father, He&#8217;s not revealing Himself as male, or as having genitalia. The Catechism points out there&#8217;s two essential things being revealed here: and that is that God is the first origin or first cause of all things, and that He is the transcendent authority.
And we use the analogy of the male. Why? Because look at the conjugal act in marriage. The man acts from the outside in, right? Hence the man better images God. Why? Because the man&#8217;s the transcendent authority who delivers the seed. It&#8217;s the woman who receives the seed and brings forth life. That&#8217;s why she better images the creation. She better images the Church, if you will, the one who receives. She better images humanity; the father images God.
Hey&#8211;if you&#8217;re making connections, here are some of the reasons why. The priests are male because it, by nature, better images God. So the point is&#8211;or especially God as Father. But the point is, God is not revealing Himself as Father in any sense of limiting Himself. It&#8217;s revealing something about his perfections as transcendent authority and first cause.
We talked about earlier, you know, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-god-bathed-world">Thomas Aquinas&#8217; argument from cause</a>. He is the first cause that Himself is not caused, hence He is eternal. He can&#8217;t be acted upon. He can&#8217;t die, right? How could God die? Because what do we say when somebody dies? &#8220;Oh what was the&#8230;cause of death?&#8221; Right? Well God can&#8217;t be caused as the first cause, because if He can be caused, then He&#8217;s not the first cause. He&#8217;s not God.
And so what we have to be careful to do, and this is what the Catechism points out in paragraph 239-240, is we don&#8217;t understand his Fatherhood in any sense that would limit Him to something that is less than God. We understand it as God revealed Himself, but we refer to Him as &#8220;Him&#8221; as a matter of grammar, for one, because you don&#8217;t refer to a father as &#8220;She.&#8221;
Host: Thank You, Marvin, for that question.

Can We Call God ‘She’?

Catholics may think of abortion as <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-discuss-abortion-without-invoking-religion">simply a political issue</a>, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that advocating for the unborn is also a spiritual battle. Take for instance <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@catholic.converts/video/7385882889566604574">this</a> video clip I addressed of pro-abortionist workers harassing a group of Catholics praying peacefully outside an abortion clinic. In the full video (which has since been deleted), the workers got in the faces of the peaceful protestors and seemed to bring some of them to tears. At one point, a pro-abortionist begins to mock their rosary prayers, yelling into a megaphone, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, the abortions are done!” 
It is hard to watch videos like this without thinking Satan is really at work in the pro-abortionist movement. Not content merely to legalize the murder of innocent babies, abortion advocates must mock and blaspheme God in the process. This is unsurprising, however, considering just how much God hates abortion—and how much <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-devil-must-advertise">Satan must love it</a>. According to Proverbs 6:16-17 “There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” (emphasis added). 
Only by the work of Satan could billions of people be deceived into supporting the shedding of innocent blood. And it is clear they are deceived, since many abortion advocates are unable or unwilling to have a respectful conversation about why they support abortion. Instead, like the woman in the video, they mock, harass, and scream over the words of those who disagree with them. It is reminiscent of the mocking and harassment Jesus faced during his trial and crucifixion. 
But with that sorrowful image comes the hope of the Resurrection. Catholics need not fear insults and harassment on the battleground. Instead, they can peacefully look towards the hope of new life that Christ promised us while he was on earth by remembering his words: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10).

At War with Satan for the Unborn

<div>Would it have been a sin for Mary to say no at the Annunciation?</div><div>Theoretically, a no from Mary at the Annunciation could have been sinful, though it’s also possible that she could have said no without sinning.
More to the point, in actuality, we know that Mary didn’t sin. Still, it’s theoretically possible Mary could have said no at the Annunciation, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLUOuVKJ4No">Jimmy Akin addresses this issue in a radio response</a>, as do I in an online answer regarding <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/was-mary-forced-to-be-the-mother-of-god">whether Mary was forced to be the Mother of God</a>.
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Would Mary Have Sinned by Saying No to God?

The Protestant “Word of God” Fallacy

Reincarnation, which literally means “to be made flesh again,” is the belief that after death the soul lives on in another body, is believed by many around the world. Is it reasonable to hold this belief? Trent Horn gives reasons why we should reject the theory of reincarnation.
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Transcript:
Reincarnation, which literally means “to be made flesh again,” is the belief that after death the soul lives on in another body. But the Catechism states, “‘It is appointed for men to die once’ (Heb. <a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGVpgDxjE4A&amp;t=567s">9:27</a>). There is no ‘reincarnation’ after death” (CCC 1013).
Members of the early Church offered three reasons to reject the idea of reincarnation.
First, in the fourth century St. Ambrose said that it would be impossible that “the soul which rules man should take on itself the nature of a beast so opposed to that of man.” In other words, despite what you might see in movies, the migration of souls between human and animal bodies is as impossible as procreation between humans and animals.
Second, humans do not behave as if they possessed souls that lived before the birth of their bodies. The third-century ecclesial writer Tertullian put it this way: “If souls depart at different ages of human life, how is it that they come back again at one uniform age? For all men are imbued with an infant soul at their birth.”
The absence of animals and infants who act like mature adults is evidence against the theory of reincarnation. Of course, a defender of reincarnation could say that although a person’s soul inhabits a new body, his memories and personality do not. But this makes reincarnation the practical equivalent of not surviving death. It also raises the question St. Irenaeus asked in the second century: “If we don’t remember anything before our conception, then how do advocates of reincarnation know we’ve all been reincarnated?”
Third, there is “the population argument.” Proponents of reincarnation claim new souls are never created or destroyed. Instead, souls are only “reborn” into other bodies. But, in Tertullian’s words, “If the living come from the dead, just as the dead proceed from the living, then there must always remain unchanged one and the selfsame number of mankind.” He noted (and modern science has confirmed) that there has been a “gradual growth of [the human] population.” This growth, which can be explained only by new souls coming into existence, conflicts with the notion of the perpetual reincarnation of the same souls into different bodies.
If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com.
I’m Trent Horn for Catholic Answers, and thanks for watching.

Is Reincarnation Reasonable?

Are any parts of the Bible taken from other cultures?

In the beginning of humanity, could ensouled humans have mated with un-ensouled humans? If so, would it have been sinful for them to do so?

When I was a kid I was told that Nicodemus helped take Jesus’ body off the cross. But it doesn’t mention him specifically in John 19:39. Is there any truth to this?

When do you think 2 Peter was written? A lot of scholars place it after 70 AD and I am wondering if you would place it earlier.

&#8220;Are any parts of the Bible taken from other cultures?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the influences surrounding biblical texts, while also addressing intriguing topics such as the possibility of ensouled humans mating with un-ensouled humans and the role of Nicodemus in the burial of Jesus. Additionally, the dating of 2 Peter is examined, providing a rich exploration of scriptural context.
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Are Any Parts of the Bible From Other Cultures? Nicodemus, 2 Peter

What do we make of the letter from Jesus to King Abgar as recorded in Eusebius’ Church History?

There was a supposedly leaked document from the Vatican about the TLM and it claims that the reasons why it was banned were fabricated. What do we know about that?

Where did the prayer of the Hail Mary come from since it’s not in the bible?

Did Eve have free will? If she did and didn’t fall, would we have had Mary?

Did Pope Francis change church doctrine on capital punishment?

&#8220;What Is the Origin of the Hail Mary Prayer in Catholicism?&#8221; Join Colin Donavan as he explores the roots of this beloved prayer, along with intriguing questions about the letter from Jesus King to Abgar and the nature of free will in relation to Eve and Mary.
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What Is the Origin of the Hail Mary in Catholicism?

If you’ve been following the news coverage of Pope Francis’s health, you might have noticed something: there are no photos of the holy father in his hospital bed. Or, more accurately, there are no real photos: <a href="https://spotlight.ebu.ch/p/wave-of-content-purporting-to-show">viral pictures</a> currently circulating on Catholic social media, purporting to be of Pope Francis in a hospital bed, on a respirator, are AI-generated fakes. (As are the “videos” that show <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aMPfaiDig">Jesus and Mary are visiting him in the hospital</a>, but I assume you knew that!)
But you might be wondering why we’re not seeing photos of the sick pontiff. Is there some kind of coverup? Nope. The simple answer is that photos of the pope on his deathbed are actually forbidden, according to a 1996 apostolic constitution promulgated by Pope John Paul II. “No one is permitted to use any means whatsoever,” it reads, “in order to photograph or film the Supreme Pontiff either on his sickbed or after death, or to record his words for subsequent reproduction” (Universi Dominici Gregis 30).
Why, you might ask? Likely to avoid sensational exploitation of the pope’s condition. That motive may have stemmed back to 1958, when Pope Pius XII&#8217;s doctor, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, tried to sell photos of the dying Pius XII to the papa-razzi. For such a violation of his role as the papal physician, he was forced to resign and was barred from the Vatican.
There are photos of JPII recovering in his hospital bed after he was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca in 1981, as well as photos of his sitting in his hospital room (in papal garb, including red shoes!) near the end of his life. But to protect the tiny bit of privacy the pope has, and out of respect for the high dignity of his office, we have no photos of him (or any other pope) in a hospital gown, connected to medical machinery, or unconscious near or at the moment of death.
And it’s for this same reason that Pope Francis has been (and, hopefully, will continue to be) treated with the same dignity. It’s a reminder that Francis is not only the Roman pontiff, but also a man like us, facing all of the same weaknesses—including mortality—that we all face. And it’s in these moments that we all need the prayers of the other members of the Body of Christ. So let us pray not only for the holy father, Pope Francis, but for our ailing brother Jorge.

Don’t Fall for Fake Pope Photos

Jimmy, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all make different claims about Jesus. Christians say he is the divine Messiah. Judaism does not accept him as the Messiah. Islam calls him the Messiah but denies central Christian beliefs about him. Can historic...

In the introduction, you lay out the book’s argument in four steps . . . Give us the thirty-thousand-foot view of that case.

Before we examine Jesus, what did Judaism at the time of Christ actually expect the Messiah to be and accomplish?

Everything in the messianic hope seems to hinge on King David and the promise God made him in 2 Samuel 7—that his throne would be established forever. Tell us about the Davidic covenant and why it matters so much.

Then came the Babylonian exile, and suddenly there was no son of David on the throne. How did the Jewish people get from that apparently failed promise to the expectation of a future Messiah?

You point to Isaiah, writing in the 700s B.C., as providing the first clear and explicit prophecies of the Messiah: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” What makes these passages different from what came before?

&#8220;Can historical evidence prove Jesus as Messiah?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the differing claims of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam regarding Jesus. The conversation also touches on the expectations of the Messiah in Judaism at the time of Christ and the significance of the Davidic covenant in shaping messianic hope. Additionally, the role of Isaiah&#8217;s prophecies in this context is examined.
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Can Historical Evidence Prove Jesus as Messiah? Judaism, Islam

One alternative, purely natural explanation for the disciples’ claim to have seen Jesus after his death is grief-induced hallucinations. In these cases, a person misses his deceased loved one so much that he imagines that the person has come back from the dead to visit him. Maybe the disciples had similar hallucinations of the risen Jesus?
Besides this not explaining things like St. Paul seeing the risen Jesus, this explanation still doesn’t work for a variety of reasons.
Studies on grief-induced hallucinations show that true hallucinations are not common. The Hayes and Leudar 2016 study found <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26183119/">only one case</a> of grief-induced hallucination involving a non-family member of the deceased. Moreover, most of these cases involved only feeling the presence of a deceased person. Just 2 percent involved a tactile hallucination of touching the dead person, which would parallel the claims of having prolonged encounters with an embodied Jesus as described in Luke’s and John’s Gospels. Grief hallucinations also tend to persist for many years after death, but the claims that Jesus appeared to his disciples stop just a few weeks after his crucifixion.
In 2015, Gary Habermas and medical doctor Joseph Bergeron <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021140014564555">surveyed thousands</a> of cases in the medical literature and could not find a single case of a group grief hallucination comparable to the group appearances described in the New Testament. One psychologist cited in their paper <a href="https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1407&amp;context=lts_fac_pubs">said</a>,
<blockquote>I have surveyed the professional literature (peer­reviewed [sic] journal articles and books) written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination, that is, an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was clearly no external referent.</blockquote>
Even some critics of the Resurrection admit that there are no other examples of a group hallucination the way it’s proposed to have happened to the apostles. Kris Komarnitsky in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Doubting-Jesus-Resurrection-Happened-Black/dp/0982552890">Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection</a> writes,
<blockquote>If the group appearance traditions in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7 are the result of people simultaneously hallucinating Jesus, there is no comparable example anywhere in history that I am aware of.</blockquote>
Other skeptics, however, claim that there are analogous cases of group hallucinations, and these could explain what happened to Christ’s disciples. But when you look at the examples closely, you see that they are too different from the Resurrection to be an adequate explanation. Here are some examples skeptics offer:
Alien Abductions. Nearly all abduction stories can be explained as culturally conditioned, private hallucinations involving only one person . . . or they are outright hoaxes. People who report these encounters often receive positive attention, and they’ve only become more widespread after science fiction tales about aliens became popular in the 1950s and television shows began to report on alleged abduction stories. And as I said, they almost always happen to individuals at night, who awaken and suffer from “sleep paralysis.” In this condition, your mind has woken up, but you are unable to move your body. People in this condition often see things that aren’t real.
The handful of cases where multiple people say they were abducted by aliens are probably hoaxes or come from hypnotic suggestion. Most experts believe that Betty and Barney Hill, for example, suffered from sleep deprivation and misinterpreted an aircraft warning beacon as a UFO. More importantly, the particular aspects of the alien encounter were recovered under hypnosis three years later and bear a striking similarity to an episode from the sci-fi series The Outer Limits that aired two weeks before their hypnosis session.
Bigfoot Sightings. There are no cases of a group of people having an extended encounter with Bigfoot similar to what the Gospels portray the disciples having with Jesus. At best, these encounters involve a group of people misidentifying an animal in the woods or a hoaxer as Bigfoot. But the disciples intimately knew Jesus and would have been able to tell if the person they encountered was actually he. And if they really weren’t sure, they could check Christ’s empty tomb to dispel any doubt about who had appeared before them.
Mass Hysteria. This happens when a phenomenon transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population and society as a result of rumors and fear. It also includes cases of seemingly infectious bizarre behavior, like medieval dancing outbreaks or the 1962 Tanzania laughing epidemic. But none of these cases involves a group of people all seeing the same impossible thing, like a dead man who came back to life.
Finally, one of the most common examples skeptics offer, at least to Protestant apologists, is Marian apparitions. Atheist biblical scholar Hector Avalos <a href="https://archive.org/details/endofbiblicalstu00aval">says</a> Marian apparitions “form the closest parallel to the Jesus apparition stories. . . . Marian apparitions have been reportedly witnessed simultaneously by millions of people, but most evangelical apologists do not see that as proof that Mary is alive” (193). And atheist Richard Dawkins <a href="https://archive.org/details/goddelusion0000dawk_j9i4">has said</a>, “It is not easy to explain how 70,000 people could share the same hallucination” (91).
Although not all Marian apparitions are authentic, or they could be malevolent supernatural encounters, Catholics have no problem accepting that many of the cases skeptics cite, like the incident at Fatima in 1917, are legitimate miracles. Although Protestants might perform miracles that vindicate the power of the gospel (like healing someone in the name of Jesus), there seem to be many more cases in Catholicism of miracles whose message is not just a vindication of the gospel, but a vindication of distinctly Catholic doctrines, like the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist being seen in hosts that turn into human flesh; relics that heal people; and Marian apparitions in which Mary says she is the Immaculate Conception, like the apparition at Lourdes. For a measured use of miracles to prove Catholicism, I recommend Tyler McNabb’s and Joseph Blado’s <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/MCNMAF-3">article</a> “Mary and Fátima: A Modest C-Inductive Argument for Catholicism.”
So let’s pull all this together. Skeptics often try to explain groups of people seeing the risen Jesus as cases of group hallucinations, yet they can’t offer other similar examples of groups of people having a grief-induced hallucination. In fact, the closest examples they do offer are groups of people seeing the Virgin Mary after the end of her earthly life . . . which isn’t a problem for Catholic defenders of the Resurrection.

‘The Disciples Just Hallucinated!’

Where did the Church Fathers get their copies of the Hebrew scriptures?

How do I best defend the Trinity against someone who calls it heresy specifically in regards to eternal subordination of the son?

Would the ghostbusters need ecclesiastical permission to do what they did in the movies?

Is it ever ok to lie from the Catholic perspective?

When did it become a custom for religious people to change their names?

Does Romans 4 (particularly Romans 4:5) conflict with Catholicism’s doctrines faith, works, and a love?

What is the church’s position on simulation theory?

&#8220;How do I defend the Trinity?&#8221; This question leads to a discussion on the eternal subordination of the Son and how to address claims of heresy. Additionally, the episode touches on where the Church Fathers sourced their Hebrew scriptures, the need for ecclesiastical permission in fictional scenarios, and the Catholic perspective on lying.
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How Do I Defend the Trinity? Church Fathers and Lies

The Critical Disagreements That Sparked The SSPX Schism…

First Sunday of Advent, Year A:
In this episode of The Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on two apologetical themes that arise out of the Liturgy of the Word for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A. The first is the so-called rapture doctrine (at least the pre-tribulation version of it), which comes up in the Gospel reading from Matthew 24:37-44. The second is the doctrine of “once saved, always saved,” which the second reading from Romans 13:11-14 gives us an opportunity to talk about.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112722.cfm">Readings</a></li>
</ul>

Does the Bible Support the Rapture?

In the first part of my series on the biblical roots of the Mass, we examined how Jesus’ one sacrifice of Calvary didn’t end on the cross, but rather <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-did-jesus-finish-his-sacrifice">culminated</a> in everlasting glory in the heavenly sanctuary. In part two, we saw how Christ’s one selfsame sacrifice becomes present here on earth through <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-mass-beats-the-4th-of-july">biblical remembrance</a>. In part three, we showed how Jesus <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-the-point-of-a-priest">is a priest</a> according to the order of Melchizedek, and thus how he enables his Church to make present—and offer anew—his one sacrifice under the appearances of bread and wine, carrying out the ritual he instituted at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:26-28; see Gen. 14:18-20).
In this final essay of the series, we will address the miracle of how Jesus can make his finite human body present in innumerable places—i.e., whenever and wherever the Church offers anew his one sacrifice in a sacramental manner, fulfilling Christ’s command, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).
By virtue of his triumphant resurrection, which we celebrate especially during the Easter season, our Lord Jesus Christ <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a5p2.htm">has attained</a> “a glorious body&#8221;—that is, one “not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] 645, emphasis added).
<h2>The Wonder of a Glorified Human Body</h2>
Thus, Jesus can pass through closed doors (John 20:26) and make sudden appearances at will (Luke 24:36). St. Paul calls the resurrected body a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). Here we understand how Jesus is “made perfect” (Heb. 5:9; see 2:10)—not in his divine personhood, which is necessarily omnipotent and therefore perfect, but in his human nature, which does admit of perfective change (even though Christ is sinless), and which Jesus attained in redeeming the world <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-the-point-of-a-priest">through his one sacrifice of Calvary</a>.
Consequently, Jesus’ human nature is not automatically perfected in the Incarnation, but the Incarnation—through which Christ’s human nature is united to his divine Person—makes that humanly possible (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a3p1.htm">CCC 460, 470, 474</a>).
Further, what happens in the Eucharist is something far more profound than the glorification of Christ’s natural body. Christ’s body cannot be in more than one place by the power of that same human nature. In other words, a limited human body can never be in more than one place by virtue of its own human power. Also, as noted above, being joined to Christ’s divine Person via the Incarnation does not mean that his human nature will thereby automatically partake of his divine power to be present throughout the world. But the Incarnation does make wondrous things possible for Christ’s body, blood, and soul—namely, the sacrament of the Eucharist, in which the substance of the bread and wine offered is transubstantiated into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ at Mass (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a3.htm#V">CCC 1376</a>).
<h2>The Miracle of the Eucharist: Finite Body, Divine Personhood</h2>
So how does Jesus Christ become humanly present in the Eucharist around the world and yet remain in heaven? Though his body never ceases to be human, let us first consider that Christ enables it to be present after the manner of a spirit in the Eucharist. That is, Christ is present in the eucharistic elements like how our human souls are diffused throughout our bodies: in a whole and undivided manner, not in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-catholics-cannibals">a carnal</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/ddp/the-real-presence-and-cannibalism">cannibalistic way</a>. So Jesus’ body remains a body, but, like a spirit, his body becomes miraculously present in a whole and undivided manner in each and every eucharistic host, and thus <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/size-matters-when-does-the-bread-and-wine-lose-the-real-presence">in each and every part</a> of each host, “in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ” (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a3.htm#V">CCC 1377</a>).
In the Eucharist, Jesus wills his body to go beyond its limited human nature and become a participant in his divine attributes, all the while retaining its substance as his human body and blood.
To be clear, Christ’s body does not become omnipresent through the sacrament of the Eucharist, but Christ does omnipotently enable his body to have “a share” in his divine omnipresence. Specifically, Jesus enables his body to become sacramentally present wherever <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-mass-beats-the-4th-of-july">the sacrifice of the Mass is offered</a> and wherever he—our eucharistic Lord—is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/o-come-let-us-adore-him-in-the-eucharist">reposed in a tabernacle and worshiped in adoration</a>.
Fr. Matthias Scheeben helps make the Eucharistic Mystery more accessible:
<blockquote>Because the body of Christ is the body of the Son of God, it receives through the power of the divine Person inhabiting it the unique privilege, similar to the prerogative of the Person himself, but in limited measure, of being present indivisible and undivided in many places and in the innermost recesses of things. Not formally through the hypostatic union, but still because of it and on the basis of it, the Son of God raises the body he has assumed to a share in the simplicity, universality, and pervasive power of his divine existence (The Mysteries of Christianity, 474).</blockquote>
According to the natural mode of existing, Jesus always sits at the right hand of the Father. Yet, through the miracle of the Eucharist, his body becomes sacramentally present everywhere the sacrifice of the Mass is offered, as the Council of Trent <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/thirteenth-session-of-the-council-of-trent-1479">affirms</a> in its Decree Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.
This concept is not a simple one to grasp. Christ helps us understand the Eucharist through his other miracles, specifically the multiplication of loaves and fish, which he performs early in John 6. Some Christians who affirm this miracle will counter that the crowd ate many different loaves, not from one. Still, we must remember that the many loaves that fed thousands had their origin in a mere five loaves (John 6:1-15). That is, Christ temporarily suspended the laws of physics and divinely ‘‘stretched’’ the five loaves to become many so that the crowd could be fed.
<h2>Human Communication as a Means to Better Understand the Eucharist</h2>
If Christ can do that with regular bread, why can’t he do something much more extraordinary with his glorified body, so that he can feed the world supernaturally? Scheeben sheds additional light on the eucharistic miracle by means of an analogy. Similar to how a single thought can become present to many people through the means of sound waves, so too God can make himself present in many eucharistic hosts in the sacrifice of the Mass. Here Scheeben cites the work of Guitmund of Aversa, an eleventh-century bishop and theologian:
<blockquote>We are aware from everyday experience that our thought, that is, the word of our mind, can in a certain way be clothed with sound, so that the thought which was concealed in our mind and was known to us alone can be uttered, and thus manifested to others. Even while it remains wholly in our own mind, it can be wholly made known to a thousand persons through the agency of the sound it has assumed, so that it not only simultaneously illuminates the minds of them all, but at the same time, still whole and entire, strikes the ears of all with the sound in which it is embodied.
If, then, God has conferred such power on the human word that not only the word itself, but the sound wherewith it is it clothed, can at the same time reach a thousand people without any cleavage of its being, no one ought to refuse to believe the same, even if he cannot understand it, of the only and omnipotent and co-eternal word of the omnipotent Father, and of the flesh in which he is clothed, so that the Word himself may be known to us [in the Eucharist].
Neither can we understand the matter as regards the tenuous and fleeting word of a man, and the sounds which scarcely hover in existence for a second, and yet we accept it on the basis of daily experience (The Mysteries of Christianity, 515-16).</blockquote>
Scheeben wrote in the late nineteenth century, before the invention of radio and television. The analogy he cites becomes even more compelling when we consider the worldwide impact broadcast technology can have on a single uttered word.
In summary, the body of Christ can be both in heaven and on earth because the omnipotent Christ wills it for our salvific benefit. Although Christ’s human body is limited in itself, it can share in God’s divine power by Christ’s will.
Afterword: In the Eucharist, the various properties of the bread and wine, including the wine’s power to intoxicate, remain even though the fundamental substance of the bread and wine have become the sacramental body and blood. And thus the admonition not to abuse the Precious Blood.
In addition, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/eucharistic-miracles-evidence-of-the-real-presence-0">eucharistic miracles</a>—which can rightly be termed “a miracle upon a miracle,” or a secondary eucharistic miracle—are visible affirmations that the eucharistic consecration is true (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c3a1.htm#III">CCC 156</a>). Further, these miracles illustrate that the Eucharist includes the materiality/physical realm of Christ’s body and blood; however, again, considered as a sacrament, these realities exist after the manner of a spirit—i.e., in a whole and undivided manner. Finally, for how Jesus is substantially present in such visible eucharistic miracles, despite their outward appearance, <a href="https://www.cathedralstm.org/the-eucharistic-miracles/">see this article by Roberto Coggi, O.P.</a>, which elaborates on St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching in the Summa Theologiae (<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4076.htm#article8">ST, III, Q. 76, art. 8, resp.</a>).

How Jesus Appears at Every Mass

Detailed instructions about the celebration of Mass are given by the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html">General Instruction of the Roman Missal</a>, in addition to the texts and rubrics (set actions) of the rites themselves, and this has the force of (liturgical) law. Some liturgical issues are also covered the Code of Canon Law.
Pope John Paul II was extremely worried by the issue of liturgical abuses. So he added to the above resources <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_dw80id.htm">Inaestimabile Donum</a> (1980), <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/laity/documents/rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html">On Certain Questions</a> Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Laity in the Sacred Ministry of the Priest (1997), and <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20040423_redemptionis-sacramentum_en.html">Redemptionis Sacramentum</a> (2004).
It is sometimes said that John Paul <a href="https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/how-john-paul-ii-restored-liturgical-sanity">restored order</a> to the liturgy, and certainly some of the wilder liturgical abuses of the 1970s, such as the use of invalid, homemade cookies for consecration in Mass, did come to an end. However, on many issues, law and practice were reconciled by changes to the law, not changes to practice.
For example, the first rules allowing the distribution of the precious blood alongside the host to the faithful at Mass specified that it should be for small, homogenous groups, and only for “particular” occasions (Sacramentali Communioni [1970]). Nevertheless, the bishops of the USA were permitted to allow it on Sundays in 1984, and restrictions on it become rather vague in later documents.
The same story can be told about the use of females to serve the altar and the reception of Holy Communion <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-ancient-is-communion-in-the-hand">in the hand</a>. On still others, practice contrary to the official rules is so widespread that Catholics could be forgiven for regarding it as normal. Examples would be the routine use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, the priest leaving the sanctuary to take part in the Sign of Peace, the saying of the Lavabo prayer aloud, and lay people cleansing the sacred vessels after Holy Communion.
The situation is unsatisfactory, to say the least. John Paul’s documents condemn laxity on liturgical law in the strongest terms, but ultimately, they failed to curb it. Their failure was symbolized by Pope Francis washing the feet of a non-Catholic woman on Holy Thursday in 2013. The law was not changed to allow the washing of women’s feet until 2016, and the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/archbishop-roche-popes-foot-washing-change-is-a-return-to-tradition">new rule</a> still excludes non-Christians from the rite. Pope Francis was certainly making a telling, symbolic, point: the battle over liturgical law is over, and the legalists have lost.
There is clearly no point in doing what some did under Pope John Paul: to insist on adherence to liturgical law just because it is liturgical law. If bishops, seminary rectors, parish priests, or laity are going to argue for closer adherence to the law, they need better arguments than that. Naturally, the Holy See had reasons for all of its legislation, but some of these reasons are stronger than others.
The most powerful reason for a liturgical law is to ensure the validity of the sacraments. Such matters are, in fact, still widely taken very seriously: the Arizona priest, for example, who used an invalid formula for baptism <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/15/1080829813/priest-resigns-baptisms">rightly resigned</a> from his position, though it is regrettable that he was not stopped for a quarter of a century. Ministers of the sacraments must not change sacramental formulas or accompanying actions (pouring water, laying on of hands, etc.); the faithful have a right not only to valid sacraments, but to complete confidence in their validity.
At the other end of the scale, reasons for liturgical laws can be much weaker. In 1955, the Holy See decided to tweak the symbolism of the Holy Thursday Mandatum (the washing of feet) away from the idea of serving the poor and toward the service of Christ to his apostles. Pope Francis has <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2016/01/is-pope-francis-restoring-tradition-in.html">tweaked it back</a> again. A lot of liturgical laws are like this, and we should not allow disputes about them to disturb our own worship of God.
Then there are intermediate cases, where liturgical abuses can rise to the level of sacrilege: the wrongful treatment of holy things. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/on-pets-as-family-members">A dog</a> receiving Holy Communion, for example, does not endanger the validity of the sacrament for others, but is an objective, grave offense on the part of whoever allows it, causes serious and justified upset to onlookers, and potentially undermines the doctrine of the Real Presence.
It’s not clear if this has ever happened: internet references to it usually turn out to refer to Episcopalian services. But short of this obvious outrage, there are practices that of their nature conflict with the teaching of the Church—not only on the Real Presence, but on the priesthood.
Readers will be able to think of many examples of inappropriately casual treatment of the Blessed Sacrament. Ask the question: is this what we would do if we really believed that the host and the precious blood contained the body and blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior? Many historic liturgical practices serve to emphasize this reality; their abandonment does the opposite, effectively contradicting it.
To give just one example, consider the practice of “self-intinction”: when someone receiving Holy Communion carries the host to where the chalice is being offered and dips it into the precious blood before consuming it. I hope most readers can see that lay people should not be wandering around carrying a consecrated host in their fingers, nor should spillage of the precious blood be risked in this way. Once we start thinking on these lines, we can take a view on the importance of the “act of reverence” called for, but often not given, before receiving Holy Communion—the manner of receiving Holy Communion, the use of lay people to distribute Holy Communion, the use of pottery or glass sacred vessels, and so on. What confirms and what undermines the doctrine of the Real Presence?
An example of a practice that undermines the Church’s teaching on the priesthood is the saying of the words of consecration by members of the congregation along with the priest. Those who promote this practice, if not necessarily all those who do it, must intend to minimize the role of the priest and to conflate it with the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/ddp/the-priesthood-of-all-believers">quite different priesthood</a> of the baptized.
If we recognize why this practice is problematic, we should be able to extend the principle to other issues: the way the celebrant can appear to be surrounded by lay people at the altar; a priest’s failure to wear proper vestments; and lay people taking on all kinds of priestly liturgical roles, from preaching at Mass to putting the Blessed Sacrament back in the tabernacle after Holy Communion. Everything that blurs the distinction between the priest, and his role, and the laity, and theirs, undermines in a practical way the Church’s teaching that a priest is not merely a convenient representative of the community, but someone able to act as Christ in Mass and in the sacrament of penance (confession), due to the ontological change made to him by the sacrament of holy orders.
Without creating pointless conflict, the Church’s more fundamental liturgical principles remain things priests and people should keep in mind, to keep the Faith clear to themselves and others.

Watch Out for Liturgical Abuses

Why can’t women be priests?

How does a transgender person feel welcomed in the Catholic Church?

Why is there such a negative view of Catholicism among the LGBTQ community?

What advice do you recommend to defend the Immaculate Conception?

How do I explain to someone why we have to go to a priest, who will never be married, to take marriage preparation classes?

How do I respond to fellow practicing Catholics who agree on all teaching except for the teachings on homosexuality because they have family with same-sex attractions?

&#8220;Why can’t women be priests?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the role of women in the Church, alongside inquiries about how transgender individuals can feel welcomed in Catholicism and the negative perceptions of the Church within the LGBTQ community. Additional topics include defending the Immaculate Conception and addressing marriage preparation with unmarried priests.
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Why Women Can’t Be Priests – LGBTQ Views and Apologetics

<div>Why isn’t the Confiteor said at every Mass?</div><div>The Penitential Act is an essential part of the Sacrifice of the Mass, although the Confiteor need not be prayed as part of it. For more information, see the “Order of the Mass” section of your parish missal.
</div>

Why Not Confiteor at Every Mass?

It stands out that sola scriptura, one of the core doctrines of Protestantism, did not exist prior to the fourteenth century (with John Wycliffe), and it did not become prevalent until the sixteenth century (with Martin Luther). To put it bluntly, sola scriptura simply did not exist before about 1,200 years after the last of the apostles had died.
Protestants claim that the Bible teaches sola scriptura and that the doctrine goes back to Jesus. This claim amounts to an attempt to introduce the belief back into the pages of Scripture, in the process jumping over fourteen centuries of Church practice and belief. A review of historical continuity—or lack thereof—shows whether or not a belief originated with Jesus and the apostles or if it appeared later in time.
Let’s look at some of the more popular passages that Protestants cite to establish sola scriptura’s ancient pedigree. It is beyond the scope of this article to conduct a systematic refutation of sola scriptura from a biblical perspective, but this list—and a Catholic response to the items in it—can get us to a working understanding of Protestant proof texts and how they fall flat.
1) Matthew 4:1-11: “It is written . . .”
Jesus is here being tempted in the desert by the devil. He responds to the devil three times by saying, “It is written . . .” and then quotes Scripture.
But Jesus is not quoting just any Scripture. In all three instances, he is quoting from Deuteronomy (8:3, 6:16, and 6:13), and these passages are specifically about the Israelites’ experience in the desert when they were unfaithful to God and failed to trust him. Jesus was recalling the Israelites’ failures so that he could demonstrate absolute trust in and fidelity to God where they did not.
In other words, in a decisive and particularly relevant blow to the devil, Jesus was redeeming and transforming the Israelites’ failure. The underlying issue has nothing at all to do with sola scriptura, but rather with man’s relationship to God. Jesus was demonstrating that he is the perfectly obedient Son, as the Israelites should have been, and when the devil realizes he can’t get Jesus to fail God, he departs.
2) Acts 17:10-11: “The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
It might look as though “Scripture alone” is the sole rule of faith for the Bereans. But it is important here to understand the broader context.
Paul was preaching in Thessalonica for three weeks and gaining converts in the process. But because some of those converts were coming from the synagogue where Paul was preaching, the Jews there were not pleased about losing members of their congregation and hence stirred up a commotion. They attempted to bring Paul and Silas before an assembly to accuse them of causing problems, but when they couldn’t find these two at Jason’s house, where they were staying, they instead dragged Jason and some other Christians before the city’s magistrates. Word was sent to Paul and Silas that they were in danger, and so the Christians in Thessalonica had them leave the
city under the cover of darkness and go to Berea. There, Paul went to another synagogue and preached about Jesus. But, as a counter to the aggressive response Paul experienced in Thessalonica, the Bereans received his message “with all eagerness.”
So the Bereans were “more noble” not because they searched the scriptures, but because they did not treat Paul and Silas harshly, as the Thessalonians had. They were truly open-minded in the sense of being willing to consider what Paul was telling them. That is hardly a matter of supporting the idea that Scripture is the only infallible authority.
Furthermore, there are absolutely no Old Testament passages (“the scriptures” to which Paul was referring) that clearly state that “the Messiah had to suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day.” It is Paul’s authoritative, apostolic teaching that “connected these dots” for the Bereans. But if sola scriptura were true, no examination and searching of the scriptures would have been necessary, because the teaching in question is the central teaching of the Christian faith.
But Acts 17 shows that this teaching was not sufficiently clear to the Thessalonians or the Bereans, who came to understand it only after Paul expounded on the Old Testament. If anything, this passage supports the Catholic position that Scripture is always coupled with official magisterial teaching.
3) 1 Corinthians 4:6: “I have applied all this to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brethren, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.”
Protestants are quick to emphasize the “not going beyond what is written” part, as Catholics allegedly do when they employ Sacred Tradition. A lot could be said about this verse, but consider at least the following.
The first Protestant leaders did not see this verse as helpful to their sola scriptura cause. None of them used this verse to establish the doctrine. John Calvin even <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom39.xi.ii.html">said</a>,
<blockquote>The clause above what is written may be explained in two ways—either as referring to Paul’s writings, or to the proofs from Scripture which he has brought forward. As this, however, is a matter of small moment, my readers may be left at liberty to take whichever they may prefer.</blockquote>
If Calvin felt that this verse was “of small moment,” whose interpretation was left to the reader’s personal preference, clearly he did not intend it as a proof text for sola scriptura.
In this same letter, Paul explicitly affirms the believers in Corinth for having adhered to Sacred Tradition: “I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (11:2). He is not going to advance one principle to the Corinthians in chapter four only to flatly contradict it in chapter eleven.
Bible scholars readily admit that the meaning of “what is written” is obscure, so how useful can this verse be in support of a central Protestant belief? If anything, Protestants would be guilty of eisegesis—reading something into the passage—instead of exegesis, pulling something out of the passage.
To give the reader some idea of the difficulties inherent in this verse, apologist Karlo Broussard <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/meeting-the-protestant-challenge/">offers the following possibilities</a> as to what is meant by “what is written” (60-61):
<ul>
<li>the scriptures in general concerning conduct for preachers;</li>
<li>the Old Testament passages Paul already quoted in 1 Corinthians 1:19, 31; 2:16; 3:19-20;</li>
<li>the metaphors of planting and building used in 1 Corinthians 3:15-17, the implication being that we should avoid false teachers who add to the gospel;</li>
<li>more generally, to everything Paul himself wrote in the preceding chapters of the same epistle concerning Christian conduct;</li>
<li>a Christian slogan or proverb used to address those causing discord in the community, a slogan that meant something akin to “keep within the rules”; or</li>
<li>a public document for the Corinthian church that Paul modeled on cultic bylaws in order to lay out guidelines and principles necessary to preserve peace and prosperity.</li>
</ul>
The only clear thing seems to be that not going “beyond what is written” cannot possibly refer to sola scriptura.
There are many other proof texts we could discuss, but these suffice for our purposes. That is to say, if sola scriptura cannot be found until over a thousand years after Jesus’ earthly life, then the doctrine must lack the historical continuity intrinsic to apostolic teaching. Worse, in practice, we see that it initiated a radical break with the Christian past.

3 of Protestants’ Favorite Bible Verses

This past weekend, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars. Even conservative commenters are praising the film and encouraging people to see it.
But not me. I will not see this film in theatres.
I refuse to support the propaganda that is intrinsic in the film’s casting of Elliot Page, AKA Ellen Page, to play a male Greek soldier (who wasn’t even in Homer’s Odyssey). Page is a “transgender man”—that is, a woman pretending to be a man after having subjected her body to gruesome mutilation. I cannot in good conscience spend money on something that will lead impressionable children into thinking irreversible sex change operations, including the removal of breasts and genitals, is a healthy decision just because a Hollywood celebrity did it, and they see this celebrity in a film everyone is fawning over.
To be clear, I do not think Christians sin or are bad people if they decide to see The Odyssey. After being force-fed CGI-superhero slop for over a decade, I understand the desire to see a bona fide film. I just hope those Christians will take a minute to see where I’m coming from in wanting not to be part of the box office numbers for this one.
Transgender propaganda endangers more people than just the youths who are tempted to adopt transgender identities. When people who identify as transgender are not affirmed in their identity, they often <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjtOc5Iclo&amp;t=293s">threaten violence</a>. You can see that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bB0Tpotg_I">in this clip</a> from several years ago, when Ben Shapiro debated Robert Tur, the guy who filmed the OJ Simpson chase, who later pretended to be a woman named Zoey Tur. When Shapiro asked Tur about “his” chromosomes, Tur threateningly put his man-sized hands on Shapiro’s shoulder and said that if he kept that up, he’d be going home in an ambulance.
Indeed, it’s not hard to find posts on social media arguing that “transphobes” deserve to die, as can be seen in memes that include guns and other acts of violence against those who reject transgender ideology. Most “transgender humor” is just fantasies about murdering people who disagree with transgender ideology. And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjtOc5Iclo&amp;t=293s">sometimes</a> the <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/nashville-school-shooter-audrey-hale-identified-as-transgender-and-had-detailed-manifesto-to-attack-christian-academy/">fantasies</a> become <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/nashville-school-shooter-audrey-hale-identified-as-transgender-and-had-detailed-manifesto-to-attack-christian-academy/">reality</a>.
Liberals who support LGBT ideology understand the concept of avoiding a film for the ideology it promotes. If Christopher Nolan had casted a famous white supremacist in his film, they would pan and boycott, regardless of the film’s artistic merits, because they prioritize winning the culture wars over supporting objectively good culture.
There is another parallel here. White supremacy is evil because it perpetuates a lie related to biology: that some races are morally superior to others. Likewise, transgender ideology is evil because it perpetuates a lie related to biology. Pope Francis <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-francis-today-the-ugliest-danger-is-gender-ideology">said</a>, “Today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, that cancels out differences.”
People have told me Page is in The Odyssey for only a few minutes, so it isn’t a big deal. But that’s always been the winning strategy for those who want to upend cultural norms.
In 1989, two gay advertising executives published After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ’90s. The authors said the LGBT community shouldn’t lead with over-the-top debauchery, but rather present an image as close to normal as possible and shame people for not accepting it. With The Odyssey, we are seeing the same tactic: it isn’t an over-the top casting decision, like Dylan Mulvaney playing Helen of Troy, but rather a subtle thing. It is easier to move people gradually to accept that “transgender men are men.”
Now, some people may ask me, “Are you not going to ever see a film if it has a self-identified gay person or a transgender person in it? Are you against men playing women in the time of Shakespeare?”
To answer the second question first: yes. It was silly that in Shakespeare’s time, characters like Juliet were often played by a young boy because it was illegal for women to perform on stage. In general, actors shouldn’t dramatically differ from the character they portray unless there is a legitimate artistic or story-driven justification for it.
But casting Page in The Odyssey is solely meant to push this kind of propaganda. I have no interest in supporting that.
I would ask Catholics who go and see The Odyssey: where are you going to draw the line? Imagine if Christopher Nolan teamed up with Judd Apatow to make an Oscar-worthy sequel to the 2007 film Juno, where “Elliot” Page reprises “his” role as a mom who had a teen pregnancy. Say the film got a 99 on Rotten Tomatoes. Should Catholics go see it because it’s “pro-life” and “epic”?
The only way to make a successful stand against transgender insanity, or any insanity, is to confront it. In the case at hand, Christians have made progress in reversing society’s acceptance of transgender ideology. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx">According to Gallup</a>, “in 2021, 46 percent found it morally acceptable, and 51 percent found it morally wrong. Today, those numbers stand at 38 percent and 57 percent, respectively.” Much of this was brought about by Christians courageously and graciously exposing the insanity of transgender ideology, which tries to make things like grown men exposing their penises in female changing rooms totally normal. But when we pretend transgender actors are like any other actor and not part of a hideous Frankenstein-esque industry, we erode this success in winning over the culture.
It’s also incumbent upon Christians not to cover evil with euphemisms. For example, instead of “choice,” we need to call abortion what it is: the dismemberment of children. Instead, of “pride,” we should talk about the disordered nature of sodomy. Ephesians 5:11 says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” We need to have the same attitude with transgender ideology.
When I told my oldest sons, who are still in elementary school, about what was done to Ellen Page’s body, they were horrified. They had no desire to see the film (and they can see R-rated films if they are genuine art), because it just reminded them of this grotesque procedure performed on one of the stars.
I hope not just fellow Christians, but anyone who is firmly committed to the nature of reality will continue to normalize what is normal, and not patronize that try to gaslight us.

Why I Refuse to See The Odyssey

Christians believe that God created the universe from nothing. But some skeptical critics say that even if there were evidence for the universe having a cause, God could not be it—at least, not the cause of a finite universe that began in the past, like ours.
The late physicist Stephen Hawking, for instance, argued that since the Big Bang is typically claimed to be the beginning of time itself, there could have been no time until it occured. And since all causes occur before their effects, he said, without time there was no way for for any cause, even God, to bring the universe into existence. Because without time there can be no &#8220;before.&#8221;
One problem with this argument is that a cause does not always have to occur before the effect. The eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant argued, for example, that “the greater part of operating causes in nature are simultaneous with their effects. . . . If the cause had but a moment before it ceased to be, the effect could not have arisen.”
To understand this, imagine a brick smashing a window. In this case, it is clear that the brick is thrown before the window breaks, and the window doesn’t break before the brick hits it. But notice that there is a brief overlap where the cause (the brick flying through the air) is simultaneous with the effect (the window breaking). If the brick disappeared even a microsecond before it touched the window, then the effect would never happen. So there has to be a moment where the cause and effect happen at the same time.
Likewise, God’s causing the universe to begin to exist, and the effect of the universe coming into existence, are simultaneous events. This objection does not negate the principle “out of nothing, nothing comes,” because there still needs to be an explanation for the beginning of time itself. Instead of saying that God existed before the universe existed (since there was no &#8220;before&#8221;), we say only that God existed timelessly without the universe. He then caused the universe to exist at the same moment time began to exist.
But how could God, who is timeless and changeless, engage in an act like “creating the world”?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clear that God did not have to create the world, and it does not automatically emanate or proceed from him (295). The world is contingent, which means it depends on God in order to exist, and it is possible that it could have not existed if God had chosen not to create it. But God did choose to create the world—not in a temporal way, as if he had to think about whether this was a good idea, but in a way that simply reflects his desire to share his superabundant love with others. As Protestant pastor <a href="https://www.rbap.net/god-creation-ex-nihilo-and-divine-immutability-by-richard-c-barcellos/">Richard Barcellos puts it</a>, “creation does not entail divine mutation, though it does entail divine revelation. No work of God changes God in any sense whatsoever. His external works reveal him.”
God is pure being itself, so he does not change in any way. In creating the world, God is the same. The only thing that changes is how we are related to God.
The philosopher Peter Geach, who perhaps most powerfully made the argument, calls this a “Cambridge change,” named after the Cambridge University philosophers to whom he was responding. Here’s how it works: suppose a son grows up and ends up becoming taller than his father. This direct change is recognized by the father, who says, “My son is now taller than me,” but when the same father says, “I am now shorter than my son,” he is recognizing a change not in himself, but in the difference between him and his son.
The same thing happens when we say God created the universe—nothing changes in God’s immutable nature, but the world around us is “changed” by becoming real in an act of being that is created from nothing.
Another argument against God creating the universe is that it seems as though God has no reason to do this. Some atheists even say the idea of a perfect God creating the world leads to a contradiction. The atheist philosopher of religion, Theodore Drange, for example, says God would have created the universe only because he lacked something, and if he lacked something, then he would not be perfect. Such a being might be a very powerful supernatural creature or alien, but it wouldn’t be God.
But Drange is wrong in presuming that God would have created the universe only out of some imperfection, such as loneliness or boredom. If God is the perfection of virtues, including love and selflessness, then his creation is a logical result of his superabundant love and self-giving. He created the universe not for his good, but for ours. The Baltimore Catechism puts it this way:
<blockquote>Question: Why did God make you?
Answer: God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven.</blockquote>
So God&#8217;s creation of the universe does not contradict his perfection, but in fact flows from it. Because God is perfect love, he gives being and life to his creation.

God Created the Universe? Impossible!

In this episode, Trent shares a version of his opening statement with Pearl Davis in their debate on the question, &#8220;Is Marriage Bad for Men?&#8221;
Transcription:
The following is adapted from my opening statement in my debate with Pearl Davis.
A lot of people in the so-called Red-pill community claim that marriage is a bad deal for men. They use false statistics and fallacious arguments to get men to reject marriage, but in today’s episode I’m going to show what’s wrong with their case. Usually it boils down to one of the following fallacies or errors in reasoning.
First, there is the wrong target fallacy. This happens when a critic focuses on a bad thing related to marriage but concludes this proves that only marriage is bad. For example, anti-marriage advocates often talk about how marriage is a bad deal because men are sometimes mistreated in child custody cases. But that’s not unique to marriage. If you cohabit or even just hookup with a woman you can still father a child and deal with custody issues. However, marriage makes a man the presumed father of the child with natural rights unmarried fathers don’t have, even though unmarried fathers can still be liable to pay child support. The children of unmarried men are 10 times more likely to be aborted. If the child does survive the pregnancy, he is 3-6 times more likely to live in poverty.
Another wrong target is women themselves. Marriage skeptics say it is a bad deal for men because modern women are worse than previous generations of women. They say there just aren’t any women worth marrying. But this argument says nothing about the goodness or badness of marriage.
For many red-pillers, women are good enough for hookups that can result in child custody issues or cohabiting relationships that superficially feel like marriage but are far more likely to fail. But for some reason women aren’t good enough for marriage which, as we will see, benefits men more than hookups and cohabiting.
Also, if there aren’t any good women, then that means there aren’t any good men either because men can’t meet the red pill standards either. Modern men are just as promiscuous and even more overweight than modern women. A 2019 Experian study found that men carry more credit, auto, and mortgage debt than women. Millennial and Gen Z men have weaker grip strength and make less money than older men did at their age.
These critics haven’t shown women are not good enough for men. Instead, the data shows men and women are both in bad shape compared to older generations. But there’s hope! Marriage is the best way for men and women to mature together and bring out the best in one another.
Second, red pillers often rely on the anecdote fallacy. But one sad story about a marriage doesn’t show marriage itself is bad because for every sad story there are statistically 2-3 stories of happy marriages. And there are many stories about sad, sick, lonely men who never marry.
Even marriage skeptics in academia will only argue that, at best, that marriage doesn’t increase happiness. But even they agree that men who marry are better off concerning health, wealth, and happiness than men who never marry.
Third, there’s the comparison fallacy. For example, Pearl Davis says just as you wouldn’t fly on a plane that has a 5% chance of crashing, you shouldn’t get married even if it has similar low odds of divorcing. But you can’t focus on the worst outcomes of one choice while ignoring the worst outcomes of the only other choice. That’s the comparison fallacy. It’s like someone who thinks driving is safer than flying because he only reads a bunch of stories about plane crashes and never thinks about car crashes. Of course, flying is far safer than driving and marriage is less risky than non-marriage.
You can’t compare the best outcomes of non-marriage to the worst outcomes of marriage. You have to compare the typical outcomes in each case, be it flying and driving or marriage and non-marriage. And anti-marriage advocates exaggerate the harms of marriage.
According to the National Center for Family &amp; Marriage Research, the median length of all marriages is not 7-8 years, which is the length of marriages that end in divorce, not all marriages. The median for all marriages is 21 years.
And the divorce rate is closer to 35% not 50%. 50% was a future projection from the 80’s that has since been falsified. In fact, we are now seeing the lowest divorce rates since 1970, about 14 divorces per 1000 married women. For weekly church goers the divorce rate is half the average rate.
Also, just because 35% of marriages end in divorce, that doesn’t mean you have a 1 in 3 chance of absolute misery. Divorce sucks, but people typically survive it intact. In fact, men do better than women after divorce. Men’s income increases by 20% while women are twice as likely to fall into poverty. Alimony is only paid out in less than 10 percent of divorces and, according to the U.S. Census, the average child support payment is $441 dollars a month, of which only 60% usually ends up getting paid. Saying marriage is an arrangement where women are “paid to leave” only reveals a person’s ignorance of child and maternal poverty.
Moreover, women do not get child custody 90% of the time. 95% of custody cases are mutually agreed upon outside the courtroom. Women get full custody 40% of the time, men get full custody 20% of the time, and shared custody makes up the remaining 40%. Women usually get full custody because men don’t ask for it. In a Massachusetts study of 24,000 divorces only 8 percent of men sought custody and 94% of them got full or partial custody.
Finally, a 2006 study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed that while divorced men were 27% more likely to die prematurely, 58% of never married men were more likely to die early.
Never married men risk growing older and having few or no social connections. Yes, there are stories of messy divorces but my wife who was a registered nurse can tell you horror stories of men dying alone in the hospital spending every day by themselves staring at the same blotch on the ceiling because they had no one to ever come and visit them.
Now, some men desire marriage and are unable to find a wife, which is tragic. But rejecting marriage out of fear is like the person who refuses to go to the hospital because he worries about medical errors but doesn’t think about people dying at home from easily treatable illnesses.
This doesn’t mean every married man will be happy or that every man who doesn’t marry will be miserable. We are talking about the average results of both groups and, on average, married men fare better.
65% of divorced men get remarried. 93% of men say they would marry their spouse again if they could do marriage over. If anti-marriages advocates are right that marriage is a “death sentence” for men, then why do most men voluntarily go back to the death row after they are “released.” i.e. divorced.
The answer is that these men correctly identify what red pillers fail to grasp: marriage isn’t bad for men. In fact, marriage is good for men. No wonder God told Adam in the book of Genesis, it is not good for the man to be alone, and so he made Eve to remedy this problem.
To make it clear: it&#8217;s a lie half of all marriages end in divorce. The truth is that most marriages last a lifetime and 80% to 90% of them identify as happy.
A Gallup survey conducted between 2008 and 2020 of 2.5 million adults showed that married people rate their well-being 12-17 points higher than unmarried people. The General Social Survey from the University of Chicago also shows that married men are twice likely to rate their lives as very happy when compared to non-married men. Married men also make 10% to 20% more money per hour, and have more sex than never married men.. Studies also show that even men who end up divorced live longer, are economically better off, and are just as or even happier than never married men.
Now, marriage skeptics might say these studies only prove that happier, richer men get married and unhappy, poor men don’t get married. But, when you look at the typical married man, he isn’t a 6’2” rich chad. More importantly, if a man chooses to marry then he needs to become marriageable, which involves developing positive traits that make him desirable to women and at the same time improve his own self-esteem and happiness.
But I’m not arguing that marriage makes men happy. I’m arguing against the red pill claim that marriage is bad deal for men, or that it’s likely to make them unhappy. That’s simply not true. In fact, marriage is the best way for men to not just hang on to happiness, but to increase it. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which tracked people for 80 years, said good relationships were the number one predictor of happiness and it showed that men who married ended up happier and lived 7-17 years longer than men who never married.
When I was unmarried, like many unmarried men, I was content thinking two folding chairs and a TV on the ground were sufficient living room furniture. But after you get married, your wife helps you see how much better life can be. You have a desire to provide the best life you can for your wife and children. And you have someone in your corner to root for you even when things get tough. A 2013 Harvard study showed that married men are less likely to get cancer and are even more likely to survive cancer.
Never married men, however, are more likely to not build up for their futures. This leads to a greater chance of living in poverty and suffering premature deaths from suicide, drug overdoses, or just unhealthy lifestyles.
To summarize. Pointing out flaws in women doesn’t prove marriage is bad, because men have those same flaws and marriage is the best way to grow out of those flaws. Telling a sad story about a married man doesn’t prove marriage is bad for all men. Looking only at the risks of marriage doesn’t prove marriage is bad because you have to compare those risks, especially low-risk marriages, to the greater risks of not marrying. And if you do choose to have sex, you face far worse risks than married men.
I am not saying every man needs to get married. My boss likes to say “Man was meant to live in the context of a vow.” Maybe you are called to the priesthood, religious life, or you can make a private vow to use your life to serve others, like Batman.
But we call those things sacrifices because they involve giving up the great good of marriage. If you are a man considering marriage, carefully discern if you should marry the woman you love, but don’t give into hopeless fear.
As a man you weren’t made to live in fear. You were made to cross oceans in small wooden ships. You were made to stare down an invading army and fight until you’re the last man standing. You were made for greatness, not sitting around all day watching cynical YouTube videos and complaining about women.
God invented marriage and gave it to the human race so we would be fruitful and multiply. And Christ raised marriage to a sacrament. And the data is clear from hundreds of thousands of men, that marriage is the primary engine that helps them live a long, healthy, happy life.
Thank you guys so much for watching, if you’d like to learn more check out Brian Wilcox’s book get Married and my debate with Pearl Davis on Pints with Aquinas, also don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to get more great content.

“Marriage is Bad for Men” (REBUTTED)

If you’ve been an American Catholic, or even just followed Catholic news, for the last several decades, you might have the impression that Catholic priests in America have gotten a lot more orthodox, and a lot more politically conservative. But you might not realize just how right you are.
After polling thousands of Catholic priests and engaging in in-depth interviews with one hundred of them, the Catholic Project at CUA released a report examining “polarization” and “generational dynamics” within the American Catholic priesthood. The results were striking. On both theological and political issues, there is a chasm separating the views of older and younger priests.
Back in 1972, Paul Simon could sing, “When the radical priest / come to get me released / we was all on the cover of Newsweek,” in an apparent reference to the pacifist activist Daniel Berrigan, S.J., who had been on the cover of Time (not Newsweek) the prior year. The lyric made sense: priests like Berrigan were beloved figures on the left, and they were hardly alone. The Catholic Project study found that a majority of priests ordained before 1970 self-describe both as “somewhat liberal” or “very liberal” politically and “somewhat progressive” or “very progressive” theologically. In contrast, only about 20 percent of priests from that era consider themselves either politically or theologically conservative.
But the “radical priests” of the sixties and early seventies gave way to a new type of priest . . . or, perhaps more accurately, new types of priests. As one of the surveyed priests describes it,
<blockquote>priests in their seventies and sixties now would be one cohort. And then you have the JPII-generation that would be very orthodox, but still have some, you know, free-flowing-liturgy-stuff. Then you get in the Benedict stuff, which is like, you know, the hard-on-everything kind of guys. And the young guys now, I’d say, you have a lot in common with those last few cohorts, but no one’s really—the super-progressive wing really didn’t replicate themselves.</blockquote>
That priest accurately describes what are really three distinguishable shifts within the priesthood: a trend toward theological orthodoxy, a trend toward more traditional forms of liturgical praxis, and a trend toward political conservativism. For the sake of clarity, I’ll use “progressive” and “orthodox” to refer to one’s theological leanings, and “liberal” and “conservative” to refer to one’s political orientation. (Apart from this priest’s comments, the survey largely ignored the accompanying liturgical shift, but it’s worth bearing in mind as we consider these questions.)
To me, what’s most striking isn’t any of these three shifts, but the utter collapse of theological progressivism within the priesthood. Saying that “the super-progressive wing really didn’t replicate themselves” is almost an understatement when you look at the data. As the report highlights,
<blockquote>a full 85 percent of the youngest cohort describes itself as “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox” theologically, with only 14 percent (the smallest percentage of any cohort) describing themselves as “middle-of-the-road.” Theologically ‘progressive’ and “very progressive” priests once made up 68 percent of new ordinands. Today, that number has dwindled almost to zero.</blockquote>
With 85 percent of the priests describing themselves as conservative/orthodox, and another 14 percent describing themselves as “middle-of-the-road,” that leaves only about 1 percent of new priests who would be considered “progressive.” And bear in mind: these are priests who spent most or all of their time in seminary during the pontificate of Pope Francis, yet they self-describe as more conservative (both politically and theologically) than their brother priests ordained under John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Nor is this a fluke. As the study authors point out, “self-described liberal or progressive priests, considered both politically and theologically, have been declining with every successive cohort for more than 50 years. Self-described liberal or progressive priests have all but disappeared from the youngest cohorts of priests.” Make no mistake: while there are plenty of gray- and white-haired progressive Catholic priests still making headlines in the U.S., there are hardly any younger Catholics following them (particularly into the priesthood). Unless some radical reversal occurs in the near term, we’re witnessing the virtual extinction of the progressive Catholic priest.
So what accounts for the half-century-long death of the progressive priest? Progressive priests have been on the decline during the pontificates of Popes Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis. But although an inspiring pope might account for more conservative/orthodox men wanting to become priests, it doesn’t explain the failure of theologically progressive young men to pursue the priesthood. Nor can one simply blame (or thank) the bishops, since in many cases, the seminarians and newly ordained priests have been more traditional, conservative, and orthodox than the bishops ordaining them.
Instead, there seems to be something within theological progressivism itself that is to blame. Tentatively, I would point to three possible factors. First, many of the beliefs of theologically progressive Catholicism are antithetical to the priesthood. Take a progressive Catholic like Garry Wills (the former Jesuit seminarian), who wrote a book called Why Priests?: A Failed Tradition, arguing against the divine and apostolic origins of the Catholic priesthood. Perhaps needless to say, a Catholic who accepts the thesis of that book is unlikely to also think that God is calling him to become a priest.
Second, there may be an ironic effect at play in which the weakening of Catholic culture has destroyed much of progressive Catholicism. The older generations of progressive Catholics often grew up in Catholic enclaves in which daily life centered on Catholic devotions, the local parish, and the parish priest. One of the older priests interviewed described it this way: “I liked the lifestyle of the priest and recognition and respect that the priest had.” That draw might endure even if the young man stopped believing in aspects of Catholic teaching.
But for a variety of reasons, that world no longer exists. Owing to demographic shifts (there are fewer Catholic ghettos in the U.S. anymore), the fallout of the sexual abuse scandal (priests no longer enjoy that “recognition and respect”), and perhaps even the success of progressive Catholic priests in quashing much of the traditional devotional life with which they had grown up, a young man who stops believing in aspects of Catholic teaching today is likely to simply stop identifying as Catholic, or at least to stop bother going to Mass. Put more positively, this means that young men discerning the priesthood now are more likely to be there because they actually believe it, not simply because they want recognition and respect.
Third, even among those progressives who continue to consider themselves Catholic, the priesthood is not an obvious option. Progressive Catholics were (and are) right to see that many of their traditional Catholic peers stressed (and stress) the dignity of the priesthood to the near exclusion of the universal call to holiness. But in many cases, the reaction to this has been to blur the distinction between the priesthood and laity.
To take an extreme example, Trent Horn points out in <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/confusion-in-the-kingdom/">Confusion in the Kingdom</a>, “For some feminist theologians, even the concept of priests as mediators between God and man is oppressive.” As Jill Peterfeso points out in her book Womanpriest, this creates a Catch-22; because groups like “Roman Catholic Women Priests” really aim “to dissolve the boundary between clergy and laity, womenpriests cannot simply uphold their own ontological specialness if they wish to empower the laity.” So they’re left arguing both that they are and aren’t ordained Catholic priests.
A more moderate version of this is to speak and think of the priesthood as if it consisted principally of community organizing or social justice activism. But one can do those things without spending years in seminary, promising celibacy (or vowing poverty, chastity, and obedience), and being under the authority of a bishop or religious superior. For instance, Philip Berrigan started out as a “radical priest” like his brother Daniel, but he continued to be a radical anti-war activist even after he was (briefly) excommunicated in 1973 for eloping with a nun. It turns out he could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/12/guardianobituaries">continue to be</a> “one half of the famous and militant Roman Catholic Berrigan brothers” even after leaving the priesthood behind.
Perhaps the survey data on young and old Catholic priests should give all of us pause. With the extinction of the theologically progressive Catholic priest, we also find the near extinction of the politically liberal priest. These aren’t the same thing—it’s true that priests with a “leftward” political leaning have tended to pair that with theological dissent in a way that has proved fatal to their liberal Catholicism, but it’s possible to conflate theology and politics in the opposite direction as well, as if fidelity to Jesus Christ meant the same thing as fidelity to political conservatism, or the G.O.P., or Donald Trump.
In an age in which the Church finds itself at odds with the state on issues ranging from abortion to immigration to war, we should be at least mindful of what’s been gained and what’s been lost in the near extinction of the liberal Catholic priest.

The Death of Liberal Catholicism

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DAY 272
CHALLENGE
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“Catholics use statues and pictures, but the Ten Commandments prohibit such religious images (Exod. 20:4–6; Deut. 5:8–10).”
DEFENSE
The Ten Commandments prohibit making idols, not religious images.
Idols are manufactured objects that people falsely believe to be deities. Their use was commonplace in paganism, and God rightly prohibited the Israelites from making them. However, not all religious use of images is idolatry, and God commanded the religious use of images in the Old Testament.
At one point the Israelites are being bitten by serpents, and God had Moses make a bronze serpent “and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Num. 21:9). Looking at the bronze serpent to be healed was a religious act God authorized. (Nevertheless, when the bronze serpent began to be worshipped as a god itself, it was destroyed; 2 Kings 18:4).
Similarly, God commanded statues of golden cherubim be made at each end of the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant (Exod. 25:18–22). He similarly commanded images of cherubim be woven into the curtains of the tabernacle (Exod. 26:1). When the tabernacle was replaced by the temple, images of cherubim were fashioned on the temple’s walls, its doors, and its veil (2 King. 6:29–35; 2 Chron. 3:7, 14). And there were two giant (15–feet tall) statues of cherubim in the holy of holies (2 Kings 6:23–28; 2 Chron. 3:10–13).
The inclusion of these images on the ark, in the tabernacle, and in the temple indicates their religious function. They represent the inhabitants of heaven, the angels who surround God. In our age, now that humans have been admitted to heaven (Rev. 6:9, 7:14–17), it is natural for statues of human saints also to be placed in churches.
Most significantly, by virtue of the Incarnation, Jesus inaugurated a new age in which God took on visible form. It has been natural since then for Christians to depict Jesus in religious art. This includes the Protestant community, where two-dimensional images of Jesus are common. Adding a third dimension to make a carving or statue does not fundamentally change the situation.
All today recognize that images of Christ and the saints are merely symbols of the individuals they represent (a precursor of modern photographs). They are not idols (see Day 307).
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The Use of Religious Images

In relating an interesting story, The Debrief <a href="https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/">reports</a>:
<blockquote>A former intelligence official turned whistleblower has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.
The information, he says, has been illegally withheld from Congress, and he filed a complaint alleging that he suffered illegal retaliation for his confidential disclosures, reported here for the first time.
Other intelligence officials, both active and retired, with knowledge of these programs through their work in various agencies, have independently provided similar, corroborating information, both on and off the record.</blockquote>
There have been a large number of alleged UFO whistleblowers over the years, including many who were kooks <a href="https://youtu.be/kPU4kx_ZaEU">and frauds</a>. However, the whistleblower in this case has notable credentials.
His name is David Grusch, and he served as the National Reconnaissance Office’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force from 2019-2021. Afterward he served as the Nation Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s co-lead for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena analysis and its representative to the task force.
What he’s blowing the whistle on are reports that—in addition to the publicly known government UFO (or “UAP”) study groups that Congress has authorized—there are classified programs squirreled away in different agencies, that they have been operating without proper congressional oversight, and that they have been withholding information from Congress.
He says these programs include one dedicated to retrieving alleged offworld technologies, including materials from UFO crashes and landings. This program is said to be part of an 80-year-old Cold War to retrieve and reverse engineer such materials by the United States and near-peer competitor nations (think: Russia and China).
Most strikingly, Grusch claims that we have an intact UFO that was apparently abandoned at an undisclosed location.
In June of 2021, Grusch filed a complaint with the Department of Defense’s Inspector General about the withholding of information from Congress, and he says that afterward he experienced months of reprisals and retaliation—contrary to U.S. whistleblower protection policies.
He thus issued a new complaint, and in July 2022 the Intelligence Community Inspector General determined that this complaint was “credible and urgent.” The investigation into his reported mistreatment is ongoing.
What are we to make of all this? How credible is Grusch, and does someone in the U.S. government really have offworld tech?
Grusch has better credentials than many previous whistleblowers.  He not only worked for the Defense Department, he worked for the part of the defense department that deals with UFOs, and it’s plausible he may have learned about programs in other agencies that are hiding from Congressional oversight.
Also, as The Debrief reports, several highly placed officials who also worked for the UFO program have vouched for him, said he’s reliable, and/or confirmed parts of his story.
Finally, Grusch signed his complaint under penalty of perjury, so he’s got legal exposure if he’s lying.
All of this is in favor of Grusch’s credibility, but it doesn’t prove that he’s right. Only time and further disclosures will reveal that.
However, at least part of what he’s said is true. The U.S. does have materials that are alleged to have come from alien tech, and there have been recent studies of them that suggest that some of them have unusual properties. <a href="https://youtu.be/v4HWxOel7zw">I’ve talked about that before.</a>
What’s most striking is Grusch’s claim that we have an intact UFO that aliens abandoned for some reason. I’d love to know more about that claim and be able to investigate it.
However, it isn’t clear how much Grusch knows about it. Based on the reporting, it would appear that he has heard that the covert material retrieval program he’s blowing the whistle on has the craft, but he may not have seen it himself.
Consequently, he may simply be misinformed—which is par for the course in this area. Lots of UFO whistleblowers make dramatic claims based on what they’ve been told, only for it to turn out that the claim can’t be backed up.
Then there’s another possibility for what could be going on: Somebody could be conducting a psychological operation (psy-op).
During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the USSR played mind games with each other, and these included UFO reports. Sometimes, UFO claims were used to distract people from classified weapons and spy tech we were developing.
In 1987, a series of documents known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_12">Majestic 12</a> papers began to be published. These were allegedly internal memoranda and other documents that had been part of a UFO study program dating back to the Truman administration, and they revealed that the U.S. had a crashed UFO, and alien tech, and was in contact with aliens.
One of the individuals involved in the ensuing Majestic 12 affair was an Air Force intelligence officer named Richard Doty.
Doty had previously been involved with New Mexico businessman <a href="https://youtu.be/O_FCSff37ZI">Paul Bennewitz</a>, who believed he had uncovered an alien invasion at Kirtland Air Force Base. Doty confirmed Bennewitz’s fears, but Richard Doty is—in my opinion—a <a href="https://youtu.be/PuMuD4i_6ZY">lying liar who lies</a>. He has admitted that he was running a disinformation op on Bennewitz to divert him an actual classified program the businessman had stumbled onto.
Then Doty shows up in the middle of the Majestic 12 affair, which began at the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet bloc—and eventually the Soviet Union itself—fell apart. The Majestic 12 documents were exposed as frauds, and one of the motives may have been to fake out the Soviets and give them reason for pause. In their delicate situation, they might not act too aggressively if they thought the U.S. had alien tech and alien allies.
Now—36 years later—Russia is at war with Ukraine, Putin has been nuclear saber-rattling, and suddenly government sources are indicating that the U.S. has an intact UFO that we’ve been reverse engineering?
This could be another psychological operation. Someone might be using Grusch in a new attempt to fake out Russia—or Grusch might be an active part of the psy-op—or Grush might be innocently mistaken based on what he’s been told—or he might be absolutely right.
Only time will tell.

UFO Whistleblower Says We Have Alien Craft

I didn’t think I’d live to see the day a nearly 3,000-year-old staple of Western civilization became the talk of every pop culture news outlet, but here we are!
Although there have been some controversies surrounding the new release of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, I consider Nolan’s willingness to revive this story in soul-sucking twenty-first-century Hollywood as a win. Anything to combat the tendency to push Westerners into shame for our roots and disdain of any story written by the privileged males of the ancient world.
These past few weeks leading up to the release of The Odyssey have revealed the lasting legacy ancient stories still possess in a culture increasingly skeptical of its own past. This is unsurprising, since the relevance of a truly great story never dies, no matter the time, place, or culture it’s written and retold in.
The legacy of Homer and his epic poems is undeniable. His work was preserved orally for tens of generations before eventually being recorded in ink around the sixth century B.C. Over <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/homer-print-transmission-and-reception-homers-works/homer-print/">a thousand manuscripts</a> of the Iliad and Odyssey have survived since. And now, a quarter of a billion dollars was poured into adapting this story to IMAX screens for moviegoers to sip ICEEs and munch popcorn to.
Given this, can the Odyssey be considered the most important text from the ancient world? No.
If the Odyssey has been highly prized, the Bible is invaluable. Over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament exist today, with the <a href="https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/15/the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts/">earliest surviving one</a> dated to within 100 to 150 years of the original text. And the Bible remains the best-selling book—or rather, collection of books—of all time.
I’m not aware of anyone who died preserving the poetry of Homer. I am aware of <a href="https://truthandtidings.com/2018/01/the-word-of-god-its-survival/">several martyrs who were killed for preserving the parables of Christ</a>, even to this present day. The stories crafted by Homer are good and beautiful, but the story of Christ takes it up one notch by also being true.
There’s a chance Nolan’s Odyssey may outperform Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ at the box office. But the story of Odysseus’s journey home will never trump the story of God’s pursuit of man and the incarnation of Christ. That is the ultimate story worth captivating audiences worldwide.

A Better Story Than “The Odyssey”

The Catholic Church’s celebration of and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints">prayer to the saints</a> is an evergreen topic of apologetics. I find myself addressing it in a variety of contexts when I teach theology to high school and undergrad students. The upshot of continually returning to this same well of living water is that it forces apologists to <a href="https://youtu.be/Zm4RwawV4Lo?si=NIvIcPq1jnVO3NZV">get more creative</a> in our presentations. It also forces us to reflect more deeply on the Christo-centrism of these apparent “churchy” elements of Catholicism, contra those Christians who disregard the importance of the “capital C’ Church.
Here’s one line of argument for <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-saints-pray-for-you-how-the-christians-in-heaven-help-us-here-on-earth/">the intercession of the saints</a> that I find accessible and at least digestible by Catholic and non-Catholic Christians alike.
No Bible-believing Christian denies that St. Paul, on numerous occasions, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/where-does-the-bible-say-the-church-is-the-body-of-christ">refers to the Church</a> as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27; Col 1:18, 24; and Eph 1:22-23). Let us grant for the sake of argument that “Church” could mean something as watered-down as “any person who believes in Jesus.” This definition at least allows for the possibility of including most saints of Catholic history. Even a staunch anti-Catholic would still have to accept the Apostles as saints and part of “the Church” so defined. Great! We now have actual people that we can all agree are part of the Church and therefore, according to St. Paul, make up the “body of Christ.”
Next, every Christian agrees that Jesus is no longer dead, but alive. This is kind of an important part of calling oneself a Christian! St. Paul hinges one’s entire faith in Jesus on belief in his Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:14.
Now, I am no medical expert, but I am fairly confident that a man’s head must remain attached to his body for him to stay alive. Better still, it must not only be attached but united to his body. A head can still be attached to a dead person, but to describe the head as united implies there is still a wholeness to the living person. The body and the head are still working together.
Now consider the man, Jesus. We believe that Jesus is alive. If he is alive, his head must be united to his body. If his body is the Church, then the Church must always be united to Jesus. That Church must, at the very least, include those faithful Christians of the Bible we call saints. Those saints, because they are part of a living body that is united to its head, must also be alive just as the head is. Those living saints must also include people like Peter, Paul and, yes, Mary! 
All this is to say that when the Church holds up models like the saints, prays with them, and acknowledges their power to intercede for us, it is simply recognizing the unity the saints share as a body with the head, Jesus Christ. The Church, in praising the saints, is actually praising Christ’s body. This is not only acceptable for a Christian, but necessarily follows from his faith in a living Jesus. 
The need to explain and defend “basic” doctrines like the Church or the communion of saints is not new. But when we preach the Gospel, we need to adjust our approach when we recognize the specific focus that will resonate with our audience. The modern world is starved for relationship—union with another real, living person. So let’s use this opportunity to show how the communion of saints lives right now in real relationship with Jesus—so closely united that they are the body to his head.

Living Jesus, Living Saints

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Are you being lied to by astrology?

On Friday, March 28, 2025, a small group of self-described Satanists plan to hold a “Black Mass” outside (or inside?) the Kansas Capitol Building in Topeka. The group in question, called the Satanic Grotto, originally were given a permit to hold their blasphemous service within the Capitol, but after a great deal of public outcry, the governor, Laura Kelly, ordered that it be moved outdoors (claiming that the group’s presence would pose a fire hazard). In response, organizer Michael Stewart announced that “the Satanic Grotto’s leadership intends to enter the Capitol Building and perform the ritual under the threat of arrest.”
A few things are worth pointing out. First, this doesn’t appear to be a “real” Black Mass, inasmuch as a Black Mass (allegedly) involves the desecration of the Eucharist. Such a Black Mass had been proposed in Oklahoma in 2014 but was successfully thwarted when the Archdiocese of Oklahoma sued to recover <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/oklahoma-catholic-bishop-drops-suit-over-planned-black-mass-idUSKBN0GM00Y/">the stolen consecrated host</a>. The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas did the same thing this time, but Michael Stewart (who had previously boasted online that it was a consecrated host) was able to get the lawsuit thrown out by showing a receipt for unconsecrated hosts that he had <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article302526039.html">purchased on Amazon</a>.
Just as their Eucharist appears to be fake, so is their religion. Whereas the term Satanist connotes in the popular imagination dark images of people making offerings to Satan, the reality is that most “Satanists” today are edgelord atheists <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/LARP">LARPing</a> as demon-worshipers. That includes Stewart, <a href="https://youtu.be/rWzZeIc49QA?t=499">an atheist who insists</a> that the only two criteria for being a Satanist are that “you&#8217;re rebellious” and that “you venerate and identify with Satan in some way.”
This points to the complicated “denominational” system of Satanism, with various groups appropriating Satan for contradictory purposes. On the one hand, there are “theistic Satanists,” like the members of the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Satanism/BFLNEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=Michael+Aquino+(Temple+of+Set),+The+Book+of+Coming+Forth+by+Night+(1975)&amp;pg=PA237&amp;printsec=frontcover">Temple of Set</a> (a splinter group from the Church of Satan), who literally worship Satan or Set, believing him to be the one true god. But most Satanists are like Stewart: atheists and anti-theists who have seized upon Satan as a symbol of rebellion, or of their political views, or of their desire to shock and mock Christians.
Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible, famously <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Contemporary_Religious_Satanism/fcKoDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=%22just+Ayn+Rand%27s+philosophy+with+ceremony+and+ritual+added%22&amp;pg=PT59&amp;printsec=frontcover">described</a> his “religion” as “just Ayn Rand&#8217;s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Saul Alinsky, though not a Satanist himself, famously included in his <a href="https://chisineu.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/saul-alinsky-rules-for-radicals-1989.pdf">Rules for Radicals</a> a dedication to Lucifer, praising him as “the very first radical.” And the <a href="http://thesatanictemple.com/pages/faq">Satanic Temple</a>, founded in 2003 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, says that “to embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”
By <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/campaigns">presenting their political agenda as a religion</a>, these Satanists attempt to take advantage of the U.S. Constitution’s protections for religious rights:
<blockquote>The Satanic Temple religiously objects to many of the restrictions that states have enacted that interfere with abortion access as well as other related issues that affect members&#8217; religious rights. TST is taking many steps to address reproductive laws that violate our religious conscience by inflicting guilt and shame in one&#8217;s decision and being inconsistent with necessary health and safety standards.</blockquote>
Instead of just calling themselves pro-choice atheists, these atheists present their abortion advocacy as part of their fake religion so that they can claim that their “religious rights” and “religious conscience” are being violated by laws protecting the unborn.
This is very much in the same vein as the Satanic Grotto’s “Satanism.” Michael Stewart was a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/kansas/comments/1jbe2dc/comment/mhvj3wt/?context=3">chapter head for the Satanic Temple</a>, which (again) was founded not out of any authentic religious quest, but as an attempt to make a political point. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/us/a-mischievious-thorn-in-the-side-of-conservative-christianity.html">The New York Times reported back in 2015</a>,
<blockquote>“The first conception was in response to George W. Bush’s creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,” said Mr. Jarry, who was raised by irreligious Jews. “I thought, ‘There should be some kind of counter.’” He hit on the idea of starting a faith-based organization that met all the Bush administration’s criteria for receiving funds, but was repugnant to them. “Imagine if a Satanic organization applied for funds,” he remembered thinking. “It would sink the whole program.”</blockquote>
Stewart recently explained the idea behind the Kansas Capitol Black Mass this way: “I&#8217;ve studied Saul alinsky and community organizing. My goal is to shed light on the religious takeover of our state legislature. I to defy the goveners order even if it means my arrest [sic].”
It is, in fact, difficult to see how either Saul Alinsky or Anton LaVey would approve of the Satanic Grotto’s plan. On community organizing ground, Alinsky argued:
<blockquote>If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.</blockquote>
To put it mildly, the proposed Black Mass is a good deal more needlessly offensive than the ham sandwich, and intentionally so. The Kansas Legislature responded to the provocation with a <a href="https://www.kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/measures/documents/hr6016_00_0000.pdf">House resolution</a> denouncing “the planned satanic worship ritual scheduled to take place on the grounds of the people&#8217;s house, the Kansas state capitol grounds, on March 28, 2025, as a despicable, blasphemous and offensive sacrilege to not only Catholics but all people of goodwill.”
Even the Satanist LaVey, who lamented that “no other single device has been associated with Satanism as much as the black mass,” argued that whereas “in the Middle Ages, blaspheming the holy church was shocking,” this is no longer the case. In fact, he conceded that the rebellious thing today wouldn’t be mocking religion, but defending it:
<blockquote>A black mass, today, would consist of the blaspheming of such “sacred” topics as Eastern mysticism, psychiatry, the psychedelic movement, ultra-liberalism, etc. Patriotism would be championed, drugs and their gurus would be defiled, acultural militants would be deified, and the decadence of ecclesiastical theologies might even be given a Satanic boost.</blockquote>
So on either the grounds of political or community organizing or killing sacred cows, this proposed Black Mass seems like a failure. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: These Satanists don’t really worship Satan, their religion isn’t really a religion, and their “Eucharist” isn’t even consecrated. Instead of devil-worshipers desecrating the Eucharist, their proposed “Black Mass” is just going to be atheists acting rudely toward what both they and we realize is bread.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean that these Renaissance-faire “Satanists” aren’t putting themselves in grave spiritual danger: You can invite the devil in, even if you’re an atheist just doing it to “prove” he doesn’t exist. Plus they’ve promised to desecrate a Bible and a crucifix. So how should we respond to these provocations?
First, by recognizing in this confirmation of the truth of the Mass. As Jesus says, “every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” (Matt. 12:25-26). The fact that real and fake Satanists, and the real Satan, hate the Mass so much is strong evidence that it’s of divine origin.
Second, by remembering St. Paul’s admonition from Ephesians 6:11-12:
<blockquote>Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.</blockquote>
Our war is a spiritual one, and our enemies aren’t the “flesh and blood” people who disagree with us, or mock us, or mock our religion. Our enemies are the spiritual forces behind those people. St. Thomas Aquinas, quoting an earlier commentary, put it vividly: “Evil men are horses, and the demons the riders; hence, if we kill the riders, the horses will be ours.” To that end, the best response isn’t to panic, but to pray. In particular, <a href="https://archkck.org/statement-on-the-outcome-of-court-proceedings-over-alleged-stolen-eucharist/">Archbishop Naumann is asking us</a> to “pray for the spiritual conversion of those who promoting and participating in the satanic worship ritual.”

A Black Mass in Kansas?

Episode 92: Year B &#8211; 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we continue our study of Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. The portion of the discourse that makes up the Gospel reading for this upcoming 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, is verses 60-69. Like in last week’s episode, the question is whether Jesus intended his teaching to eat his flesh and drink his blood to be taken literally or figuratively. We argue for a literal interpretation.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082524.cfm">Click Here</a>
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Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>
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Debunking the Figurative Eating of Jesus’ Flesh

Last week, the U.S. bishops met in Orlando for their spring assembly. There they <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254597/us-bishops-approve-plan-for-guidance-to-catholic-healthcare-institutions-on-transgender-issues">unanimously voted</a> to update the Religious and Ethical Directives for Catholic Health Care to focus on the &#8220;moral limits to technological manipulation of the human body.&#8221; This is especially necessary, as there are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hospitals-in-nations-largest-catholic-healthcare-system-perform-transgender-surgeries-bombshell-report-finds">reports</a> of Catholic hospitals offering so-called “gender reassignment surgery” and engaging in acts that mutilate the human body instead of healing it.
However, some critics said that the bishops should have held off on voting in order to examine the “science” justifying these practices. Theologian M. Therese Lysault <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/us-bishops-consider-banning-transgender-care-all-american-catholic-hospitals">says</a>, “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has not yet issued a statement on transgender health care. I would guess that this is due to the fact that the issue is so new.”
Other critics have raised similar concerns. Bryan Massingale, an openly gay priest who teaches moral theology at Fordham, <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/06/14/vatican-gender-document-makes-one-thing-clear-church-needs-more-dialogue">says</a>, “The hierarchy has had comparatively little time to absorb and reflect upon the findings in the human sciences about the complexity of gender and sexuality.” Fr. Daniel Horan even <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/faith-seeking-understanding/recent-transphobic-statements-bishops-make-truth-claims">wrote an article</a> entitled “Recent transphobic statements from bishops make truth claims without facts.”
And just what are these “scientific facts” that overturn what we’ve known about men and women for thousands of years?
Lysault, Horan, and Massingale don’t say, but if they were pressed on the question, I bet they’d appeal to things like brain scan studies that show that a person who identifies with the opposite sex has a brain that resembles those of the opposite sex. They would say this shows that a person may not belong to the sex he was “assigned at birth.”
But sex isn’t assigned at birth, as if it were a role in a company being designated to people. It is discovered at birth, and even before birth, through blood tests and ultrasounds.
Many of these arguments conflate intersex cases, involving things like ambiguous genitalia and rare sex chromosome makeup, with transgender identity, which almost always manifests in someone who has identifiable male or female genes and anatomy.
Even in intersex cases, it is still possible to determine if someone is biologically male or female. For example, people with one X chromosome and no Y chromosome are female; they have Turner syndrome, which can lead to developmental and sterility issues. The same complications can arise for men who have Klinefelter syndrome, which occurs when they inherit more than one X chromosome (e.g., XXY or XXXY). Having an extra Y chromosome, or XYY, can cause men to have learning disabilities.
In some cases, corrective surgery may be necessary to address malformed organs in a person who is intersex. However, it is not possible to use surgery to turn a man into a woman. All you have following such a procedure is a mutilated man who claims to be a woman. One New York Times editorial—from a man who underwent vaginoplasty, which replaces the penis with a “front hole” that constantly tries to heal itself—makes this point well in its title: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/vaginoplasty-transgender-medicine.html">My new vagina won’t make me happy</a>.”
Even if there were a handful of hard cases where we weren’t sure if an individual is male or female, that wouldn’t disprove the sexual binary everyone else belongs to, just as the rare case of a breathing person with no measurable brain activity doesn’t disprove the fact that life and death are “binary” realities. There is no third option outside “alive” and “dead.”
Those who say “science proves transgenderism” have shown only that some people who have identity disorders, gender-related or otherwise, may also have identifiable brain abnormalities. The fact that a man’s brain may be similar to the average woman’s brain in some respects doesn’t prove that he is a woman. People with dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder) have brain abnormalities. The same is true of people with Cotard’s delusion, who think they are dead. But those people are a single, living person in spite of cerebral abnormalities that cause them dysphoria.
Finally, these arguments indirectly prove that sex is biological because the claim that a man’s brain resembles a woman’s brain when he considers himself a woman shows that there is a difference between “transgender women” and “biological women.” They both aren’t simply “women.” The only way one could make this claim is if there is already a reference class called “biological women” that can be grouped together for brain scan experiments.
Catholic physicians should provide compassionate care to those who seek to change their sex as well as to those who have undergone so-called “reassignment surgery” and realize they were mistaken about their gender identity and now want to “detransition.” But they should never promote mutilation of the body in order to appease a culture that has lost its grip on the reality of our having been made “male and female.”
Pope Francis put it well when he called gender ideology <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253845/pope-francis-gender-ideology-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-ideological-colonizations-today">in a 2023 interview</a> “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations.” In a 2016 interview, he said,
<blockquote>Today children — children — are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. Why are they teaching this? Because the books are provided by the people and institutions that give you money. These forms of ideological colonization are also supported by influential countries. And this is terrible!</blockquote>
Let’s pray that the U.S. bishops heed Pope Francis’s warnings and work to keep Catholic hospitals a place where having a functioning reproductive system is never considered a “pathology” to be destroyed at the hands of those who serve the ideologues of the day instead of the timeless wisdom of the ages.

How Catholic Bishops Can ‘Follow the Science’

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<h3>Third Sunday of Easter
Lectionary: 46</h3>
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<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/2:14">ACTS 2:14, 22-33</a></h4>
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Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, 
raised his voice, and proclaimed: 
“You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem. 
Let this be known to you, and listen to my words. 
You who are Israelites, hear these words. 
Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God 
with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, 
which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. 
This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, 
you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. 
But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, 
because it was impossible for him to be held by it. 
For David says of him: 
I saw the Lord ever before me, 
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. 
Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has exulted; 
my flesh, too, will dwell in hope, 
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, 
nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption. 
You have made known to me the paths of life; 
you will fill me with joy in your presence.
“My brothers, one can confidently say to you 
about the patriarch David that he died and was buried, 
and his tomb is in our midst to this day. 
But since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to him 
that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, 
he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, 
that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld 
nor did his flesh see corruption. 
God raised this Jesus; 
of this we are all witnesses. 
Exalted at the right hand of God, 
he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father 
and poured him forth, as you see and hear.”
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/16:1">PS 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11</a></h4>
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R. (11a) Lord, you will show us the path of life. 
or: 
R. Alleluia. 
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge; 
I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.” 
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, 
you it is who hold fast my lot. 
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life. 
or: 
R. Alleluia. 
I bless the LORD who counsels me; 
even in the night my heart exhorts me. 
I set the LORD ever before me; 
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. 
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life. 
or: 
R. Alleluia. 
Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, 
my body, too, abides in confidence; 
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, 
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. 
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life. 
or: 
R. Alleluia. 
You will show me the path to life, 
abounding joy in your presence, 
the delights at your right hand forever. 
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life. 
or: 
R. Alleluia.
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<h4>Reading 2    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/1peter/1:17">1 PT 1:17-21</a></h4>
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Beloved: 
If you invoke as Father him who judges impartially 
according to each one’s works, 
conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, 
realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, 
handed on by your ancestors, 
not with perishable things like silver or gold 
but with the precious blood of Christ 
as of a spotless unblemished lamb.
He was known before the foundation of the world 
but revealed in the final time for you, 
who through him believe in God 
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, 
so that your faith and hope are in God.
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<h4>Alleluia    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/luke/24:32">LK 24:32</a></h4>
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R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; 
make our hearts burn while you speak to us. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/luke/24:13">LK 24:13-35</a></h4>
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That very day, the first day of the week, 
two of Jesus’ disciples were going 
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, 
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. 
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, 
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, 
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. 
He asked them, 
“What are you discussing as you walk along?” 
They stopped, looking downcast. 
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, 
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem 
who does not know of the things 
that have taken place there in these days?” 
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” 
They said to him, 
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, 
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word 
before God and all the people, 
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over 
to a sentence of death and crucified him. 
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; 
and besides all this, 
it is now the third day since this took place. 
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: 
they were at the tomb early in the morning 
and did not find his body; 
they came back and reported 
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels 
who announced that he was alive. 
Then some of those with us went to the tomb 
and found things just as the women had described, 
but him they did not see.” 
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! 
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! 
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things 
and enter into his glory?” 
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, 
he interpreted to them what referred to him 
in all the Scriptures. 
As they approached the village to which they were going, 
he gave the impression that he was going on farther. 
But they urged him, “Stay with us, 
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” 
So he went in to stay with them. 
And it happened that, while he was with them at table, 
he took bread, said the blessing, 
broke it, and gave it to them. 
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, 
but he vanished from their sight. 
Then they said to each other, 
“Were not our hearts burning within us 
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” 
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem 
where they found gathered together 
the eleven and those with them who were saying, 
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” 
Then the two recounted 
what had taken place on the way 
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Sunday Mass: April 26, 2020

<div>How do I reconcile the apparent contradiction of Vatican II and former teachings regarding salvation outside of the Catholic Church?</div><div>A literal understanding of being an official/external member of the Catholic Church as necessary for salvation is not the teaching of the Church. A priest, Fr. Leonard Feeney, preached that message and was excommunicated in 1953 for disobedience in refusing to come to Rome and explain his views. This error is now named after him and is commonly called Feeneyism or the Boston Heresy.
<a href="http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdffeeny.htm">The Holy Office in 1949 wrote to Fr. Feeney</a> and asked him to accept the Church&#8217;s definition/understanding of the doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus:
<blockquote>Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing.
However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God.</blockquote>
This was no different from what Pope Pius IX said in an address on December 9, 1854:
<blockquote>It must, of course, be held as a matter of faith that outside the apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved, that the Church is the only ark of salvation, and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood. On the other hand, it must likewise be held as certain that those who live in ignorance of the true religion, if such ignorance be invincible, are not subject to any guilt in this matter before the eyes of the Lord. But then, who would dare to set limits to this ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of people, lands, native talents, and so many other factors?</blockquote>
Similarly, in his encyclical <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm">Quanto Conficiamur Moerore</a> (August 10, 1863), Pius IX wrote,
<blockquote>There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments (7).</blockquote>
Most people, however, fall into some in-between category that is often impossible for human judgment to conclude how culpable an individual is for his lack of formal membership in Christ’s Catholic Church. But we must always remember that the Catholic Church contains the fullness of Christ’s truth and what is necessary for salvation. Elements of that truth are found elsewhere, but its fullness can be found only in Catholicism. If someone, through no sinful fault, is not a formal member of the Catholic Church but adheres to the truth of Christ that he does know, he is considered to be in an imperfect communion with Christ’s Church.
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What Did Vatican II Say About Salvation Outside the Church?

<div>Are there any good books on the The Lord’s Prayer?</div><div>Fr. Romano Guardini&#8217;s book The Lord&#8217;s Prayer is an excellent choice. Another book to consider is Our Father: The Lord&#8217;s Prayer by Pope Francis.
You can also hear Venerable Fulton Sheen speak about the meaning of the Our Father <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSSchaLv0P4">here</a>.
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A Good Book on the The Lord’s Prayer

Were there high quality Roman roads around Jerusalem?

Jesus followed Mary twice a day for 1/4 mile to get water every day — imagine little Jesus “Wait up for me, Mom!”

Are there 2 tombs of Jesus? Which one is the real one?

Have you done the full walk of Mount Tabor?

What are your thoughts on the flight to Egypt?

What place in the Holy Land inspires you the most?

I’ve heard there is a lot of demonic activity there. The holier the place the more demonic activity. Is this true? And what can one do to protect themselves when visiting?

Is the Eye of the Needle a real gate into the city of Jerusalem?

What’s the Sea of Galilee like? What would fishermen’s life be like?

How large was the temple where Jesus was lost?

&#8220;How did people travel in the time of Jesus?&#8221; This episode explores the transportation methods of the era, including the quality of Roman roads around Jerusalem. Additionally, we delve into intriguing topics such as the existence of two tombs of Jesus and the significance of Mount Tabor, offering a rich perspective on life in biblical times.
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Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

How Did People Travel in the Time of Jesus, Roman Roads, and Tombs?

Critics who reject the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception often cite the 1966 “Pontifical Commission on Birth Control” to justify their dissent. They say Pope Paul VI ignored the research of the commission he directed to determine if contraception is immoral. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/it-is-time-to-revisit-chu_b_11879144">According to Celia Wexler</a>, author of Catholic Women Confront Their Church,
<blockquote>the commission, which included Catholic married couples and physicians, reportedly voted overwhelmingly to lift the Vatican’s blanket ban on artificial birth control, and to permit married couples to prudently plan their families. But that hope was dashed in 1968, when Paul VI, writing in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, once more declared artificial contraception “intrinsically wrong.”</blockquote>
Critics like Wexler say the faithful were harmed by the pope’s fear of rejecting tradition when he should have listened to “the best theological minds” in the Church. Catholics for Choice <a href="https://www.catholicsforchoice.org/resource-library/humanae-vitae">puts it this way</a>: “Humanae Vitae marked a turning point for the Catholic church, as Pope Paul rejected the theologically sound findings of his own Papal Birth Control Commission in favor of a turn to rigid orthodoxy.”
For many Catholics, Pope Pius XI’s 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii laid the issue of contraception to rest. Pope Pius XII <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius12/p12midwives.htm">said</a> his predecessor’s condemnation of acts done to hinder the procreation of new life within the conjugal union “is in full force today, as it was in the past and so it will be in the future.” But by the 1960s, millions of American women, including many Catholics, were using the new FDA-approved birth control pill.
Some theologians claimed that, unlike condoms and diaphragms, the Pill did not create a physical barrier between the spouses during intercourse, so it could be a legitimate way to space children. They also said the Pill was needed to stop population increases that would, according to environmentalists like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Population-Bomb-Paul-R-Ehrlich/dp/B0CXJKNK17/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QDEMLQB692B&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xIAglqU324IVh2fv2w0nCL8DgmUqG5Mvet3YUphYG7y9f38mv5Fi1solBCh4o_aF5l8NM-9HACX70UoMC1JcgBg_8CEl8kGs66nFevIg4QSzgnTmzJT0VaQKuXkkdgzdxshCwlF_uzxBtATi4yyHyv_c5sSk7WmjfsHseKVkQP4YqklNWZTxybibdpTgv_DeYljgrAtc70KfHDAOXNBH4q7YCRcmOtAbsyr0kkFi128.uTVmaDx_8gStSq54T8s3q7zDjdwwP8peb1t53cKnksg&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=population+bomb&amp;qid=1716898578&amp;sprefix=population+bomb%2Caps%2C109&amp;sr=8-1">Paul Ehrlich</a>, kill hundreds of millions through global famines (a threat that, by the way, never materialized for the Pill to neutralize).
In response, Pope John XXIII created a committee to discuss the issue whose first meeting reaffirmed the conclusions of Popes Pius XI and XII on contraception but said the mechanics of the birth control pill required greater study before any conclusions about it could be reached. However, some bishops in Europe were teaching that couples could follow their conscience regarding use of the Pill precisely because the Church had not reached a definitive conclusion about it. In response, Paul VI reconvened the Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family, and Births and added seven members, some of whom were notorious for their dissent against Church teaching.
When people speak about the commission, they often assume that the pope simply selected the best theologians in the Church, and so he should have followed whatever they recommended. But there is evidence that the pope wanted a commission that would give him arguments to test rather than advice to follow. The late moral theologian Germain Grisez, who worked behind the scenes to help future commission member Fr. John Ford defend Church teaching, <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/new-documents-reveal-inner-workings-of-papal-birth-control-commission">told</a> the Catholic News Agency,
<blockquote>[Paul VI] was perfectly happy to have a lot of people on the commission who thought that change was possible. He wanted to see what kind of case they could make for that view. He was not at all imagining that he could delegate to a committee the power to decide what the Church’s teaching is going to be.</blockquote>
The committee eventually grew to over seventy members, though some members, like the future Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla, could not attend due to Soviet travel restrictions. Two notable attendees were Patrick and Patty Crowley, the Catholic founders of the Christian Family Movement. The Crowleys said surveys they conducted among married couples showed that the rhythm method “did nothing to foster marital love” and provided no greater unity between the spouses. Colette Povin, another married woman invited to the commission, slammed temperature-based rhythm methods: “When you die, God is going to say, ‘Did you love?’ He isn’t going to say, ‘Did you take your temperature?’”
By this point, the commission had moved far away from its original focus on the mechanics of the birth control pill. A majority of theologians, many of whom were moved by the stories of Catholics who felt that the prohibition on contraception harmed their marriages, claimed that contraception is not intrinsically evil, and they drafted an eleven-page report summarizing their position. Meanwhile, Fr. John Ford, along with a handful of other commission members, drafted their own 9,000-word defense of the Church’s teaching. (This would later be called the “minority report,” even though it was not an official document.)
The commission’s main report (now called the “majority report”) claimed that contraception is not intrinsically evil. It and the minority report were given to Paul VI on June 28, 1966. Four months later, the pope commented on the majority report, saying it carried “grave implications . . . which demanded logical considerations.” Some members worried that the entire report would be buried, so they leaked it to the National Catholic Reporter.
Robert Kaiser, a journalist who reported extensively on the commission at the time, <a href="https://archive.org/details/encyclicalthatne0000kais">said</a> that because of the leak, “people would have proof positive that authorities in the Church were not only divided but also leaning preponderantly to a new view of marriage and the family that did not condemn couples to hell for loving each other, no matter what the calendar said.”
Does the commission’s report include irrefutable arguments, or a “new understanding” of marriage that overturns what the Church has always taught about the need not to eliminate the procreative end of the conjugal act? Not by a long shot.
The commission claimed that “developments” in the Church’s teaching on sex (such as the primacy of expressing love) and social developments such as lower infant mortality rates make contraception acceptable even though it was condemned in the past. Testimonies such as those compiled by the Crowleys also made an indirect appearance in this statement from the majority report: “Then must be considered the sense of the faithful: according to it, condemnation of a couple to a long and often heroic abstinence as the means to regulate conception, cannot be founded on the truth.”
But the intrinsic morality of an act is not dependent on demographic facts or societal opinions. For example, the commission steadfastly rejected abortion as a way to space children, but modern dissidents say the Church should change this teaching, too, because women’s place in society has changed and many Catholics who identify as pro-choice find it impossible to follow a complete ban on abortion.
According to Catholic philosopher Paul Gondreau, liberal descriptions of the traditional teaching on sexuality are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/contraception-cant-be-reha-pill-itated">a caricature</a>. Furthermore,
<blockquote>Few know that the “consciences”—and subsequently the votes—of the nine bishops labored under an erroneous understanding of the science of contraception. They believed that the birth control pill acted not as a block or inhibition of the natural procreative process, but as a kind of medication that “helped nature” by prolonging the woman’s natural period of infertility. (We know this from the testimony of Georges Cardinal Cottier, a close friend of the Swiss Dominican who served as the secretary of the papal commission.)</blockquote>
Gondreau also takes issue with reducing the traditional teaching on sexuality to just a concern about the marital act being procreative in nature. He says that although our existence as animals means that the sexual act is obviously ordered toward procreation (as it is in all other animals), human bodies exist not merely for animal purposes. He writes,
<blockquote>[Because] we are not pure bodies, but incarnate (rational) spirits with an ordering to interpersonal love, human sexuality also owns an essential ordering to interpersonal unitive love. In brief, God has endowed us with a sexed design for the joint purpose of procreation and unitive love, as HV makes plain.</blockquote>
The traditional view of Catholic sexuality recognizes that sex is for the expression of marital love and it is unitive precisely because it involves the full gift of the spouses, including the gift of their respective fertility. That’s why Pope Francis said in <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-francis-upholds-catholic-ban-on-contraception">an address</a> to a conference on natural family planning that “there is a need always to keep in mind the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act. . . . When these two meanings are consciously affirmed, the generosity of love is born and strengthened in the hearts of the spouses, disposing them to welcome new life.”

Church and Contraception: The History

Why would God make a massive universe and then care about one little speck in the middle of it all? Isn&#8217;t that a waste of a universe? Jimmy Akin addresses these questions, showing why the vastness of the universe isn&#8217;t incompatible with the idea of a loving creator.

Why Would God Make Such a Big Universe?

In the pantheon of great women in Church history, pride of place should be accorded the young mystic from Siena, St. Catherine, whose feast we celebrate this month.
Born in 1347 to a humble wool-dyer, Catherine became one the most influential persons of fourteenth-century Christendom. After she became a Dominican tertiary at the age of nineteen, she embarked on a life of intense spiritual practices. Her reputation for great holiness spread quickly, and she found herself answering letters from some of Europe&#8217;s most powerful people, seeking her advice on matters spiritual as well as political and even military (she was a supporter of the Crusading movement).
But the topic that most concerned her was the return of the papacy from Avignon, France, where popes had lived since 1309. Catherine took up the mantle of encouraging the pope to return home to Rome after the death of St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), who first exhorted the papal return in 1350 and spent twenty years trying to convince popes to move back to the Eternal City.
Late thirteenth-century Christendom had witnessed a titanic struggle of egos and wills between King Philip IV, “the Fair,” of France (r. 1285-1314) and Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294-1303). Philip and Boniface clashed over the authority of the pope in France, primarily especially over the raising and spending of clerical taxes. Philip used money raised for Church expenses to finance his personal wars, and Boniface responded with a series of biting pronouncements, including a papal bull entitled Ausculta fili, or “Listen, son!” Philip responded by arresting the papal legate, and Boniface threatened the king with excommunication.
Eventually, Philip’s chief adviser, William of Nogaret, hatched a plan to kidnap Boniface and install a new pope favorable to Philip. William hired mercenaries who attacked and held Boniface prisoner in the city of Anagni. Townspeople came to the pope’s rescue and freed him, but the rough treatment took a toll on the pontiff, who died a month later.
The death of Boniface VIII provided Philip IV with the opportunity to influence the papal election of a favorable candidate. Instead, though, the cardinals elected the holy and peaceful Bl. Benedict XI (r. 1303-1304), who worked tirelessly to repair Franco-papal relations until his reign was cut short with his unexpected death after only eight months. (There is some speculation he was poisoned on the orders of William of Nogaret.) Philip desired that the next papal election would produce a pontiff who could be easily manipulated.
The cardinals responded and elected a Frenchman, Archbishop Bertrand de Got of Bordeaux, who took the name Clement V (r. 1305-1314). Philip presented the new pope with a list of demands that ranged from the bizarre—putting the dead Boniface VIII on trial—to the shocking: moving the papal residence to France. Clement V agreed to the latter and moved in 1309. He established the papal residence in the town of Avignon, which was papal territory that had been gifted by King St. Louis IX (r. 1226-1270), so, technically, Clement V just moved the papal residence from one papal territory to another. Practically, though, the relocation was motivated by politics and the influence of the French king.
Christendom was shocked to see the pope engaged in the ecclesiastical abuse of absenteeism (a bishop not residing in his diocese). The popes lived in Avignon for the next seventy years, and over that time they came to be seen as nothing more than puppets of the French king (although history tells us that most were not). Respect for the papacy waned throughout the Church and reached a critical low point by the time Catherine entered the picture.
The popes had lived in France for sixty-seven years, all of Catherine of Siena’s life and then some, when she decided to visit Pope Gregory XI (r. 1370-1378) in the summer of 1376. Catherine spent three months in Avignon tirelessly working to realize her dream of the pope&#8217;s returning to Rome. Gregory resisted and demurred, but she persisted, and even startled him by telling him that she knew about the private vow Gregory had made before God that if elected pope, he would return the papal residence to Rome. Finally, the humble yet firm saint from Siena convinced him to fulfill his vow, and Gregory made plans to travel to Rome.
Successful in her mission, Catherine left Avignon and returned to France. Later that fall, she received reports that Gregory, influenced by the French cardinals, was having second thoughts. Catherine (who, though a Doctor of the Church, was illiterate) dictated letters urging the pope to fulfill his promise and make the hard decision: “I beg of you, on behalf of Christ crucified, that you be not a timorous child but manly. Open your mouth and swallow down the bitter for the sweet” <a title="" href="#_ftn3">[1]</a>.
She also encouraged him to cast fear aside and ignore the advice of his cardinals:
<blockquote>I have prayed, and shall pray, sweet and good Jesus that he free you from all servile fear, and that holy fear alone remain. May the ardor of charity be in you, in such wise as shall prevent you from hearing the voice of incarnate demons, and heeding the counsel of perverse counselors, settled in self-love, who, as I understand, want to alarm you, so as to prevent your return, saying, &#8220;You will die.&#8221; Up, father, like a man! For I tell you that you have no need to fear <a title="" href="#_ftn4">[2]</a>.</blockquote>
Gregory XI listened to the pleadings and prayers of St. Catherine of Siena and returned the papacy to Rome on January 17, 1377. The scandal and shame of the Avignon papacy was at an end. The humble yet powerful mystic from Siena died in 1380, was canonized in 1461, and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970.
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<a title="" href="#_ftnref3">[1]</a> St. Catherine of Siena as Seen in Her Letters, ed. Vida D. Scudder (London, 1911), 185.
</div>
<div>
<a title="" href="#_ftnref4">[2]</a> Ibid., 165 &amp; 166.
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How St. Catherine Ended the Avignon Papacy

People celebrate every St. Valentine’s Day using heart shapes. Greeting cards bear them, cakes and candies are made in this shape, and they’re used as decorations on anything connected with the holiday.
The shape—usually red, with two round lobes at the top and a point at the bottom—is idealized and only approximates what a human heart looks like. But how common it is raises a question for the modern mind: Why do we use it this way?
At least in the secular sphere, Valentine’s Day celebrates romantic love, but in modern medicine, the heart is just a set of muscles that rhythmically contract to push blood around inside our bodies. What’s the connection?
The answer, as you might expect, goes back quite a ways. People have always known the organs of the body. Between cutting up animals and cutting up other people, they were quite familiar with them. But they didn’t always understand their functions.
For example, today we associate thought with the brain. This is known as the cephalocentric (“head-centered”) hypothesis, but this view wasn’t dominant in history.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was one of the best anatomists in the ancient world. He noted all the blood vessels around the brain and concluded that its function was to allow the blood from the heart to cool down (On the Parts of Animals 2:7). The brain was, in essence, a heat management organ.
On the other hand, there seemed to be a direct connection between the heart and mental phenomena. If you’re seized by a strong emotion—love, lust, fear, anxiety, excitement—your heart speeds up. In the absence of such emotion, it slows down.
Sometimes—particularly at moments of peak emotion—your heart may even “skip a beat.” (Technically, one chamber beats early, before it’s fully filled with blood, so you don’t feel the beat; then it over-fills as the normal cycle reasserts itself, and you feel a more pronounced thump.)
It thus became natural for people to associate the heart with mental functions like emotions and intellect. This is known as the cardiocentric (“heart-centered”) hypothesis.
Several other factors may have also contributed to this view, such as the fact the heart is hidden (like our mental functions), that it is at the center of our bodies’ extensions (suggesting it’s important), and that if it stops working, you die (associated with the spirit leaving).
Whatever the factors, the idea that the heart is the seat of the mind was common in ancient cultures. Thus, when the ancient Egyptians mummified you, they kept your heart inside your body, but they took out the brain so that its moisture wouldn’t cause the body to rot. This would have been done for the two ancient Israelites who we know were mummified, the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph (Gen. 50:2-3, 26).
The Israelites also accepted the cardiocentric model. Thus, a man is said to rejoice “in his heart” (Exod. 4:14) or to have his heart “broken” (Ps. 69:20)—an expression we still use today. Angry people have their hearts grow hot (Ps. 39:3), and hearts “melt” with fear (Deut. 20:8). The heart is the seat of courage (2 Chron. 17:6), and God may fulfill the “heart’s desire” (Ps. 21:2).
In addition to the heart being seen as the place of these emotions, it was also seen as the seat of the intellect. Thus, before the Flood, God saw “that every imagination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5), and when Abraham heard the prophecy of Isaac’s birth, he laughed to himself and “in his heart” said, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” (17:17). This mode of language is even applied to God himself, for after the Flood, “the Lord said in his heart” that he would not curse the ground again because of man (8:21).
The cardiocentric model continued to be used in the New Testament. The heart is still spoken of as the seat of emotions. Thus, Paul tells the Colossians to sing “with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16), and he tells the Thessalonians that he wishes God will “encourage your hearts” (2 Thess. 2:17).
The heart is similarly envisioned as the seat of the intellect. Thus, Simeon prophesies that through Jesus, the “thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35), and when the disciples argue about who is the greatest, Jesus knows “the thoughts of their hearts” (9:47).
The image of the heart continued to be prominent in the post-apostolic age. After the year 1000, devotion began to grow to the heart of Jesus. A prominent example is the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-you-can-personally-console-jesus-in-gethsemane">Sacred Heart of Jesus</a> devotion revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675. This devotion depicts Jesus’ heart surrounded by flames of love, with a crown of thorns and a cross above it, and a solemnity commemorating the Sacred Heart is celebrated on the third Friday after Pentecost.
Ordinary people continue to use language based on the cardiocentric model today, such as when we say that someone is “big-hearted,” “cold-hearted,” or “tender-hearted.” We may say that someone has a “heart of gold” or a “heart of stone,” or that he is a “bleeding heart.” People “learn things by heart.” And of course, the Grinch’s “heart was two sizes too small.”
We do this without even thinking about it, the same way we speak of the sun rising and setting despite what Copernicus and Galileo had to say. For us ordinary individuals, this doesn’t raise much of an issue. The presence of the cardiocentric model in folk expressions is no big deal.
But what about when it appears in Scripture or Church documents—like those approving the Sacred Heart devotion? Does it conflict with the cephalocentric model that regards the head rather than the heart as the seat of mental activity?
The cephalocentric model also has a long history. It actually pre-dates Aristotle, having been proposed by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras around 550 B.C. Fans of the theory included Aristotle’s teacher Plato and the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, so it’s not as if the idea was absent from Western thought.
Following the Scientific Revolution, evidence mounted that the brain is more associated with thought than the heart, and by the early 1800s, neuroscience had developed to the point that cephalocentrism was firmly established.
The Church knew this, and so in 1899, Pope Leo XIII explained the Sacred Heart in symbolic terms, stating that “there is in the Sacred Heart a symbol and a sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another” and that “whatever honor, veneration, and love is given to this divine heart is really and truly given to Christ himself” (Annum Sacrum 8).
Similarly, in 2024, Pope Francis stated that “devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. More than any other part of his body, the heart of Jesus is the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love” (Dilexit Nos 48).
What about the Bible? Does the cardiocentric language it uses mean that the biblical authors didn’t understand the role of the brain and the heart? They lived before the Scientific Revolution, so they would not be expected to, and that’s not a problem from the perspective of biblical theology.
The Second Vatican Council taught, “Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth that God wanted put into sacred writings” (Dei Verbum 11).
It also taught, “For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking, and narrating that prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another” (op. cit. 12).
We therefore must distinguish between what the biblical authors assumed to be the case and what they were asserting by the language they used. When Luke says that Jesus knew “the thought of [the disciples’] hearts” (Luke 9:47), he’s asserting that Jesus knew their thoughts, not that these thoughts were literally housed in their hearts.
We don’t know which school of thought Luke subscribed to. As an ancient physician, he may have been a cardiocentrist or a cephalocentrist, but either way, it was normal for people of his day to speak of thoughts as coming from the heart—as is often the case for us today. In any event, Luke is not trying to teach us a medical theory; he’s telling us that Jesus knew what the disciples thought, and this assertion—not any background assumptions in the way it is expressed—is what is guaranteed to be true.
On the other hand, we shouldn’t be too quick to assume a strict correlation between the brain and mental phenomena. In the first place, there’s what’s known as “the little brain in the heart,” or the intrinsic cardiac nervous system (ICNS). It’s about forty thousand neurons that help regulate the heart’s activity, and things like a racing heart can affect emotional states (e.g., by causing fear and panic).
Even more surprisingly, there is evidence from heart transplant surgeries that something more than the physical organ—at least information—is being passed between patients. In one example, neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Code-Tapping-Wisdom-Energy/dp/0767900952">recounts the cases</a> of men he refers to as Jim and Frank. Jim had bad lungs and received a heart-lung transplant. However, Jim’s own heart was still good and was given to Frank. After the transplant, Frank’s personality changed to be more like Jim’s, Frank began exhibiting Jim’s food preferences, and during intimate moments Frank began calling his wife by the name of Jim’s wife (123-124).
Ultimately, neither the heart nor the brain may be essential for mental activity. Consistent with Christian teaching on life after death, the evidence of near-death experiences reveals that people continue to have conscious experiences even during cardiac arrest, when the heart has ceased beating and brain activity goes offline within seconds. Yet people in this condition accurately report things happening around their physical bodies and even in other rooms of hospitals that they have no sensory access to.
All of this serves as a warning against reductionistic theories that would too closely tie the mind and emotions to physical organs like the heart and the brain. Given the complexity of what we observe, this whole area is—as it was in biblical days—a mystery.

The Heart, the Bible, and Science

The Church’s enemies delight in finding examples of error in the lives of saints, yet the Church has never maintained that saints led perfect lives. Rather, it maintains they led lives of heroic virtue, struggling against our common fallen nature—a nature that manifests in concupiscence and a darkened intellect. It is their struggles with their own limitations that make the saints accessible—and inspiring—to all of us.
Sometimes, however, someone attempting to misrepresent the Church or the saints using a supposed scandal just gets it wrong. One of the most common examples of this involves St. Joan of Arc. Take <a href="https://socialwork.utah.edu/interaction/posts/2017/all/joan-of-arc-transgender-military-service.php">this professor</a> at the University of Utah who argues that Joan of Arc&#8217;s clothing and role as a soldier are proof that &#8220;Transgender people have served honorably and bravely in militaries for as long as there have been militaries.&#8221; This argument could easily be dismissed since one such case in two thousand years is hardly sufficient evidence, but we also find no evidence in St. Joan’s motives suggesting she sought to break the “glass ceiling” or the “gender barrier&#8221; either.
A little homework goes a long way. There may be no medieval figure about whose life we know so much and with such certainty. Why? Because the details of St. Joan’s life were given under oath and corroborated by hundreds of witnesses—and not once, but twice. What’s more, Joan, who testified at her own trial, left a very clear picture of how she understood herself and her divine mission.
With respect to her femininity, we know she was enthusiastic about the art of making a home. “In sewing and spinning I fear no woman,” she declared at her trial. Once the dauphin had been crowned, she sought to return to her simple life in Domremy. Additionally, soldiers who served with her testified to her purity and modesty, and the inspiring effect it had on them. Upon joining the French Army, one of her first acts was to chase the prostitutes from the camp with her sword. She also made explicit her desire to consecrate her virginity.
Are these the characteristics we associate with today’s advocates for sexual disorder?
Concerning the wearing of men’s clothing, we know she adopted the practice beginning with her journey from Domremy to meet the Dauphin at Chinon. Why? As a practical matter of disguise. Given the demands of battlefield life, she continued the practice throughout her Loire Valley campaign and during her imprisonment to protect herself from rape by guards. On the very matter, G.K. Chesterton wrote, &#8220;It was exactly the sort of person, like Joan of Arc, who did know why women wore skirts, who was most justified in not wearing one.”
If Joan were the progressive pioneer some paint her as, we’d see some account of this in her trial documents. We don’t. Instead, all we find is a simple farm girl who does what she does because she’s following divine voices—voices that tell her she is to liberate the French people from English tyranny.
St. Joan of Arc, pray for us!

Was Joan of Arc Trans?

When my editor proposed I write about wedding dresses, I hesitated. True, I am married, but I thought I was more likely to be told I had less of a right to a view on wedding dresses than a man on “choice.” Not having yielded to the latter attempts to censor me, I figured, why not grab the third rail one more time?
Many people regard the wedding day as “the bride’s day.” It’s why priests and parish organists still have to fight about why “Here Comes the Bride” is not an appropriate entrance hymn for a nuptial Mass. So am I going to rain further on the secular-ish wedding day parade?
No. Let me instead try to bring the three evangelical counsels—chastity, poverty, and obedience—to bear on it.
1. Chastity
The idea that chastity has a place in marriage might seem fantastic. But it does. What, after all, is chastity? Here I follow Karol Wojtyła: chastity is a virtue that lifts up to the value of the person the values of sex and sexual attraction. Sex and sensuality are powerful elements in human life. God created them, and so they are good, but they can be abused. They are abused when they overshadow the value of the person, when the person becomes first and foremost a sexual object. That is wrong, outside marriage or in it.
Now, let’s be honest. There are styles and fashion that do just that—accentuate the sexual over the person. That is not a Christian perspective, and it shouldn’t be our perspective as we celebrate a Christian marriage.
I won’t venture to provide norms or measures of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/homecoming-dresses-and-the-dreaded-m-word">modesty</a>. Suffice it to say that people tend to know what is modest (and attractive)—or immodest—when they see it. And the Christian bride, “all dressed in white” (a symbolic color), should be at least sufficiently attired so as not to be confused with “the lady in red.” Modesty and taste never go out of style.
2. Poverty
No, poverty should not be the consequence of buying a wedding dress. Brides are frequently pressed to “say yes to the dress,” no matter how obscene . . . the price tag. Yes, a wedding is a great day, a celebration, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Maybe a family even has a tradition of handing down a wedding dress to the next generation, which augurs for a better investment.
But I suspect that this is rare, which again reminds us: it’s a one-time use. A bride can be beautiful, attractive, modest, and appealing without necessarily spending a fortune on the gown. That suggests some moderation in the outlay, especially when the excess can be put to longer-term use by today’s young couples, who are often starting out in tenuous financial circumstances.
Why mention poverty? After all, what’s so great about poverty? Well, a basic part of any spirituality is detachment from worldly things. Pretty things often get in the way of our path to God. One way we learn not to be diverted on that path is being able to say “no” to them. And let’s face it: a young couple will probably not be initially rolling in the dough, so learning to do what is beautiful without breaking the bank and without incurring extra debt for just a moment is a good thing. It’s a preparation for life, of being able together to say “no” to things and to sacrifice what’s dear to us for the other. Want an example (and get a jump on Christmas)? Read O. Henry’s short story “<a href="https://webhome.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html">The Gift of the Magi</a>.”
Poverty does not mean shabby, but it does mean simple. And simple can be elegant.
3. Obedience
No, I am not going to quote you the traditional marriage vow about “love, honor, and obey” (which is probably heard far more often from English-accented Protestant clergy in old movies than anywhere else). In speaking of obedience, I want to suggest Someone to whom both husband and wife need to be obedient.
God is Love (1 John 4:8). God is also Life (John 14:6). Those two realities—life and love—are what marriage should be about. They are authentic in spouses only insofar as they mirror God, who is Life and is Love. That’s why I resist the idea that the wedding day is the “bride’s day.” It’s also the groom’s day. But above all, it’s God’s day.
It is this day that God has prepared both bride and groom for, and this day that he gives them is a special sacrament for the rest of their lives. That’s why the focus ought to be there. That doesn’t diminish the celebration or the joy or the specialness of the day. It should, in fact, amplify all of those.
But it’s out of obedience to that God—who is the true measure of any love and the lord and giver of life—that we want to celebrate this day. In that sense, our celebration wants to be modest, because God is the giver of all gifts, including sex and sex appeal. We want it to be simple, because yes, this is the beginning of a lifetime together, but there’s still that whole lifetime to live.
Obedience is an important virtue with regard to marriage because it involves obedience to God and his plans for marriage—a vision alien to our culture. It involves a commitment “till death do us part,” not just in words, but in deeds. How many Catholics explicitly say to themselves, “Divorce will never be for me?” It involves commitment to openness to life when God plans it (even if we didn’t). How many Catholics think contraception, even abortion, is “okay”? It involves a commitment to exclusivity. Just look in the papers to see the campaign for “polyamory,” previously simply called adultery.
The Christian marriage that is modest, simple, and obedient to Christian faith need not be dull or depressing. Rather, it can be a model of the expectations of a life lived in faith according to those values for the rest of the bride’s and groom’s life together, starting today. In that sense, the wedding day is not so much the occasion for excess bling as it is the model for a lifetime—a lifetime that will be challenged by chastity, one that will sometimes have to be simpler in living the “poorer” of “for richer, for poorer,” one that is obedience to the law and teaching of Christ, whose union to his Church is the model and measure for what the Christian marriage is.
Takers?

3 Vows and a Wedding Dress

By Bill Lauto, Environmental and Shroud Scientist
Northeast Regional Leader for SAGE and Othonia in U.S.
Most of us grew up learning about the crucifixion of Jesus with artwork. All would depict the nails through Jesus’ hands and one nail through his feet. Paintings, sculptures, and movies would show one foot placed on top of the other, on top of a wooden wedge.
<h2>Does This Really Matter?</h2>
These images of Jesus’ crucifixion became tradition. However, for those with faith, these traditions were not the important realizations about Jesus sacrificing his life. What mattered was for us to know that Jesus suffered for our sins so we may have eternal life. His sacrifice shows that God knows about our suffering here on earth. Yet there are some who blame God for our suffering, failing to recognize that we are given free will. We have the choice to heal or to make war and crucify the Son of God.
So certain details, such as where exactly the Romans placed the nails, really do not matter for our lives here on this earth. Nevertheless, skeptics try to use enigmas such as this to claim—for example—that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/shroud-of-turin-full-disclosure">the Shroud of Turin</a> is fake while ignoring the complete picture. Therefore, let us review and evaluate to have a better understanding and a probable conclusion to these questions.
<h2>When Did the Nail Controversies Start?</h2>
Initially, we have prophecies found in the Old Testament, Gospel writings from eyewitnesses, and over one thousand years of artwork showing the nails through Jesus’ hands. We should also consider the possibility that in the earliest depictions of the Crucifixion, the artist would render the nails in the hands from information provided by and preserved from oral traditions whose original sources saw the actual Shroud. Only one nail wound is depicted on the Shroud, on the topside of one hand.
In 1950, a French medical doctor named Pierre Barbet published his detailed accounts of the medical conditions shown on the Shroud of Turin. His interpretations are presented in his book, A Doctor at Calvary. Barbet demonstrated that a nail through the soft tissues of a human palm would rip upward between the fingers due to the body’s weight and cause the body to fall off the cross. He then presented the hypothesis that the nail went between the wrist bones and through the other side, on an angle to match the visible wound shown on the Shroud. This provided an explanation as to how the nail held up the body. Additionally, Barbet posited that the nail did damage to the median nerve in the wrist, causing the thumbs to contracted inward—something that we know today with medical studies is not true. In fact, the opposite would occur: the thumbs would be forced to hold an outward position.
Barbet’s theories resonated despite being based on minimal studies.
By 1951, this was the first of many controversies revolving around the nails. How many nails were used—three or four? Were Jesus’ feet nailed into each side of the vertical post, or were the Romans so efficient that they needed only three nails? Does the Shroud provide any answers?
<h2>What Do We Know Today?</h2>
A key catalyst for science to provide answers to these questions came in 1988. A medical doctor named Frederic Zugibe presented his studies, done in the 1980s, in The Cross and the Shroud. Zugibe had a Ph.D. in human anatomy and was a forensic pathologist examiner in New York. His extensive research showed that Barbet’s had three miscalculations.
Barbet’s location for the nail through the wrist did not correspond to the wound on the Shroud, nor to the wounds of any stigmatists. Additionally, that location would miss the median nerve, thus requiring another reason as to why the thumbs are not visible on the Shroud.
Zugibe demonstrated that nails going through the space between the index and middle fingers and above the small bones of the palm would not break any bones and would support a body’s weight. This location directly aligns with the topside hand wound shown on the Shroud and stigmatists. The absence of the thumbs on the Shroud works in tandem with all studies showing a relaxed position of the fingers after death. The thumb goes downward and under the other fingers.
Recently, I was honored to speak at the 2025 International Scientific Shroud Conference in St. Louis, where I meet <a href="https://www.shroudofturin.com/founders.html">John Jackson</a>, one of the lead scientists from the 1978 STURP Team. I heard his presentation about two new theories that assist in answering questions surrounding the nails.
By studying blood flow on the Shroud and the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/holy-shroud">Sudarium</a>, Jackson presented a new position for the Sudarium covering Jesus’ face when he was dead on the cross. The discovery of stitching marks that would have closed a casing along the top of the Sudarium for a cord to go through led him to recreate tests showing the Sudarium tied around Jesus’ forehead and hanging down to his stomach. This conforms with using a Sudarium as an apron, sun protection for the head, and to cover eyes for unpredictable dust storms.
With my 2,000-year-old climate research showing evidence of a dry and very hot climate—a major factor for airborne dust—I concur. This position of the Sudarium matches the top part of the blood stain from the spear wound and the blood or fluid from around the nose, and it shows a “square” blood-stained nail hole with a round nail head. This occurred when the arms were crossed over each other at the bottom part of the Sudarium as they carried Jesus’ body to the tomb. Perhaps with additional research and high-definition photographs, we may see if this nail mark lines up with Zugibe’s research.
Jackson also presented, based on the Shroud’s blood patterns, that only three nails were used, and there was no wooden wedge. Jesus’ left foot was turned sideways with the toes pointing to the left and placed against the vertical beam. The flat bottom of his right foot was then forced onto the top of his left ankle, and one nail was driven through the top of his right foot and his left ankle. When Jesus pushed himself up to take in oxygen, he was balancing on one nail, with his left foot’s toes pointing sideways and his right foot’s toes pointing down to the ground.
All this, shown on the photograph Jesus gave us of himself, a nanosecond before the Resurrection.

Where Did the Romans Drive the Nails?

<div>Should a priest sing and play the guitar inside choir box instead of processing down the aisle before/after Mass while the alta</div><div>Yes, as the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html">General Instruction of the Roman Missal</a> (GIRM) provides, priests are to process to the altar at the beginning of Mass:
<blockquote>Among gestures included are also actions and processions: of the priest going with the deacon and ministers to the altar; of the deacon carrying the Evangeliary or Book of the Gospels to the ambo before the proclamation of the Gospel; of the faithful presenting the gifts and coming forward to receive Communion. It is appropriate that actions and processions of this sort be carried out with decorum while the chants proper to them occur, in keeping with the norms prescribed for each (GIRM 44, emphasis added).
<a>A. Mass Without a Deacon</a>
The Introductory Rites
Once the people have gathered, the priest and ministers, clad in the sacred vestments, go in procession to the altar in this order:
a. The thurifer carrying a thurible with burning incense, if incense is used;
b. The ministers who carry lighted candles, and between them an acolyte or other minister with the cross;
c. The acolytes and the other ministers;
d. A lector, who may carry the Book of the Gospels (though not the Lectionary), which should be slightly elevated;
e. The priest who is to celebrate the Mass.
If incense is used, before the procession begins, the priest puts some in the thurible and blesses it with the Sign of the Cross without saying anything (GIRM 120, emphasis added).</blockquote>
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Must a Priest Process to Altar at Beginning of Mass?

How do we Approach the Timeline of Genesis?

Episode 67: Year B &#8211; 3rd Sunday of Lent 
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, there are three details that we focus on. One comes from the first reading, taken from Exodus 20:1-17, which records God’s deliverance of the ten commandments. The related apologetical topic is having religious statues within our religious spaces. Another comes from the second reading, taken from 1 Corinthians 1:22-25, and it has to do with whether God approves of philosophical reasoning. Finally, the third detail comes from the Gospel reading, which is John’s report of Jesus’ overturning of the moneychanger tables in the temple, recorded in John 2:13-25.
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324-YearB.cfm">Click Here</a>
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>

Forbidden Statues in the Commandments

Trent sits down with Cy Kellett on The Counsel of Trent to discuss some of the problematic elements of a capitalist economic system as well as how to defend the Church’s teaching on “creation from nothing.”

Tough Questions about Capitalism and Cosmology

<div>Does Matthew 18:15-17 tell us to completely avoid at all cost someone who has wronged us and the Church?</div><div>It’s important to include Matthew 18:18 in this passage, because only lawful Church authorities have the God-given power to formally discipline wayward disciples. When one of the faithful goes astray and the Church publicly disciplines them, this can include banning the person from Holy Communion (interdict) or even excommunication.
Even in such severe cases, though, the Church does not ban the offending parties from any interaction with the Church. Indeed, those such disciplined still have a moral obligation to fulfill their Sunday obligation by participating in the Mass to the extent they can, even though they may choose not to do so.
Consequently, we see that these penalties are intended to be remedial, i.e., to get a wayward person to see the error of his way and repent. So, even when the faithful stray, the Church is called to emulate the Savior and seek them out, which Jesus makes very clear in the preceding verses in the parable of the lost sheep (Matt. 18:12-14).
On the other hand, we should not support or be led astray by the misdeeds of wandering sheep, and thus should regulate our interactions with them accordingly.
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Does the Gospel Tell Us to Avoid Those Who Wrong Us?

Karlo Broussard explains the important theological distinctions we must make when determining if a grave offense (such as leaving the Church) will condemn someone to Hell, and why we can never know for certain whether any one soul has lost their salvation.

Can You Lose Your Salvation By Leaving the Catholic Church?

<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

We know that our sins must be forgiven if we hope to get to heaven. But what about original sin? How can original sin have to be forgiven if all of humanity after Adam and Eve didn’t commit the actual sin?
The Catholic Church teaches that it is impossible for one person to be guilty of the personal sin of another. That is metaphysically absurd, as well as contrary to Scripture (see Ezek. 18:19-20, CCC 2056).
The Church teaches that Adam and Eve—and only they—committed the personal sin that we call original sin. All the rest of mankind inherits the sin of Adam, and as such is guilty of a real and proper sin, even though it is in its own category (CCC 402-406). This is a mystery, but what the Church makes clear is this that we inherit from Adam is “a state, not an act” (404). And as such, this fallen state represents a “sin” by analogy—a <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Canons_and_Decrees_of_the_Council_of_Trent/Session_V/Original_Sin">real sin</a>, but not a personal sin.
Some people wrongly believe that we Catholics mean that original sin is not “real” when we say it is not “personal.” But “personal” sin is a category of sins that differs from “original sin,” as it relates to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Personal sin means an actual sin committed by the individual person. Original sin, with regard to all of humanity after Adam, represents the effects of the personal sin of Adam, inherited by all of humanity via propagation. It represents, then, not a personal sin. Rather, it is a fallen state of being.
The easiest way to understand it is as the Church teaches in paragraph 404 of the Catechism:
<blockquote>How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam &#8220;as one body of one man.&#8221; By this &#8220;unity of the human race&#8221; all men are implicated in Adam&#8217;s sin, as all are implicated in Christ&#8217;s justice.
Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind—that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice.
And that is why original sin is called &#8220;sin&#8221; only in an analogical sense: it is a sin &#8220;contracted&#8221; and not &#8220;committed&#8221;—a state and not an act.</blockquote>
Now that we have made the crucial distinction between the original sin committed by Adam and Eve and the original sin inherited by the rest of humanity, we have to make another distinction between the reality that is “original sin,” often called “the stain of original sin,” that dwells in all men from conception (Ps. 51:5), and the concupiscence that remains even after the sin or stain of original sin is remitted through faith and baptism (see CCC 508, 403, etc.). The first is a true and proper sin, even though, again, it is in its own category—“a state and not an act,” as we saw in the Catechism above.
Romans 5:12 is perhaps the clearest text of Scripture that teaches the heart of the doctrine: “Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.”
Again, it is a sin (real), but only by analogy. All of mankind is “implicated” in Adam’s sin, as the Catechism says above, but in a mysterious way we do not fully understand. As St. Paul says in Romans 5:18-19,
<blockquote>As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.</blockquote>
Concupiscence represents a proclivity toward sin inherited by the Fall, but it is not itself sin at all, properly speaking, even though Paul calls it “sin” in Romans 7. He calls it “sin that dwells in me,” because it represents the fomes peccati, or “tendency to sin,” that dwells in all of us due to the fall of Adam. In this instance, it is not even “sin” by analogy, as original sin is. It is as the Council of Trent, Session Five, On Original Sin, says:
<blockquote>This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.</blockquote>
In summary, notice that “original sin” is a true and proper sin, but it is very different when considering Adam versus the rest of humanity. For Adam alone (and Eve), original sin was a personal sin. For all the rest, original sin was and is also a true and proper sin, but not a personal sin. It was and is a sin by analogy, and as such, it is owned by each and every one of us as a true “sin,” but it is such as a state of being, not an act. And because it is a true and proper sin owned by each and every one of us, it must be cleansed through baptism.
Concupiscence, on the other hand, is not a sin at all. It does not have to be “forgiven.” It will be healed at the time of death. In other words, there will be no concupiscence in heaven. And this healing will be full and complete at the resurrection of the body at the end of time. Paul calls this “the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23).
But concupiscence does not need to be “forgiven” as if it were a personal fault, or even a sin at all, because it is not.
Redeemed? Perfected? Yes.
“Forgiven”? That’s impossible. There is nothing to forgive.

Is It a Sin to Want to Sin?

This past Friday, November 29, marked the anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s birth in 1898. The sixty-first anniversary of his death was one week before that, November 22.
Recurrently appearing on the Internet and social media is a pithy saying attributed to Lewis: “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
As <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/the-spiritualist-origins-of-you-dont-have-a-soul-you-are-a-soul">one helpful article</a> shows, Lewis never said this, but the sentiment’s appeal nonetheless remains, as Google searches will reveal. (Etsy sells <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/544779548/cs-lewis-quote-you-dont-have-a-soul-you?ga_order=most_relevant&amp;ga_search_type=all&amp;ga_view_type=gallery&amp;ga_search_query=you+are+a+soul&amp;ref=sr_gallery-1-3&amp;sts=1&amp;content_source=7e5318c805e99b8fe9d39f52aa0a5f2ad57a611c%253A544779548&amp;search_preloaded_img=1&amp;organic_search_click=1">one version</a> of this declaration as wall art, under Lewis’s name, intended perhaps for Christians, perhaps for trans advocates.) The saying captures a surprising convergence of certain Christian and trans worldviews, both of which prioritize “the soul” even to the point of identifying it with the person. In defense of Lewis, then, and to show the distinctively Catholic vision of the person, we should look carefully at what “soul” and “body” mean in the first place.
Pop culture tends to see “soul” as the place of one’s deepest feelings and truest perceptions. Regardless of what happens to the body as it ages, the soul in this sense does not necessarily change. In loving other people, we should attend more to their feelings and perceptions than to their sheer bodiliness; otherwise, we objectify persons. Losing a limb, likewise, does not mean losing a piece of one’s soul. I remain who I am in my desires, consciousness, and dignity, no matter how my body might get injured. Maybe I really am “my soul.”
Christianity’s texts and traditions can seem to harmonize with such a view. Jesus tells us not to fear the one who can destroy the body. We as Catholics are concerned with the salvation “of souls.” St. Paul laments the war of the flesh against the spirit—and decidedly on behalf of the spirit. In this light, we might conclude that we Christians really ought to identify ourselves with the soul rather than the body. Maybe trans advocates go wrong in flouting the God-given character of the body and its sex, but they are right in seeing the body as distinct from our true self. Maybe we really “are” a soul that “has” a body.
It’s important to realize that the biblical notion of “soul” (nephesh in Hebrew, psyche in Greek) denotes not a center of conscious feeling, but something much more substantial: a living being. It is when God breathes into the dust that the first human comes to be and is nephesh. Even some of the non-human animals in Genesis are referred to as nephesh, or living creatures (though their life is not so immediately tied to God as Adam’s is). The Greek philosopher Aristotle argues that soul (psyche) means much the same thing: it is the life-principle that makes certain bodily things to exist and to be alive. Plants, animals, and humans all possess psyche, or soul, simply because they are alive, though their souls are certainly of distinct kinds.
Thinking of soul as nephesh or psyche leads to two further points. First, we can refer to the whole person as “soul,” just as we could refer to the whole person as a life, a living thing. We use this sort of language: the hero saves many lives. And just as “life” does not exclude, but includes the body, so does “soul” in this view of things. We could say that to speak of soul is to name the human person from the standpoint of its being alive—a standpoint that is difficult to conceive apart from bodiliness.
The second point, closely related, is that soul and body are not distinct things. They are distinct principles of one thing, which is the human person. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (362-368, especially 365) has even adopted Aristotle’s conclusion, refined by Thomas Aquinas, that “soul” is the form of matter: it is that which actualizes matter and structures it into a distinct kind of organism. In non-human animals and plants, the entire organism, form-with-matter, comes from the parents and over time develops through the soul’s agency and the matter’s capacity. In humans, by contrast, form-and-matter are no less united, but whereas the material disposition comes from parents, the soul comes directly from God at the moment of conception.
Either way, soul and body come into existence as one. You cannot have human bodiliness without a human soul, and the human soul is the body’s principle of existence and living. The soul does not come to the body and make it do living things. Rather, the soul, from the initial moment of its creation, makes the body to exist in the first place, forming it over time into a more mature organism.
One piece of evidence of this soul-matter unity is what happens at the end of life. Death is not simply the departure of the soul from the body; it is the destruction of the body. After death, there is no human body in the strict sense, but rather a corpse on its way to complete dissolution. This means that what the soul brought to matter was not just movement or consciousness, but the body’s unity and existence to begin with.
The Catholic view of soul, in other words, goes much deeper than being a source of consciousness or feeling. It is responsible for the body’s existence and therefore, with the body, responsible for the whole person. Only soul-and-body can be the kind of thing that is the human being; only soul-and-body can be conscious, or feel, or perceive at all. To claim that my soul is a separate thing from my body, or that my soul is in the wrong body, is not just wrong, but incoherent in the Catholic vision of humanness.
Further, the human soul is unique among the souls of animals in that it is a spiritual reality, created directly by God as actualizing matter. Because of this spiritual existence, the human soul with its matter structures the person as an image of God, capable of exercising thought and free will. Being spiritual, the soul is incorruptible and will persist even when the body dies, though it does so in an unnatural state and longs for reunion with its matter. Such a view of soul and its relation to bodiliness makes the doctrine of the resurrection of the body so much more meaningful!
It is with this view in mind that we should understand the emphasis placed on the soul in Christ’s words and the Catholic tradition.
We can see now how the words “soul” and “body” are often used problematically, even by Christians. For when we typically think of “the body,” we are thinking of something already living and formed—i.e., something already ensouled. So to speak of “soul and body” is to posit the soul as something gratuitous and separate from the body we know and experience. Our knowing and experiencing thus become “the soul,” which is the precisely what various forms of dualism, Gnosticism, pop psychology, and trans ideology maintain.
It is important that we as Christians do not fall into the same ways of thinking. C.S. Lewis was aware of the danger, as works like The Abolition of Man and Screwtape Letters reveal. In Screwtape Letter VIII, he refers to us as “metaphysical amphibians”: we are one being, but our lives involve two dimensions, the spiritual and the physical.
Let us pray for Lewis’s soul, in thanksgiving for what he did in this life and with hope for his eternal life to come.

A Fake Quote from C.S. Lewis

Why are marriages a Catholic sacrament?

Do you have any empirical evidence that Catholicism is true?

How can there no longer be public revelation but we still accept private revelation?

How come the Church can reject their own baptism if they were done wrong but can accept protestant baptisms on a whim?

Why should we call priests father if the bible specifically says not to call a man father?

I’m a catechist. Why does the Church not follow Lev. 19:28 and when it comes to tattoos?

Which Catholic Doctrine Troubles You?

<div>I am traveling to the U.S. from abroad, leaving on Good Friday and arriving on Good Friday (21-hour flight). When do I fast?</div><div>For holy days of obligation, canon law calls for us to follow the liturgical calendar of our home diocese (can. 12 §3). Although Good Friday is not a holy day of obligation regarding Church attendance, it is a day of obligation for fasting and abstinence. In my opinion, the same principle would appear to apply, and you should fast according to the calendar of your home diocese. However, once in the United States you should do your best not to give scandal to other Catholics.
Your pastor can also dispense you from the fast and abstinence and substitute another form of penance (can. 1245; <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini.html">Paenitemini</a> III, VII). So your pastor could commute your fasting and abstinence to the day that you are in the United States if that would be easier for you.
</div>

When Do I Fast?

<div>Is the role of the Paraclete for the Holy Spirit just for the Apostles or for everyone? </div><div>In terms of teaching guidance, the Holy Spirit, also known as the Paraclete (“Advocate”), gave special oversight to the first apostles (John 14:25-26; 16:13), with Peter (the first Pope) as their head (Matt. 16:18; see Mt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:42; CCC 85-87). Because the Church’s mission continues, this special guidance continues with the Successors of St. Peter and those apostolic successors (bishops) in union with him.
In a more general sense, the Holy Spirit is for everyone, as all who receive baptism become temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20; CCC 1262ff.). And the Holy Spirit guides Christians in giving witness to God (Matt. 10:19-20). And all humanity is called to the status of adopted sons and daughters of God, beginning in baptism (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9).
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Is the Holy Spirit for Everyone or Just the Apostles?

With his death and resurrection, Jesus completes the great work of our salvation and gives us the perfect sign that he has conquered sin and death. So are the Ascension and Pentecost just add-ons? Apologist Tim Staples says no. They are essentials, and filled with power.

Why the Ascension and Pentecost Are Essential

Every Catholic is (or at least should be!) aware of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which states that with the priest’s utterance of the words of consecration (“this is my body” . . . “this is my blood”), the substance of bread and wine changes into the substance of Christ’s body and blood. That’s the “textbook” definition—but what does it really mean? What is a substance, anyway?
Substance has been used in the history of philosophy and theology in different ways. Here it’s used to refer to the essence of bread and wine and the essence of Jesus’ body and blood. An essence is a more formal word for “whatness”—those core attributes that make a thing what it is.
Many Catholics are prepared to defend the theological truth of transubstantiation, appealing to Jesus’ teaching in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-catholics-wrong-about-john-6-part-i">John 6</a> about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and his words at the Last Supper. But perhaps Catholics aren’t as prepared to meet a challenge that might call into question the philosophical truth of the reality of essences—a truth that Martin Luther denied.
You might respond, “Your average Joe doesn’t think that deeply. When is someone actually ever going to make that kind of challenge?&#8221; Well, a recent experience on Catholic Answers Live proves that someone did, and we need to be prepared.
On that episode of the show, a caller objected that he doesn’t believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation because he doesn’t believe that essences are real. This is at least one version of a philosophical worldview called nominalism. On this view, dog and tree, for example, do not signify anything real that our mind penetrates when we see or otherwise experience dogs and trees. Rather, such terms are mere names (Latin, nomen) that we ascribe. The same would be true for bread, body, and blood.
The implications for believers in the Real Presence are dire. If there’s no reality to the “whatness” of bread and wine and the “whatness” of body and blood, then we’d have to reject the dogma of transubstantiation (not to mention the belief that Jesus had a real human nature). There can be no real change of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood if the bread, wine, body, and blood involved are not real. If these things are merely our ascription of names, then the “change” also would be simply our ascription of a name.
The Catholic Mass, on this view, would be nothing but a con job performed by the priest, telling people that something miraculous is happening, when really, the change from bread to body, or wine to blood, is commonplace, and anyone can bring it about just by thinking the right thoughts. (No <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/why-we-have-a-ministerial-priesthood">need for a priest</a>, for sure!) In short, according to this nominalist view, nothing actually happens during a Catholic Mass except our ascribing a name to what we experience with our senses.
Lest you think nominalism is just the weird worldview of one fringe radio caller, it is actually a widespread defect in modern man’s thinking. Consider that within modern gender ideology, there is no “whatness” or essence to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/transgenderism-devours-itself">what a man or a woman is</a>. Sure, there’s gender identity—the inner sense or feeling of being a man or a woman, which is how many define a man or a woman. But the judgment that a particular feeling is the feeling of the kind “being a man or a woman” is subject entirely to what a person deems. <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-new-relativism-unmasking-the-philosophy-of-todays-woke-moralists-digital/">There’s no reality</a> there—only the individual’s ascription of a name.
So fighting nominalism is not just for scholars.
In case you’re not interested in a book-length treatment of this issue, there’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Real-Natures-Familiar-Objects-Bradford/dp/0262050757/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1T9S7SMIC5SWV&amp;keywords=Real+Natures+and+Familiar+Objects&amp;qid=1679916460&amp;sprefix=real+natures+and+familiar+objects%2Caps%2C173&amp;sr=8-1">one</a> quick argument that I think is worth highlighting here. (A good book-length treatment, by the way, can be found in David Oderberg’s <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Real-Essentialism/Oderberg/p/book/9780415872126">Real Essentialism</a>.) It’s what philosophers call a retorsion argument—when you convert the argument against your belief to refute the objector’s position.
Let’s start with the nominalist’s claim: there are no real essences or natures, only our designation of names. What this view amounts to is a form of conventionalism concerning essences or natures. The various “kinds” that we speak of—dog, tree, bread, body, blood—are entirely subject to human convention, a “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Essentialism-Routledge-Studies-Contemporary-Philosophy/dp/041587212X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1YRXPNYLB9VD1&amp;keywords=real+essentialism&amp;qid=1679916363&amp;sprefix=real+essentialis%2Caps%2C259&amp;sr=8-1&amp;ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840">sort of artefact of human classificatory practice</a>.” Philosopher Edward Feser <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Scholastic-Metaphysics-Contemporary-Introduction-Scholasticae/dp/3868385444/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KOIAUP9DET27&amp;keywords=scholastic+metaphysics&amp;qid=1679916829&amp;sprefix=scholastic+metaphysic%2Caps%2C191&amp;sr=8-1">explains</a> such conventionalism this way: “The conventionalist holds that a thing’s essence, that whereby it is what it is, is a product of our ways of thinking, our linguistic habits, and so forth. It is, in short, mind-dependent.”
Enter the retorsion: if conventionalism concerning essences were true, then it would apply to us as well. In other words, our essence (human nature) would be just as much a product of human convention as any other essence.
But there are a couple of problems here. Do we really want to say human nature is a byproduct of human convention? What if the convention as to what humans are changes? Wouldn’t that change how we treat human beings? It would! And the change might not be for the better—to profanation and desecration, for instance, rather than to more reverence and respect. This is a path that people of goodwill shouldn’t be willing to tread.
The above is primarily an appeal to the heart. Now let’s appeal to the mind. Conventionalism concerning essences is also problematic because it ends in incoherence.
Consider that this form of conventionalism necessarily entails that we are the source of the conventions—in this case, of the names that we use to classify things. And if we’re the source of the conventions concerning essences, then we are logically prior to the conventions.
But, as we noted above, this version of conventionalism also necessarily entails that we—human beings—are the byproduct of human convention, in which case the conventions would be logically prior to us.
What we have here is a contradiction: we are logically prior to human conventions (insofar as we are the source of conventions concerning essences) and not logically prior to human conventions (insofar as we are a byproduct of human conventions) at the same time and in the same respect.
But we can’t accept a contradiction. Therefore, at least when it comes to our human nature, we can’t accept the notion that essences are mere conventions of human making. And if our own human essence is not a mere convention of the human making, then it’s real, and in-dependent of the human mind.
Someone might counter that the above reasoning doesn’t get us all the way to the conclusion that everything has an essence, like the bread and wine involved in transubstantiation. Rather, it shows only that human essence in us is real and mind-independent.
No qualms here! However, we have shown that a universal form of conventionalism concerning essences entails a denial of human nature. And given that we shouldn’t embrace a conventionalist view of human nature because it entails a contradiction, it follows that we shouldn’t embrace the all-encompassing conventionalism concerning essences.
This being the case, the idea of bread and wine, along with body and blood, having real essences becomes a real possibility. So at least our friend who called the show can be on his way, and that much closer to affirming the reality of transubstantiation.

What Is Bread? What Is Wine?

Many argue the story of the good thief on the cross disproves Purgatory&#8217;s existence. But was Purgatory always rejected by Protestants? Dr. Karlo Broussard explores the surprising history of the doctrine and reveals why the good thief might not be the slam dunk some believe.
Transcript:
Questions I often get from Protestant converts are obviously about saints intercession, but another big one is purgatory.
They tend to really struggle with the belief of purgatory.
One thing they usually bring up is the thief on the cross to reinforce that, &#8220;Oh, there&#8217;s no purgatory.&#8221; But I was just wondering, when did the belief in purgatory kind of end? Was it with the Reformation?
That&#8217;s a good question. So with regard to the ending of the belief in purgatory, Martin Luther initially believed in purgatory. So for example, in his 95 Theses in 1517, he wrote, &#8220;The Pope does very well when he grants for a mission to souls and purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.&#8221; So there you have implied in there an affirmation of purgatory elsewhere in 1521, he would write the existence of a purgatory I&#8217;ve never denied. Yet in 1537, he calls purgatory a specter of the devil. And so there you have evidence of Luther rejecting the doctrine of purgatory, and many would follow suit after that. As far as the specific argument that Luther would give to reject purgatory, I&#8217;m not quite sure I would have to do more research on that to see which specific articles he uses, arguments he utilizes, and whether it maps on with contemporary arguments that Protestants will give, such as the good thief on the cross, or maybe 2 Corinthians 5-8, where some will interpret that passage to reveal that heaven is given to the saved immediately after death. With regard to the good thief on the cross, I actually wrote an article at catholic.com, and it&#8217;s entitled, &#8220;The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctrine.&#8221; I think that&#8217;s the title of it, yeah, &#8220;The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctions.&#8221; And they&#8217;re in ideal with this idea that the good thief reveals purgatory is not necessary, and it&#8217;s based upon our Lord saying, &#8220;Today you will be with me in paradise.&#8221; I also deal with this objection in my book, &#8220;Purgatory is for Real,&#8221; but you can get a snippet of that for free at catholic.com with that article. And our response there, Michael, is that even, first of all, it&#8217;s not quite certain that whenever our Lord says, &#8220;Today you will be with me in paradise,&#8221; he&#8217;s referring to heaven. It&#8217;s most likely he&#8217;s referring to Sheol, or the righteous abode of the dead before the ascension of Christ, where the Old Testament righteous souls received a beatific vision. So Jesus literally would have been telling him, &#8220;You&#8217;re going to be with me in this righteous abode of the dead,&#8221; or &#8220;Abraham&#8217;s bosom,&#8221; not heaven. And that would in no way exclude purgatory. The good thief may have to have undergone a final purification immediately after death before entering into Abraham&#8217;s bosom. But let&#8217;s say, Michael, even if Jesus were promising the good thief heaven on that day such that the good thief did not need purgatory, that fits with the Catholic understanding because the Catholic Church does not teach that purgatory is absolutely necessary for everyone. The Catholic Church actually teaches it&#8217;s possible for someone to die with such a fervent degree of charity where no final purification would be needed after death such that the soul could immediately enter into the presence of God in the beatific vision. So it&#8217;s possible that that could have been the good thief. The good thief could have fit that bill, so to speak, and met that description such that he would not need purgatory. So depending upon how we interpret what our Lord is telling the good thief on the cross, neither interpretation excludes or refutes the doctrine of purgatory. And so that&#8217;s a sketch of what I say in more detail in my book, Purgatory is for Real, and then also in that article, The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctions.
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When Did People Stop Believing in Purgatory?

<div>What is the Church’s official stance on the reported Marian apparitions in Medjugorje?</div><div>In a <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20240919_nota-esperienza-medjugorje_en.html">September 19, 2024 note</a>, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-primer-on-medjugorje">approved the &#8220;spiritual experience connected with Medjugorje&#8221;</a> as a place of pilgrimage, while declining to make a judgment about the supernatural character of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/twelve-things-to-know-about-private-revelations">alleged private revelations</a> associated with the shrine:
<blockquote>The uniqueness of the place lies in the large number of such fruits: abundant conversions, a frequent return to the sacraments (particularly, the Eucharist and Reconciliation), many vocations to priestly, religious, and married life, a deepening of the life of faith, a more intense practice of prayer, many reconciliations between spouses, and the renewal of marriage and family life. It should be noted that such experiences occur above all in the context of pilgrimages to the places associated with the original events rather than in meetings with the “visionaries” to be present for the alleged apparitions (3, emphasis added). . . .
While this does not imply a declaration of the supernatural character of the phenomenon in question (cf. <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20240517_norme-fenomeni-soprannaturali_en.html">Norms</a>, art. 22, §2)—and recalling that the faithful are not obliged to believe in it—the Nihil obstat indicates that the faithful can receive a positive encouragement for their Christian life through this spiritual proposal, and it authorizes public acts of devotion. Such a determination is possible insofar as many positive fruits have been noted in the midst of a spiritual experience, while negative and dangerous effects have not spread among the People of God (38). . . .
In any case, may the people who go to Medjugorje be strongly advised that pilgrimages are not made to meet with alleged visionaries but to have an encounter with Mary, the Queen of Peace, and—faithful to her love for her Son—to encounter Christ and listen to him through meditation on the Word, by participation in the Eucharist, and in Eucharistic Adoration, as happens in so many shrines spread all over the world in which the Virgin Mary is venerated with the most varied titles (41).</blockquote>
<div>The DDF has authorized the publication of the messages associated with the reported apparitions at Medjugorje, granting a nihil obstat—which means that nothing in them is contrary to Church doctrine on faith and morals (39). At the same time, in the same paragraph, the DDF adds, &#8220;The special Apostolic Visitor for the parish of Medjugorje, who will continue to carry out the functions entrusted to him, should verify that this Note is included as an Introduction in any publication that collects the messages (emphasis added). <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20240919_nota-esperienza-medjugorje_en.html">In other words</a>, to reaffirm, &#8220;the positive fruits linked to this spiritual experience are evident&#8221; (5). &#8220;Moreover, the positive assessment that most of the messages of Medjugorje are edifying does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin. Consequently, when referring to &#8216;messages&#8217; from Our Lady, one should always bear in mind that they are &#8216;alleged messages&#8217;” (38).</div>
Here is a chronology of the events.
In June 1981, the Blessed Mother reportedly began appearing regularly to several children in the town of Medjugorje, which is located in the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, then part of Yugoslavia. (The diocese is now part of the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
In 1985, Mostar-Duvno’s bishop Pavao Zanic determined that the apparitions <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/bishop-pavo-zanics-orders-3916">were not authentic</a>, i.e., not of supernatural origin.
In 1991, the bishops’ conference of Yugoslavia ruled that the supernatural character of the reported apparitions could not be affirmed. This is different than a definitive declaration that there is no supernatural character.
Bishop Zanic maintained his position until his retirement in July 1993, when <a href="https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bperic.html">Bishop Ratko Peric succeeded him</a>. Throughout his tenure in Mostar, which lasted until July 2020, Bishop Peric <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/35544/local-bishop-the-madonna-has-not-appeared-in-medjugorje">consistently reaffirmed</a> the decision of his predecessor.
Bishop <a href="https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bpalicp.html">Petar Palic</a> is the current Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, and he has not overturned his predecessors’ decisions.
The Holy See, consistent with the rulings of the local bishops, has allowed pilgrimages to Medjugorje—and <a title="Original URL: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-05/pope-authorizes-pilgrimages-to-medjugorje.html. Click or tap if you trust this link." href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vaticannews.va%2Fen%2Fpope%2Fnews%2F2019-05%2Fpope-authorizes-pilgrimages-to-medjugorje.html&amp;data=05%7C01%7Capologist%40catholic.com%7C39bf46e6fa2b44fa6fc308dbc90eaa2a%7Cdd9faf74765b495cac09cabd182c95a7%7C0%7C0%7C638324837042670895%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=AoTh0CGQClr9KrWF0beZ%2BxFHjXeiUy5JOpX1mFO1xGs%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="0">in May 2019 Pope Francis formally authorized them</a>—provided they don’t present the reported apparitions as approved by the Church. The Holy See has also forbidden the faithful from participating in events where the reported seers present their reported apparitions as of supernatural origin (see <a title="Original URL: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/14-things-to-know-and-share-about-the-new-letter-on-medjugorje. Click or tap if you trust this link." href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncregister.com%2Fblog%2Fjimmy-akin%2F14-things-to-know-and-share-about-the-new-letter-on-medjugorje&amp;data=05%7C01%7Capologist%40catholic.com%7C39bf46e6fa2b44fa6fc308dbc90eaa2a%7Cdd9faf74765b495cac09cabd182c95a7%7C0%7C0%7C638324837042670895%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=E3a%2BfgwtSIFkKmkBloReBoB2g4XIL1icHUBr%2F195dfI%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="1">this</a> for more information).
Finally, to reaffirm the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20240919_nota-esperienza-medjugorje_en.html">September 2024 decision</a> by the DDF, those who have experienced a conversion—or deepening of faith—associated with pilgrimage(s) to Medjugorje should know that the validity of their experiences does not hinge upon whether the reported apparitions are declared of supernatural origin. Indeed, the sacraments are valid at Medjugorje, and the Blessed Mother can—and does—fruitfully intercede for those who seek her sincerely, wherever that may be.
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The Church’s Current Position on Medjugorje

On several occasions, I’ve seen a bumper sticker on an older couple&#8217;s vehicle that read, “We are spending our children’s inheritance.” The implication is obvious. They live for their own selfish pleasures, with no concern for or investment in their children and grandchildren.
I did not find it amusing. I found it despicable.
Demographic data show that people live longer now than they did a few generations ago. This means that today, older people are more likely to live to see their grandchildren and maybe even their great-grandchildren. My wife Janet and I are in this category. As of this writing, we have watched twenty-one grandchildren come into the world—and have just welcomed our first great-grandchild.

With some notable exceptions, it was not so in biblical times. Considering the first century A.D.—the time of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus—we see a very different reality. It is unlikely that any of them knew their grandparents (Jesus had only one set). According to longstanding tradition, Joachim and Anna—childless for a long time—were <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-reliable-is-the-protoevangelium-of-james">of advanced age</a> when Mary was born.
So it is likely they had died before the baby Jesus became an adolescent. They are never mentioned in the Gospels.
<blockquote>Given the high mortality rate compared to modern societies, the overlap of generations in antiquity was low. Most fathers did not live long enough to see either their sons marry or their sons’ children. . . .
A fifteen-year-old girl—about the same age as Mary is described as being at the time of Jesus’ birth—had, according to models estimating mortality rates, a 62 percent chance that her father was still alive and a 71 percent chance that her mother still lived at this time (<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Papyri_and_the_Social_World_of_the_New_T.html?id=EymbDwAAQBAJ">75-76</a>).</blockquote>
Life spans were shorter in biblical times, so it’s fitting that God’s promises often involve longer life. Consider the Fourth Commandment, “‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land” (Eph 6:2-3). Knowing of life’s brevity, the Psalmist acknowledges God’s blessing of longevity for those who fear him:
<blockquote>Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! . . . Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. . . . May you see your children’s children! (Ps. 128:1-6). 
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The Israelites were reminded over and over again of their responsibility to future generations. God gave them commands. Continuity should flow not just through the bloodline, but also through knowledge of and obedience to God.
<blockquote>Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children . . . so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and they may teach their children so (Deut. 4:9-10). 
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He also warned that idolatry and sin on the part of grandparents would bring about a different continuity that would inevitably affect their children’s children. It cuts both ways—blessings and punishments. For example, if one couple works hard and earns millions of dollars, it will have an effect on their children and their children’s children. Conversely, if another couple squanders everything and ends up destitute, it will inevitably affect their future generations. It’s the same with the world of truth and moral choices.
Whether we like it or not, our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond will be affected by our choices. We are all interconnected biologically, spiritually, morally, and eternally. Blessed is the family that has a member interested in genealogy and the family story. A family tree is a marvel to behold. C. S. Lewis wrote:
<blockquote>If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well: and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would not look like a lot of separate things dotted about. It would look like one single growing thing—rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other (<a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6789552M/Mere_Christianity">180</a>).</blockquote>
Now that we understand our inevitable role in the generational drama, let’s get to the nitty-gritty of the blessings, joys, and obligations of faithful Catholic grandparents. We should think of ourselves as a bond with the past and a catapult into the future, all the while a comforting anchor in the present.
The apostle Paul traveled through the town of Lystra in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). A young man lived there named Timothy, who had likely witnessed Paul being stoned by the locals before arising and re-entering the city. He became one of Paul’s most loyal fellow workers until Paul’s execution around A.D. 67. Not only was Timothy impressed with Paul, but Paul was impressed with Timothy, and with his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois.
Here we have an exceptional biblical account of good grandparenting. Why was Timothy so full of faith and devotion to God? Paul tells us. At the end of his life, Paul wrote to his loyal co-worker, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice . . . and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:5, 3:15). Would Timothy have been knowledgeable and spiritually prepared had he not been influenced so profoundly by his mother and grandmother?
Years before, Lois, a devout Jewess who loved the sacred scriptures had made a conscious decision to be faithful in her devotion to God—and to pass it on to her daughter Eunice and her grandson Timothy. Knowing her Hebrew Bible, she must have been familiar with the Prophet Joel, who wrote, “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation” (Joel 1:3). It is a recurring theme in Scripture, as the Psalmist sang: “[God] established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children” (Ps. 78:5-6).
How do grandparents pass the tradition of the Lord to the future generations? Do we just preach at our kids, hammering the truth into their brains? The answer is obvious: of course not. My parents taught me how it is done, and now I see the results, like sap flowing through the branches of our family tree into my own children, into my grandchildren, and even into my grandchildren’s children.
<img class="size-large wp-image-153693 alignleft" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4496-533x400.jpeg" alt="" width="533" height="400" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4496-533x400.jpeg 533w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4496-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4496.jpeg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 533px) 100vw, 533px"/>My father and mother became excited new Christians in 1953. They were on fire, and that flame for Christ burned within them. I was born a year later, and their one stated purpose in life was to live the Christian life vibrantly so everyone would discover the beauty of the gospel. It was not just what they said. It was what they did, what was important to them. If you asked anyone who knew my parents, “What makes Charlie and Frances what they are?”, the universal answer would be, “They are loved by all because of their obvious devotion to God, and they practice the gospel of Jesus Christ!” That was my home, my school, my introduction to life. It was the sap that passed into my veins.
My children remember Grandma and Grandpa Ray and still talk about them to this day, though they have been with the Lord for many years. My son sent me a picture a few days ago. The picture brought tears to my eyes. He had driven way out of his way that day with five of his eight children to visit the graves of my parents—his grandparents. That day, their great-grandchildren heard their story and of their love for Jesus Christ. Prayers were said in their honor and in thanks for what they got started—a love for God and the family. The bond of generations was renewed.
Grandparents can be a light in the lives of their children and grandchildren, long after we are gone. We, grandparents, are an anchor for the family. We have the money and time to invest in the next generations who carry on our name and legacy. We are the historians who help grandchildren know their story and the family traditions. We tie them into the roots of our genealogy as a link to the past. Grandparents are examples of our Catholic faith, demonstrating it through their long-term witness.
“The bond between a child and a grandparent is the purest, least psychologically complicated form of human love,” says Arthur Kornhaber, author of several books on grandparenting. He claims that grandparents can offer an emotional safety net when parents falter. They pass on traditions through stories, songs, games, skills, and crafts. And they have another magical ingredient that parents often lack—time. What many grandchildren appreciate most is the relaxed rhythm of life at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. Kornhaber has found that children who are close to at least one grandparent are more emotionally secure than other children, and they have more positive feelings about older people and about the process of aging” (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Illustrations-Ultimate-Contemporary-Resource/dp/0785244794">388</a>).
Not everyone is blessed with grandchildren, just like how many children are not blessed with wonderful grandparents. Those without this blessing can “adopt spiritual children” and become substitute grandparents to the needy. But that does not diminish the delight when it is a reality.
Watching the new generations grow up around us is better than any Emmy or Oscar. It is summed up well in Proverbs: “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers” (17:6).  We are blessed with longevity today . . . so for heaven’s sake (no pun intended), take advantage of it.

The Role of Catholic Grandparents

In this episode Trent sits down Erik Manning of isjesusalive.com to debrief his recent debate on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Resurrection Debate Debrief (with Erik Manning)

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

The Heart of the Protestant Gospel

<div>At adoration, why would you pray the Rosary, since Christ is truly present right there infront of you?</div><div>Because properly understood, the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-rosary">Rosary</a> is a Christ-centered prayer, and thus can and should aid our adoration of our <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/christ-in-the-eucharist">Eucharistic Lord Jesus Christ</a>.
The Holy See in Rome has specifically addressed this issue. According to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Rosary may be prayed during Eucharistic adoration with exposition, provided that’s not the sole reason exposition of the Blessed Sacrament takes place:
<blockquote>One should not expose the Eucharist only to recite the rosary. However, among the prayers that are used during adoration, the recitation of the rosary may certainly be included, emphasizing the Christological aspects with biblical readings relating to the mysteries, and providing time for silent adoration and meditation on them (“Notes on the Recitation of the Rosary During Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament,” Notitiae (1998) XXXIV edition, 507-511).</blockquote>
This statement was reprinted in the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy’s Newsletter (Jan./Feb. 1999). That committee is now known as the <a href="http://www.usccb.org/about/divine-worship/index.cfm">Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship</a>.
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Why Pray Rosary During Eucharistic Adoration?

Is Sola Scriptura True? (Anthony Rogers vs. Trent Horn)

A Trad Starter Kit

The pope’s first words: PERFECT

The Epiphany is the second major festival of the larger Christmas season, and in the Latin Church, its observation gives principal attention to the visitation of the magi. In fact, some missals subtitle it “The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.” But long tradition also associates the Epiphany with two other events: the baptism of the Lord and the miracle of water turned to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. It used to be that we would hear this every year, but the lectionary-revisers in the 1970s decided we should hear about the wedding at Cana only once every three years (to which I say, Boo, everybody likes that story—but praise God I’m not in charge of making lectionaries).
The combination of these three mysteries is, in any case, beautiful. You can see right away how they connect with one another, how they are all “epiphanies” in some way. To the magi, Christ is revealed as Lord not just of Israel, but of all the nations—what old Simeon, in the Temple, had already proclaimed in his Nunc dimittis—“to be a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” Surely, as Mary “ponders all these things in her heart,” this particular statement would have come to mind as the wise men arrived. At the baptism, which comes at the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry, the epiphany is nothing less than the revelation of Christ’s relationship with the Father and the Spirit. It is also, in the most literal way, the moment he comes on the scene and becomes a figure of interest to the public. Not too long thereafter, the wedding at Cana is a revelation not just of his power over created things, but of his love for created things—a man who turns water into wine at a wedding party, at the request of his mother, is not some otherworldly distant figure, but someone who can be known.
The speed with which the Church moves from Christmas to Epiphany is worth noting. As we observed at Christmas, this child is born not just to give everyone some kind of transient feeling of cheer and goodwill. The joy that he brings is a joy that lasts through pain and suffering, that transforms the whole of life through his death on the cross.
Each of these seasons has its sense in relation to the others. Christmas would be meaningless without Easter, but Easter would be incoherent without Christmas. And neither Christmas nor Easter would make any sense if we didn’t, through the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/epiphany-2025-catholic-answers-guide" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Epiphany</a> season, come to understand just who this Jesus is.
And who is Jesus, according to the story of the magi? The gifts give things away, as the verses of “We Three Kings” tell us. Gold for a king. Frankincense for God. Myrrh for death.
Gold, frankincense, myrrh. Strange gifts, really. As Catholics, we’ve heard over and over again that Jesus is God, that he died on the cross, and that he is the king of kings and the lord of lords. But this is one of those combinations that’s worth trying to imagine from the perspective of someone seeing and hearing it the first time. We have a child—a child whose birth was announced by a star. And somehow he will be a king, be divine, and die. How exactly do these things go together?
We don’t know very much about the wise men. Tradition gives us their names—Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar—but not anything certain about where they were from or what they believed. We venerate them as saints—in a way, the feast of the Epiphany is also their feast day—and the reason is that the Epiphany isn’t so much about Christ revealing himself to them as them revealing Christ to the world. Christ is made manifest to the gentiles not because he shows himself to the gentiles, but because the gentiles find him and state in the best way that they can—in the language of gifts—who he is.
One Epiphany tradition is the blessing of chalk for the “chalking” of the doors. (<a href="https://onepeterfive.com/forgotten-customs-of-epiphanytide/">Here&#8217;s how to do it.</a>) Feel free to go around the neighborhood and offer to chalk the houses of others. That may be the most low-pressure street evangelism you can imagine—a great opportunity to Make Catholicism Weird Again. Here is why we do this, and why it makes sense at Epiphany. The function of the wise men isn’t just to find him; it is to reveal him—granted, maybe not to Herod, but definitely to the gentiles. And even, in a certain way, to Mary and Joseph. They know who he is, of course, but even they must find in these gifts a powerful confirmation and witness.
Our job as Christians isn’t merely to find and worship Jesus. It is to offer him the kinds of gifts and worship that reveal him to the world. This is part of what we do in the sacred liturgy—because this is not the kind of gift that would make sense to anyone who is not God. But, like the Epiphany chalk, there’s a public nature to this offering. Even if the wise men hide the location of Jesus from Herod, they still tell Herod exactly what they’re doing. It’s reasonable to imagine them showing him the gifts they intend to give—all the more reason for Herod to quake with confusion and fear, as do the Herods of today. Who is this child?
That is the question we ought to hear from the secular world—and I’m convinced that we will hear it more often the more faithful we are to the gospel. Not “Whom did they vote for?” or “What cause are they supporting?” or even “What do they believe?”, but “Who is this child? Why do they worship him? Why do they act like that?” Because in the mystery of the word made flesh, there’s nothing to do but to go even unto Bethlehem—like the shepherds, like the magi—and see this thing which has come to pass.

Don’t Forget to Chalk Your Door for Epiphany

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<h3>Monday of the Second Week of Easter
Lectionary: 267</h3>
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<h4>Reading 1   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/4:23">ACTS 4:23-31</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
After their release Peter and John went back to their own people 
and reported what the chief priests and elders had told them. 
And when they heard it, 
they raised their voices to God with one accord 
and said, “Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth 
and the sea and all that is in them, 
you said by the Holy Spirit 
through the mouth of our father David, your servant:
Why did the Gentiles rage 
and the peoples entertain folly? 
The kings of the earth took their stand 
and the princes gathered together 
against the Lord and against his anointed.
Indeed they gathered in this city 
against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, 
Herod and Pontius Pilate, 
together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 
to do what your hand and your will 
had long ago planned to take place. 
And now, Lord, take note of their threats, 
and enable your servants to speak your word 
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal, 
and signs and wonders are done 
through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, 
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit 
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="cs_control_228452" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Responsorial Psalm   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/2:1">2:1-3, 4-7A, 7B-9</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R.    (see 11d)  Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
Why do the nations rage 
and the peoples utter folly? 
The kings of the earth rise up, 
and the princes conspire together 
against the LORD and against his anointed: 
“Let us break their fetters 
and cast their bonds from us!” 
R.    Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
He who is throned in heaven laughs; 
the LORD derides them. 
Then in anger he speaks to them; 
he terrifies them in his wrath: 
“I myself have set up my king 
on Zion, my holy mountain.” 
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD. 
R.    Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; 
this day I have begotten you. 
Ask of me and I will give you 
the nations for an inheritance 
and the ends of the earth for your possession. 
You shall rule them with an iron rod; 
you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.” 
R.    Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="cs_control_228454" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Alleluia   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/colossians/3:1">COL 3:1</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
If then you were raised with Christ, 
seek what is above, 
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Gospel   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/3:1">JN 3:1-8</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 
He came to Jesus at night and said to him, 
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, 
for no one can do these signs that you are doing 
unless God is with him.” 
Jesus answered and said to him, 
“Amen, amen, I say to you, 
unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 
Nicodemus said to him, 
“How can a man once grown old be born again? 
Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” 
Jesus answered, 
“Amen, amen, I say to you, 
unless one is born of water and Spirit 
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 
What is born of flesh is flesh 
and what is born of spirit is spirit. 
Do not be amazed that I told you, 
‘You must be born from above.’ 
The wind blows where it wills, 
and you can hear the sound it makes, 
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; 
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
&nbsp;
Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>

Daily Holy Mass: April 20, 2020

Jimmy Akin offers a few philosophical and theological counter-arguments to the concepts of karma and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/reincarnation">reincarnation</a>, and cites the letter to the Hebrews as the definitive Christian declaration that we die only once before judgement.
Transcript:
Host: Joshua on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/catholiccom">YouTube</a> Live poses the following question: &#8220;How do we disprove reincarnation through philosophy, if that&#8217;s the best method for resolution?&#8221;
Jimmy: Well, so, it&#8217;s an interesting challenge. There&#8230;reincarnation is something that you can critique on more than one ground. It is possible to mount a philosophical critique of reincarnation, and point out, for example, there are aspects of reincarnation that are potentially problematic.
Like the idea of karma, that whatever you do is going to bounce back on you, and there&#8217;s basically no mercy in the universe, that the universe is a merciless place. And that&#8217;s something that doesn&#8217;t fully appeal to the human heart. The human heart wants to find mercy in the world, and in fact some adherents of Eastern religions talk about mercy and place a value on mercy. But if the universe is fundamentally merciless, per the law of karma, then that would&#8230;then why should they even bother being merciful? Why should that be of value? Well, our hearts tell us that mercy is a value, and so that should tell us that mercy is available in the world, and should be&#8211;there should be some room for cosmic mercy in our worldview as well as cosmic justice.
Now, other forms of the idea of reincarnation may incorporate elements of mercy, so they may not respond to that argument. There are other potential arguments as well. For example, sometimes it&#8217;s proposed, in these religions that believe in reincarnation, that ultimately everybody is going to end up in an ideal spiritual condition, whether that&#8217;s conceived of as Nirvana, or Krishna consciousness, or whatever it may be. But how do you know? How do you know that&#8217;s gonna happen? That&#8217;s&#8211;if the universe is&#8211;it just operates kind of mechanically according to karma, people could descend spiritually as easily as they ascend, so what gives you faith that that people are going to ascend? That&#8217;s not something that falls right out of the concepts involved, and so you can ask for evidence.
Now ultimately, from a Christian point of view, it&#8217;s not a philosophical case against reincarnation that&#8217;s going to be the most convincing. From a Christian point of view, the fact that the idea of reincarnation is not compatible with the Christian revelation is what&#8217;s going to be most convincing. It&#8217;s directly stated in the book of Hebrews that it&#8217;s appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment. So we die once, and then we&#8217;re judged by God. We don&#8217;t die over and over again. That&#8217;s the specific idea that was out there in Greek culture that the author of Hebrews is responding to. He&#8217;s not just saying that out of the blue, he&#8217;s saying that in response to a cultural background where many people did believe in reincarnation. And you find the same theme echoed over and over again in the Church Fathers. You can check out my book &#8220;The Fathers Know Best&#8221; if you want examples of that.
But from a Christian point of view, I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s not the philosophical arguments that are ultimately decisive&#8211;although they can be helpful. I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s the Christian revelation, and so in talking with someone who believes in reincarnation, I would either, if they&#8217;re already a Christian of some sort, even if they&#8217;re at, say, a New Age-er who still has some kind of belief in Christ, I would try to build on that.
I would also say I understand&#8211;if they&#8217;re not, let&#8217;s say they&#8217;re Hindu&#8211;I would say &#8220;I understand and respect your position; here&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t believe in reincarnation, and let&#8217;s talk about the basis of the Christian faith, then. Because if the Christian faith has a good basis, that means you would want to take its teachings&#8211;like resurrection is our fate, not reincarnation&#8211;you&#8217;d want to take those seriously too, so let&#8217;s talk about the reasons why one should take the Christian faith seriously. And to your knowledge, was there ever a time where maybe a Christian group or something grasped on to&#8211;ignored, for example, that admonition from the letter to the Hebrews, and nonetheless believed&#8211;&#8221; You find scattered instances all the way down through history, because, you know, people get crazy ideas that are inconsistent with the teaching of the Church in every age.
And certainly that&#8217;s been true in recent in in recent times. In the last 150 years there has been a lot of interaction between East and West, and various groups have tried to hybridize eastern and western religious concepts, like the Theosophical Society and the New Age movement and things like that. So you do find people who are trying to kind of straddle that east-west divide these days.

How to Disprove Reincarnation

A “suicide pod” <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2024/09/24/several-people-arrested-suicide-pod-used-first-time-21662415/?ico=related-posts">was used for the first time</a> yesterday in Switzerland. The woman who used it to die was an American from the Midwest. The Swiss government arrested several people involved—not for what should be the obvious reason, but over concerns about “product safety law.”
Almost thirty years ago around this time, on September 22, 1996, Bob Dent became the first person in the world to die legally by “assisted suicide,” sometimes also called “voluntary euthanasia,” following the enactment of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in Australia’s Northern Territory. Dent, a carpenter from Darwin, ended his life with the help of Dr. Philip Nitschke, nicknamed “Dr. Death” for his role as the founder and president of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International. Over the years, Nitschke has not only personally helped administer lethal injections to many people desiring death, but also led workshops around the world teaching people to take matters into their own hands for family members or friends. In places where assisted suicide is illegal, Nitschke makes participants <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/may/08/assisted-suicide-euthanasia-philip-nitschke">sign disclaimers</a> promising not to put his methods into practice (wink, wink).
The website for Nitschke’s Exit International, which developed the Sarco suicide pod mentioned above, states, “Exit believes that control over one’s life and death to be a fundamental human right.” But what kind of right is it to commission my own murder? Am I really more free because I can take out a hit on myself? And what about the right not to be euthanized? In <a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867">Canada</a>, for example, voluntary euthanasia is an increasingly looking non-voluntary. It is now a favored option even for mental illness, as an overextended national health system struggles to keep up with demand for expensive treatment requests.
In the United States, Oregon blazed the paths of death in 1997 with a law called the Death with Dignity Act, which legalized physician-assisted suicide. Dignity is a key word for advocates of euthanasia, which means “good death” in Greek—but Catholics have a radically different understanding of dignity, and a different view of what constitutes both a good life and a good death.
Indeed, dignity is the fundamental basis for human identity in the eyes of God, and it informs the Church’s pro-life positions from conception to natural death. As for what is “voluntary,” God’s will (voluntas in Latin) must always inform our often-misguided ideas about our own desires and needs. For this reason, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the prohibition on suicide in this way: “We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted us. It is not ours to dispose of” (2280).
And where is the dignity in death?
My own father died last year, alone in his bed at home. He had been unwell, and his long-term prospects were bleak, but when he departed this life, he had been in no imminent distress that we knew of. He likely passed peacefully.
Nevertheless, the aftermath was far from stately or decorous. Dad’s neighbor found his decomposing body and had to deal with it. It was a human mess of disquieting sights and acrid odors—evidence of “the wages of sin,” as St. Paul tells us (Rom. 6:23). My sisters and I had to drag his sordid mattress to the dumpster on top of the usual post-mortem practicalities. It was our duty, and our joy, to care for our father even after death, but the death itself possessed little discernible dignity.
Rather, the dignity of Dad’s death was evident in the rich prayer life he maintained until his dying breath, and the unwavering hope he possessed in “the free gift of God”: “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (again, Rom. 6:23). When I found Dad’s Bible in his apartment, it was well worn and heavily annotated. Dad was not Catholic, but he was always curious about the faith, and he had clearly been preparing himself to face judgment. He loved the Lord more as he grew older and more infirm, and he desired more each day to be received into the kingdom of heaven. It was hard to see Dad suffering, but he never questioned God’s providence.
Here we come to the issue of compassion. Isn’t it more loving, some argue, to allow people to bring their suffering to an end on their own timeline? But as Hamlet worries as he contemplates taking his own life, “what dreams may come?” What if the moral law is true, and a presumed escape from the toils of this life leads to endless agony in the next? What if suicide is no way out at all, and people and governments that enable it are really pushing a philosophy of despair? What if God’s timing really turns out to be perfect, despite anguish that we do not fully understand?
Thus, Christians assert true compassion, which means “suffer with” in Latin. The embodiment of compassion is Christ the suffering servant, who bore his own injuries and ignominies to the end on our behalf. There is nothing we face that Christ has not conquered. And on the basis of his own sacrifice, Christ tells us, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13). Far from helping a sick person die quicker, if put to the test, the Christian would die in the place even of a terminally ill friend. That’s compassion, and that’s what human dignity requires.
<a href="https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1136222135305875458?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1136222135305875458%7Ctwgr%5E43d782da3a221687f1c60e09293fdb9686beb28d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Faleteia.org%2F2023%2F06%2F02%2Famong-the-popes-biggest-worries-euthanasias-advances%2F">As Pope Francis tweeted in 2019</a>, “euthanasia and assisted suicide are a defeat for all. We are called never to abandon those who are suffering, never giving up but caring and loving to restore hope.”
Twenty-seven years after the beginning of legal assisted suicide, let us pray that society falls down the slippery slope of Christian compassion, and laws change. May house calls from Dr. Death and his allies cease, and may we say to God in all things, including death, “Thy will be done.”

Suicide Pods and Death with Dignity

<div>How can Christians believe that the New Testament is God’s Word when Luke and Matthew contradict each other when recounting Jesus’ genealogy? Luke tells us that Joseph’s father was Heli (Luke 3:23), and Matthew says his father was Jacob (Matt. 1:16). Which is it? </div><div>One way to reconcile this apparent contradiction is to suggest that Joseph was the product of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levirate_marriage">Levirate marriage</a>. The early Church Father Eusebius made this explanation popular in the fourth century.
It’s possible that Joseph was the biological son of Jacob who later died, leaving Joseph’s mother a widow. Joseph then became the legal son of Heli when Heli married Joseph’s widowed mother. It’s suggested, therefore, that Matthew records Joseph’s biological father and Luke records his legal father.
This seems to be confirmed in the different words that Matthew and Luke use to describe Joseph’s relation to Jacob and Heli. Matthew uses the Greek word gennao when describing how Jacob “became the father of Joseph.” Matthews seems to intend this word to be taken biologically, because it’s the same word that he uses to describe how Jesus was “born” of Mary.
Luke, however, uses different language. He simply says that Joseph is “of Heli,” which allows for either a physical or legal lineage interpretation.
</div>

Do Luke and Matthew Contradict Each Other?

The Worst Argument Against the Bible

Reconstructed Dialogue in the Bible

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

Original Languages of Scripture?

<div>How do I refute this article I saw called "The Catholic Case for Abortion Rights?"</div><div><a href="http://time.com/4045227/the-catholic-case-for-abortion-rights/">The Time magazine commentary you cite</a> is from the notoriously misnamed group “Catholic For a Free Choice” (CFFC). Its longtime leader was Frances Kissling, and it has more recently been led by Jon O’Brien. <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/bishops-repudiate-catholics-for-free-choice/">It has never been and never will be recognized as an authentically Catholic entity</a>, and its gets major support <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/the-real-agenda-of-catholics-for-a-free-choice/">from groups that oppose the mission of the Catholic Church</a>.
O’Brien commits several errors in his editorial. For example, he mixes truth with lies in saying the Church’s teaching that “a human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience” (CCC 1790) provides moral justification for an individual to choose abortion. In the process, he conveniently overlooks that a Catholic is obligated to form his conscience particularly with the teachings of the Church (CCC 1785) and including these basic moral rules:
<ul>
<li>One may never do evil so that good may result from it</li>
<li>The Golden Rule: &#8220;Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.&#8221;</li>
<li>Charity always proceeds by way of respect for one&#8217;s neighbor and his conscience: &#8220;Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ.&#8221; Therefore &#8220;it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble&#8221; (CCC 1789, footnotes omitted).</li>
</ul>
Choosing abortion clearly violates all three rules. Thus, one can never have a truly certain conscience and choose abortion. In attempting to make his argument in 2015, O’Brien cites the <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=541">unreliable theologian Fr. Richard McBrien</a>. In addition, as Vatican II makes clear, conscience does not give individual Catholics arbitrary veto power over any and all Church teachings they don’t like. Rather, in evaluating decisions in their conscience, Catholics are faced with an objective, divinely given law (see Romans 2:14-16) they must obey, not one they can override or rewrite:
<blockquote>In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged (<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html">Gaudium et Spes 16</a>).</blockquote>
In addition, the Church never based its teaching on alleged seventeenth-century scientific findings that purportedly saw “fully formed animal fetuses” through the lenses of “primitive microscopes.” O’Brien provides no citation for this spurious assertion.
Instead, precisely because of deficient science in previous centuries, the Church was not sure when ensoulment of an unborn child occurred. And yet, as O’Brien correctly notes, the Church has always taught that abortion is the gravely wrong destruction of human life (CCC 2271). In addition, because of advances in science, the Church can today confidently teach that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person, among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life” (CCC 2270). And Pope St. John Paul II definitively reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on abortion in his 1995 encyclical <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html">Evangelium Vitae</a> (57).
</div>

Is There a Catholic Case for Abortion?

<div>Is it OK to attend daily Mass every day? </div><div>Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to attend Mass everyday. In fact, many people do just that.
<blockquote>The Church obliges the faithful to take part in the Divine Liturgy on Sundays and feast days and, prepared by the sacrament of Reconciliation, to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, if possible during the Easter season. But the Church strongly encourages the faithful to receive the holy Eucharist on Sundays and feast days, or more often still, even daily (CCC 1389).</blockquote>
Suggested reading: The Diocese of Salina&#8217;s <a href="http://salinadiocese.org/new-evangelization/2108-5-reasons-to-attend-daily-mass">5 Reasons to Attend Daily Mass</a>.
</div>

Mass Every Day?

Giving marriage advice is a dangerous affair. It’s impossible to speak of such an intimate relationship without implicitly betraying some of your own marriage’s inner life. And it’s especially dangerous for the young spouse, as it’s entirely possible time will prove his advice misguided should his marriage turn sour in later years.
This was probably what more gray-headed couples had in mind when my wife, newly married, would say, “Marriage is so easy!” Some would smile and gently shake their heads, viewing this as the babble of a girl fresh in love.
But after some years of trials and tribulations, my wife is a little more gray-headed herself (don’t tell her I said that). And she still says marriage is a lot easier than she was led to believe.
Of course, marriage isn’t always easy. My wife has suffered through sicknesses, fights, and insomnia. She doesn’t mean we walk on sunshine. She means that marriage isn’t supposed to be hard—and the times that it is should be viewed more as an aberration than a norm.
How we talk about marriage matters. Marriage rates in our country keep <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2020/4/marriage-rate-blog-test">plummeting</a>, and we do them no favors if we paint matrimony as a lifetime of rubbing against a cheese grater.
Many spouses would balk at the idea that marriage isn’t supposed to be hard. But let’s think about the definition of that word. Sometimes when we say something is hard, we just mean it requires work, as all close relationships do. Sweat isn’t always pleasant, and sometimes taking out the trash for your wife really is difficult. But it’s a misnomer to say “marriage is hard” just for this. Though certain particular tasks of love can be tiring, that shouldn’t imply that the overall work of going on dates, chasing romance, and staying in love makes for a life of tedium and toil.
Other people just mean that married life is hard. They know that those optimistic lovers at the altar are likely imagining sunshine and rainbows for the rest of their days together. But every couple that steps out of the church as Mr. and Mrs. is entering a world of possible sickness, injury, financial strain, and death (see 2 Tim. 3:12ff). Even parenthood—the happier side of their future—will bring trials big and small. Yet it would be a mistake to say that marriage is hard. Life is hard—whether married life, friendship life, or perpetual bachelor life.
But many Catholics actually mean that marriage is hard, by design. It’s supposed to be hard, and it isn’t doing its job if things are too pleasant. It has the quality of punishment or discipline—a lifestyle that will break you down (painfully), with the benefit of building you back into something better.
Metaphors are thrown around. When two come together in marriage, like jagged rocks, their edges snag and grind against each other until finally, after many painful years, there are two smooth, virtuous rocks. Or we say marriage is or is an occasion for the cross, leading us to Jesus through a difficult, sacrificial offering.
Indeed, living with someone can smooth our jagged edges. We are forced to work on faults that would otherwise remain hidden to us. But this must be viewed as an accidental benefit of marriage. Otherwise, marriage wouldn’t be good for the perfect, Mary and Joseph least of all.
Marriage is just a good—not an instrumental good to some larger project of virtue. Not good insofar as it breaks us. It’s the good of companionship. It’s the good of mutual support. It’s the good of loving and being loved. As Proverbs says, “he who finds a wife finds a good thing” (18:22).
This good should produce a corresponding joy and peace—in short, qualities that contribute to a feeling of ease. Or, more precisely, qualities that usually don’t accompany things that are “hard.”
We thus do people a disservice when we speak of marriage as a miserable affair. St. Augustine counsels us, “In marriage, let the goods of marriage be loved: offspring, fidelity, and the sacramental bond” (Marriage and Concupiscence, I, 19). He is only repeating the command of St. Paul: “Let marriage be held in honor among all” (Heb. 13:4). Being too negative runs the risk of masking marriage’s great good, and it is a poor strategy for promoting it among our flagging youth.
Rather than saying marriage is hard, we should say life is hard. Careers, parenthood, and aging can be unbelievably hard. They’re full of great beauty, but also great challenges that will reduce you to tears. Such difficulties reach everyone, from the richest and most powerful to the smallest and most ordinary man.
Marriage is meant as a help in this rollercoaster. It’s an injection of love into our sin-stained reality. A married relationship is the firm base from which couples can tackle those trials of child-rearing, poor health, and whatever else. When life is good, it’s more enjoyable to celebrate with another. And when life is bad, it’s good to have someone to lean on. Marriage gives this in a deep, lifelong friendship with another. Consequently, it’s meant as a good and a comfort for life, and not a further source of suffering. As God told us from the beginning, “It’s not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Life is better with a helpmate (see Eccles. 4:9-12, Prov. 12:4).
Practically, it doesn’t always work this way. Some marriages really are a source of suffering, sometimes because of the failures of one or the other party, and sometimes because tragedy and the strain of life’s difficulties overwhelm them. And all marriages have seasons of hardship and moments of friction. This is okay—even expected in a fallen world, and in relationships between imperfect spouses.
But even though we anticipate such moments, we shouldn’t define marriage by them. They are normal, but they aren’t the goal of marriage, and aren’t what inspires people to plunge into it.
Marriage should be a reflection of our life in Christ. By dying on the Cross, Jesus enters into all of our hurt. When we suffer, we can confidently turn to him who is suffering with us and for us, standing against the evils afflicting us. God is always “on our side” (Ps. 118:6, Rom. 8:31-39). He is always willing our happiness, and he remains the best of companions and supports in all of life’s trials (see 1 Pet. 5:7). Following him isn’t always easy. But neither is it a life of drudgery and pain—for his yoke is easy and his burden light (Matt. 11:28-30).
So yes, perhaps marriage isn’t easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s hard. Marriage is meant as a source of refreshment, bringing the joys of love to the inescapable cares of life. It takes work, it has bumps on the way, but it’s ultimately a source of happiness, and not an endeavor of misery.
This is an attractive picture of marriage, indeed. And one that should inspire many to pursue it.

Is Marriage Supposed to Be Hard?

<div>What is the Church's stance on giving money to the Shriners Hospitals for Children?</div><div>The Catholic Church has not formally pronounced on financially supporting Shriners hospitals, although we can apply Catholic principles to the question, given that the Shriners are a philanthropic endeavor of the Masons.
As the Masons note well on their official website, <a href="http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners/MasonShriners/Masons">all Shriners are Masons</a>, and <a href="http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners/Philanthropy/Origins">Shriners hospitals are one of their big service projects</a>.
The Church has repeatedly pronounced that Catholics may not become Shriners or otherwise members of Masonic societies, under pain of excommunication. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/masonry">Freemasonry</a> is at odds with Catholicism in key ways, and one of Masonry’s prime adjectives, particularly as it has existed in certain European countries, has been to destroy the Catholic Church. See our <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-church-say-about-freemasonry">presentation on Freemasonry</a>. See also <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/joe-biden-a-freemason">our related article</a> that elaborates further on Freemasonry’s problematic religious aspects.
In that light, we can apply Catholic principles to giving financial support to a Shriners hospital. One should never give to Masonic endeavor because it advances the mission of Masonry per se. Support for any Masonic endeavor to advance the fundamental mission of Masonry would be <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/answers/moral-cooperation-in-the-evil-of-another-23211" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">formal cooperation</a> in an intrinsic moral evil (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1868.htm">CCC 1868</a>), which would be, objectively, a mortal sin (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#1857">CCC 1857–1863</a>). It would be similar to voting for a pro-abortion politician precisely because he favors the legalized killing of unborn children (see <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2272">CCC 2272</a>). This is why formally joining the Masons is an excommunicable offense.
A Catholic might counter that he’d give financially to a Shriners hospital only to support the Masons’ care of disabled children, and that any support of the Shriners otherwise would be an unintended side-effect. Here one should consider the Church’s teaching on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/birth-control-for-medical-reasons">the principle of double effect</a>. We can never choose evil that good may come from it (CCC 1756).
In addition, as an application on the principle of double effect, one should consider whether such financial support is necessary to treat seriously disabled children in a given geographical area. If there are good Catholic hospitals that provide such care, then you should direct your funds there because, in doing so, you can expect that the care the children receive is sound medically and spiritually, and you’ll also be supporting the Church’s mission in general. However, if a Shriners hospital is the only means of serving seriously disabled children care in the area, then it can be a good thing for a Catholic to give money specifically to support the Shriners’ care of seriously disabled children.
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Is It OK to Support Shriners Hospitals?

Did Jesus really give sight to the blind—or are these miracle stories just legendary embellishments? In this episode, we look at the Jewish Messianic expectations behind Jesus’ healing of the blind, the multiple independent sources that report it, and the historical details in the Bartimaeus account that point to eyewitness testimony. If these healings are historically reliable, then they reveal Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and divine Son of God.
TRANSCRIPT:
The Gospels tell us that Jesus performed all kinds of miracles. But one category really stands out: healing the blind.
But here’s the question: Are these reports reliable?
Is this solid history? Or are we looking at legendary embellishment that developed decades later?
Stick around and you’ll find out!
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Hey friends, Welcome back to the channel!
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As I’ve argued in a previous episode, Jesus’ healings of the blind aren’t just a random miracle category. In the Jewish worldview, the blind receiving sight was a sign of the Messianic age. It was a sign that God had come to save His people. It was also presented as vindication of Jesus’s claims to be divine.
In Matthew 11:2-6, we read about how John the Baptist is in prison and starts wondering whether Jesus was really the Messiah.
So John sends his disciples to ask Jesus directly: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
And what does Jesus say?
He gives a list of miracles that he’s performed. And one of them is “the blind receive their sight.”
Now, that’s not some random comment. Jesus is echoing Isaiah 35, where we’re told that when God comes to save His people in the Messianic age, the blind would see.
So, Jesus is basically saying: “Yes, I am ‘the one to come’—the Messiah. And the proof is my miracles, one of which is that the blind now see.”
And just to make this even more interesting, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls—scroll 4Q521, often called the Messianic Apocalypse—also connects the blind seeing with the Messiah.
So this isn’t a Christian invention. This is Jewish expectation.
And that just adds to the importance of the question: Did Jesus actually give sight to the blind?
If he didn’t, then the Messianic claim collapses. And we would no longer be able to use this type of miracle as evidence to justify in Jesus’ claims to be divine.
So let’s examine the historical case.
The first thing this claim has going for it is something historians call multiple attestation. That simply means we have multiple independent sources reporting the same kind of event. The more independent streams of tradition you have, the stronger your case.
So what are the independent sources that attest to Jesus being a healer of the blind?
Well, for starters we have a saying in the passage that I mentioned earlier: Matthew 11:5. Recall, it reads, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight.” Luke records this as well in Luke 7:22. So whether it’s the Q tradition, or Luke borrowing from Matthew, or Matthew borrowing from Luke, that’s one independent line of tradition.
Now, combined with this saying we have multiple narratives. Two are in Mark and the other is in John. Mark 8:22-26 records the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida and Mark 10:46-52 tells the story of Jesus healing the blind Bartimaeus. John 9:1-41 records the healing of the man born blind. 
So, as New Testament scholar John P. Meier points out in Volume 2 of his book A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, not only do we have “multiple attestation of sources (Mark, John, and either Matthew or Luke, depending on who borrowed from whom for the saying in Matt. 11), we also have “multiple attestation of forms (miracle stories about Jesus and a saying of Jesus)” (pg. 698).  
That kind of multiple attestation is significant because it puts us on a strong trajectory for seeing the historicity of the Gospel portrait of Jesus as “healer of the blind.”
Now let’s get more specific. I want to spend some time on one narrative mentioned earlier: the healing of blind Bartimaeus, recorded in Mark 10:46-52. We’ll save the others for another episode.
The first thing that jumps out is that he’s named. That’s unusual in the Gospel traditions.
In fact, Bartimaeus is the only name recipient of a miracle in the Synoptic Tradition. In John, the only one named is Lazarus. 
That’s important because when you see a detail that’s discontinuous with common storytelling patterns, it’s more likely the detail wasn’t a legendary development originating from the community telling the story but a preserved memory deriving from an original primitive source.
So in the case of a miracle recipient who is suddenly named, discontinuous from the common patterns of the Synoptics and the traditions behind them—that suggests we’re dealing with an authentic preserved memory dating back to a time before the formation of the Christian community as an organized society.
Even Gnostic and apocryphal writings from the second century don’t typically name miracle recipients.
Now, another upshot of Bartimaeus being named is that he most likely was the eyewitness who preserved the story. 
New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham, in his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, argues that named individuals in the Gospels likely became members of the early Christian community and served as tradition bearers. In other words, the reason their names are preserved may be because they were hanging out with the early Christians talking about what happened to them.
And that makes sense.
If someone was healed and then disappeared forever, their name probably wouldn’t get preserved in the tradition. But if Bartimaeus joined the community and told the story himself, that would explain why his name survives.
Contrast that to the father of the possessed boy whom Jesus healed in Luke 9—we don’t know his name. It didn’t get preserved in the tradition. But we do know Jarius’ name. It’s likely the boy’s father didn’t join the Christian community, whereas Jairus did. 
Having an eyewitness is great. But having the healed person as the tradition bearer is even better. That further ensures the story won’t be tainted with legendary developments or fabrications.
The next thing that the narrative has going for it is Semitisms. There are little details in the story that point back to an Aramaic-speaking Palestinian setting, which for historians is an indication of historicity. 
One detail is the Aramaic name “Bartimaeus,” which, as Mark must note for his Gentile audience, means “son of Timaeus.” That suggests Mark’s audience needed clarification—meaning the tradition itself most likely didn’t have that clarification as part of it. And if that’s the case, then the tradition likely came from an Aramaic-speaking context—a context in which such a clarification wouldn’t be needed. 
Another Semitic detail is Bartimaeus’s use of the Aramaic word Rabbouni, which translates as “Master.”
These Semitisms are historically significant because it places the miracle tradition very early—within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. And that precludes fabrications and legendary developments. 
Related to these Semitic details is the story’s precise familiarity with the Palestinian geography and Jewish customs. Mark tells us that Bartimaeus was “sitting by the roadside” outside Jericho, the road that Jesus and his disciples took as they left the city.
And it wasn’t just any road—this was the main route Galilean Jews took when going up to Jerusalem for Passover. Interestingly, right before this miracle, in verse 32, Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples were “going up to Jerusalem.” Mark 14:1 tells us it was for Passover.
Meier talks about this geographic and cultural context in the previously mentioned Volume 2 of his A Marginal Jew, on pg. 688. 
That kind of familiarity with this Palestinian geography and Jewish custom strongly suggests the bearer of the tradition was an eyewitness from that area and familiar with the customs.
Yet another detail that helps with the historicity of the narrative is the title that Bartimaeus uses for Jesus: “Son of David.” Meier notes that this doesn’t appear in any other narrative in the four Gospels outside parallel stories that depend on this one.
So it wasn’t a title that Christians used in their early miracle traditions. That discontinuity suggests the miracle story wasn’t a miracle-story embellishment in early Christian preaching. Instead, it likely traces back to the historical setting of Jesus’ ministry, before the Christian community was an organized thing. 
There is something else to notice. These details and others don’t serve any apologetical or catechetical purposes. 
The narrative tradition names the recipient of the miracle—Bartimaeus.
It ties Bartimaeus to a specific roadside location outside Jericho.
It marks the moment in Jesus’ ministry (on the way to Jerusalem to suffer his passion and death. Mark tells us this in Mark 10:32).
Finally, the narrative marks the time of the miracle: shortly before Passover (that’s found in Mark 14:1).
These details aren’t doing any theological heavy lifting.
So why include them? Unless they’re simply the facts of the story, which is the kind of report that an eyewitness gives.
And THAT strongly suggests the historical reliability of the miracle story.
So, we have several details that when combined make for a strong case for the historicity of the Jesus’ healing of blind Bartimaeus.
Now, a skeptic might say: “Wait—everything you just said is worthless because the Gospels contradict each other when telling this story.” Luke says Jesus was approaching Jericho in Luke 18:35-43. Matthew (in 20:29-34) and Mark (in 10:6) say Jesus was leaving Jericho. Moreover, Matthew mentions two blind men whereas Mark and Luke mention only one.
So what gives?
Let’s take the number of men issue. If one Gospel tells a story involving two men and another tells that same story with only one, that’s not a contradiction. However, if Matthew had said there were two men and Luke and Mark made the assertion that there was only one, then we’d have a problem. But mentioning one doesn’t deny there were two. For whatever reason, Matthew chose to include the second man. Mark probably didn’t because he wanted to stay focused on Bartimaeus.
Okay, what about the issue of entering versus leaving?
One strong possibility is that the Gospel writers were referring to two different Jerichos.
Historians and archaeologists point out that there were two sites for Jericho at the time of Jesus: old Jericho and the newer Hasmonean-Herodian settlement, sometimes called “Herodian Jericho” or, as is the case in circles of biblical studies, “New Testament Jericho.”
The newer settlement was an elite winter palace complex built by the Hasmoneans and renovated and expanded by Herod the Great.
So, it’s possible that Matthew and Mark record Jesus leaving the Old Jericho and Luke records Jesus and his disciples approaching the new settlement.
Jimmy Akin discusses this in his book A Daily Defense.
Another possible answer is that Luke isn’t prioritizing strict chronology. Unlike modern standards for retelling events, ancient authors had freedom to arrange things topically or thematically instead of chronologically.
Why would Luke want to abandon chronology? Well, Luke’s next story is Jesus’ meeting Zacchaeus—also in Jericho. So Luke may simply be grouping Jericho-related events together: Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus and Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus.
And as Jimmy puts it in his book mentioned earlier, the precise direction of travel falls below the level of precision ancient authors were expected to track.
So whether we follow the “two Jerichos” approach or the “Lukan thematic” approach, the Synoptic accounts of Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus are reconcilable.
So let’s sum everything up:
-Multiple independent sources attest to Jesus healing the blind.
-The Bartimaeus narrative includes several historically credible details.
&#8211;And the alleged discrepancies are reasonably reconcilable.
Put it all together, and the case for the historicity of Jesus healing the blind is strong.
And remember: this matters because if Jesus truly gave sight to the blind, then he wasn’t just a moral teacher. He was fulfilling Messianic prophecy and proving true his claims to be a divine Messiah.
Well, my friends, that’s it for today! If you found this video helpful, make sure to like it, comment below, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And don’t forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven’t done so already.
For more resources, check out Catholic Answers’s website catholic.com and my personal website karlobroussard.com.
If you want me to come and speak at your event, visit catholicanswersspeakers.com.
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Thanks for hanging out, and I’ll see you next time! God bless.

Did Jesus Really Give Sight to the Blind?

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